Kahaani

This I believe is my 100th post. Can’t believe I’ve managed to write 100 posts. So the 100th post is a review of a very rare, one in a million Hindi movie- “Kahaani“.

Director:

Sujoy Gosh

Producer:

Sujay Gosh and Kushal Gada

Cast:

Vidya Balan as Vidya Bagchi

Parambrata Chatterjee as Rana/ Satyuki

Nawazuddin Siddiqui as Khan, IB Officer

Saswata Chatterjee as Bob Biswas

Indraneil Sengupta as Milan Damji

Abir Chatterjee as Vidya’s Husband.

Music:

Vishal-Shekar

The Story:

Vidya Bagchi, a young Tamilian married to a Bengali man, based in London arrives in Kolkata to search for her missing husband “Arnab Bagchi”. She is 7 months pregnant and alone in a festive city preparing for it’s annual mother of all festivals – the Durga Puja. She is helped by a young rookie cop Satyoki/Rana who goes all out to help the lady he feels very protective towards.Together they unravel the mysteries one by one, and come face to face with various characters like hardened Intelligence officer Khan, sinister contract killer Bob Biswas, sympathetic HR officer Agnes who all knowingly or unknowingly help Vidya and Rana go one step closer to finding the real truth about Arnab Bagchi, who doesn’t have any record in any papers whatsover. Does he even exist outside Vidya’s head or is she the victim of a vast conspiracy?

The Review:

The movie is brilliant. A well written script and even better acting by Vidya Balan. This is a one in a million movie, because the track record of Hindi Movies has been terrible. One in Fifteen are good. This is a very rare movie which I cannot fault in any way. Usually any good hindi movies have some or the other flaws, but this is a strangely awesome movie. This has almost no faults. And phenomenal acting by Vidya Balan, Parambrata Chatterjee and Nawazuddin Siddiqui.

Only one problem I had in the movie, and I’m only mentioning it because I am forced to. Vidya Balan is acting as a Tamilian who can’t wear a sari. Thats the only problem. Otherwise the movie is flawless. Its a master piece.

Amitabh’s rendition of Rabindranath Tagore’s song “Ekla Chalo Re” was awesome to. Its a wonderful song. And so is the first song in the movie “Ami Shotti Bolchi” by Usha Uthup and Shekar Rajivani. Another strange thing in the movie is that there aren’t very many songs in the movie. The soundtrack as 6 but only 2 of them are in the movie. And the others seem to be only instrumental.

The movie has a very simple story where nothing is as it seems. I don’t want to reveal much of the movie. The movie has a very surprising ending which was not expected by any one.

Final Verdict:

The movie was very enjoyable and I couldn’t find many flaws in the movie as i was so engrossed in the compelling story. 9/10.

Vidya Balan as Vidya Bagchi. Artwork done by my cousin.

Check out my cousins review for Kahaani also.

Check out his blog too.

The Woman In Black

DIRECTOR:
James Watkins
PRODUCER:
Richard Jackson, Simon Oakes & Brian Oliver.
CAST:
Daniel Radcliffe as Arthur Cripps.

Ciarán Hinds as Sam Daily, a local landowner

Janet McTeer as Elizabeth Daily, Daily’s wife

Sophie Stuckey as Stella Kipps, Arthur’s wife

Misha Handley as Joseph Kipps, Arthur’s son

Liz White as Jennet Humfrye, The Woman in Black

Daniel Cerqueira as Keckwick, the carriage drive
Tim McMullan as Jerome, the local solicitor

Aoife Doherty as Lucy Jerome, Jerome’s daughter

Roger Allam as Mr Bentley, senior partner of Kipps’ firm

Victor McGuire as Gerald Hardy, a villager

Alexia Osborne as Victoria Hardy, Hardy’s daughter

David Burke as PC Collins, village constable

Ashley Foster as Nathaniel Drablow, The Woman in Black’s son

Jessica Raine as Joseph’s Nanny

BASED ON THE BOOK OF SAME NAME BY SUSAN HILL

THE PLOT:
A young lawyer travels to a remote village where he discovers the vengeful ghost of a scorned woman is terrorizing the locals.
THE REVIEW:
A wonderful enjoyable scarily exciting movie. The director has managed to bring an old supernatural movie to screen without making many changes.
He has made changes, but good ones. He has also managed to brig out the dark spooky-ness and the supernatural element of Susan Hill’s Book. The movie keeps you on the edge while watching it. Just when you think nothing is going to happen, something does.

The creepiness described in the book is hard to bring to the screen. The main horror element is the sounds of foot steps that is heard in the house in the swamp.

It was a little strange to see the kid who played Harry Potter come, play a person with a dead wife and a son. The movie is scary in all the right places. The Woman in Black is a kind of movie which scares the audience with creaking floor boards, distant figures, silhouettes and shadows in the window. This type of movie is rarely seen these days except in the Paranormal Activity series.

FINAL VERDICT:
A scarily awesome movie with a great cast and an awesome director who has brought to screen a traditional story to please the modern audiences.
8/10

Fringe Season 4 Episode 11 “Making Angels”

The Story:
While the Fringe team tracks down a girl who can predict the future, Olivia tries to cope with the message given to her by the Observers.

The Review:
What an Awesome episode! (here awesome means that it’s much better that the other “normal” episodes.) The contrast in characters of Astrid “here” and Astrid “There” is seen in the episode. It’s amazing how the characters pull of such amazing Dual roles which are completely opposite to the roles they originally played. This episode showcases new powers of The Observers which we previously did not know. The theories of ‘Deus Ex ‘ and ‘Tears of Ra’ were an awesome addition to the plethora of various others.
Also for the first time they speak of the mistake made by September.
All in all it’s an AWESOME episode. Sadly that means that the season would come to an end soon. I don’t like season finales.
According to my sources on FB the Executive Producers J.H Wyman and Jeff Pinker say that the Questions will be answered soon.
This just means that the season finale is going to be Legen- wait for it – Dary !!!

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo(English) *Spoiler-filled*

Directed by David Fincher
Produced by Søren Stærmose, Ole Søndberg, Scott Rudin & Ceán Chaffin.
Screenplay by Steven Zaillian
Based on The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larson.

The Cast:

Daniel Craig as Mikael Blomkvist
Rooney Mara as Lisbeth Salander
Christopher Plummer as Henrik Vanger
Stellan Skarsgård as Martin
Robin Wright as Erika Berger
Yorick van Wageningen as Nills Bjurman
Joely Richardson as Anita Vanger
Goran Višnijć as Dragan Armansky
Steven Berkoff as Dirch Frode

The Plot:

Henrik Vanger employs libel-ist, Mikael Blomkvist, to search for the killer of his grand-niece Harriet Vanger. Mikael in turn employs Lisbeth to help him in the case. Henrik believes that the killer is one of the family members.

The Review:
IGN and DenofGeek were right. This is the most un-Hollywood movie I’ve ever seen. Daniel Craig’s Blomkvist and Rooney Mara’s Salander were so much better than Michael Nyqvists’ Blomkvist and Noomi Rapace’s Salander.
The movie is true to the book.

David Fincher has left out Lisbeth’s mother in the movie (She is not very important in the movie but just wanted to inform the readers).
The movie is not different from the book. David has centred the story more around Lisbeth itself. He has omitted out the useless characters of her mother and her non-hacker friends. David Fincher has made Martin better than the Martin in book. One major issue was that he has reduced the suspect pool for Harriet murder from the whole family to only Henrik, Martin and Dirch Frode. Harold, Isabella an Cecelia are not focused on at all. That just ruins the fun little bit. Not much but little. He doesn’t play around with the other characters.

Lisbeth, in the movie is more of a badass than in the book. She fights with the Laptop Thief. She also confronts her new guardian Nills Bjurman after tattooing him. Lisbeth, in the movie runs Martin off the road instead of him deliberately running into incoming traffic.

One very good thing Fincher has done was to make Anita, Harriet. In the book, Harriet is in Australia and married. But in the movie she is in plain sight. She is unmarried and lives as Anita. I’ve never said this before and don’t expect to say it again but, the movie is better than the book. This makes the movie so much more exciting. Those who have read the book would not expect such a change.
Fincher’s take on the dark novel is much more darker. I throughly enjoyed being immersed into the movie. This movie is so much better and true to the book yet not a complete copy of the book. It’s a good balanced movie. It’s is much better than the Swedish version.
Nills Oplev, the director of the Swedish version, said “Why would they remake something when they can just go see the original?”. Well I think he hasn’t seen this movie nor his own. Or he has utterly lost his mind because this is so much better than his version.
Also, he took his own sweet time on getting Lisbeth in to the search (1 hr 15 mins). He gave us enough time to absorb the intensity of the plot.

I’ve read the book and seen the Swedish version. Now I’m comparing them and finding out that the David Fincher version is better. He has removed the part where Henrik tells Mikael that Harriet tool care of him when he was a kid. And he hasn’t given Mikael any jail time.

Final Verdict:

A awesomely Dark and thrilling mystery which is true to the book yet not a complete copy of it. David Fincher is a genius. Very very rarely movie ls adapted from books, are better that the book it self.This is one of them. Its just one point ahead of the book. But sadly he reduced the suspect pool. So…. 8.5/10.

Quotes:

Henrik Vanger: You will be investigating thieves, misers, bullies. The most detestable collection of people that you will ever meet – my family.

Mikael: Henrik promised me Wennerström’s carcass on a plate. This is not even the plate.

My review for the Swedish Version of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

*Note: This review was posted on 6th February at 20:27.. The time is a reference to Leviticus quote:

“A man or woman who is a medium or spiritist among you, must be put to death by stoning.”

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (English) *Spoiler-free*

Directed by David Fincher
Produced by Søren Stærmose, Ole Søndberg, Scott Rudin & Ceán Chaffin.
Screenplay by Steven Zaillian
Based on The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larson.

The Cast:

Daniel Craig as Mikael Blomkvist
Rooney Mara as Lisbeth Salander
Christopher Plummer as Henrik Vanger
Stellan Skarsgård as Martin
Robin Wright as Erika Berger
Yorick van Wageningen as Nills Bjurman
Joely Richardson as Anita Vanger
Goran Višnijć as Dragan Armansky
Steven Berkoff as Dirch Frode

The Plot:

Henrik Vanger employs libel-ist, Mikael Blomkvist, to search for the killer of his grand-niece Harriet Vanger. Mikael in turn employs Lisbeth to help him in the case. Henrik believes that the killer is one of the family members.

The Review:
IGN and DenofGeek were right. This is the most un-Hollywood movie I’ve ever seen. Daniel Craig’s Blomkvist and Rooney Mara’s Salander were so much better than Michael Nyqvists’ Blomkvist and Noomi Rapace’s Salander.
The movie is true to the book.
David Fincher has left out Lisbeth’s mother in the movie (She is not very important in the movie but just wanted to inform the readers).
The movie is not different from the book. David has centred the story more around Lisbeth itself. He has omitted out the useless characters of her mother and her non-hacker friends. David Fincher has made Martin better than the Martin in book. One major issue was that he has reduced the suspect pool for Harriet murder from the whole family to only Henrik, Martin and Dirch Frode. Harold, Isabella an Cecelia are not focused on at all. That just ruins the fun little bit. Not much but little. He doesn’t play around with the other characters.
Lisbeth, in the movie is more of a badass than in the book. She fights with the Laptop Thief. She also confronts her new guardian Nills Bjurman after tattooing him. Lisbeth, in the movie runs Martin off the road instead of him deliberately running into incoming traffic.
One very good thing Fincher has done was to make change the ending of the movie. This makes that movie even more exciting for the people to watch. As those who have read the book would not be expecting this.
Fincher’s take on the dark novel is much more darker. I throughly enjoyed being immersed into the movie. This movie is so much better and true to the book yet not a complete copy of the book. It’s a good balanced movie. It’s is much better than the Swedish version.
Nills Oplev, the director of the Swedish version, said “Why would they remake something when they can just go see the original?”. Well I think he hasn’t seen this movie nor his own. Or he has utterly lost his mind because this is so much better than his version.
Also, he took his own sweet time in getting Lisbeth into the search (1 hr 15 mins). He gave us enough time to absorb the intensity of the plot.

I’ve read the book and seen the Swedish version. Now I’m comparing them and finding out that the David Fincher version is better. He has removed the part where Henrik tells Mikael that Harriet tool care of him when he was a kid. And he hasn’t given Mikael any jail time.

Final Verdict:

A awesomely Dark and thrilling mystery which is true to the book yet not a complete copy of it. David Fincher is a genius. Very very rarely movie ls adapted from books, are better that the book it self.This is one of them. Its just one point ahead of the book. But sadly he reduced the suspect pool. So…. 8.5/10.

Quotes:

Henrik Vanger: You will be investigating thieves, misers, bullies. The most detestable collection of people that you will ever meet – my family.

Mikael: Henrik promised me Wennerström’s carcass on a plate. This is not even the plate.

My review for the Swedish Version of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.

*Note: This review was posted on 6th February at 20:27.. The time is a reference to Leviticus quote:

“A man or woman who is a medium or spiritist among you, must be put to death by stoning.”

The Spoiler filled review.

Ringer Season 1 Episode 11 “It Just Got Normal”

Created by Eric Charmelo & Nicole Snyder.

The Cast:
Sarah Michelle Geller as Bridget Kelly/ Shioban Martin.
Ioan Gruffudd as Andrew Martin
Kristoffer Polaha as Henry Butler
Nestor Carbonell as FBI Agent Victor Machado
Zoey Deutch as Juliet Martin
Zahn McClarnon as Bodaway
Justin Bruening as Tyler

The Story So Far…..
Bridget Kelly and Shioban Martin are twin sisters who share the same face. Bridget is running away from a Mob boss and goes to her sister Shioban for help. There Shioban commits suicide and Bridget takes the life of her sister. But she doesn’t know that her sisters life is as bad as hers.
While in Paris Shioban is still alive and is plotting to kill Bridget. In Paris she befriends Tyler. Later we find out that he works for Martin/Charles, her husbands company. In Paris he pays for her Room in the hotel. Tyler travels back to America to meet with Andre Martin. There he meets Bridget as Shioban and thinks that his Shioban has come to America.
Meanwhile, Malcolm gets kidnapped by Bodaway and is given drugs. He runs to Bridget for help. Bridget befriends Charlie a Sponsor for Narcotics Anonymous. He actually turns out to be Shioban’s man. Whom she has planted in Bridget’s life.
Shioban, before going to Paris was actually having an affair with Henry, her best friend, Gemma’s Husband. Bridget breaks it off. Later in the series, Gemma is kidnapped and Malcolm suspects its Charlie.
In Episode 10, Charlie kills Gemma, though Shioban warns him against it. She then kills him.

The Story of Episode 11:
Bridget hosts a fundraising event that her friend Greer is holding for Juliet’s school and learns that Greer knew one of Siobhan’s deep dark secrets. Back in New York, Siobhan finds out that Bridget has settled into her former life more easily than Siobhan had expected, and she is determined to change that. Meanwhile, Malcolm accepts and offer to work for Andrew at Martin/Charles so that he can keep an eye on him, and Henry mourns Gemma’s death.

The Review:
A very creepy and awesome episode. What I like about it is the creepy twin encounter at the beginning of the episode that leads in to an awesome close of the episode. The best episode in the season so far. Can’t wait for the twelfth episode. Which comes next week. Sadly I won’t be providing a review for it as the season finale for my blog is on 6th of February.
Sarah Michelle Gellers return to TV was just brilliant. Hope this continues.

The Firm “Chapter Five”

The Story:

Mitch is given the difficult task of defending Judd Grafton, a gambler wrongly accused of murder. With Judd continuing to claim his innocence and willing to take the risk of a guilty verdict, Mitch puts Ray to work to find any helpful clues. Meanwhile, Mitch and Abby, who have been invested in the Althea Sanderson tort case, take a huge risk by enlisting Kinross & Clark to help them.

The Review:

Mitch deals with another lawyer who is being tried in court for killing a loan shark. He claims it’s self defence but Mitch doesn’t believe him. Mitch’s brother checks on Sarah Holt to tell her about her case. He tells her that the old woman’s son had motive. After he comes out he tells Mitch that she is hiding something. He later gets the keys to her house and finds some shredded sheet of paper which he intends to join back.
Meanwhile Mitch’s explains to Andrew that they do not want to settle on the Tort case. Andrew then shows Abby all the people working on the case.
Later in the episode she receives a call from Andrew telling her that they’ve found “Golden Ticket”.
Mitch deals with the lawyer who apparently killed a loan shark. He finds out that the lawyers best friend, who was thought to be crippled, walks down the steps of the hospital to confront the loan shark. And eventually shoots him dead. But the lawyer takes his place and pleads Not Guilty and the murder was caused due to Self Defence.
What an episode! I just love Legal Thrillers. John Grisham is one of the best in his field. The arguments are so well written. Apparently the “Flash Forward” shown at the start of the episode is directly connected to the 8th Episode (According to Josh Lucas, who plays Mitch McDeere).
The episode was good. But I don’t know why people can’t appreciate good shows. Most of the critics don’t like the show. There is a chance that it might get cancelled. 😦

Fringe Season 4 Episode 10 “Forced Perspective”

The Story:
While the Fringe team tracks down a girl who can predict the future, Olivia tries to cope with the message given to her by the Observers.

The Review:

It was an average episode.. Now don’t get me wrong for Fringe an average episode is as usual, like any other an AWESOME one.. Inspired by the recent Observer activity in the TV Show I’ve posted some new Observer related images.. I don’t know what else to say about it. Its Average..   🙂

 

Fringe Season 4 Episode 9 ” Enemy of my Enemy”

The Story:
The Fringe Division of the Other Side must deal with both a visit from Peter and a new enemy, who is preparing a worlds-spanning operation to gain the mineral he needs to provide energy for his master plan.

The Review:
The episodes of Fringe just keep getting better. When you think that it can’t get any better, it does. This episode is just so Awesome. And it’s so quote-able.
Also the Type-writer has been upgraded to an old computer. The computer looks similar to the one used I the Swan Station in Lost. One of J.J. Abrams other TV shows.
Apparently J.J Abrams likes to leave subtle hints of connectivity between his works. For example in Cloverfield the Dharma Initiative sign flashes on screen. But that was due to them having the same Writer. So poorly chosen example.

Quotes:

Robert Jones: Take me to your leader.

Robert Jones: I wouldn’t mind a cup of tea.

Robert Jones: There’s something about the air on this side. It tastes…… sweeter.

Peter: We’re looking in the wrong Universe.

Lee: He (Robert Jones) holds all the cards.
Peter: Not all. You have me.

Män Som Hatar Kvinnor

English translation: Men Who Hate Women
Or more commonly known as The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo 2009 (Swedish)

Director: Nills Arden Oplev

Producer: Søren Stærmose

Based on Steig Larrsons first book in the Millennium Series of the same name. Or in English ” The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo”

The Cast:
Noomi Rapace as Lisbeth Salander
Michael Nyqvist as Mikael Blomkvist
Leena Endre as Erika Berger
Sven-Bertil Taube as Henrik Vanger
Peter Haber as Martin Vanger
Peter Andersson as Nills Bjurman
Ingvar Hirdwall as Dirch Frode
Björn Granath as Gustav Morrel
Maria Langercrantz as Cecilia Vanger
Michalis Koutsogiannakis as Dragan Armanskij
Stefan Sauk as Hans-Erik Wennerström

The Story:
Henrik Vanger employs Mikael Blomkvist to investigate the murder of his niece Harriet Vanger whom he believes was murdered by one of the members of the Vanger Family. He is assisted by socially awkward hacker Lisbeth Salander.

The Review:
The movie is in Swedish. So I had the practically read the movie. I’ve already read the book last year. I had seen the movie just after I read the book. So I was able to compare the two.
The movie and the book are similar. There are some changes made in the movie. They have also left out some parts in the movie. Though the movie is 3 hours long, they have omitted a few things in the movie that were In the book.
The epilogue part of the book, which is important for the sequels has been omitted. I felt that they could have added an reduced some other unnecessary scenes on the movie.
In the movie Mikael’s daughter doesn’t even appear. She helps Mikael with the biblical quotes. But in the movie, Lisbeth does the helping.

The acting of Noomi Rapace was phenomenal, but she didn’t win any awards for it.. The movie was slow paced and didn’t have the same feel as the book.

Now I just have to see the sequels and also the David Fincher version, which I’ve heard is better than this one.

Final Verdict:
The movie is fun to read ( If you don’t understand Swedish). Liked it though. But the book is always better. 8/10.