War of the worlds

No complaints for this movie, it starts with a bang and is over before u can complain abt anything.
Except for Dakota Fanning's extra loud shrieks and screams at times, the movie delievers nice special effects in a perfectly crafted atmo/setting.
The best thing Tom Cruise doesn't overdo anything in his role. He wud proly never be remembered for this role, but thats the achievement, he plays a divorced man trying to save his daughter and keeps it very real (doesn't jump into war and start shooting the aliens :)

Very good editing, movie moves pretty fast. No drag at any point, no useless sentimental scenes. Its a sci-fi thriller for the summer.

My top 10 movie picks uptill now

1. Pather Panchali (Song of the Road, Bengali)
   
2. Ameros Perros (Love is a bitch, mexican movie)
   
3. Aakrosh (Cry of the Wounded, Hindi)
   
4. Schindler's List (English)
   
5. Lucia y al Sexo (Sex and Lucia, spanish)
6. Cinema Paradiso (Italian)
7. Rashoman (In the Grove, Japanese)
8. Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron (Who pays the Piper, Hindi)
9. The GodFather (English)
10. Requiem For Dream (English)

Pather Panchali

I am sure many would have noticed this and i just want to reiterate: this movie is proly the best directed movie ever, I don't know how much of it is because of actors/actresses playing the role and how much because of Ray, but in a whole its perfection. From the kid to the 80 or so extremely frail old lady everybody is hard core real. Shot as if he had put 2 dozen cameras in some real family house and made the movie.
Great story telling, am not sure if its possible to pen down all the human emotions depicted in this story. The dawn after the darkest period in our life is a new beginning, is a new life.

Dr. StrangeLove Or how i learned to stop worrying and love the bomb
Ideal example of how u can make a clever satire over one of the biggest crisis of mankind: nuclear arms race in post WWII world. This movie is made as simple as it cud be and yet powerfully conveys the constant danger we live in; the multitude of nuclear weapons which are under human control can easily cause devastating destruction by one small misundertanding or human error as done by pshycotic General Jack Ripper in the movie. Recall that during JFK's rule, as shown in the documentary "Fog of War" presenting Robert Mcnamara defense secretary of state during cold war, "We were 'this' close to nuclear war if only we didn't exercise our patience"

Anyway nothing lives forever and we the smartest homo sapiens are no exception, we proly will become extinct because of our intelligence :)

You can watch it as good comedy movie if u don't want to think too much :)

Sarkar review
The movie is no where close to Godfather so don't even bother to compare with that.
Sarkar is a philosophy of Robinhood kind of system where a man, Subash Nagre, provides justice to people in need, since the judicial/police system in India is hollowed to such extent that a common man has no say in it. What is absent is how does this Robinhood system get his money ??? oh they have some kind of business ... not sure if they did extortion, election support, or provided security to higher echelons using the goons trained in the backyard ...

Heres the character formation in this drama:
Subash Nagre aka Sarkar : a very uneducated family/tradition oriented guy, with calm attitude towards problem (all solution being "X tum apni aawaz neeche rakho, Y ko bolo mughe se aakar mile" and some punch lines like " Mughe jo acha lagta hai woh mein karta hoon... ) ? Who the hell is this guy ?? oh proly we shud wait for the prequel. At no point apart from the fact that Mr Bacchan is playing the role can i associate any weight to the central character of this drama.

Pathetic editing.
Anyone who has seen Godfather can write a better screenplay than this one. Only audience to mildly appreciate the story wud be anyone who has not read Mario Puzo.
Horribly incongrous soundtrack.

RGV is one of the best directors out there and when he lets down this way ...
1/10 ( why did i even give 1 ?)

Pros: Mani Shankar (one of the right/left hands of Sarkar) brings much needed comic relief with few lines here n there.

Heres a slight improvement which Ramu if u ever read this cud have done :-
1) Amitabh Bacchan doesn't have Marathi touch to his tone. Its not necessary to pick the biggest star, u have to pick the right one. Or u cud have set the story to some other crime cult in India. trust me Bombay and its underworld are not the only one. Amitabh has a very clear hindi tone from Allahabad. Set a hard core Hindu/Sang parivar kind of dynasty with similar plot.
2) Edit the family element away. What the hell are 3-4 ladies doing in the set when none of them have even a significant word to say ??
3) you know a "war hero" turning into a Don Corleone and using his wit and cold heartedness to finish off all the 5 families including his brother & brother in law, makes sense. A foreign return, pseud, squash playing AB baby planning to open a consultancy firm doesn't overnight become the Ace of underworld.

Paheli review

too many songs, slow movie, with story lacking substance. if ghost cud enter into lacchi's husbands body and make him think /act otherwise why did he do that in the end and not in the beginning or proly thats the riddle. I didn't get the underlying motive of the movie : fairy tale ? story telling of unheard woos of sexual needs of women in a male dominated society ? or just a brightly colored mixture of songs and dance with some supernatural superstar shah rukh with moustache
All in all the expectation from Amol Palekar was more than this. Jesus Mr Shah Rukh even when u are a Ghost u can make people cry with that now-please-be-done-with-it smirk! Cud this "badshah" of bollywood deliver anything but sentimental monsoons?!?!

Pros: Rani looks beautiful, great custome work, valiant effort to depict the culture of Rajasthan in everything including clothes to trivial wall paintings.