/Film Focus/ Film Magazine by Satheesh Balachandran by Satheesh Balachandran

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‘Film Focus’ - Concept & Design: Satheesh Balachandran

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filmFOCUS June â&#x20AC;&#x2122;08

the art of film

Ingrid Bergman, Sophia Loren, Smita Patil, Shabana Azmi, Scarlett Johansson, Monica Bellucci, Angelina Jolie, Jennifer Lopez, Cameron Diaz, Gwyneth Paltrow, Lawrence Olivier, Marlon Brando, Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Leonardo Di Caprio, Brad Pitt

filmFOCUS June â&#x20AC;&#x2122;08

the art of film

Auteur Cinema Classic Cinema Hollywood Films Bollywood Films Contemporary Cinema

Andrei Tarkovsky Ingmar Bergman Kim Ki-Duk Wong Kar Wai Joel Schumacher Tom Tykwer Satyajit Ray Nagesh Kukunoor J.P. Dutta Mira Nair Aparna Sen

Auteur Cinema Classic Cinema Hollywood Films Bollywood Films Contemporary Cinema

Andrei Tarkovsky Ingmar Bergman Kim Ki-Duk Wong Kar Wai Joel Schumacher Tom Tykwer Satyajit Ray Nagesh Kukunoor J.P. Dutta Mira Nair Aparna Sen

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’ g n i n r a W y r o t u ‘Stat ; s l a u t c e l l . . e . t s n f i f u e b n i c m l r i f o f y t r o a n n i s d i r ’ o s r u o c f o d F e d n e t ‘Film n i s i e n i z a g a m s Thi

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Offbeat films from Hollywood

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The Phan to Perfume: m of the Opera Th The Butt e Story of a Murd er erer The Devil fly Effect Wears Pr Babel, Be a e Season, da A Akeelah a nd the Be Good Year e, The Black Dahlia, Br Birth Charlie W ig ilson’s Wa ht Young Things Cinderell a Man, A r, Bewitched Lo Dark Mat ter, Lost t Like Love in De Ja Vu, Eros, Free Translation d Fur, Ham let, Jarhea om Writers d, Lions f Lord of W or ar, Made of Honor Lambs Match Po in Memoirs t, Tristram Shandy o Million D f a Geisha, Mona L oll is The Pres ar Baby, Nim’s Isla a Smile tig nd Savage G e, Renaissance ra ‘V’ for Ve ce, Sex and the C ity nd Woman O etta, Peaceful War rio n Top, Str anger tha r n Fiction

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The Phantom Of The Opera

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Director: Joel Schumacher Art Direction: John Fenner Costumes: Alexandra Byrne Cast: Gerard Butler, Emmy Rossum, Miranda Richardson, Minnie Driver, Patrick Wilson. Produced by: Paul Hitchcock, Austin Shaw, Louise Goodsill.

ven before it went into production, many aspects of the cinematic version of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s ‘The Phantom of the Opera’ (Based on Gaston Leroux’s novel) spelled doom. Everything, from the troubling rumors of John Travolta and Antonio Banderas as the top contenders for the coveted role of the title character to Katie Holmes being turned down for the role of Christine Daae, the female lead in the story, citing her as being, at 26, “too old,” was off-putting. Once production started, the unpromising worsened.There were rumors of drastic changes being made to the classic story (including what seemed an out-of-place swordfight) and the role of Christine, an educated singer/dancer, went to then-17-year-old - 17-year-old! - Emmy Rossum.The only glimmer of hope came from the modest budget - believe it or not - an estimated $50 million, which could prevent the excess often associated with the gifted Joel Schumacher. With mediocre expectations, Schumacher’s Phantom is a mixed blessing, as dazzling to the eyes and ears as it is numbing to the heart and mind.This is a Schumacher film, because in the end, surface triumphs over soul. The Phantom of the Opera opens at the Paris Opera-House in the late nineteenth-century, with the production of “Hannibal” coming to a halt when its temperamental star, La Carlotta (Minnie Driver, sporting the worst Italian accent since Nicholas Cage in ‘Captain Corelli’s Mandolin’),

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walks out during a dress rehearsal after threats from the mysterious Phantom (Gerard Butler), who has haunted the opera house for years.The theatre’s inexperienced new managers (Ciarán Hinds and Simon Callow) are at a loss, so they replace her with the young ingénue Christine, who has been taking singing lessons from this “opera ghost,” all without ever seeing him, yet believing him to being an “Angel of Music.” Christine mesmerizes the audience and her new managers and quickly dethrones the arrogant diva, capturing the heart of her unseen tutor, whose facial deformities resulted in him being caged as a freak-show attraction for the first quarter of his life. But she also finds herself the object of affection of a childhood friend, the theatre’s wealthy patron, Vicompte Raoul de Chagny (Patrick Wilson).Torn between the striking Raoul and enigmatic Phantom, Christine sets off a rivalry between the two men for her love. The Phantom of the Opera is faithful to its Tonyaward-winning material, to its advantage and disadvantage. Schumacher delivers a perfect visual translation of the staged production to the screen: the Phantom’s Lair is given a cavernous shape, the opera house an architectural masterpiece, and every nook and cranny of the setting feels like an actual setting rather than a prop in a filmed play.These settings are given a multi-dimensional shape, thanks to production designer Anthony Pratt.

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Director: Joel Schumacher Cinematography: Editing: Music: Art Direction: John Fenner Costumes: Alexandra Byrne Cast: Gerard Butler, Emmy Rossum, Miranda Richardson, Minnie Driver, Patrick Wilson. Produced by: Paul Hitchcock, Austin Shaw, Louise Goodsill.

The music is still a delight. Every song is a rousing piece made up of either haunting lyrics (Christine sings of the “angel” as being sent by her deceased father) or cheerful fluffiness (one number has the two managers singing of the trouble the Phantom is causing). Even if you’ve never heard the songs or seen the show, you may be tempted to sing along. But the show is still better than the movie. Schumacher, who has said in interviews that he wanted “young, hot” actors in the lead roles, apparently meant this at the expense of ones with vocal talent or acting ability. The leads eventually squander the film’s potential. Gerard Butler, with dark hair and deep, forlorn eyes, is a commanding physical presence, but his Phantom is no tormented madman.Yes, we feel sympathy for him, but in spite of, not because of, his limited acting range. Butler gives what more or less amounts to a line-reading. Moreover, his rock-opera take on the songs are too wailing and whiny to be touching, resembling a “Poison” cover than the actual Phantom.

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The Phantom Of The Opera

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Emmy Rossum and Patrick Wilson have good, solid voices. But as the lead soprano in an opera, Rossum is unable to convince us that she deserves her high status. Her voice is serviceable, but far from operatic. Similarly,Wilson is easy to listen to, but he’s not as ruggedly irresistible as he should be.What the three leads share in common is they forget that singing is acting carried out through song. As a result, the film parades from one lavish musical number to another without much heart to hold the story together. The film, much like the play, is about what lies beneath the surface. Beneath the opera house lays the dark, unsettling Phantom, and beneath his silky, featureless white mask is a face horribly deformed.Yet, for all of its references to the deceptions of appearance, there’s actually nothing underneath the surface of this film. Everything was in place for The Phantom of the Opera to be a landmark musical, comparable to Moulin Rouge and Chicago: a great story and wonderful songs, all it needed was believable performances. But as it is, Schumacher’s Phantom is still a worthy, watchable adaptation.The film is a treat, whether you’ve seen the show or not.

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Director: Tom Tykwer Written by: Andrew Birkin, Bernd Eichinger,Tom Tykwer. Based on: Patrick Süskind’s novel ‘Das Parfum’ Cast: Ben Whishaw, Dustin Hoffman, Alan Rickman, Rachel Hurd-Wood, and John Hurt.

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Perfume:The Story of a Murderer

Tom Tykwer adapts Patrick Süskind’s bestselling novel about an 18th century French psychopath with a superhuman sense of smell

German director, adapting a German novel set in France, with actors speaking English, plus extensive voice-over and a near-mute protagonist who spends a lot of his time sniffing. It doesn’t exactly sound like a recipe for cinematic success. Remarkably, Tom Tykwer (‘Run Lola Run’, ‘Heaven’) has pulled it off, creating a film that overcomes its more awkward elements to be a visually impressive, highly unusual period thriller. If you’ve read Patrick Süskind’s 1985 novel, doubtless you’ll recollect its opening pages, where the profound stink of eighteenth century Europe is described and the protagonist, Jean-Baptiste Grenouille is born to his fish vendor mother, amid the guts and heads of a Paris fish market, “the most putrid spot in all the kingdom”.Tykwer doesn’t immedi-

ately take us to this scenario, but after a short prologue showing the grown-up Grenouille in chains and on his way to the scaffold, he unleashes the full glory of a splendidly yucky cinematic realisation of said birth scene. In the light of the usual tone of period dramas, it’s refreshingly foul. The first half of the film is defined by this grot as JeanBaptiste is sent to an orphanage, where he grows up an odd child who unnerves the other children - as we’re informed in the extensive narration provided by John Hurt. If you’re of the school of thought that insists a good movie shouldn’t use voice over, perhaps Perfume isn’t for you, as much of the film relies on it, in part due to Grenouille not being much of a talker. Instead, he sniffs his way around the world, his sense of smell so acute he can identify pretty much any creature or substance within a large vicinity.

After being sold to a tanner, he grows up into the appropriately wiry Ben Winshaw, who gives a gripping performance even if his delivery is a tad dubious. Grenouille discovers the full panoply of scents on his first trip into the centre of Paris. He’s drawn to a perfumer’s shop, but then lured away by the scent of a beautiful young girl (Herfurth) selling plums. She becomes his first kill, almost by accident, and his lifelong obsession - the scent of her body is the most intoxicating he’s experienced. When happenstance brings him into contact with the once famous but faded perfumier Baldini (Dustin Hoffman), (doing the film’s only American accent), Grenouille so impresses him with his uncanny skills, he takes him on as an apprentice.This leads to him travelling to the perfume capital of Grasse in Provence, where he learns other techniques, which he then starts to exploit in his attempts to capture the elusive ideal scent of

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feminine youth and beauty. So begins his serial killing, and a new, ongoing mania for another beauty - Laura (Hurd-Wood), the daughter of a rich merchant, Richis (Rickman). In the process, we learn some fascinating details about the production of perfumes - which involve notes and chords, like music.We’re also introduced to a fabulous bit of psychopathology - Grenouille is half super-canine, half-superhuman nutter, whose powers enable him to manipulate people, though he’s entirely without moral constraint or purpose. As such, he’s a force, a power. The film closes in 1766, and it would be nice to read the culmination of his ambitions as in some way having an influence on French society, then starting to ferment and build towards revolution. It’s probably reaching, but either way, the prior scenes of him manipulating a mob in the most extreme ways are an example of his remarkable abilities.

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Not only does “Perfume” seem impossible to film, it must have been almost impossible for Patrick Suskind to write. How do you describe the ineffable enigma of a scent in words? The audio-book, read by Sean Barrett, is the best audio performance one ever heard; he snuffles and sniffles his way to greatness and you almost believe he is inhaling bliss, or the essence of a stone. Patrick Suskind’s famous novel involves a twisted little foundling whose fish-wife mother casually births him while chopping off cod heads. He falls neglected into the stinking charnel house that was Paris 300 years ago, and is nearly thrown out with the refuse. But Grenouille grows into a grim, taciturn survivor (Ben Whishaw), who possesses two extraordinary qualities: he has the most acute sense of smell in the world, and has absolutely no scent of his own.

This last attribute is ascribed by legend to the spawn of the devil, but the movie “Perfume:The Story of a Murderer” makes no mention of this possibility, wisely limiting itself to vile if unnamed evil. Grenouille grows up as a tanner, voluptuously inhaling the world’s smells, and eventually talks himself into an apprenticeship with Baldini (Dustin Hoffman), a master perfumer, now past his prime, whose shop is on an overcrowded medieval bridge on the Seine. Mention of the bridge evokes the genius with which director Tom Tykwer (“Run, Lola, Run”) evokes a medieval world of gross vices, all-pervading stinks and crude appetites. In this world, perfume is like the passage of an angel - some people think, literally. Grenouille effortlessly invents perfect perfumes, but his ambition runs deeper; he wants to distill the essence of copper, stone and beauty itself. In pursuit of this last ideal he becomes a gruesome murderer.

This is a dark, dark, dark film, focused on an obsession so complete and lonely it shuts out all other human experience.You may not savor it, but you will not stop watching it, in horror and fascination. Whishaw succeeds in giving us no hint of his character save a deep savage need.And Dustin Hoffman produces a quirky old master whose life is also governed by perfume, if more positively. Hoffman reminds us here again, as in “Stranger than Fiction,” what a detailed and fascinating character actor he is, able to bring to the story of Grenouille precisely what humor and humanity it needs, and then tactfully leaving it at that. Even his exit is nicely timed. Tom Tykwer is second to none with cinema technique; his adaptation of Perfume is made with technical precision and luscious production values. It is a dense screenplay co-written by Tykwer, producer Bernd Eichinger (‘Downfall’) and Andrew Birkin (‘The Name Of The Rose’), and we are reminded of the film’s literary roots by Hurt’s perversely jaunty voice-over narration, which pops in an out at every opportunity. In spite this ‘embarrassment of riches’ - Perfume is a seriously ‘well resourced’ movie - nonetheless it is cold emotionally, keeping us at a distance from the horror unfolding. Ironically, while the cinema is perceived as the most ‘sensual’ art-form, smell might elude it.Tykwer and Co. give it a red hot go: the sound of sniffing is heightened, the depiction of Grenouille’s ecstasy when indulging in his favourite olfactory pastime are raised to religious rapture. But their efforts don’t quite get there, a conundrum given that smell was so central to the success of this film story.

Baldini tells him the world center of the perfume art is in Grasse, in Southern France, and so he walks there. It is in the nature of creatures like Grenouille that they have no friends. Indeed he has few conversations, and they are rudimentary. His life, as it must be, is almost entirely interior, so Twyker provides a narrator (John Hurt) to establish certain events and facts. Even then, the film is essentially visual, not spoken, and does a remarkable job of establishing Grenouille and his world. We can never really understand him, but we cannot tear our eyes away. “Perfume” begins in the stink of the gutter and remains dark and brooding.To rob a person of his scent is cruel enough, but the way it is done in this story is truly macabre. Still it can be said that Grenouille is driven by the conditions of his life and the nature of his spirit. Also, of course, that he may indeed be the devil’s spawn.

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oward’s long-time buddy Tom Hanks (Apollo 13) plays Brown’s divine detective, Professor Robert Langdon.We meet “symbiologist” Langdon as he gives a lecture in Paris on the significance of symbols and meaning. But the French jean-d’armes have other plans for the good Professor: he is whisked away to the nearby Louvre to help solve a ritualistic murder, only to become a suspect himself.With help from police cryptologist Sophie Neveu (Amelie’s Audrey Tautou) - coincidentally the grand daughter of the murdered man - Langdon stumbles upon a religious cover up that had been buried since Christ died on the cross.

Tautou and Hanks share no chemistry in their screen union, not even as friends united by a cause.Watching them run around after clues, uncovering secrets and piecing together the story’s underlying puzzle is like watching lab rats on a treadmill - and about as exciting.The usually great British actor Paul Bettany - cast here to play vicious violent monk Silas - is so bad he’s laughable.The best thing in Howard’s A Beautiful Mind - subtle, warm and very believable as troubled maths genius John Nash’s ‘imaginary friend’ -

here he lurches from scene to scene with all the subtlety and cartoon evil of Frankenstein’s monster. And for a story about the repression of a woman throughout the ages,Tautou is in one thankless female role, stuck into scenes like a Paris fashion accessory. (Or a shapeless figure in fuzzy felt scenery).The only person who adds any kind of spark to this otherwise lifeless movie is Ian McKellen (Lord Of The Rings, X-Men 3). Lovely Gandalf defies all by having fun on screen as Langdon’s cheeky friend and mentor, Sir Leigh Teabing. Howard can protest all he likes at the universal bagging his film ‘The Da Vinci Code’ has copped. But this is not simply a case of the critics being snobby, a bad adaptation, nor whether or not you buy into the validity of Brown’s conspiracy. Frankly, who cares if you believe the ‘theories’ or not - ‘The Da Vinci Code’ isn’t the problem Howard is. He has made thriller that isn’t thrilling; a pulp fiction that’s dumb and dull. He didn’t commit to the material instead fence sitting, hoping to make a film that “won’t offend” or inflame... As a film it just doesn’t deliver and the fans should rightfully be disappointed.

The Da Vinci Code Director: Ron Howard Cast:Tom Hanks, Audrey Tautou, Jean Reno, Sir Ian McKellen, Alfred Molina.

he Da Vinci Code is one of those giant Hollywood movies that comes with impossible expectations and more hype than you can poke a stick at. (Think Star Wars, Lord Of The Rings, Harry Potter...) And why not - like the Rings and Potter, The Da Vinci Code is the inevitable big budget movie adaptation of a best-selling novel Dan Brown's best-selling novel, as read by over 50 million people worldwide. So who else would you entrust with the adaptation than ‘he of the Oscar pic’, Ron Howard (A Beautiful Mind, Apollo 13).

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he Devil Wears Prada slips over you like a $10,000 negligee and pierces like a shiny new pin. But then you expect it to be entertaining when it has the tectonic might of Hollywood in its wings.The cast is impeccable.The latest young lady with creamy skin and talent to burn - Anna Hathaway. A supporting cast bejewelled with the likes of Stanley Tucci - there’s even a handsome Aussie, Simon Baker, looking very smooth. And perched like a diamond at the apex of the entire enterprise, Meryl Streep, the mega-star. It is indeed the Devil’s Work - set in the upper echelons of American consumerism. It is a bright and facetious study of power, fame and luxury.

But is that all it is? The plot, taken from a mediocre book which nonetheless achieved huge sales in the US, is so slender as to seem inconsequential - a simple cautionary tale for young women seduced by the twin evils of advanced capitalism, fashion and feminism. Anne Hathaway plays a likeable young heroine light years from the brittle wife she gave us in Brokeback Mountain.We can tell Andi is intelligent because she arrives, quite by accident, in the perfumed corridors of Runway magazine in plaid skirts, frumpy jumpers and clumpy shoes - clearly a clit-lit chic fresh from university and a women-in-media degree.

The Devil Wears Prada Director: David Frankel Cast: Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt, Stanley Tucci, Adrian Grenier,Tracie Thoms, Rich Sommer, Simon Baker, Daniel Sunjata.

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he Devil Wears Prada slips over you like a $10,000 negligee and pierces like a shiny new pin. But then you expect it to be entertaining when it has the tectonic might of Hollywood in its wings.

Like the innocent lamb of every cautionary fairytale, Andi doesn’t realize the danger she is in. She has arrived at the glittering gates of hell for a job interview at one of the most coveted titles in the world of glossy magazines.This is the headquarters of the great Miranda Priestly, the super-editorin chief of a publishing empire which dominates the globe, or at least New York and Paris. Andi’s extreme good fortune is reflected back at her by a phalanx of perfectly groomed career girls (or clackers as they are nicknamed because of the clatter of their high heels). Chief amongst them is the deliciously patronising Emily, played by Emily Blunt, complete

with posh English accent, product-lavished locks, and ironic eyebrows. She is Miranda’s top personal assistant, and clearly expects Andi to last less than a second in her job interview. Andi is so obviously a dowd that jaws drop when Miranda actually hires her. Perfectly groomed, obsequious little slavegirls are apparently a dime a dozen, and Miranda is bored by all of them. Chiefly it seems to amuse herself, the divine Miranda decides to try Andi on, just as she would a new glove, embroidered by peasants in Bhutan. It should come as no surprise that Andi is swiftly seduced by the devastating Miranda. Streep gives us a flawless performance as the arch super-bitch that ambition is fabled to make of any woman who rejects her feminine destiny in favour of power, money and fabulous success. She is a ruthless perfectionist, a high priestess of fashion who commands absolute power over all the frock shops of the known world, and the catwalks in Paris. Designers adore and fear her. Minions snap to attention as soon as a whiff of her perfume curls out of the lift. In no time at all, Andi has no time for her sexy but otherwise perfectly ordinary boyfriend, her friends, and even her family. She is permanently connected to her Blackberry and swiftly flowers into a fashionista with the help of her fairy godmother, Nigel, played with relish by Stanly Tucci.This gorgeous gay man with the heart of gold waves his magic wand or key to the vast wardrobes of Runway magazine - and Andi is transformed, not just by a dress, but by a galaxy of incredibly expensive clothes; thigh-high leather boots, Chanel jackets, and nine-inch Jimmy Choos. The Devil Wears Prada doesn’t exaggerate a thing about the fashion world. It is a parody of an industry obsessed by cosmetics, handbags and designer labels.The superb actress, Meryl Streep has appeared on screen ‘at the height of her powers’ several times already in her career. Ë Ê filmFOCUS

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ee Season” involves one of those crazy families that cluster around universities:An intellectual husband who is clueless about human emotions, a wife who married him because she was afraid to be loved and he didn't know how to, a son who rebels by being more like his father than his father is, and a daughter who retreats into secret survival strategies.There are many movies about families sharing problems; in this one the members are isolated by them.They meet mostly at meals, which the father cooks and serves with a frightening intensity.

Babel Director: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu Writer: Guillermo Arriaga

By the end of the film, little Andi obviously has to learn her lesson. But are we supposed to hate or revile Miranda Priestly? Not when she’s played by Streep. It is impossible to pity the relentless Miranda, despite the scene, shockhorror, where she appears with no makeup. Perhaps for a woman in her position men really are superfluous. She can always hire a new relationship or two. Her followers are utterly loyal, and she is respected as widely as she is feared. Streep gives us a woman addicted to power, a woman who loves her job. But she is also a woman getting exactly what she wants out of life.

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The members of his family swim in and out of focus. He is proud that Miriam is a scientist, in the sense that “my wife is a scientist,” but does he know what enormous secrets she keeps from him? He is proud that his son is a gifted musician, and joins him in violin and cello duets. But Eliza is essentially invisible to Saul, because she has no particular accomplishments. Only when she wins a spelling bee does he start to focus on her,“helping” her train, pushing her to the next level, sitting proudly in the audience. He is proud not so much of her as of himself, for fathering such a prodigy. The performance by Flora Cross is haunting in its seriousness. She doesn’t act out; she acts in. She suggests that Eliza has grown up in this family as a wise, often-overlooked observer, who keeps her own counsel and has her own values, the most important being her autonomy. In her father’s manic kitchen behavior as he prepares and serves unwanted meals, she sees people-pleasing that exists apart from people

Three stories set in three continents bound by a fateful shot fired by a Moroccan boy messing around in the mountains. Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett are only a third of this game of unintended consequences, set by director Alejandro González Iñárritu and writer Guillermo Arriaga

The Devil Wears Prada Ë Few of her peers have the timing to deliver the nuance and steel of a woman like this.Wielding absolute power requires keen intelligence as well as detachment. Miranda is demanding, controlling, and focused on her role as the ultimate arbiter of taste to the exclusion of all else. Her husband barely gets a look-in, her children are neatly disposed with a nanny or two. She is fully aware that every colour and cut she anoints as this season’s ‘in’ thing resonates through the layers of consumer society from the ultra-rich to the badly clad poor. Is she so very different from media moguls and business giants like Trump, Gates and Murdoch? Well she’s a lot better looking for a start. She is the doyen of the present tense, the dominatrix of desire, the epitome of ‘I want it now’. And in Streep’s hands she is a brilliant comedic creation.

Like many families without centers, this one finds obsessions to focus on. Saul Naumann (Richard Gere) is a professor at Berkeley, specializing in Jewish theology and the Kabbalah. His wife Miriam (Juliette Binoche), emotionally wounded by the early loss of her own parents, slips into the homes of strangers to steal small glittering things. Their teenage son Aaron (Max Minghella) watches his father intimidate students with icy theological superiority, and does the one thing best calculated to enrage him; he joins the Hare Krishnas. Their daughter Eliza (Flora Cross), who is about 12, seems to be trying to pass as unobserved and ordinary, but her inner life has a fierce complexity.

and rebellion seen in that half-forgotten masterpiece,“The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner” (1962). Eliza is at the center of the film, and Flora Cross carries its weight in a performance of quiet compelling wisdom; the foreground character in the early scenes is Saul, the father.

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abel is the third part of a trilogy by director Alejandro González-Iñárritu and writer Guillermo Arriaga. It began with Amores Perros, a journey across the class divides of Mexico City via three stories springing out of a car crash, a method subsequently refashioned for 21 Grams, again three stories drawn centrifugally towards a car crash, this time in America, with stars Sean Penn and Naomi Watts keen to pull down awards.

Likewise Babel keeps three stories going at the same time, with past, present and future rearranged to carefully calibrated effect. And - keeping with the narrative pattern there is an explosive act that sets the three tales rolling, here the testing of a new rifle by Moroccan brothers Ahmed (Tarchani) and Yussef (Ait El Caidhe).The bullet penetrates the window of a tour bus and continues into Susan, played by Cate Blanchett, who slumps into the arms of her husband Richard, played by a grey and weathered Brad Pitt.

Bee Season Directed by: David Siegel &

Even before she got shot, Richard and Susan’s holiday was not going well.“Why can’t you relax? Why are you so stressed?” he asks her (before the shooting, obviously).“You are the reason I can’t relax,” she replies.“You are the reason I am stressed.” “You are never going to forgive me, are you?” he says, portentously. Back home, their two children are in the care of Mexican nanny Amelia (Barraza). Her son is getting married and she is keen to get to the wedding but Richard forbids her.Torn between loyalties, she decides to take the all-American kids on a road trip across the border with her nephew Santiago (García Bernal), hoping to catch the wedding before driving back the following morning. So, we have wounded American tourists in Morocco, scared Moroccan boys, a Mexican wedding and frightened American kids. Did we mention the deaf Japanese girls’ volleyball team yet? The most intriguing of Babel’s stories is its most tangential. Chieko (Kikuchi) is indeed a deaf volleyball player. She and her deaf friends hang out in bars, flirt and suffer the thoughtless rejections of callous teen boys. All liquored up on whisky and ecstasy, Chieko and friends head to a nightclub where she experiences total alienation, unable to hear the beat that others move to, catching a glimpse of the boy she had her eye on make out with another girl.This Tokyo sequence pops off the screen in a way the others do not, perhaps because it is not so bound up with America and intimations of US responsibilities, crimes, whatever. If that sounds dismissive, you have to understand that - although it arrives on a plinth carried by bearers with an alarming resemblance to Oscar - Babel has such a portentous, threatening air that it is like watching the opening scenes of ‘Casualty’ for three hours. Plots are games of consequences, in which characters make fate by determining the choices that are made, the consequences that are unleashed. But in Babel so many of the choices are blameless, their consequences merely the worst case scenarios of defensible behaviour.We discover at the end of the film that the first domino to fall in Babel’s display was down to an act of altruism.

Scott McGehee Cast: Richard Gere, Juliette Binoche, Flora Cross, Max Minghella, Kate Bosworth, Robyn Blair, Justin Alioto.

The father teaches Judaism and follows its forms, but his spiritual life is academic, not mystical. What no one in the family perceives is that Eliza is a genuine mystic, for whom the Kabbalah is not a theory but a reality. One of the things that Kabbalah believes is that words not only reflect reality, but in a sense create it. God and the name of God are in this way the same thing.

who are pleased. In her fellow contestants in the spelling bees, she sees the same thing:Young people who are devoting their lives to mastering useless information for the glory of themselves and their parents.Yes, it is necessary to be able to spell in an ordinary sort of way, but to be able to spell every word is to aim for perfection, and perfection will drive you crazy, because our software isn’t designed for it.

How could this association enter into the life of a 12-year-old in a practical way? Eliza finds out when she enters a spelling bee. Because she exists in the same world with words, because words create her world, she doesn't need to “know” how to spell a word. It needs merely to be evoked, and it materializes in a kind of vision:“I see the words.” Although this gift gets her into the national finals,“Bee Season” is not a movie about spelling bees. It is a movie about a spiritual choice that calls everyone’s bluff; it involves the sort of refusal

Neither prepares us for “Bee Season,” which represents Eliza’s decision to insist on herself as a being apart from the requirements of theology and authority, a person who insists on exercising her free will.This is a stick in the eye of her father.When people say they are “doing God’s will,” actually there is egotism in such a statement.What Eliza is doing at the end of “Bee Season” is Eliza’s will. Does that make her God? No. It makes her Eliza. Ê filmFOCUS

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While Max is here depicted as a robust, dynamic sort, he is also caught between moments-of time and self.

A Good Year Director: Ridley Scott Writer: Marc Klein, based on the novel by Peter Mayle. Starring: Russell Crowe, Albert Finney, Marion Cotillard,Tom Hollander.

anny Chanel (Marion Cotillard) is prettily, perfectly French. In Ridley Scott’s labored romantic comedy, she’s rather the embodiment of France, or more accurately, the sensual, intellectual, seductive notion of France - and especially Provence - that pervades the world that is not-France. Fanny, a thoroughly charming and independent-minded café owner, is precisely the poster girl for this enduring impression.

tion the movie cannot answer). He’s a master at his craft, charging up his minions (whom he calls “lab rats”) to yell and wave their hands in the air, to buy or sell instantly and unthinkingly. He susses out the situation, they follow his lead, and they all make money. Everyone knows that his methods aren’t exactly right, but they’re more or less legal and everyone likes to be rich and feel powerful. Happy times.

As lovely as she may be, however, Fanny has her work cut out for her in A Good Year, a movie that begins with the cutesy phrasing, “A few vintages ago.” Yes, you’re in wine country. For a moment, this situation is quaint and sweet, especially as you watch Albert Finney (as Uncle Henry) play chess with Freddy Highmore (as young Max). Henry owns a vineyard in France, the orphaned Max visits during the summers.They share a love for competition, they understand one another. Even if Max cheats at chess and pretends he doesn’t, Henry appreciates his determination to win, and so, just lets him know he knows, and lets the boy figure out which path to take. “Wine,” he instructs, “always whispers in your mouth with completely unabashed honesty every time you take a sip.” Little boys are another story.

With that, Max’s life changes. Henry has died and left him the Provençal chateau and vineyard, though he has spoken with Henry for some 10 years.When asked by his assistant Gemma (Archie Panjabi) how this has happened, Max shrugs and looks briefly pensive:“Something to do with me becoming an asshole,” he says (good of him to explain, as you may have missed the very insistent representation of same in the previous scene).Advised that he must clear up the paper work tout suite, Max heads to France in order to sell the place and get right back on the job as soon as possible.

That much is more than apparent in the next sequence. “Many vintages later,” Max has grown up to be a ruthless London stock market trader, played by Russell Crowe (just how Freddy Highmore is transformed into Crowe is a quesÊ filmFOCUS

On one hand, Max’s Treo keeps him in constant touch with his current life, barking commands to Gemma or his lawyer Charlie (Tom Hollander). On the hand, he’s prone to drop off into nostalgic mushiness whenever he glimpses an aging emblem of his childhood - the waterless swimming pool, the grown-over tennis court, the outdoor table still adorned with Henry’s cigar in an ashtray.This latter inclination is rendered in the most pedestrian wayflashbacks that occur on the site where he gazes - but as they feature more interactions between Finney and Highmore, they’re more than welcome (you’d be forgiven for wishing this relationship formed the movie’s core, or at least more of its running time). As little Max and Henry play tennis, swim, and share life lessons, big Max contemplates his life now. No surprise, he begins to wonder how he became an asshole, and finds some help in this investigation from the locals.These include earthy vigneron Duflot (Didier Bourdon) and his voluptuous, happy-to-be-house-cleaning wife Ludivine (Isabelle Candelier) - who have a little dog who pees on Max’s shoe. Not for nothing is the dog named Tati, after Jacques, whose 1953 Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday made more original observations of French daily details.Tended to by his uncle’s employees, Max begins to see the good life in store for him,

a foreigner with loads of money in the South of France. That said, Crowe brings a welcome energy to his obvious role. He also proves an able physical comedian, though his subtle glances and gestures are more effective than the broad galumphs, as when Max falls face-first into a pile of manure at the bottom of the swimming pool. At this point, he meets Fanny. She remembers him from another encounter, when he almost ran her over with his speeding car, while she rode her bicycle to work in town. As she stands over him, refusing to help him up from the pool bottom, he’s smitten. She’s glorious, beautiful, grounded, in a word, as he puts it, “fantastic.” The film plays coy for a minute, interjecting yet another young beauty for Max’s delectation:Yankee interloper Christie (Abbie Cornish) arrives to claim she’s Henry’s long-lost, unacknowledged daughter; she also reads Death in Venice (to show she’s got sand) and happens to be from Nappa Valley and so knows everything about running a vineyard that Max does not (which is, really, everything). The dilemma for Max is whether he should return to his fast-paced, brilliant life, but the plot is irrelevant to the film’s celebration of France, whether embodied by Fanny or articulated by Duflot, who warns Max against pursuing Fanny, because, “It is rumored that she will let no man near her heart.” That little bit of wisdom is enough to send Max straight toward her, and so the film continues to plod along its well-worn path.

Max’s life choices are quickly laid out in the most obvious way.The estate is beautiful, if run down, the locals are appealingly eccentric, and London is conveniently made less attractive, when Max is busted for the latest not-quite-right deal he made. Gemma tells him to stay put for a while, and so he does, wandering through the house, his immediate, material links to the place marked by a tomato stain on his white shirt as he strides over the grounds. Ê filmFOCUS

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Akeelah and the Bee

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Director: Doug Atchison Starring: Angela Bassett, Laurence Fishburne, Brittany Curran, Curtis Armstrong, Keke Palmer.

his genuinely sweet and determinedly inspirational family film features charming young actress Keke Palmer in the title role. “Akeelah and the Bee” is a genuinely sweet and determinedly inspirational family film that features a charming young actress in the title role. It’s a successful feel-good movie, but it would make you feel even better if it didn’t push quite so hard for its desired effects.

As the title indicates, “Akeelah” is yet another film - following Jeff Blitz’s marvelous documentary “Spellbound” and the underrated drama “Bee Season” - to find high emotion in the unlikely world of competitive spelling bees for middle school kids.

The twist is that in this case the institution is the academically challenged Crenshaw Middle School in South Los Angeles. And the story that writer-director Doug Atchison wants to tell involves not only spelling but also achievement, empowerment and neighborhood pride. Because few films want to tell these kinds of stories about that part of the city, “Akeelah” has attracted high-powered talent.Together for the first time since “What’s Love Got to Do With It” are Angela Bassett, who plays Akeelah’s mother, and Laurence Fishburne as the coach who mentors her.Though they don’t have many scenes together, their presence and ability give this film a welcome integrity. Holding her own with them is 11-year-old Keke Palmer as Akeelah.Already the recipient of a Screen Actors Guild best leading actress nomination for the TV film “The Wool Cap,” Palmer provides the spirit and intelligence this feature could not exist without. She makes Akeelah, an old soul in her kid’s version of granny glasses, someone whose every mood change - and there are many - we pay close attention to. Despite all these good things, “Akeelah” is encumbered by Atchison’s determination to cross every emotional T and dot every narrative I. If Starbucks Entertainment is trumpeting its involvement in this film with ads insisting, “We’re Thinking Outside the Bean,” the film’s difficulty is that it doesn’t. It sets up obstacles we know will disappear and telegraphs its plot elements well before they happen. This is no more than par for the course with films of this type, but because of the caliber of the cast and the sincerity of the message, one wishes it could be otherwise.

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Practically the first time we meet Akeelah, she is contemptuously tossing away a flier advertising her school’s spelling bee. Unwilling to be stigmatized as a freak or a brainiac, she prefers to keep her gift for spelling (courtesy of her late father, a bear for Scrabble) a secret from the world. As far as her mother, Tanya (Bassett), is concerned, that’s just as well.With one young daughter already a mother and one son flirting with being a gangbanger (though another son is doing well in the Air Force),Tanya just doesn’t want to be bothered with what she views as the foolishness of spelling competitions. Much more interested is the somber Dr. Larabee (Fishburne), a man of self-described “acerbic wit and sour disposition” who is on sabbatical from his position as chairman of the UCLA English department and so has a lot of time on his hands. A stern type who actually says “I’ll brook no nonsense” with a straight face, the good doctor and Akeelah are not exactly each other’s type. He views her as insolent; she sees no reason to be interested in the broader cultural education he wants her to master in addition to spelling. Her brainiac qualms notwithstanding, Akeelah enters the world of bees (there wouldn’t be a film if she didn’t), and soon enough she meets two key peers. Javier (J.R. Villarreal) is a gregarious Latino with supportive parents, while the robotic Dylan (Sean Michael Afable) is a humorless Asian American spelling machine with Darth Vader for a father. It wouldn’t be fair to detail all the ups and downs of Akeelah’s relationships with these kids and with Dr. Larabee, ever the sad-eyed voice of doom, who tells her that he’s seen spelling bees “chew kids up and spit them out.” Whatever happened to “Have a nice day”? While its undeniable earnestness leaves “Akeelah and the Bee” open to good-natured teasing, in its own way it raises important points about the nature of education, the importance of community and obstacles to success that kids from poor neighborhoods face.

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Director: Jonathan Glazer Cast: Nicole Kidman, Danny Huston, Lauren Bacall, Anne Heche, Cameron Bright.

irth is British director Jonathan Glazer’s second feature after emerging from music video infamy in 2000 with his blistering debut Sexy Beast, starring Ben Kingsley as a dangerous gangster. Birth contains an equally mesmerising interloper, but this time it is a ten year-old boy not a bad-tempered bagman. It is no less dazzling a film than Sexy Beast however, yet quite different, set in snowbound New York’s instead of sunny Spain. Giving an excellent performance Nicole Kidman plays Anna, an affluent but subdued Manhattan society widow about to announce her engagement to Joseph (Danny Huston). Out of the blue a young boy arrives, played by Godsend’s otherwordly Cameron Bright. He claims that he is none other than ‘Sean’, the reincarnation of Anna’s dead husband who died a decade earlier. Understandably her life - and that of those around her - is thrown into chaos. Birth arrives with controversy. At the time of its premiere at the Venice Film Festival it made international headlines for the ‘taboo’ relationship at the centre of its story, between that of an adult woman and a ten year-old boy. The scene they share in the bath didn’t help either, prompting some

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to see the film as a tarted up version of Mary Kay Letourneau story, “the teacher whose notorious seduction of a sixth-grader dominated headlines in the late 1990s”. The ‘offending’ scene in question however is nothing more than one shared between a responsible mother and a wayward son, who may or may not be experiencing a shared delusion or ‘mythical’ reality shift. The sexual tension brought to the scene sits squarely on the shoulders of the audience who are only too familiar with the burden of sexualising youth in Western culture. Birth is hardly a sensational film.What it is is a modern day Grimm’s fairytale, albeit one with a bizarre premise. So Anna believes she is falling in love with Sean all over again, and ‘Sean’ maintains that he is indeed her adult husband in child’s form. Is it all an elaborate prank? Or does this mean Anna actually hasn’t recovered from losing her husband a decade earlier? The ambiguity surrounding the child’s identity in Birth creates much tension but that is part of the delicious game on offer. Really, it is a beautifully-made dark tale about love, grief and loss, much like a film Stanley Kubrick might have made were he still alive today. Ê filmFOCUS

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The Black Dahlia Director: Brian De Palma Cast: Josh Hartnett, Scarlett Johansson, Aaron Eckhart, Hilary Swank.

he Black Dahlia is an adaptation of James Ellroy’s awesome crime thriller published in 1987.Veteran Fight Club director David Fincher was initially attached to the project, the job finally went to supreme cinema stylist and auteur Brian De Palma, best known for epic crime movies such as Scarface (1983),The Untouchables (1987), Carlito’s Way (1993).

A real life true crime murder gripped Los Angeles in 1947. ‘Wannabe’ Hollywood starlet Elizabeth “betty” Short was found murdered in particularly grisly fashion, gutted, disfigured and left in a derelict field for all to see. Nicknamed The Black Dahlia, Ellroy’s book - and now De Palma’s film - chronicles the quest of two LAPD detectives as they obsessively try to solve the case. First thrown together as rival Police Club boxers - “Mr. Fire Vs Mr. Ice” - the case of the Black Dahlia transforms into working partners: Dwight “Bucky” Bleichart (Josh Hartnett) and Sgt. Lee Blanchard (Aaron Eckhart), both in fine form. Each becomes too obsessed with the case while one good woman looks on, Kay (Scarlett Johansson), Lee’s “girlfriend” whom is left in Bucky’s care for most of the movie, and and one not-so good, suspect society dame Madeline Linscombe (Hilary Swank) with whom Bucky forms a risky alliance.

Adapting any of Ellroy’s books is a challenge for any filmmaker, even for a veteran like De Palma.The king of hard-boiled, seedy noir landscapes, Ellroy creates not only a language all of his own, but just as unique and densely layered emotional and psychological states for his characters. (Their internal monologues are addictive!) Accordingly The Black Dahlia film has been deemed a disappointment by some critics, and an exercise in ‘style over substance’, with a much too convoluted ending. De Palma and writer Josh Friedman have also made some departures from the original story in their script that many will surely find ‘criminal’. Such is the dangerous territory of adaptations though - and for sure De Palma’s style is very seductive with the ending perhaps an attempt to serve the impossibly dense layers of Ellroy’s tome. Perhaps De Palma’s film version strays way too far from Ellroy’s story, but by golly it’s a fabulous film on so many levels, one that reminds us why film is so great as a medium, and likewise film noir as a genre.

The Black Dahlia Director: Brian De Palma Cast: Josh Hartnett, Scarlett Johansson, Aaron Eckhart, Hilary Swank.

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To a card-carrying fan of Ellroy’s books - espeiclally The Black Dahlia LA Confidential is the best film adaptation of one of his books to date, striking a perfect balance between the demands of the film medium and serving the book’s story. (It was so visceral, cinematic, tough and thrilling, just like an Ellroy novel). But De Palma’s The Black Dahlia smokes and smoulders in a way film noir hasn’t for quite some time. It’s thrilling, intriguing, cinematic and beautifully acted.

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he central character here is Adam (Campbell Moore), a penniless novelist who finds his manuscript confiscated by prudish customs officers. Forced to postpone his wedding to his socialite girlfriend Nina (Mortimer), he works as a gossip columnist for newspaper tycoon Lord Monomark (Aykroyd), reporting on the party-going activities of himself and his privileged friends.Will he be able though to improve his financial situation to the extent that he can wed Nina, or will he lose her to his wealthy rival Ginger (Tennant)?

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Fry has chosen to stretch the time-span of Evelyn Waugh’s novel ‘Vile Bodies’ to encompass a decade’s worth of events, winding up at Dunkirk and London during the Blitz in 1940. Although the film grows bleaker in its second half - witness the consignment of Agatha (Woolgar) to a mental institution, and the forced departure to the continent of the gay Miles (Sheen) - Fry shies away from Waugh’s apocalyptic resolution, and ensures that his protagonists have learnt a moral lesson from their escapades. The parallels with today’s celebrity-obsessed society are impossible to miss, yet one watches these characters with merely a moderately amused detachment.The procession of cameos from the seasoned supporting cast proves distracting - look there’s Jim Broadbent as a drunken Major, oh and isn’t that Peter O’Toole as a barmy father-in-law? There’s no real spark between the leading lovers (Mortimer’s Nina is more irritating than captivating), and the best performance comes from James McAvoy (Deathwatch), who in just a handful of scenes brings a much-needed depth of feeling to his tragic characterisation.

ur young hero, Adam (STEPHEN CAMPBELL MOORE), needs to get enough money to marry the beautiful Nina (EMILY MORTIMER - Young Adam, 51st State, Love’s Labour’s Lost, Elizabeth). His friends eccentric, wild, louche and entirely shocking to the older generation, seem one by one to selfdestruct, to crash and burn in their endless search for newer and faster sensations. Their world is that of the very young, wild, partyloving creatures new to gramophone records and the telephone - this is a self-consciously modern generation that cannot keep still for a second. They are known to the press, who follow their every move, as the Bright Young Things.

Bright Young Things Cast: Emily Mortimer, Stephen Campbell Moore, Dan Ackroyd, Jim Broadbent, Simon Callow, Jim Carter, Stockard Channing, Richard E Grant, Guy Henry, James McAvoy, Julia McKenzie, John Mills, Alec Newman, Bill Paterson, Michael Sheen, Imelda Staunton, David Tennant, Harriet Walter, Fenella Woolgar and Peter O’Toole.

n interviews to promote Bright Young Things, Stephen Fry drew parallels between his film and Trainspotting: both are literary adaptations which observe social cliques intent on pursuing personal pleasure, whatever the cost. Certainly the writerdirector gives his first feature a rapid tempo, which is at odds with traditional notions of heritage cinema. The cast hurtle through a series of extravagant parties and soirees, the quick-fire editing and loud jazz conveying the sense of lives played out at a heady pace amidst the glare of photographers’ flashlights.

Sex, drugs, dancing and jazz: Stephen Fry’s directorial debut is an adaptation of ‘Vile Bodies’, Evelyn Waugh’s inter-war satire on hedonistic young aristocrats

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Charlie Wilsons War

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Director: Mike Nichols Cast:Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, Phillip Seymour Hoffman.

here’s a funny thing that happens in Hollywood when there’s a war on. They tend to make a lot of movies about war. Perhaps it’s because of the very specific nature of America’s War on Terror. But in amongst the ‘Lions for Lambs’, ‘United 93’s and ‘Roads to Guantanamo’, - there haven’t been many War on Terror Comedies… at least not yet. Welcome to ‘Charlie Wilson’s War’, a fictional version of a true-life womanising borderline-alcoholic Texan congressmen (Tom Hanks) who along with a socialite Julia Roberts and a socially retarded CIA agent (played by Phillip Seymour Hoffman) funded a covert war in Afghanistan in the 1980’s. Driving out a soviet invasion, and accidentally giving rise to the Taliban. If you were ever a fan of the TV show, ‘The West Wing’ with its ADHD-paced scripts full of big words and characters much smarter than you, (let us face it) or any plausible human being, you’ll love this. ‘Charlie Wilsons War’ is written by the creator Aaron Sorkin. And the fun of this movie really is the script.The actors seem to have a ball while delivering quick, deadpan dialogue to each other - particularly Tom Hanks who has totally found his calling playing a a seedy old man with plastic hair. But…Charlie isn’t without flaws.

Right throughout this movie, we can sense the truly terrible direction of Charlie Wilsons War (by veteran Mike Nichols (Closer, Primary Colors, Postcards from the Edge, Silkwood, Catch-22,Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Graduate), who in his old age appears to have forgotten how to make a movie.)

Casanova Director: Lasse Hallstrom Cast: Heath Ledger, Sienna Miller, Jeremy Irons, Oliver Platt.

ince the silent days of cinema there have been over half a dozen or so movies made about legendary real-life heart-throb and adventurer Casanova, with a couple of mini-series thrown in. Now comes another big screen version of his life via Hollywood, Casanova. It stars Australian actor and 2006 Oscar nominee Heath Ledger (Brokeback Mountain) in the lead “ladies’ man” role, directed by Swedish filmmaker Lasse Holstrom (Chocolat,What's Eating Gilbert Grape?). Ledger pops on the powder and the big Amadaeus wig to frock-coat up as Giacomo Casanova, the 18th century lothario.We meet him as he is exiting a nun's bedchambers, pursued for the umpteenth time by the Catholic Church, furious at his ‘lascivious’ and ‘debauched’ ways. His only option is to settle down and marry, lest he be run out of Venice. Sienna Miller (Alfie) plays Francesca, the woman who steals Casanova’s heart. Only she won’t be won over by his dubious ways until he proves he is a man worthy of her love and progressive view on love and marriage. Casanova is forced therefore to don disguise after disguise in a Chinese box of deception to keep - (a) his sorry white bum in Italy, and (b) the hope of marrying the woman of his dreams alive. Make no mistake this light n’ fluffy romp is a Disney movie pure and simple but it is also a lot of fun and less daggy than you might think, aimed at a decidedly younger audience. Casanova the film possesses a wicked and playful sense of humour, especially whenever Jeremy Irons appears as the corrupt Bishop Pucci, pursuing the well-meaning but pathological liar, Casanova. It may not be as sophisticated a comedy as last year’s Stage Beauty (a film that also combined romance with crossdressing and gender wars), but it's still very enjoyable. Holstrom has come a long way since making Abba:The Movie in 1976, and clearly so has Ledger since 80s Oz TV series, Sweat.

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Director: Nora Ephron Cast: Nicole Kidman,Will Ferrell, Shirley MacLaine, Michael Caine.

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Cinderella Man Director: Clint Eastwood Cast: Russell Crowe, Renee Zellweger, and Paul Giamatti.

he last great Hollywood boxing movie was Million Dollar Baby, directed by the legendary Clint Eastwood, who, at the ripe old age of 75, cleaned up at the 2004 Oscars with his mighty movie. Rightly so - it’s a riveting drama about personal struggle and the sport of champions, boxing.

he latest TV show to be turned into a movie by Hollywood is Bewitched, the beloved 1960s series that made Elizabeth Montgomery a household name, playing suburban witch Samantha Stevens. Samantha has been renamed and revamped for this movie. Nicole Kidman, who we last saw in Birth, gets to pop on the pointy hat and play single girl Isobel, the good witch of the West Coast. Witch Isobel Bigelow (Kidman) wants the quiet life and suburban bliss. Despite her father Nigel’s protests (Michael Caine), Isobel moves to a ‘picket fence’ neighbourhood near Hollywood and waits to meet the perfect man. He turns out to be more imperfect, however. Will Ferrell plays hack actor Jack Wyatt, who just happens to be in talks to revive the TV series Bewitched. Jack talent-spots Isobel for the show and she talent-spots him as a potential beau. It all goes downhill from there. In spite of its post-modern plot, Bewitched isn’t very good. In fact, it’s a downright mess. The co-writers

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American director Ron Howard (Splash,Apollo 13) is no doubt hoping Clint’s lightning will strike his latest film at the looming 2006 Academy Awards. It too is about an underdog in the ring, only this one is based on someone’s real-life story, James J. Braddock. Cinderella Man possesses all the hallmarks of an “Oscar pic” and it reunites the director with Australian actor Russell Crowe (Gladiator), who was nominated for a Best Actor Academy Award for their last collaboration,A Beautiful Mind (2001).

The title Cinderella Man implies fairytale and that’s just what this film is. Only it’s a hellishly simplistic, over-sentimentalised fairytale that feels more like a Hallmark greeting card than the powerful, multi-layered drama it should have been.The good stuff: Crowe’s brute performance is fantastic to watch with the scenes shared by he and Giamatti terrific. (That’s when this film lifts out of an otherwise dreary, predictable Hollywood feel good funk). Plus there is also a lot of attention to detail spent on the period (1930s) and the ‘sweet science’ of boxing.

Cinderella Man is set in New York during the years of the Great Depression. Russell Crowe plays boxer Braddock, a working class hero who fights his way back into the ring after injury and disqualification. Battling controversy, and with a wife (played by Renee Zellwegger) and a young family to support, the odds are stacked against him. Braddock and his feisty manager Joe Gould (American Splendour’s Paul Giamatti) cook up a scheme to pit him against the reigning world heavyweight champ Max Baer (Craig Bierko), a proven killer in the ring.

And the bad stuff? Everyone in this pic is so squeaky clean and noble it makes our flesh crawl. It comes as no surprise as this is the kind of formula Howard’s movies possess. He has surely become the new Spielberg, ironically at a time when that director is making tougher, more uncompromising movies (see the dark War Of The Worlds). Howard also gave A Beautiful Mind the same of treatment, transforming an otherwise tough and complicated real-life story into an over-simplified feel good fairytale.

and director - serial ‘chick flick’ offenders, sisters Delia ‘Sisterhood Of The Travelling Pants’ Ephron and Nora ‘Sleepless In Seattle’ Ephron - got this one so wrong. Isobel is such a poorly drawn, limp character she kind of dishonours the memory of Montgomery’s Samantha Stevens, who was, after all, such a powerful female TV figure. And Kidman is as visibly uncomfortable in the part as she was as playing the lead in the recent Stepford Wives remake. And as she should be; Isobel is a flake. Screen veterans Michael Caine and Shirley Maclaine don’t fare much better, utterly wasted in their support roles, and while Will Ferrell gives it his best shot with a few good scenes (no doubt improvised), Bewitched is a pretty messy affair and worse, a wasted opportunity. Like Josie And The Pussycats (a very underrated TV show-to-film adaptation), Bewitched had ‘media industry satire’ written all over it. And it could have been a magical romantic comedy, not unlike James Mangold’s - again - underrated Kate and Leopold (2001) with Hugh Jackman and Meg Ryan. Instead it’s all smoke and mirrors.

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as in it.” But in life in ru 't n o “D ’t so easily dis n nt by declaring, e is d re u at u n co an a feature ies hum n a really mantic comed antic comedies ro m ro f o ty ould have bee ri a w o g it aj in e m is o he m rc rw e ve o th fleeting couraged. O the entire film gin a series of e b o ils tw va e re p th , ly ple who spend ead final ne of the short film. Inst les before love a years apart. O y ts b p o d ad te p e u v series of obstac o rr L te many e encounters in along with too ther. A Lot Lik , ge ts a n to d e n p m a u le d m e en e (A som and they tive nt Emily film’s more irk s slightly repeti . Before the blu it h r) is ac e h s, ro p tc ce u n ap e K t d timn en ci differ oomed by bad Oliver (Ashto expedient coin d l s fu h m e as b ile se m re ip e o sh th m lation no conare joining Peet) and nature. Their re walk away for d a word, they to ge an ss t. e ch ile gn ex in to ill e en yw have ev timeline an airplan ing and a read , headed up by ght confines of ti ey rn e th te , th at er p p in is is b h h u w T cl . ents a high g rather than vincing reason licated until ev p an u b d a re u is h it ’, fig o w to n ag u g s n year deavouri Having beg chapters like ‘7 seven years en t ex n . e e av th h d o d en th in e present. ip they then sp ve ri sh n ar o ti ly la al n re fi f o at kind llege out exactly wh fresh out of co is r te e o liv m O re t, is e e m hing that ”. In the When they first by formula, anyt ducks in a line st d is o n h u m ll o e b “a th d re r n an fo s hin ge , d In a with big dream er $50 that wit freshing. Indee h re ts is e b al d e n h o , an ti m k n is cynic ed. His ly unconve gaging spar face of Emily's d happily marri ove has an en t L an e e y e P th ik s. al L e ge t w o an L e as ch b part A years he will h her struggles harine-filled ex x it si cc w sa l f le o al ty ar ce p ili n b s se n goal ru of vulnera s flucwelcome ab pursuit of that contradiction s their fortune d A e r. e an gg h ja h ap it a , w gr ily d to m o le a ph imbues E ir interility coup an actress and e power in the , with a desirab iv t ce u ct n b e ra g, sp u in re ss m -a ir lf e ar is th se and ner is d tuate, so does des Her erratic man . vi ge ro p d e r e h ve si nship. tc u ra K ab mittent relatio y going Oliver. s as d e ar e w th to to ss g e wit in appeal a ready willingn nough barbed , e ile as h sm t . g p th ri in p n sc e in d ’s Lynch l motional him with a w director Nige Colin Patrick sh in the way of e ti e ri tl B is lit r d t o u an , b n g , ca le lin u r self-ridic instill a degree ep things bubb hether Kutche to ke w st d to e e b in is h rm b s te e e su de Girls) do ance and It's yet to be d what’s become ormance of nu Cole (Calendar st rf si e p re a ’t t n u r b e ca , ff e o re , h e t even ade. In idence h required to of restraint, bu her were in ev -inducing seren it ce e n in m w ly ar n e ai ch th rt : is e re t C fa stance. importan “I’ll Be rigueur for such manded. More n of Bon Jovi’s e io d it d ey n th re r re e e liv w apartnor this case it’s O yard of Emily's in spades. rt u at co th e as th h r in e g h ” sun tter and Kutc There For You would have be le o m C ai , cl ts n e ge m ga o m it.” at the bag ment. At such ce: “Don't ruin ns d Oliver meet vi ar an ad w ’s ily ily ily m m E m E E n , e n d h e o W collisi rved to he mid-air sexual f the inci- se o re o m g following their in h yt ng to make an him against tr yi

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LOVE A LOT LIKE

el Mann. el Cole Manning, Gabri yn ar T t, Director : Nig e e P a utcher, Amand Cast: Ashton K

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Dark Matter Director: Chen Shi-Zheng Screen Writer: Billy Shebar Cast: Liu Ye, Aidan Quinn, Meryl Streep, Blair Brown, Bill Irwin.

o set the scene: Liu Xing (Liu Ye) stands in front of Hubble University’s panel giving his theory on an expansion to his professor’s model of the origin of the universe. Jacob Reiser (Aidan Quinn) is Xing’s professor and on the panel as well. Reiser is quick to squash the dreams of his once favorite student because he has realized that his student is starting to surpass him. He says that he is over his head and in uncharted waters. Another one of the men on the panel leans over and says to Reiser, “Maybe we are over are heads.”

lead role in Lost In Translation specifically for Murray, seeing him - as did old pal Harold Ramis with Groundhog Day spectacularly well-suited to a romantic lead. Murray does what he always does best in Lost In Translation, bringing his own unique comic sensibility to the mix, but in a way never quite realised before on film.While retaining his hyper-laconic brand of ‘funny’, he is also allowed to ‘go slow’, meting out a performance as alluring as it is amusing as Bob Harris, a somewhat burnt out A-list Hollywood star who travels to Tokyo to make a Scotch commercial.

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“Dark Matter” is the story of Liu Xing, who is an overly bright student from Beijing who has been given the opportunity to work in America under his cosmologist hero, Jacob Reiser.The university is also a stomping ground to Joanna Silver (Meryl Streep), who tasks herself with bringing over Chinese students to hopefully make breakthroughs in science. Joanna takes a liking to Xing when he explains to her his breakthrough theory of dark matter in space. Soon Xing’s work surpasses anything is hero Reiser has ever done and therefore, out of jealousy, Reiser decides to stop Xing from

Lost In Translation is a love story, pure and simple, an intimate and uncompromising film that takes its cues from quiet art house contemplations as it does urban landscape photography. Scarlett Johansson (Ghost World) is equally as great as Murray in her performance as Charlotte, a young woman equally disconnected from her new marriage as Harris is from his one of twenty-odd years. Both characters occupy very different ends of the life spectrum yet somehow they find a deep, unspoken connection as they keep bumping into each other in the hotel they happen to share, unable to sleep and searching for something - or someone - who might make them feel better again.

progressing further.This sends Xing into a downward spiral, culminating in an extreme cinematic resolution. “Dark Matter,” directed by Chen Shi-Sheng, displays how treading in foreign territory, both geographically and cosmically, can be the biggest obstacle you may ever face. Meryl Streep was absolutely amazing in the film as Joanna and she had this great odd chemistry with Liu Ye’s character. Unfortunately, the tone shifted and the film just went downhill, finishing with one of the most ridiculous endings. It was definitely up there with film school cliche type of endings that was just uncalled for with the rest of the film, the seeming need to add edginess for edginess’s sake. Supposedly this is based on a true story but then cinematically the transition can be rough. The ending was the biggest mistake the director could have made with this film. This is a great film, to a point. Unfortunately the ending doesn’t deliver, making the entire feature an exercise is wasted potential. But maybe that’s the point.

Lost In Translation Director: Sofia Coppola Cast: Bill Murray, Scarlett Johansson, Giovanni Ribisi, Anna Faris.

ost in Translation is hands down the film we’ve been waiting for Bill Murray to make his entire career. Best known as a comedic actor in movies like Groundhog Day (1993),Tootsie (1982) and Ghostbusters (1984), more recently it has been younger directors like Tim Burton,Wes Anderson and now Sophia Coppola who have for the first time consistently tapped Murray as a dramatic acting force to be reckoned with. In Anderson’s Rushmore (1999) the true melancholia behind Bill Murray’s comedy was revealed in Herman J. Blume, the jaded dad and unwitting mentor to the equally morose little bloke Max Fischer, played by Coppola’s cousin Jason Schwartzman. In 1994 Tim Burton allowed Murray to cross-dress and still remain dignified in Ed Wood, a serious film about a seriously bad filmmaker. And John McNaughton cast his lead roles against type in Mad Dog and Glory (1993), cannily allowing Murray to play gangster to De Niro’s guileless victim. And boy did Murray do a mean job. Not really funny, he was kind of frightening this from the ‘funny man’ who made his name uttering hilarious lowbrow lines like “I smell varmint poontang” as the inbred greenskeeper Carl Spackler in Caddyshack (1980). Lost In Translation is Sophia Coppola’s second feature film after The Virgin Suicides (1999), her ethereal yet ultimately superficial and unsatisfying adaptation of Jeffrey Eugenides novel of teen woe. Coppola says she wrote the

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The union between Murray and Johanssen’s characters might seem unlikely. She turned 18 during the production and Murray is pushing 54, yet Lost In Translation is hardly the horrible older man/ younger woman romance that was Autumn in New York. The relationship these two characters embark upon is as graceful and understated as the exquisite Zen temples Charlotte takes to wandering through to fill her bored days.

It is clear from Coppola’s second film that her directing talent has evolved, Lost In Translation being a film as emotionally evocative and involving as The Virgin Suicides was not, and one that you might expect be written by someone far older

than her 34 years. It is about transience, chance encounters, random connection and a couple of people who don’t quite know what to do with their chance or each other. A delicious premise for a movie love story to be sure, and one of those movie experiences that reminds us just why it is we keep going back for more. Ê filmFOCUS

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Director: Tony Scott Cast: Denzel Washington,Val Kilmer, James Caviezel.

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Hollywood

Déjà Vu

f you like your blockbusters big, brash and full of it, then Déjà Vu is the movie for you! From the producer Jerry Bruckheimer (Pirates Of The Caribbean, Black Hawk Down,The Rock), it is the latest hightech thriller from the big end of town. It is helmed by none other than the king of ‘high concept’,Tony Scott (Days Of Thunder, Man On Fire, Domino). Déjà Vu marks Scott and Bruckheimer’s sixth partnership as producer/director since kicking off in 1986 with Top Gun.

Déjà Vu is also the third ‘creative’ union between actor Denzel Washington and director Scott, having previously collaborated on Crimson Tide (1995) and Man On Fire (2004).Washington plays hero Doug Carlin, an ATF agent investigating a murder after a massive bomb explodes on a New Orleans ferry. Recruited by a secret task force headed up by Agent Andrew Pyrzwarra (Val Kilmer), Carlin gets pulled into an even bigger mystery: a computer program that is able go back in time to surveil crimes before they happen. Becoming obsessed with the murder he is investigating - and the woman at the heart of it, Claire (Paula Patton) Carlin travels back three days in this virtual time machine in an attempt save this beautiful murder victim from her killer (The Passion of the Christ’s Jim Caviezel).

The worst thing that can be said about Déjà Vu is that it makes absolutely no sense. Poke around its time-space theories, hold it up to the light - any way you look at it this ‘time wrinkle’ malarky - shorthanded for us dumb movie folk - it’s full of holes - black ones. It would be grossly naive to expect anything more from a cheesy Bruckheimer blockbuster, but seriously, two hours is a long time to spend with a movie that you know is just pulling your leg. And the acting, well, it’s take the money and run time: Denzel all but walks through his role and Val Kilmer has seen better days.

Watching Déjà Vu, you can’t help but feel like you’ve seen it all before, as it’s not much more than a big screen version of Bruckheimer’s small screen hit, CSI, only with more bells and whistles.While it does whistle a lot of Dixie - mostly out of tune - at least Déjà Vu is nowhere near as offensive as Tony Scott’s movie Man On Fire.

rom the Producer Jerry Bruckheimer (Pirates Of The Caribbean, Black Hawk Down,The Rock), Déjà Vu is the latest high-tech thriller from the big end of town. It is helmed by none other than the king of ‘high concept’, Tony Scott (Days Of Thunder, Man On Fire, Domino).

Déjà Vu marks Scott and Bruckheimer’s sixth partnership as producer/director since kicking off in 1986 with Top Gun.

Déjà Vu is also the third ‘creative’ union between actor Denzel Washington and director Tony Scott, having previously collaborated on Crimson Tide (1995) and Man On Fire (2004).

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Eros

Cinema

create an atmosphere of bemused enigma feels more fumbling than compelling. It’s a joke without a punch line, filling the time with semi-clever dialogue that meanders through a sparse 26 minutes. Soderbergh reduces to irrelevance the sense of unfulfilled need that the material is presumably intended to evoke, leaving the audience frustrated rather than intrigued. Downey and Arkin are well-suited to the arch tone, but after the near-brilliance of Wong’s sequence, this one feels like an unbecoming fall to earth.

“The Hand” Director: Wong Kar-Wai Writer:Wong Kar-Wai Cast: Gong Li, Chang Chen. “Equilibrium” Director: Steven Soderbergh Writer: Steven Soderbergh Cast: Robert Downey Jr., Alan Arkin, Ele Keats. “The Dangerous Thread of Things” Director: Michelangelo Antonioni Writers: Michelangelo Antonioni,Tonino Guerra Cast: Christopher Buchholz, Regina Nemni, Luisa Ranieri.

nthologies are tricky business.To gather the visions of disparate film-makers into a single thematic whole takes far more bravery and commitment than a feature helmed by a lone director. It becomes especially perilous when one of the filmmakers is the legendary Michelangelo Antonioni and the others are acknowledged disciples of his work. Eros, a three-part exploration of the carnal links between men and women, sets out to pay homage to the Italian master while including a piece of his own in the process. It’s an uneasy mixture, as the two younger filmmakers (Wong Kar-Wai and Steven Soderbergh) approach their assignments with much more vibrancy than Antonioni does his. Is it fitting to see the torch passed to a newer generation? Or does the act of overshadowing a film-maker at the end of his life usurp the very purpose for which this exercise is intended? Eros is haunted by questions like these, drawing us away from the images onscreen and into the space behind the camera. In Wong’s case, at least, he comes dangerously close to trumping the entire affair. His “The Hand” (the piece that starts the film) is a subtly powerful meditation on desire and longing, setting a pace that the other two directors never match. In terms of dramatic structure, it’s the most organized and straightforward, telling the tale of a successful tailor (Chang Chen) who pines for a beautiful call girl (Gong Li) on his list of customers. Shot in opaque tones of blue and gray, it frames the relations between the two in unspoken intimacy.The tailor’s hands know every inch of her flesh; every curve and blemish has been measured precisely, even though their connection is supposedly only professional. Her lovers and patrons come and go, growing scarcer as the years pass by, but the devotion - and eroticized longing - of this quiet little man becomes the silent redemption of her life.Wong invests the story with deep emotional reservoirs, keying in to both the alienation of his central characters and the irresistible pull that binds them both together.The results are sublime. Sadly, once “The Hand” ends, the film has nowhere to go but down. Soderbergh’s piece, “Equilibrium,” provides some variety by opting for a lighter comic tone, but feels desperately at sea in the wake of its predecessor. Shot in a brisk noirish black and white, it recounts the psychological woes of a 1950s adman (Robert Downey Jr.) struggling with the ramifications of an intensely erotic dream. Soderbergh establishes a nice rapport between Downey and Alan Arkin, who plays his shrink, but the attempt to

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Between those two extremes is the film’s finale: Antonioni’s “The Dangerous Thread of Things.” Considering the director’s reputation, and the fact that he was in his 90s when filming began, it’s impossible to gauge the piece on its merits alone.The wistful, almost narrativefree portrayal of a disintegrating couple (Christopher Buchholz and Regina Nemni) and the woman who comes between them (Luisa Ranieri) has all of the trademarks of Antonioni’s earlier works.The sense of alienation and regret is there, as well as more technical elements like the long, gorgeously flowing camera shots and the sight of human bodies framed by an impossibly beautiful landscape.

As evocative as it is, however, it can’t help but feel like a sketch of his earlier work, a nostalgic look back that reminds us less of its own power than the slow diminishing of a brilliant cinematic light. It simply doesn’t linger in the mind with the strength of Wong’s piece, forcing it to compete for attention with a sequence supposedly trying to complement it.Taken by itself, all it can do is point to the past - a fading coda of a career in its final stages. That Antonioni can continue to make films at his age is remarkable; perhaps it asks too much, then, to compare his brief rumination here to the works of his prime.The remainder of Eros clings to his closing piece like one of its signature lovers, alternating between adulation and unintentional dismissal. Cinephiles will appreciate the richness on display, and the film remains a fascinating study, though one not entirely sure of itself. Is it a referendum on Antonioni? Or a true collaboration of which he is merely a single part? Eros leaves plenty of similarly shaky questions in its wake, nagging at its finer elements and diminishing its net effect. It works best in the abstract: a haunting collection of notes that can’t - and maybe shouldn’t - be tied together. Ê filmFOCUS

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Director: Richard LaGravenese Cast: Hilary Swank, Scott Glenn. Screenplay: Richard LaGravenese Book As Source Material: ‘Freedom Writers’ Producer: Stacey Sher

Cinema

Freedom Writers

he students are understandably skeptical, excruciatingly contemptuous. From where they sit, slumped and hunched, some with their backs literally turned away from the front of the room, Erin looks like the stranger she is. She’s an interloper, a do-gooder, a visitor from another planet called Newport Beach, and the class sees through her as if she were glass because the writer and director Richard LaGravenese makes sure that we do too. Funny how point of view works. If so many films about so-called troubled teenagers come off as little more than exploitation, it’s often because the filmmakers are not really interested in them, just their dysfunction. “Freedom Writers,” by contrast, isn’t only about an amazingly dedicated young teacher who took on two extra jobs to buy supplies for her students (to supplement, as Mr. LaGravenese carefully points out, a $27,000 salary); it’s also, emphatically, about some extraordinary young people. In this respect Mr. LaGravenese, whose diverse writing credits include “The Ref” and “The Bridges of Madison County,” appears to have taken his egalitarian cue from the real Erin Gruwell, who shares author credit with her students in their 1999 book, “The Freedom Writers Diary,” a collection of their journal entries. Mr. LaGravenese keeps faith with the multiple perspectives in the book, which includes Ms. Gruwell’s voice and those of her students, whose firstperson narratives pay witness to the effects of brutalizing violence, dangerous tribal allegiances and institutional neglect.The film pops in on Erin and her increasingly troubled relationship with her husband, Scott (Patrick Dempsey), and there’s a really lovely scene between the two that finds them talking ruefully over a bottle of wine about the divide between fantasy and reality in marriage, a divide one partner tries to bridge and the other walks away from. But while we keep time with Erin, we also listen to the teenagers, several of whom tell their stories in voice-over.

s a cinematic subspecies, films about teachers working with throwaway kids tend to follow a predictable arc involving conflict and resolution, smooth beats and bitter tears. Sometimes, as with “Dangerous Minds,” the 1995 film in which Michelle Pfeiffer uses her cheekbones to disarm high school toughs, the results are visible. Sometimes, as with the egregiously offensive “187” (1997), wherein Samuel L. Jackson makes like Charles Bronson with some bad students, it’s an argument for universal home schooling. “Freedom Writers,” a true story about a white teacher trying to make a difference in a room crammed with black, Latino and Asian high school freshmen, has the makings of another groaner. One worrisome sign is

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Hilary Swank, the two-time Academy Award winner with the avid smile who recently vamped across screens as a femme fatale in Brian De Palma’s period thriller “The Black Dahlia.” Ms. Swank is an appealing actress of, at least to date, fairly restricted range. In her finest roles - a transgender man in “Boys Don’t Cry,” a boxer in “Million Dollar Baby” - she plays women whose hard-angled limbs and squared jaws never fully obscure a desperate, at times almost embarrassingly naked neediness. In “Freedom Writers” Ms. Swank uses that neediness to fine effect in a film with a strong emotional tug and smartly laid foundation. She plays Erin Gruwell, who in 1994 was a 23-year-old student teacher assigned to teach freshman English

at Wilson High School in Long Beach, California. Twenty-two miles from downtown Los Angeles, this ethnically diverse port city, birthplace of both Bo Derek and Snoop Dogg, is south of Compton, right at the edge of Orange County. In 1992 the Rodney King riots that rocked Los Angeles spilled into Long Beach; recently the city made news for an alleged hate crime involving black teenagers charged with severely beating three white women. By the time Erin steps into her classroom, a scant two years after the riots, the climate inside is at once frosty and scorching. Turned out in a cherry-red suit and black pumps, her strand of pearls gleaming as bright as her teeth, Erin cuts an unavoidably awkward, borderline goofy figure.

Among the most important of those stories is that of Eva (the newcomer April Lee Hernandez), whose voice is among the first we hear in the film. Through quick flashbacks and snapshot scenes of the present, Eva’s young life unfolds with crushing predictability. From her front steps, this 9-year-old watches as her cousin is gunned down in a drive-by shooting. Later her father is arrested; she’s initiated into a gang. One day, while walking with a friend under the glorious California sun, a couple of guys pull up in a car and start firing in their direction. Eva dodges bullets and embraces violence because she knows nothing else; she hates everyone, including her white teacher, because no one has ever given her a reason not to. In time Eva stops hating Erin, though the bullets keep coming. It’s a hard journey for both women, one that includes other students, most of whom are played by actors who look too old for their roles and are nonetheless very affecting. None of these actors are outstanding, but two are memorable: the singer Mario, who plays an angry drug dealer, Andre, and another newcomer, Jason Finn, whose big, soft, moon face swells with fury and vulnerability as a homeless teenager named Marcus. Mr. LaGravenese isn’t a natural-born filmmaker, but he’s a smart screenwriter whose commitment to characters like Marcus makes up for the rough patches in his directing. Like Ms. Swank, who shares the screen comfortably with her younger co-stars, he gives credit where credit is due.

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icole Kidman plays Diane Arbus, the well-todo Manhattan wife who becomes one of the twentieth century’s most revered photographers in Secretary director Steven Shainberg’s “imaginary portrait” of an artist Even before the credits have rolled, it’s evident that Steven Shainberg’s film is not a traditional ‘biopic’. “This is a film about Diane Arbus,” reads an antiquated-looking title-card, “but it is not a historical biography.” Despite using Patricia Bosworth’s book ‘Diane Arbus: A Biography’ as a source, Shainberg and writer Erin Cressida Wilson, reunited after their highly successful 2003 film Secretary, take a leap into the unknown with this unusual attempt to express their subject’s inner life.

After a brief flash-forward, as Diane (Kidman) is about to take on her first photographic study at a naturist camp, the film rewinds three months. It’s 1958 in New York City and Diane (pronounced ‘Dee-Ann’) is hosting a party. Her husband Allan (Burrell) is a photographer, who has recently been shooting campaigns for the latest furs at Russek’s, the exclusive Fifth Avenue department store owned by

Diane’s father (Yulin). A devoted wife and mother-of-two, Diane is also her husband’s assistant - but it soon becomes clear that she has long since repressed any dreams of her own artistic expression. What - or rather who - brings Diane out of her domesticated shell is the subject of Fur. It is her mysterious (fictional) new neighbour, Lionel Sweeney (Downey Jr) who helps launch Diane into a wider world. Afflicted with a rare condition that causes hair to sprout all over his face and body - as a teenager shaving proved pointless because “it grew back so quickly, it was hardly worth the effort” - it’s no surprise that Lionel used to eke out a living as a circus freak.

Now making money by spinning wigs from his excess hair, Lionel hangs out with other ‘outsiders’ - from dwarves to a dominatrix - who accept him for who he is. But once he reveals the full extent of his condition to Diane, she does not back away; rather she finds genuine friendship with Lionel, at the expense of her life with Allan (who even grows a beard at one point in a desperate hope of winning her round) and her children.

Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus Director: Steven Shainberg Cast: Nicole Kidman

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Cinema

A Franco Zeffirelli Film

Director: Franco Zeffirelli Cast: Mel Gibson, Glenn Close, Alan Bates, Paul Scofield

he actors work so hard to give the language clear and natural readings that they sacrifice much of its poetic sound. But this tinkering is in the cause of creating a drama that speaks easily and directly to our own age.

For one early, painful moment, this method looks very inauspicious.The film invents a scene in the crypt of the castle, as the old King Hamlet is about to be sealed in his coffin. Glenn Close, as Gertrude, sniffles loudly over her husband’s body. Alan Bates, as the new king, Claudius, casts a leering look across the coffin at Gertrude. Campiness threatens until a hooded figure turns to face the king and we first glimpse Hamlet’s face. He bitterly calls his uncle and new stepfather “a little more than kin, and less than kind,” and from that moment the film is controlled by his dignified yet explosive presence.

he greatest dis-service Franco Zeffirelli did Mel Gibson was to tell interviewers he was inspired to cast “Hamlet” after seeing “Lethal Weapon.” There, as a grief-stricken cop who does a mean Three Stooges impression, Mr. Gibson puts a gun to his head and comes close to suicide.The scene, when you think about it, is “to be or not to be” with a vengeance, but it doesn’t lead directly to Shakespeare. It leads to jokes about “Lethal Bodkin” or “Mad Hamlet, the Road Warrior.”

The greatest service Zeffirelli did the actor, though, was to make that cockeyed connection. Mel Gibson’s Hamlet is strong, intelligent and safely beyond ridicule. He is a visceral Hamlet, tortured by his own thoughts and passions, confused by his recognition of evil, a Hamlet whose emotions are raw, yet who retains the desperate wit to act mad. He is by far the best part of Zeffirelli’s sometimes slick but always lucid and beautifully cinematic version of the play. At the start, the windswept medieval castle on a cliff jutting out to the sea suggests a classical “Hamlet.” But this naturalistic, emotionally-charged interpretation, the same approach that made Zeffirelli’s 1968 “Romeo and Juliet” so popular and artistically successful, is not for philosophers or purists. The screenplay, by Franco Zeffirelli and Christopher De Vore, freely plucks lines from one scene and drops them in another; the words are Shakespeare’s, though they are not necessarily here as Shakespeare put them.

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Mel Gibson is comfortable with the language and facile with his character’s everchanging demeanor. Hamlet is visibly changed to his core when his father’s ghost appears on a dark battlement demanding vengeance for his murder by Claudius. Gibson’s Hamlet is less in love with his mother than he is furious at her betrayal of love, justice and her son. He is most effective when he cries fiercely,“frailty thy name is woman,” and extraordinarily convincing when he denies his love for Ophelia and cries,“No more marriage!” If anyone is incestuous in this mother-son affair, it is Gertrude. She is girlishly infatuated and sexually hungry with Claudius, and far too attentive in the kisses she bestows on her son. Ms. Close makes her troubled without being monstrous.Yet there is too much posturing in her performance.When the Player Queen arrives, in the play that mocks the story of Claudius and Gertrude, the actor who portrays her does a wickedly accurate impression of Ms. Close, her chin jutting out, her nose in the air. The other actors are more subdued, including Alan Bates, who stops leering

and gives a solid performance. Helena Bonham-Carter is a wan Ophelia. As Polonius, Ian Holm has the impossible line, “to thine own self be true,” and he cannot conceal the strain of trying to make it sound fresh. But one of the film’s best scenes includes him, when Hamlet is acting mad, with one boot off and his shirt-tail out, calling Polonius a fishmonger. If it takes a while to forget Mel Gibson and believe in the character, that is partly the unavoidable curse of a movie star Hamlet and partly because Zeffirelli’s camera lingers far too lovingly on Mr. Gibson’s attractive face.And though Hamlet’s soliloquies are obviously set pieces, Zeffirelli cuts in and out of them so abruptly that they seem more like star turns than they should. But Gibson never plays them that way. There is evidence of a deeply troubled soul but no trace of “Lethal Weapon” hysteria when he looks out a window of the castle and says,“O that this too sullied flesh would melt.” He reserves his tears for the scene in Gertrude’s bedroom, when he mistakenly kills Polonius and confronts his mother with her betrayal. By this scene, when the depth of Hamlet’s sorrow and confusion surface in recriminations and pleas to abandon Claudius, Gibson’s movie star persona has been left far behind.

Despite Zeffirelli’s lavish attention to Gibson’s face, more often he creates a fluid and atmospheric style that keeps the camera moving but does not call attention to it. The film is richly photographed and elaborately produced. Glenn Close’s costumes alone can attract attention, with their flowing veils and elegant jewels. But the visual beauty is always a backdrop to the drama, not an end in itself. As the ghost, Paul Scofield appears like an actor from another, more classical realm. It is greatly to Gibson’s credit that his more natural, less mellifluous reading seems an equally respectable artistic choice. Mel Gibson may not be a Hamlet for the ages, but he is a serious and compelling Hamlet for today.

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Jarhead Director: Sam Mendes Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Peter Sarsgaard, Chris Cooper, Jamie Foxx.

arhead is the latest movie to put Donnie Darko star Jake Gyllenhaal front and centre. Swapping his cowboy hat from Brokeback Mountain for a combat helmet in Jarhead, Gyllenhaal plays Swoff, US Marine, a 20 yearold soldier about to go off to the Gulf War. (“Jarhead is the nickname Marines have for themselves, referring to their regulation buzz cut and/or the empty head space they have to get into in order to be psychologically ‘moulded’ for combat”). Swoff and his unit are primed for battle but become so bored with the lack of conflict in Operation Desert Shield they are driven to distraction.

Based on the memoirs of real-life Marine Anthony Swofford, Jarhead is a war film without a war, a hard type of movie to make successfully, if you think about it. For the most part, director Sam Mendes (American Beauty) gets it right, although in places the film feels a little too controlled for the outof-control story on hand. (Swofford’s book was a far more debauched affair). But the portrayal of the relentless boredom suffered

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by the young soldiers, trained for action, not in-action is perhaps the film’s biggest achievement, perfectly capturing the crushing ennui that went with that first US conflict in the Middle East.The performances in Jarhead are also excellent, especially Jamie Foxx’s as Swoff’s C.O., Staff Sgt. Sykes, and Peter Sarsgaard (Boys Don’ Cry, Kinsey) as Swoff’s unit buddy Troy. Cinematographer Roger Deakins brings a superb eye to the desert terrain, especially when the boys sit watching the gushing oil wells Saddam lit up as his parting gift to Kuwait, making a perfect visual back drop for the hell they endure. If anything, Jarhead is most let down by its “apolitical” stance, a deliberate line taken by the film-makers.While Jarhead is clearly sympathetic towards the young soldiers, it also feels a little too sympathetic towards the Gulf War effort, clearly as pointless as the soldiers waiting for a war that never comes. (That is the only thing in this movie that never gets said). It must have been difficult to make a flagrantly anti-war film about the Gulf, just as thousands of young US soldiers were being shipped off the current war in Iraq. As they say, the best war movies are antiwar movies, but Jarhead may not be quite anti-war enough to qualify as great.Very good will just have to do.

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“D

o you want to win the War on Terror?” There it is people, the quintessential Yes or No question of our times. So says Tom Cruise, as a smarmy Republican senator in Lions for Lambs. But is it so clear cut. Could it be that such a question is - just perhaps - the beginnings of the most complex, detailed, nuanced discussion of our time. And one that may well have no correct answer and a million wrong ones. Either way, the consequences of such a discussion will inevitably reverberate throughout history. And that is the kind of territory that Lions for Lambs is trying to tap into. Produced by Cruise and directed by Redford, Lions for Lambs is the latest in the recent string of Hollywood-goes-Seriously-Political films (Micheal Clayton, Mighty Heart, etc) and in simple terms this is how the plot lays out. It’s essentially three stories that overlap. First up, Meryl Streep is a skitish TV journalist who’s somehow been given an hour-long interview with Cruises’ aforementioned Senator.The senator has a plan, he says. One that will finally end the War on Terror. Second story:The Cruise Plan in Action.Two Marines are on a mission to take back the Afghan highlands. Thirdly, and most interestingly, is the story of Political Science Professor Robert Redford trying to convince his brightest student not to give up on Democracy, no matter how bad it is.

Yes, this movie can be outright didactic,Yes, it can get a bit lost at time. But, in spite of all of that Lions for Lambs holds us the whole way through.The key, is to think of it as a kind of cinematic conversation. A conversation between the characters on the screen, obviously, but also between you and the events on the screen. See, this isnt a ‘statement’ about American politics, as so many angry bloggers have accused it. Instead the film is simply initiating and engaging you in a debate exporing how America have gotten to where it is now? How their democratic process has become so compromised? Is it irretreivable? We’re talking big, sprawling complex questions and we get back a huge array of answers. It reflects ideas from both the far right and left and everywhere in between - Hell, at one point, someone even suggests reinstating the draft! But the thing that makes it so watchable is simply how well-argued all of these ideas are. Unlike recent pseudo-political Hollywood flicks like THE KINGDOM (same writer, interestingly) and BOBBY, this movie comes off as downright erudite as a clever examination of the world. And this is where the movie really pushes past those failings mentioned earlier.

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So can we agree that it works as prime ‘post-movie conversation fodder’ but how is it as a film? Well, the performances are great. Redford has the most amazing speeches. Cruise, casting himself as a untrustworthy, self-righteous politician is genius casting, and it also demonstrates a clear sense of how he’s perceived in the public and for that.

Director: Robert Redford Cast: Tom Cruise, Robert Redford, Meryl Streep.

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Lord of War Director: Andrew Niccol Cast: Nicholas Cage, Ethan Hawke, Jared Leto, Bridget Moynahan, Ian Holm, Sammi Rotibi.

t has been a little while since we’ve seen Nicolas Cage do what he does best on the big screen in a role worthy of his talent, but latest movie Lord of War, might just break this dry spell.

Woven together from “five real-life characters” and “years” of research, Lord of War is an ambitious film that drops the bomb on the secret world of international arms dealing. It is written and directed by Andrew Niccol, screenwriter of The Truman Show (1998) and writer/director of detached sci-fi, Gattaca (1997). Yuri Orlov (Nicholas Cage) is a con man. Everything about him is a fake, perfectly qualifying him for his move from small-time gun-runner in suburban Coney Island to big-time international arms dealer. The only relationship he can really hold down is with his younger brother and business partner,Vitaly (Fight Club’s Jared Leto). When Vitaly’s drug addiction comes between the brothers,Yuri goes it alone. The world becomes his oyster until, as he tells us through laconic voice-over, he encounters annoying Interpol agent Jack Valentine (Gattaca’s Ethan Hawke), and aggressive East African warlord, Baptiste Sr. (Oz’s Eamonn Walker), a ‘client’ who won’t take no for an answer. Ian Holm (Lord of The Rings) and Bridget Moynahan (Sex & The City) round out the solid cast as Yuri’s ‘business’ rival and ‘head-in-the-sand’ wife respectively. Lord of War isn’t your average big budget American movie. It’s one of those surprising gems that pretends to be a regular action movie but is actually something far more intelligent. Though not quite as emotionally engaging or chaotic as David O. Russell’s Gulf War satire Gulf War Three Kings (1999), Lord of War is still an at times jaw-dropping critique of American foreign policy, a massive comment on the nation’s giant crush on guns. Niccol employs Goodfellas (1990) swirling cinematic style to tell the story, combining voiceover with action and drama. Although at times over narrated (ie. too much information, not enough action), and some very obvious pop songs selection in its soundtrack, Lord of War is still a cut above. It is a big budget political film that is entertaining and very relevant. And as laconic “loner” Yuri, Nicholas Cage keeps the film on track with a rockin’ good central performance he was born to play.

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Director: Paul Weiland Cast: Patrick Dempsey, Michelle Monaghan, Hannah Beau Garrett.

he romantic comedy “Made of Honor” adds tart satirical flavors to a cottoncandy formula without sabotaging the sugar rush. Directed by Paul Weiland (“City Slickers II”), it begins on a nasty note when Tom (Patrick Dempsey), the putative Mr. Right in this taming-of-the-rogue fable, is introduced as a college boy wearing a hideous Bill Clinton mask and drunkenly bellowing for his Monica at a Halloween bacchanal. The movie then skips ahead 10 years to discover this obnoxious Lothario living high in New York City off the millions he has made from his invention of the paper-cup sleeve. When the latest bimbo to grace his bed wonders the morning after their hookup if she will see him that evening, he snaps:“I don’t do back-to-backs.Two nights in a row; I don’t do that.” He also lives by the 24-hour rule: Never call a date until a full day has passed.

The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, as they say.Tom’s wealthy father (Sydney Pollack) has been married and divorced so many times that he can’t recall whether his new wife is his sixth or his seventh. He is shown dressed up and heading toward the altar while frantically negotiating a pre-nup by cellphone with his bride-to-be, who circles the block in a limousine with her lawyer. The only sign that Tom has a heart is his strictly platonic friendship with Hannah (Michelle Monaghan), a fresh-faced director of acquisitions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art whom he has known since college.The two are such good pals that when Hannah tells him she has to go to Scotland for six weeks, he whines,“How can I live without you?” Hannah returns from Scotland aglow over her engagement to Colin (Kevin McKidd),

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a rich, handsome aristocrat with a brogue who galloped to her rescue when he spied her stranded in her car at a cattle crossing. Suddenly Tom realizes Hannah is the love of his life. But what can he do? He decides he should keep his mouth shut and strategize. When Hannah asks him to be maid of honor at her wedding in one of Colin’s several castles (his family has one for each season),Tom agrees in the hope that he can demonstrate how much he loves her and win her back. That many assume his role means Tom must be gay makes for some wan humor. “Made of Honor” scrambles the plotlines of “My Best Friend’s Wedding” and “Sweet Home Alabama” and changes the locales. It has gorgeous picture-postcard views of Manhattan and the Scottish countryside. It also ups the fantasy quotient. Nowadays it’s not enough for the designated princess in a romantic comedy to have one Prince Charming. She must have two to choose from.

Monaghan is an endearing screen presence, but her character has no personality.The movie can’t begin to explain the unlikely friendship of Tom and Hannah, for there is no rhyme or reason to it. If she were as bright as she is supposed to be, she wouldn’t tolerate his churlish treatment of other women. But she doesn’t seem to notice. Dempsey, who at 42 is too old for his role, does his best to infuse Tom with some boyish charm. Monaghan’s aura of fundamental niceness is the main reason that “Made of Honor” retains enough sweetness to satisfy the cotton-candy addicts. For true believers in fairy tales, no romantic fantasy is too extravagant if the heroine is a sweetheart. The rest of us can sit there and roll our eyes.

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Match Point Director: Woody Allen Cast: Scarlett Johansson, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, Emily Mortimer, Matthew Goode.

ince premiering at the Venice Film Festival, Woody Allen’s latest film Match Point has gainied a lot of attention, being hailed by many as a ‘return to form’ for the septuagenarian filmmaker. It is also the first film that Allen - a director so identified with his native New York City - has made abroad. Match Point is set and filmed entirely in London with a predominantly UK cast. It includes a mixture of older and younger actors, all equally adept at handling Allen’s dialogue and dramatic script; Jonathan Rhys-Meyers (Velvet Goldmine, Bend It Like Beckham), Emily Mortimer (Lovely & Amazing), Brian Cox (The Bourne Identity), Penelope Wilton (Shaun Of The Dead) and Matthew Goode (Imagine Me and You).The sole American to appear is young star Scarlett Johanssen (Lost In Translation, Girl With A Pearl Earring). It should appeal to Ê filmFOCUS

audiences young and old, and Woody fans old and new. Myers plays Chris Wilton, a young ex-pro tennis player who moves to London and takes a job as a tennis coach at a posh private club hoping to make it big.As luck would have it, he strikes gold quickly, befriending one of his pupils Tom (Goode), an incredibly wealthy businessman from old money.Tom’s family welcomes Chris with open arms, and he dutifully marries Tom’s sister Chloe (Mortimer). But always with his eyes on the prize, Chris embarks on an affair with Tom’s fiancé, Nola (Johansson), a young American actress struggling to find her way in her new London life, as is Chris.Their affair is short-lived, but when by chance they meet again it is rekindled with a passion.The affair is doomed to fail.Things eventually do go pear-shaped and the consequences prove fatal. Match Point begins with a quote about the nature of luck, where Wilton, the professional tennis player, points out

his philosophy for life; he’d “rather be lucky than good”. Ergo the film is a dark exploration of luck and morality, with ambition and infidelity thrown in for good measure. These are all themes Allen has visited before in his films, but perhaps never so single-mindedly. The main characters - namely Chris and Nola, seemingly both as attractive and flawed as each other - are sorely tested as they grapple with morals, ethics and passions. Like Allen’s sublime 1990 film Crimes and Misdemeanours - probably his last great film - Match Point is intensely compelling and at times terrifying, unfolding in ‘real time’, making it all the more intense experience. (Perhaps Match Point is the closest thing Woody Allen has made to a Hitchcock film?!) Unlike Crimes though, there is only incidental humour to alleviate the film’s growing tension and inevitable grim outcome. Match Point is a well-observed,

detailed portrait of the ‘haves’ and what one who ‘haves not’ might do to have it all. Allen’s insights into sexual politics and relationships in his films are not very profound or progressive, compassionate even, (in fact they can often downright off-putting and arcane). But it is entertaining - he certainly knows how to make films about such things. On that point, Match Point is a return to form for the director, the furthest thing away from the rehashed comedy he’s been serving up for years. And it’s a relief to be able to say that. Allen hails Match Point as his best film. But it is not quite up there with Crimes and Misdemeanours, Broadway Danny Rose (1984), Hannah & Her Sisters (1986) or Annie Hall (1977). But it is certainly the best film he’s made in at least ten years, one that will keep people talking for days afterwards. Ê filmFOCUS

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ive years ago, American comedian Tina Fey was made the very first female head writer on the legendary network TV comedy program, Saturday Night Live. Along with Jimmy Fallon, she has pushed the envelope on the ‘weekend update’ segment, making it more ‘hit’ than ‘miss’ than it had been in recent times on the program. Now Tina Fey also has a shot at pushing the envelope of the regular American teen movie with Mean Girls, her first ever screenplay. Adapting sociology book ‘Queen Bees and Wannabes’ by Rosalind Wiseman (a self-help guide for parents on how to navigate their teen daughters through the American high school system relatively unscathed), Fey tips her hat to a couple of the classic teen films from recent times, Michael Lehman’s perverse little comedy Heathers (1989) and Amy Heckerling’s sweet take on Beverly-Hills teen narcissism, Clueless (1995).

So Mean Girls becomes a tale of revenge after it does the requisite mapping of the school caf, introducing all the different characters, sub-cultures and outcasts. Lindsay Lohan (Freaky Friday) is Cady, Mean Girls’ star, a teenager who goes a savage education when she is dropped smack bang into the middle of the high school system after being home-schooled for most of her life. After being recruited by the Gay Guy and the Goth Chick, she enters into a plot to bring down the meanest, bitchiest and most superficial girls in the school, The Plastics.This proves not as easy as it first appears as the naïve Cady finds out.

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Director: Mark S.Waters Cast: Lindsay Lohan, Rachel McAdams, Daniel Franzese, Jonathan Bennett, Lizzy Caplan, Lacey Chabert.

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In spite of Fey’s best efforts (both as a the writer and co-star of the piece), Mean Girls isn’t a patch on Heathers or Clueless, but it is very good fun nonethless, possessing some nice comic touches.

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t’s a recognized fact that many epic love stories of literature and cinema transpire around or during a war. Consider, for example, Casablanca (World War II), Gone with the Wind (the American Civil War), Dr. Zhivago (the Russian Revolution), and Pearl Harbor. Memoirs of a Geisha falls into this category. At its heart, this is a romance that transpires against the background of an everchanging Japan during the 1930s and 1940s. Although the film is less concerned with the war than with the impact it has upon the characters, much of the final act could not have occurred without the influence of the postwar American occupation of Japan.

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hiyo vows to become a geisha and make him her patron.A celebrated geisha, Mameha (Michelle Yeoh), takes Chiyo under her wing.When Chiyo is ready to make her debut, she is given a “geisha name” - Sayuri - and introduced into society, where she must compete with Hatsumomo for the best clients.

The need for the film to be commercially viable is a drawback.Admittedly, the purist approach - all Japanese actors speaking in subtitled dialogue - while arguably the best way to present Memoirs of a Geisha, would have resulted in a box-office disaster. So, to broaden the film’s appeal,“name” Asian actors were chosen and the movie was made in English.Three of the major actresses Ziyi Zhang (Chinese), Gong Li (Chinese), and Michelle Yeoh (Malaysian) - are not Japanese.Their ethnicity isn’t really an issue, since most Westerners won’t know the difference. However, the decision for all the dialogue to be in English is more problematic. Zhang and Gong are not adept at this language, and their delivery and cadence is frequently off. Both are excellent actresses, but they don’t shine here, except in instances when scenes rely on the non-verbal aspects of their performances. Michelle Yeoh is more comfortable with English, and this makes her a standout.

Memoirs of a Geisha spent a lot of time in development hell before finally getting the green light.At one time, Steven Spielberg was set to direct (he remains on board as a producer). Several other names came and went, until the producers settled on Rob Marshall (Chicago). But, because Marshall was under contract to Miramax, some horse trading had to be done before he was free to make the movie.The film is an adaptation of the immensely popular Arthur Golden novel, and is about as faithful as a two-plus hour movie could be.

There’s no doubting that Memoirs of a Geisha is a lush motion picture, and it has much to recommend it, but this will not go down as one of the great screen romances of the 2000s.The love story, although competently told, never soars and, while satisfying, it doesn’t cause the heart either to break or take flight. One could argue that the movie is more about the lead character than her relationship with a man, but, by the way the story is told, it’s clear that Marshall and his screenwriters want the romance to be a key element.

Memoirs of a Geisha Director: Rob Marshall Producers: Lucy Fisher, Steven Spielberg, Douglas Wick. Screenplay: Robin Swicord and Doug Wright, based on the novel by ‘Arthur Golden’ Cinematography: Dion Beebe Music: John Williams Cast: Ziyi Zhang, Ken Watanabe, Michelle Yeoh, Kôji Yakusho, Kaori Momoi,Youki Kudoh, Gong Li, Kenneth Tsang, Suzuka Ohgo.

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he film opens with Chiyo (Suzuka Ohgo as a child, Ziyi Zhang as an adult) being taken from the small fishing village of Yoroido and sold to the proprietress of a Kyoto geisha house. At first, Chiyo’s lone goal is to find her sister, Satsu, from whom she has been separated, but, after a brief reunion, they are parted forever. Chiyo’s plans to become a geisha - a “moving work of art” who sells her skills, not her body - are dashed when she runs afoul of Hatsumomo (Gong Li), the house’s most consistent earner. For her infractions, she is denied the chance to attend the geisha school and must perform menial chores. But others see something in her.The Chairman (Ken Watanabe) recognizes her as a girl of amazing character and offers her a simple kindness.

To Marshall’s credit, he assembled as many Japanese actors as possible.Youki Kudoh (Snow Falling on Cedars) is solid as Pumpkin, Sayuri’s sometimes-friend, sometimes-rival. Kaori Momoi plays the crotchety landlady of the geisha house. Kôji Yakusho gives a passionate performance as the scarred Nobu.And Ken Watanabe (The Last Samurai) exudes nobility as the Chairman.The only nonAsian to have a speaking role of any significance is Paul Adelstein, and his part requires less than 15 minutes of screen time. Like The Joy Luck Club, this is a rarity - a motion picture made in the United States with an almost all-Asian cast.

For those who follow Asian cinema, there’s a note of irony surrounding Gong Li’s appearance in this film.The actress first gained the international spotlight for her work in the superb Raise the Red Lantern, in which she played an innocent preyed upon by older, more cunning women. In Memoirs of a Geisha, the tables are turned. In this instance, it’s Gong who’s the seasoned, nastier woman.The actress playing her victim, Ziyi Zhang, is the woman who took up with Gong’s ex-lover, Zhang Yimou, after Zhang and Gong underwent a traumatic and public breakup in 1995. It’s not surprising how sumptuous the movie looks, or how rich it is in atmosphere. During the early scenes, as Sayuri and her sister are taken from their homes and separated, the film’s tone and mood are perfect. It’s Charles Dickens filtered through Japan. Later scenes are equally well developed. Marshall’s primary aim seems to have been to make Memoirs of a Geisha look right. The World War II era Japan’s detail appears to be on the mark. John Williams’ score, which has a suitably Japanese flavor, complements the visual elements. Emotionally, although Memoirs of a Geisha is not inert, it lacks the ability to wrench the viewer. There are times when it feels muted. The story offers insight into what geishas were in the “old” Japan (“not courtesans, not wives”) and the “new” one (“anyone can buy a kimono and call herself a geisha”) and, by extension, the kind of seismic shift undergone by Japanese culture after the war. The central love story is more complex in the book, but Marshall distills it to its essence so the resolution is defined for cinema-goers. Memoirs of a Geisha is worthwhile on many levels, although it lacks the depth of feeling that would have elevated it from a good movie to a romance for the ages.

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Million Dollar Baby Director: Clint Eastwood Cast: Hilary Swank, Clint Eastwood, Morgan Freeman.

s an actor and director, Clint Eastwood has, for the most part, made films which examine ‘ordinary’ men battling giant human flaws - think Unforgiven,Tightrope, Dirty Harry and especially his last brilliant film, Mystic River. He shifts sideways slightly with Million Dollar Baby, making room for a wonderful strong female character struggling with insecurities of her own. But this doesn’t mean Clint has taken his eye off the ball. True to his most recent form as a filmmaker, Million Dollar Baby is one great movie. Hilary Swank (Boys Don’t Cry) plays Maggie Fitzgerald, a young dreamer who wants to crash the traditionally male-dominated world of boxing, to slug her way out of an impoverished life.Veteran boxing coach and gym owner Frankie Dunn (Eastwood), will have none of it. Boxing and girls just don’t go together as far as he is concerned - it’s nothing more a cheap gimmick in a world that has gone to the dogs. Frankie is battling an estrangement with his own daughter so getting this up close and personal with a young woman around her age is sure to prove far too painful.

Of course, Maggie persists and Frankie relents. She has tons of heart, some raw talent, and as his long time friend Scrap (Morgan Freeman) tells him in no uncertain terms, Frankie is getting way too old to throw away another sure-fire bet.

Million Dollar Baby is based on a short story by ex-boxing “cut man” F.X. O’Toole, and as he did with Mystic River (2004) and Unforgiven (1992) - also literary adaptations - Eastwood and his regular collaborators turn the original author’s words into a wonderful cinematic experience. Million Dollar Baby is a distant cousin to great boxing films like John Huston’s Fat City (1972) and more recently, Karyn Kusama’s Girlfight (2000), where boxing represents a way out for those with nothing, out to make something of themselves. But no-one can prepare us for where this film eventually goes. Million Dollar Baby is a gentle, gritty, slow-burn of a drama: an exciting boxing movie that shifts into a surprising and intense look at family and the ties that bind, in the way only a Clint movie can. It’s a beauty.

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Inspiring teachers and their impact on their students is a well that has been dipped into many times before in movies like Mr Holland’s Opus and Dangerous Minds, but it’s the gentrified setting of Dead Poets Society that draws the obvious comparisons here. Newell has assembled a masterful cast, especially to portray the students who range from the bitterly cruel Betty (Kirsten Dunst) to the stubbornly grounded Joan (Julia Stiles) to the promiscuous Giselle (Maggie Gyllenhaal). Smart but inexperienced,Watson is initially unsettled when faced with a class full of bright and well prepared pupils, but her trepidation proves unfounded when she discovers that away from the security of the syllabus, the girls are less assured. Along with expanding their minds, she encourages them not accept the defined roles that have been mapped out for them. Her “subversive” teaching methods cause her problems with the faculty, but endear her to her students who come to embrace her as a liberating and inspiring figure. Inevitably in a film involving Roberts, there’s a romantic element. As Watson adapts to her new life, she is torn between an old flame (John Slattery), the Wellesley womaniser Dunbar (Dominic West) and her fierce independence. Roberts does a wonderful job of capturing the vivacity and integrity of Watson succeeding, as she did in Erin Brockovich, in being able to transcend her looks and add substance to that smile.

Unlike the film’s namesake, there is nothing enigmatic about Mona Lisa Smile. Many of its characters lack subtlety, particularly the unctuous Dunbar, and the story travels down an all to predictable path, but it does offer some fine performances and an evocative glimpse into an unfamiliar world.

Mona Lisa Smile Director: Mike Newell Starring: Julia Roberts, Kirsten Dunst, Julia Stiles, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Dominic West, Marcia Gay Harden.

ulia Roberts takes on the Robin Williams role in this engaging female variation on Dead Poets Society. Mona Lisa Smile is set in Wellesley, “the most conservative college in the nation” in the 1950’s.The privileged students are taught invaluable rules of etiquette and propriety, like how to cross and uncross their legs, as a means to attract a suitable husband.Wellesley openly prepares its pupils not for careers but for lives of domesticity and subservience.Thrust into this staid arena, as Wellesley’s new history of art teacher, is the free-thinking and liberal Katherine Watson (Julia Roberts). Written by two men, Lawrence Konner and Mark Rosenthal, and directed by Mike Newell, best known for his hilarious depiction of upper class antics in Four Weddings And A Funeral, Mona Lisa Smile takes a pointed stance on the stifling morals and expectations imposed on the country’s elite young women in mid-century America.

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Nim’s Island Directed by Mark Levin and Jennifer Flackett;Written by Mark Levin, Ms. Flackett, Paula Mazur and Joseph Kwong, Based on the novel by Wendy Orr; Director of photography: Stuart Dryburgh; Edited by Stuart Levy; Production Designer: Barry Robison; Produced by Paula Mazur.

Nim’s Island Director: Mark Levin Cast: Jodie Foster, Abigail Breslin, Gerard Butler.

f “Nim’s Island” were anything but a children’s movie, the casting genius who suggested Jodie Foster as a potential love interest for Gerard Butler would be looking for a new occupation. But miscasting isn’t the only problem with this sweet adaptation of Wendy Orr’s novel, a comedy-adventure that never quite finds its tone. The island in question lies deep in the South Pacific (beautifully played by the Gold Coast of Australia) and is home to Nim (Abigail Breslin) and her father, Jack (Butler). Motherless and near-fatherless (Jack spends his days studying plankton), Nim amuses herself with a stable of performing pets and the literary adventures of an Indiana Jones-style hero named Alex Rover. When Jack is trapped by a storm at sea, and Nim sends an e-mail message to Rover for help, she’s unaware that the recipient is his agoraphobic creator, Alexandra (Foster).

Playing yet another tightly wound woman, Foster makes a slapstick meal of rushing to Nim’s aid.Yet this is a story about hiding from the world - whether on a remote island or inside your head - and the film’s sensitive notes are too often jarred by its attempts to score cheap comic points from sea lion flatulence and obese Australian tourists.The message that lifelong connections can be forged through books is a lovely one; too bad it’s obscured by flying lizards. Directed by Mark Levin and Jennifer Flackett;Written by Mark Levin, Ms. Flackett, Paula Mazur and Joseph Kwong, Based on the novel by Wendy Orr; Director of photography: Stuart Dryburgh; Edited by Stuart Levy; Production Designer: Barry Robison; Produced by Paula Mazur.

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rad Pitt, George Clooney, Julia Roberts and Matt Damon - all together again in one movie. It could only mean one thing: the sequel to Ocean’s 11, Steven Soderbegh’s 2001 remake of the classic 1960 Brat Pack movie, is out. And to state the bleeding obvious, what else would it be called other than Ocean’s 12?

Ocean’s 12 Director: Steven Soderbergh Cast: George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts, Andy Garcia, Bernie Mac, Matt Damon, Don Cheadle, Casey Affleck, Catherine Zeta-Jones.

Three years post-casino heist and Danny Ocean (George Clooney) is living the highlife. He and ex-wife Tess (Julia Roberts) are back together and everything is going according to plan.That is, until Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia), the high rolling casino owner Danny and his ten ‘crim’ buddies ripped off $160 million bucks, shows up, muscle in tow, demanding his money back.With interest of course. And he won’t take no for an answer. The hoods get back together, go to Europe, where the film threatens to turn into The Italian Job, another 60s heist film remade earlier. As a fan of British cinema, Soderbergh shows his hand early, employing the same kinds of cross-cutting techniques, time lapses and hand-held flash that characterised his hero Richard Lester’s films, by whom Soderbergh is by admission so influenced. But be warned. Ocean’s 12 is no patch on his previous movies - for excellence see The Limey (1999), Out Of Sight (1998) and his other very brave remake, Solaris (2002). Nor is it the wonderful piece of pop entertainment that was Ocean’s 11.The attempts at playfulness which absolutely made Ocean’s 11 - fall completely flat here, the plot is way too convoluted, and there are actually way too many characters to keep up with. Plus, most of the cast looked like they were only on set in between shifts at a card table themselves. Nice work if you can get it, but please?! Do we have to see the film that goes with it as well? Way too indulgent.

Catherine Zeta-Jones is really this film’s only saving grace. Her performance as Isabel, Brad Pitt’s ex-girlfriend-come-Interpol agent, is awesome. But this film isn’t. Julia Roberts is backed into a horrible self-parodying corner that rivals Full Frontal (2002) - Soderbergh’s last attempt at experimentation - for sheer indulgence. As taut and terrific affair as Ocean’s 11 was, Ocean’s 12 isn’t. Soderbergh has made a vanity project for its all-star cast, ironically in keeping with the tradition set up by the 1960 original. But the reason Ocean’s 11 was such a breath of fresh air was because it defied that conceit. Returning to it hasn’t worked. It is disappointing Soderbergh’s heart wasn’t in Ocean’s 12 - it’s pretty clear from watching this movie that it wasn’t - because we all know what he can do when he cares. He is still one of America’s most talented and interesting directors, but!

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Renaissance Director: Christian Volckman

neo-noir set in mid-21st century Paris. Computer-generated, monochrome vision of the future featuring the voices of Daniel Craig, Jonathan Pryce and Catherine McCormack. A stunning exercise in high-tech film-making, Renaissance uses motion capture and strong design to create a striking, starkly black-and-white vision of a future Paris. It’s 2054, and good-time girl Bislane (McCormack) is surprised to see her scientist younger sister Ilona (Garai) in her favourite nightclub. Ilona has been meeting a local dealer. Immediately afterwards, Ilona is kidnapped.Tough cop Captain Karas (Craig) is specifically requested for the job by Dellenbach (Pryce), the head of Avalon, Ilona’s corporate employer. With a frustrating lack of evidence or clues, Karas’s investigation moves slowly, but he gradually pieces together a case involving dubious research into the degenerative, premature aging disease progeria. Dr Jonas Muller (Holm), an Avalon employee, conducted research into the disease back in 2006; Ilona herself was working on progeria research for Avalon.

Meanwhile, Karas and Bislane begin an intense relationship. Karas’s investigations bring him into contact with Farfella (Malikyan), an Arab gang lord and a childhood friend of the cop.Will Karas be able to make the connections between Muller’s work and the kidnapping? And just what is Avalon up to?

Renaissance

It’s pretty obvious the giant corporation is the bad guy here, much like the Tyrell Corporation in Blade Runner, Renaissance’s most obvious forebear and strongest influence. Avalon has huge animated billboards throughout Paris, advertising beauty products and assuring the populace “We’re on your side, for life”.You know you can’t trust a corporate boss who says their research is merely about “making life better for everyone”. But Renaissance doesn’t just recall Blade Runner: this is a remarkable

hybrid of different cultural forebears. In the mix, alongside Ridley Scott’s hugely influential film, are traces of the classics Akira and Ghost In The Shell (which itself is influenced by Blade Runner), the traditions of Francophone bande designee (comic books), and French noir films like La Balance and Le Samourai, with their edgy, seedy world of gangs, informants and trench-coats.The visual style is also reminiscent of the neo-noir US comic book writer/artist Frank Miller created for his ‘Sin City’ books.There’s even a dash of The Matrix, perhaps inevitably, in this high tech world. Also apparent is the legacy of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, in the film’s astonishing version of Paris, where landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame and the Sacre Coeur are intact, but the city has been extrapolated around them, with soaring apartment blocks, high tech offices, raised walk-ways, glass-roofed sublevels, and the Seine itself, seemingly eaten into the ground. It’s both futuristic and retro, the whole bolted together by the sort of ironwork that makes up the Eiffel Tower. The architectural design is by Alfred Frazzani, but he’s just one of the talented team that’s brought this unique world to life. The original visual concept is credited to Marc Miance, while the film is the feature debut of director Christian Volckman. The picture reportedly cost only $18 million, which is a pittance given its epic scale. Not only are its environments huge and elaborate, the whole is populated by myriad characters, oddly lifelike thanks to their generation through motion capture techniques. Not only do they move well, the characters are also highly expressive, an achievement considering this is not just animation, but extremely stylised animation, all realised in crisp black and white, with no tonal middle-ground. The story itself is clichéd, with the maverick cop hero even throwing down his badge at one point, but it’s intriguing enough to carry the film along (towards the end it loses the momentum a bit).And while the drama plays out, the images provide a consistent visual treat.

Director: Christian Volckman

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Savage Grace Director: Tom Kalin Cast: Julianne Moore, Stephen Dillane, Eddie Redmayne, Hugh Dancy, Elena Anaya, Unax Ugalde.

“S

avage Grace,” Tom Kalin’s long-awaited second feature (after “Swoon”), swoons through a number of lovely, storied places on its way to a sad and sordid end. Narrated by Tony Baekeland (played in young adulthood by Eddie Redmayne), it begins in the post-World War II Manhattan of late-night dinners at the Stork Club and moves on to Paris in the ‘50s and then to Spain (Cadaqués and Majorca, to be precise) in the late 1960s and London after that. Written by Howard A. Rodman, “Savage Grace” follows the true, appalling story of Tony and his parents, played by Stephen Dillane and Julianne Moore. Brooks Baekeland, heir to a plastics fortune (his grandfather invented Bakelite), is frustrated by his own lack of ambition and less than kind to his wife, Barbara. For her part, Barbara is impulsive and also somewhat pretentious, striving to jam herself into social niches where she won’t comfortably fit. Greeting a literary scholar who has come for lunch, she asks: “Was Proust truly a homosexual? Qu’est-ce que tu penses?” That line, like so many others in Rodman’s script, is written and delivered with an arch, brittle self-consciousness that becomes oppressive over time. While it’s likely that the diction and phrasing of the dialogue approximates the idioms of rich expatriates during the decades in question, the characters still seem vague, stilted and unreal.

‘Savage Grace,’ based on the award winning book, tells the incredible true story of Barbara Daly, who married above her class to Brooks Baekeland, the dashing heir to the Bakelite plastics fortune. Beautiful, red-headed and charismatic, Barbara is still no match for her well-bred husband.The birth of the couple’s only child,Tony, rocks the uneasy balance in this marriage of extremes.Tony is a failure in his father’s eyes. As he matures and becomes increasingly close to his lonely mother, the seeds for a tragedy of spectacular decadence are sown. Spanning 1946 to 1972, the film unfolds in six acts. The Baekelands’ pursuit of social distinction and the glittering ‘good life’ propels them across the globe.We follow their heady rise and tragic fall against the backdrop of New York, Paris, Cadaques, Mallorca and London.

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The Life Before Her Eyes

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Directed by Vadim Perelman; written by Emil Stern, based on the book by Laura Kasischke; director of photography: Pawel Edelman; edited by David Baxter; music by James Horner; produced by Perelman, Aimee Peyronnet and Anthony Katagas. Cast: Uma Thurman, Evan Rachel Wood, Eva Amurri, Gabrielle Brennan, Brett Cullen, Jack Gilpin and Oscar Isaac.

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“T

he Life Before Her Eyes,” from director Vadim Perelman (“The House of Sand and Fog”), is adapted from a well-regarded novel by Laura Kasischke.The movie has its good points too, notably an eerily mesmerizing performance by Evan Rachel Wood. But there’s an air-tight quality to the movie, an offkilter contemporary gothic complete with weird nuns, writhing Pentecostals and a disaffected high school kid with a semi-automatic weapon, that makes it feel like a formal exercise.Though atmospheric and occasionally suspenseful, its gimmickry keeps it from being transcendent. High school best friends Diana (Wood) and Maureen (Eva Amurri) pop into the bathroom before class one day and suddenly hear gunfire and screaming outside the door. Moments later, the gunman, a fellow classmate, bursts in and demands that the girls choose which one of them will get to live.The friends cry, plead for their lives, hesitate, and the next thing we know, a 40-year-old Diana (Uma Thurman) is waking up from another restless night.

70 Maureen, you assume, is long dead. An anxious suburban housewife, Diana is nothing like the spirited high school girl we’ve seen in previous scenes. Married to a college professor, whom she appears to have met and fallen in love with while still in high school, and mother to a mischievous 8-year-old named Emma (Gabrielle Brennan), Diana is edgy, insecure, disoriented and increasingly nervous despite having clicked into a seemingly idyllic life. She lives in a sprawling old house and teaches art history at a community college but a nightmarish pall hangs over her life.

ut with the girlish excitement filling the cinema, it seemed unlikely anyone would heed her plea. Just in case none of us remember, the producers of the much-awaited film version of the hit TV series remind fans with a quick recap at the start of the film where the four characters were at the point we left them when the series ended.

Three years on, the two Ls are still carrying the storyline along: labels and love. In the first half-hour we’re bombarded by so much brand placement that one might as well be witnessing an extended Vogue photo shoot brought to life. Ê filmFOCUS

While love scenes between the happy characters brought not so much as a murmur from the audience, a Vivienne Westwood dress and a Louis Vuitton handbag provoked coos of heartfelt admiration. The triumph of capitalism is as unabashed as it always was but given, if possible, a greater ironic twist.

And as the film progresses, the seemingly adult and perfect lives of the four forty-somethings start to show cracks. Miranda’s husband Steve commits an act she may never be able to forgive him for while Samantha’s ego threatens to derail her relationship with Smith Jerrod. Just Charlotte seems to have escaped the New York clique’s curse.

In 20 years, Carrie Bradshaw, the lovelorn journalist, has come a long way: she is engaged to a billionaire, who can offer her a walk-in wardrobe and more Manolos than she can ever dream of - but the consumer Cinderella has a crash heading her way.

It is only in the last 10 minutes that we find out whether the fairy-tale has the happy ending the audience so desperately seemed to crave. But one thing’s for sure: fans of the series will lap this film up. It was coarse, sentimental, and outrageously materialistic - just as we hoped and expected it would be.

As the movie cuts between Diana as a rebellious teenager and Diana as a timid adult, the sense that something is not quite right with her grows. Clearly suffering from some kind of survivor’s guilt, she seems unable to separate her past from her present, both of which have the quality of dreams thanks to Pawel Edelman’s eerily beautiful camera work. The restlessness of her youth seems to have turned into a constant searching in adulthood, and it’s a recurring motif in the adult Diana’s life that she always seems to be looking for someone - her daughter, her student, her husband. Beautifully constructed and shot, the movie builds toward its unexpected, if not exactly mind-blowing conclusion, but though it hints at some interesting thematic elements, Perelman doesn’t delve into them very deeply.You get the feeling that somewhere in the source material, there are all sorts of meditations on women’s assigned roles in life. But Perelman doesn’t quite get close enough to his characters for their predicaments to fully resonate.

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Woman On Top Director: Fina Torres Cast: Penélope Cruz, Murilo Benicio, Harold Perrineau, Mark Feuerstein, John deLancie.

ultry Spanish senorita Penelope Cruz stars in her first English language role in Fina Torres’s spicy comedy Woman On Top.This sexy romantic fable about the magic of food and love shows chef Isabella Oliveira (Cruz) as the talk of the Brazilian port city of Bahia. Her magical culinary skills light up the seafood restaurant owned by her husband Toninho (Benicio). But his sheer frustration of her constant domination leads to a dalliance.

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And when she finds him in flagrante, she flees to San Francisco to room with cross-dressing best pal Monica (Perrineau). Starting from scratch, Isabella earns fame and fortune as a TV chef on Passion Food Live, under the wing of station producer Cliff Lloyd (Feuerstein) who has a soft spot for his new star.

Benicio and Feuerstein vie as the two men in Isabella’s life and both spark potent screen chemistry with their leading lady. Meanwhile, Perrineau lords it as the flamboyant comedy side-kick, squeezing into increasingly colourful outfits in search of her own Mr Right.

But Isabella just can’t get over Toninho and when her husband turns up, desperate to win her back, the temperature soon reaches boiling point.

But the screenplay’s reliance on a magical sea goddess to untangle Isabella’s knotty affairs of the heart is deeply unsatisfying. Likewise, the decision to pair up all the leading actors before the end - even finding a boyfriend for Monica - is one contrivance too far.

Cruz looks ravishing and her energy and enthusiasm atones for her occasional problems delivering her lines in English.

Gripes aside,Woman On Top is a light and sensual cocktail of romance and laughter, set alight by Cruz’s screen magnetism. Drink it up while she’s hot.

Woman On Top is a light and sensual cocktail of romance and laughter, set alight by Penelope Cruz’s screen magnetism. Drink it up while she’s hot.

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Stranger Than Fiction Director: Marc Forster Cast:Will Ferrell, Dustin Hoffman, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Queen Latifah.

tranger Than Fiction is a ‘movie marriage’ made in heaven. The betrothed are talented young writer Zach Helm - one to watch - and director Marc Forster (Monster’s Ball, Neverland). It is Helm’s first screenplay and Forster’s first comedy after what seems a career cemented in the "sad" (especially if you add Stay (2005) to the list).Alchemy was at work as Stranger Than Fiction makes you fall in love with film all over again...

In Melinda & Melinda (2004) we caught a glimpse of the dramatic actor trapped inside Will Ferrell’s comedian body. He always had this ‘every man’ role in him: Harold Crick, a forlorn tax man with not much of a life.Trapped in a routine, bland existence, one day he is hauled out of his fog by two key events. Firstly - and inexplicably - a voice inside his head (not his own, female in fact); and secondly, a meeting with a woman he could fall in love with, ‘boho’ baker Ana (Maggie Gyllenhaal), whom he is sent to audit. Harold worries he is losing it.Turns out however that the voice inside Harold’s head - narrating every detail of his mundane life - belongs to ‘real-life’ author, Karen Eiffel (Emma Thompson), in the last desperate and depressed throes of fin-

ishing her Great American Novel, of which it seems Harold is the subject. She is trying to kill off her leading man which has fatal implications for Harold.Trying to solve this mystery, he consults Literature Professor Jules Hilbert (Dustin Hoffman in another eccentric role as in I Heart Huckabees). If he doesn’t he faces a certain death - ‘death by narration’. While it all sounds very high concept and madcap, the opposite is true for this film. Helm and Forster take great pains to make the plot very plausible, never once explaining why this ‘magical intersection’ came about - a bold move. It just ‘is’, in the most existential sense. (The film itself is very existential in tone). Dustin Hoffman and Maggie Gyllenhaal give their all in plum sup-

port roles - only Queen Latifah is a bit short changed as minder Penny, sent by the publisher to keep her Karen to deadline. Comparisons to the aforementioned I Heart Huckabees plus Charlie Kaufman movies - Adaptation, Being John Malkovich, take your pick... - are fair here. Screenwriter Helm also has a mighty strong voice-as-writer, and the gift of imagination, self-reflexivity and insight into modern melancholy blighting the today’s ‘every man’. While funny, Stranger Than Fiction is equally sad, if not more so. It is a contemplative film about the act of writing, the life of an artist, and filled with moving ideas about finding joy and not wasting the life one has in this world.

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Cast: Ashton Kutcher, Amy Smart, Melora Walters, Elden Henson, William Lee Scott, Eric Stoltz.

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ccording to the concept of chaos theory, a rather vague and illdefined phenomenon which became popular in the 1980s, the world is an utterly confounding place. If a butterfly flaps its wings in China, its most famous maxim goes, it could cause a hurricane on the other side of the world. Of course, nobody has actually proved this, but it has been food and drink to many radical scientists and thinkers, as well as providing entertainment for countless psychedelic drug-takers along the way. Such is the basis for The Butterfly Effect, created, we are worryingly informed, by the writers of Final Destination 2.

The film stars Ashton Kutcher, who is almost famous over here for being the younger lover (and soon to be husband) of Demi Moore. He also hosts the MTV Candid Camera-style show Punk’d, in which celebrities find themselves in all sorts of pickles only to discover Ashton is at the centre of it all. Kutcher’s most famous big screen role to date is that of the perpetual stoner Jesse in Dude, Where’s My Car?

Kutcher plays Evan Treborn, who at the opening of the film is resident in a psychiatric hospital. Evan is a troubled young man and we learn that a dark event in his past has altered his short-term memory. Through a series of flashbacks we learn that Evan and a group of childhood friends committed a terrible, if accidental, crime, and the consequences have had damaging effects on all of them. Evan’s only solace is a daily diary he keeps of everything that has happened to him since, and through some mysterious power, he is literally able to jump back into his past and change events when he reads out pages from his diary and concentrates really hard. Confused? You’re likely to be, especially as the film consists of scene after scene in which Evan goes back in time and tries to change the pattern of his current life. Along the way we have plenty of disturbing scenes involving babies being blown up, a dog being burned alive in a bag, and a strange (if not welcome) appearance by Eric Stoltz as a paedophile father of one of Evan’s friends. The film-makers’ earnest attempts to blow your mind will more than likely result in you scratching your head, or praying that the next jump back in time will be the last - at nearly two hours it’s far too long. If you really don’t want to mess yourself up and see how all this should be done properly, then it’s advisable to side-step the cinema, take a trip to the video store and rent Jacob’s Ladder instead.

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The Pianist Director: Roman Polanski

olish director Roman Polanski survived the bombing of Warsaw, Nazi occupation and life on the streets of the Crakow ghetto during WW2, and somehow he always knew that if he lived through it he would tell the tale. Lucky for us Polanski became one of the world’s most talented film-makers. In Wladyslaw Szpilman’s autobiographical novel ‘The Pianist’, another tale of European Holocaust survival, Polanksi found his perfect conduit and with it he has made perhaps his most personal work yet seen. Polanski helped shape American film in the ‘easy riders, raging bulls’ period (1968 - 1975) with stunning films like Rosemary’s Baby (1968) and Chinatown (1974), although more recently in European exile, his output has been less satisfying and consistent. For four decades he staved off putting his own story to film, instead preferring to mesh it with someone else’s memoirs. It has been worth the wait.This is Polanksi’s best film since Frantic (1988) and one of his best films, period.

Szpilman wrote ‘The Pianist’ based on his survival experiences in 1946 straight after

World War Two. He was 25 years of age and a celebrated Polish musician when the Nazi’s marched into Warsaw in 1939. He spent the next six years evading deportation and capture as those around him were sent to the gas chambers at Auschwitz. Great young American actor Adrien Brody (Summer of Sam) portays this projection of Szpilman almost too well. Haunted, gaunt and emotionally crushed, it is almost as if Brody becomes the man himself, spending much of the film wordless, in solitude and paralysed by fear. Through his eyes we witness images that no human should ever have to see, in life or on film, such is the depth of Polanski’s recreation of war torn Warsaw. The Pianist presents us starkly with the architecture of human destruction, a holocaust in every sense, of both a mind and a city. Inside the awesome cinema space in The Pianist we see why Polanksi is considered one of the world’s best film-makers. It is both complex in its simplicity, and devastating in its restraint. And moving (very), quiet and non-hysterical.

vidently, as things like yoga, alternative medicine, and meditation become more accepted by the mainstream, it creates a market of films for the new-agey niche.And that is likely just the audience for Peaceful Warrior, a feel-good, anything’spossible film version of Dan Millman’s autobiographical-motivational-self help bestseller, modestly titled Way of the Peaceful Warrior: A Book that Changes Lives. Scott Mechlowicz plays Dan (which, sure; if an actor is playing you, you definitely want it to be the guy who is a dead ringer for Brad Pitt, only 20 years younger), a hotshot gym-

Taken strictly within the Inspirational Sports Drama genre, Peaceful Warrior is ridiculously cheesy. But on the other hand, it’s not really fair to judge the characters

Director: Victor Salva Producer: Mark Amin, Robin Schorr, David Welch, Cami Winikoff. Screenplay: Kevin Bernhardt Cast: Nick Nolte, Scott Mechlowicz, Amy Smart, Agnes Bruckner, Ashton Holmes, Paul Wesley.

And the answer to the question “Why another Holocaust movie?” Among other reasons, simply because Roman Polanski made it.

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Socrates takes Dan under his wing, showing him “how to be a warrior” without any irony whatsoever and teaching him to stop over-thinking life, to live in the moment and appreciate everything that is around him. The instruction, of course, involves

a lot of breaking Dan down in order to build him up and showing him the way to true happiness through menial tasks like scrubbing toilets and fixing engines and it’s all very wax on/wax off. It also raises the question: Just how many times is it possible, in a single story, for an arrogant young buck to spurn the teachings of his mentor, only to come crawling back after having Learned a Lesson? (Answer:Very, very many.)

Peaceful Warrior

for speaking in motivational clichés when they are literally personifications of a selfhelp book; in that sense, they do manage to retain enough normalcy to be endearing. There is, however, no excuse for the overwrought and aggressive score, which literally refuses to let a moment pass without the dun-dun of momentousness or the tinkle-tink of inspiration, and comes to a head in an awesome evil twin scene.

nast at Berkeley who is unhappy, despite being a star athlete with great grades and an endless stream of eager co-eds. One middle-of-the-night, Dan happens upon a fullservice gas station manned by the gruffvoiced, mysterious Socrates (Nick Nolte), a man who speaks only in platitudes and riddles and seems capable of the impossible.

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Considering how it could have over-shot inspiration, as so many movies do, and headed straight into ham-fisted, eye-rolling cheese, Peaceful Warrior manages to be an alright movie that additionally has a message meant to… well, change lives, if the book is to be believed.There are parts that are likely

impossible to translate to screen without looking silly - a montage of all the wonder and beauty happening, right at this very moment, comes to mind, and possibly the aforementioned evil-twinness - but they are not the bulk of the film.And though Mechlowicz is not the name in the cast, he pretty much carries the movie and is equally enjoyable as the cocky jackass and the enlightened zen master; between this and Mean Creek, he’s becoming a name to watch. On the other hand, it’s deeply unsettling to consider Warrior within the context of director Victor Salva’s other works, the Jeepers Creepers films and Powder - all young men endlessly being menaced or mentored - considering the man is a con-

victed child molester. It’s one thing to pay for your crimes and move on, but it’s another entirely to move on to making films that read like a therapy outlet and feature, of all things, a gratuitous shower scene. It’s just... not right. And really, even if you are willing and able to set aside disturbing sub-text, you are left with a movie for a highly specific audience. It’s if you want to be uplifted by the message in your movies, and you’re not only accepting of a little acu-pressure or new age wisdom in your lives, but want the requisite motivational sports training montage to actually be set to it. And are able to do all of the above without dissolving into a fit of giggles at the over-use of slo-mo.

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Director: D.J. Caruso Cast: Al Pacino, Matthew McConaughey, Rene Russo.

add some kudos to his work. It’s also the latest in a worrying series of Al Pacino duds - who can honestly remember seeing People I Know,

his has been the decade of gambling with the massive surge in popularity of poker, spreadbetting and online bookies willing to accept bets on just about anything. So what better time for a big Hollywood film to embrace this contemporary craze: the thinking being that surely there must be enough punters out there who want to spend their hard-earned cash on seeing a version of their own story up on the big screen. Right? Wrong. Two for the Money is a melancholy mess of a film, and even astute investors would be better off spending their ticket money by sticking a pin in a racecard. Even if they lost, they’d be guaranteed more enjoyment. It’s the latest in an uneasy trend of film which claims to be ‘inspired by true events’, a moniker that is usually the sign of a desperate producer trying to

80 The Prestige Director: Christopher Nolan Cast: Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, Michael Caine, David Bowie, Scarlett Johansson.

he Prestige is a fantastic new feature by Christopher Nolan, the talented writer/director of Memento (2000) and Batman Returns (2005). Judging by this his fifth feature, it is very safe to say that Nolan is shaping up as one of the best of the new breed studio directors. Co-written for the screen by Nolan and his brother Jonathan (they also co-wrote Memento), The Prestige is an adaptation of Christopher Priest’s 1995 novel set in turn-of-20thcentury England, and more importantly, in the very technical and intriguing world of Theatre Magicians.

Hugh Jackman (X-Men 2) invests a great performance in “The Great Danton” aka Robert Angiers, an incredibly ambitious American magician who wants to be the best in the world. Equally as impressive in his ‘bad guy’ role is Christian Bale (Batman Returns), playing Alfred Bordern, once Danton’s assistant, soon to become his most fearsome rival. Both are mentored by “trick designer” Cutter, Michael Caine, in a commanding role he was born to play. Locked in a fatal rivalry, Ê filmFOCUS

The Recruit. All films he has made in the last five years, and all films which sank without a trace. One of the world’s leading actors seems destined to spend his dotage in material that is way below his considerable talent.

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Matthew McConaughey stars as Brandon Lang, a former college football star whose career ends when his ligaments are torn during a Championship match. Being a Vegas resident, Brandon naturally turns towards the city’s employment mainstay and is soon working as a tipster for a pricey phone-betting advisory service. He turns out to be a natural, and his ability to pick winners soon comes to the attention of Walter Abrams (Pacino), a hotshot New Yorker who specializes in selling betting advice to the wealthy.

Hotfooting it to New York, Brandon becomes the star of the show as his ability to pick football winners makes himself and his clients millions of dollars. But inevitably he becomes seduced by the lifestyle, the women (not least Walter’s wife Toni, played by Rene Russo and the real-life wife of director D.J. Caruso), and by his own innate ability to pick. He loses more and more until the final game of the season, the Superbowl, offers him one final chance at redemption.

Magic Men Angiers and Bordern battle over everything: women (including assistant Olivia, Scarlett Johansson), venues and, and to come up with the greatest disappearing trick of them all, which involves an eccentric David Bowie playing real-life inventor Nikola Tesla. There’s not a daggy David Copperfield in sight - nor a Siegfried & Roy for that matter.The Prestige is a serious film about the days when magic was taken seriously, at its height a much-craved pop entertainment supported by mass audiences - the cinema of its day you could say. And who better to bring us this story of illusion and intrigue than one of the best illusionists of the moment, Christopher Nolan; Film too is a medium all about sleight-of-hand and ‘smoke and mirrors’, where we must suspend our disbelief for it to work at its best. Structuring his film like the best magic tricks, Nolan makes us believe his characters (and even more key, care about them), with the ‘big reveal’ or ‘the prestige’ as it were, at the end paying off handsomely. The Prestige is filled with beautiful images, a lovely sense of history, an appreciation for the art of magic, and excellent performances from a committed cast. It is an incredibly satisfying movie about just how far people will go to fulfill an obsession. Ê filmFOCUS

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Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story

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Geoff, 24 Hour Party People). Coogan plays not one but three roles: the titular Tristram Shandy, 18th century gent in tights,Tristram’s progressive father Walter, and a fairly repellant version of his real life self,“Steve Coogan”. (He’s reminiscent of the obnoxious self he played in Jim Jarmusch’s Coffee & Cigarettes, opposite a gormless Alfred Molina). For this Coogan must be admired, as should Brydon, equally genius and generous in his comedy, playing a passive-aggressive second banana to Coogan’s handsome, egotistical and kind of cringe-worthy figure.

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Director: Michael Winterbottom Cast: Steve Coogan, Rob Brydon, Keeley Hawes, Shirley Henderson, Dylan Moran, Stephen Fry, Gillian Anderson.

What is this film about? Actually it is one big fat digression, and actually… kind of hard to put in to words. Sterne’s novel was a book about the process of writing, and so too Winterbottom’s film is about the process of filmmaking. He kind of abandons any semblance of a straightforward film adaptation early on

ristram Shandy: A Cock And Bull Story is another post-modern, crazy adaptation of a much-loved novel, that flouts convention, does away with the rule book and subverts the well-worn form. A Cock And Bull Story is the film version (sort of), of The Life & Opinions Of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, by 18th century pastor Laurence Sterne, published over nine volumes in the mid-1700s. Who else would one charge to do the impossible - make an “unfilmable” book into a film - but one of modern cinema’s most fearless directors, Michael Winterbottom. As we’ve seen from his previous, ambitious and fantastic fare - including 9 Songs (2004), Wonderland (1999), Code 46 (2003) and the sublime 24 Hour Party People (2002) - Winterbottom likes a challenge. But he also likes a laugh, clearly, if this film and its stellar funnybone cast is anything to go by. Two of Britain’s best current comedians/comic actors face off in A Cock And Bull Story, undermining, competing and generally psyching each other out and wearing each other down - such are the states of their fragile egos. Steve Coogan is one, announcing he has the lead role in the film after a lengthy comic preamble to establish this fact, with his co-star Rob Brydon (Marion &

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and jumps fence, and preferring to look at the machinations of a film production struggling to come to terms with adapting a book, much the same way Charlie Kaufman’s “Charlie Kaufman” did as a screenwriter in the film version of Adaptation (2002). It’s like a snake swallowing its tail… Not that Winterbottom hasn’t been there before. He turned the concept of the biopic on its ear with 24 Hour Party People (2002), his superb exercise in faux-realism where Coogan also played someone from real life, legendary Manchester rock entrepreneur Tony Wilson. (Wilson makes an appearance in A Cock And Bull Story as himself, interviewing Coogan for the behind-the-scenes DVD doco for A Cock And Bull Story. Who can keep up!). Here again Winterbottom and his writer Frank Cotrell-Boyce seamlessly blend the fiction and the pretendy-real together, with both the costume drama and the mockumentary stories running parallel to each other, in order to reflect each other. All this might just sound like cock and bull - a load of old codswallop, an exercise in post-modern smart-arsery even… But it’s not. It’s actually a moving story of redemption, book-ended by some of the funniest improvisation you’re likely to see on film.

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V For Vendetta Director: James McTeigue Cast: Natalie Portman, Hugo Weaving, Stephen Rea.

For Vendetta was one of the seminal graphic novels of the 1980s. Co-written by Alan Moore and David Lloyd, it was an unapologetic attack on the conservatism of “Thatcher’s bloody Britain”, a tract against tyranny and totalitarianism.A product of its time perhaps it could be considered even more relevant to ‘now’ than when it was written. (Certainly it might be seen as ‘seditious’). Dark and powerful, V For Vendetta was ripe for a big budget movie adaptation.

Australian James McTeigue was given the job by the Brothers Wachowski, Larry and Andy, for whom he’d worked as first assistant director on the Matrix movies. Burnt out by making their hugely ambitious and successful trilogy, the Wachowski’s settled for adapting the screenplay and producing the film, giving former commercials maker McTeigue the chance of a lifetime, to direct it. Hauling the story out of 1980s Britain, the Wachowski’s push V For Vendetta into the “near future”. Actor Hugo Weaving - another key collaborator from the Matrix movies - plays the enigmatic vigilante ‘V’, an unhinged fella who spends his days hidden beneath a big black hat and cape, his identity concealed by a Guy Fawkes mask. Inspired by Fawkes’ historic 17th century plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament, V sets out to destroy Britain’s current oppressive regime by doing something similar.With good reason: having been disfigured by biological experiments carried out on him against his will by a government lab, V wants revenge. Along the way he also rescues a young woman from the clutches of the

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“Fingermen” (government thugs). Phantom Of The Opera-style, Evey (Natalie Portman) becomes seduced by V’s cause and eventually becomes his reluctant accomplice, although she finds his methods more than questionable.While V could be seen as a violent terrorist, he could just as easily be construed as a righteous revolutionary. Sounds great doesn’t it? Sounds like it could be just a little bit dangerous or different, a ‘blockbuster with brains’ even, like Fight Club (1997), Brazil (1985) or Three Kings (1999), three big budget studio films also loaded with “seditious”, subversive and confronting ideas about world politics, rebelling the status quo… Somehow McTeigue and Co. achieve the unthinkable but, and kill the very ideas that made the graphic novel great. Which is ironic given that V constantly tells us “you can’t kill an idea”, the one thing a tyrant can’t take away from an individual is their ideas. This inescapably political story has been transformed into a benign event, its images and words stripped of their meaning and power. This is ad making, not filmmaking. The story, setting and ideas are poorly set up, the actors and action poorly directed, and the film badly edited. At times it makes no sense. Weaving’s voice behind the mask is all wrong… No wonder Alan Moore took his name off it. Worse still, it’s a wasted opportunity. Co-writer of the comic David Lloyd said that he wrote V For Vendetta “for people who don’t turn off the news”.The filmmakers have pitched this film at an audience who they think have turned it off, and don’t want to know the news even exists.

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Bollywood Cinema

Par N e e m a z eli tAAre m a h C , k o Bangk o t y a b Guru Bom , o l l e H , um Cheeni K ro, t e M , r a b Jodhaa Ak Mein Daag unari h C a g a a L ages P 8 6 , y e d an Mangal P nge e l i M r i h P Omkara, 211 9 i x a T , j Sarkar Ra ai H i r o o r a Darna Z o Jaan a r m U , l a n anti s Traffic Sig a B e D , Rang y r F a j e h B

Offbeat films from Bollywood

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Hello Director: Atul Agnihotri Production: Reel Life Productions Screenplay: Atul Agnihotri, Chetan Bhagat. Cinematographer: Sanjay F. Gupta Editor: Umesh Gupta Lyricist: Jalees Sherwani Music Director: Sulaiman Merchant, Salim Merchant, Sajid-Wajid. Sound Designer: Jitendra Chaudhari Cast: Isha Koppikar, Gul Panag, Dalip Tahil, Suresh Menon, Sharat Saxena, Sohail Khan, Sharman Joshi, Amrita Arora.

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Director: Sridhar Rangayan Script: Sridhar Rangayan and Vivek Anand Cinematography: Subhransu Das Editor: Praveen Angre Sound: Santosh Sawant Background Score: Aashish Rego Production:The Hamsafar Trust

he film depicts individual stories of pain recorded in HIV/AIDS counsellor Mansi’s diary. After a broken love affair, the career-minded Mansi joins a community health centre where her clients include gay and trans-gendered men. She also works alongside sex workers and IDU users at a leading psychiatrist’s clinic and the local municipal hospital. Based on reflections of

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The film is produced by The Humsafar Trust, (since 1994 this male sexual health agency has provided diagnostic, counselling and treatment facilities to people from the gay and transgender communities) in association with Solaris Pictures. Director Sridhar Rangayan, a graduate of IIT-Mumbai, has directed/scripted award winning films, among them the notable Gulabi Aaina, a film on Indian trans-sexuals and Yours Emotionally! a queer journey through India.

H true-life incidents and characters, the film’s concept was born within these communities with the help of NGOs working with them. Mansi’s recorded stories deal with five HIV positive persons from different high risk groups, gay, transgender, sex worker and drug user, whose lives change dramatically when they learn of their status.

The 90-minute film’s cast includes Mouli Ganguly, Joy Sengupta, Zafar Karachiwala, Jayati Bhatia, Uday Sonawane and Abhay Kulkarni. Co-scripted by Vivek Anand and Sridhar Rangayan, its cinematography is by Shubransu Das and music by xen@bob - the fusing of two music groups Nexus and Band of Boys.

ello… is a tale about the events that happen one night at a call center.Told through the views of the protagonist, Shyam, it is a story of almost lost love, thwarted ambitions, absence of family affection, pressures of a patriarchal set up, and the work environment of a globalized office. Shyam is losing his girl friend because his career is going nowhere as he trudges his way around in a call center. His girl friend, Priyanka, is also an agent like him at the call center who is about to be snatched by an NRI technogeek. There is also the aspiring model, Esha, who is hoping for the break that seems to be always already eluding her and the man about town, Vroom, who is into well, things.The housewife, Radhika, who is constantly at the receiving end of her mother-in-law and a beleaguered grandfather, Military Uncle, who has been barred from interacting with his grandchild make up the rest of the call agents who see their worlds crumbling around them, as the decisions of right sizing are conveyed by Bakshi, the boss. It is a night when dreams will finally crumble. Or will it? For there is that call from God. Narrated as a tale within a tale, as a beautiful woman meets the auteur narrator and promises him a story on the condition that he has to narrate it further, Hello, based on Chetan Bhagat’s one night @ the call center, is the one remarkable story from Tales from a Thousand and One globalizing, urban, Indian Nights. Ê filmFOCUS

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Produced & Directed by: Aamir Khan Writer & Creative Director: Amole Gupte Concept, Research & Editing: Deepa Bhatia Lyrics: Prasoon Joshi Music: Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy

ndian cinema was always colourful, vibrant and full of life, but it sadly lacked soul. Aamir Khan’s Taare Zameen Par changes the face of Indian cinema as we know it, infusing life into it and giving it its soul.This star twinkles and catches your attention and amazement, tugging at your heart throughout its two-and-ahalf-hour plus playing time, bringing the shades of a child’s imagination in blazing colour onto the screen canvas, and making us realize that truly every child is special, all we have to do is help them attain their true potential. Yes,Aamir Khan’s directorial debut is special, a heart-warming tale of a small child who has learning difficulties and is largely mis-understood by his parents. Darsheel Safary as Ishaan Awasthi is simply marvellous, making you believe that he is Ishaan and not just an actor enacting a role. When the parents see Ishaan’s academic performance deteriorate, they send him to a boarding school for disciplinary measure. Finding himself away from his doting mother

and lovable family, Ishaan gets grief-stricken and lonely. Failing to understand why he has been removed from the shade of his mother and family, his otherwise vivid imagination withers and life turns into a morose black-and-white pattern. But a saviour in the form of Arts teacher Ram Shankar Nikumbh enters his life, and the colours creep back in slowly, as Nikumbh works hard on reviving the child’s spirit, peeling away the layers that have clouded the taara. Aamir Khan as Nikumbh is outstanding, playing a man who has been through life trying to help children find themselves and their true calling, and in the process finding his own true self.

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Inclusion, empathy and emotional bonding with caring is what this film beautifully propagates, telling an entertaining story that at the same time makes you sit up and take notice of what we must do for our next generation.The film also encourages every individual to repose faith in himself against all odds, advocating the concept of multiple intelligences. In an age of competitive fervour, this film takes the solid stand of individualistic

innate skills to shine with support and encouragement, making it topical considering the academic pressure tragedies that one finds on front pages today. Taking his time to set up the story, the director extracts a most believable and genuine performance from Darsheel, and the deft helming ensures that the efforts don’t show. Even the other children slip into their characters comfortably, becomÊ filmFOCUS

ing the characters to the finest of details. Worthy of mention are Sachet Engineer as Yohaan Awasthi, Ishaan’s bright elder brother, and Tanay Cheda as Rajan Damodaran.While the veteran actor himself is bound to give a great performance which he does, what truly amazes one is the genuinely fine performances by Tisca Chopra as Ishaan’s mother and Vipin Sharma as the father. Both don’t look like actors at all but are

truly the characters in every sense, and every mother in India will identify with Tisca’s Maya Awasthi. This one is from the heart, uplifting and inspiring cinema that is a must-see for every parent and to-be parent, with lots to offer for kids also, who will no longer hesitate to follow their true calling. Aamir Khan, the film-maker, has arrived ! Ê filmFOCUS

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adhur Bhandarkar has a penchant for stories that expose different aspects of modern society. And he imbues his movies with an element of realism.After the hard-hitting ‘Page 3’ and ‘Corporate’, the unconventional film-maker completes his trilogy with ‘Traffic Signal’, which attempts to take you into the world of people making a living on traffic signals.The characters in the film are straight out of life: beggars, petty sellers, goons, prostitutes, drug addicts, gays and pedophiles etc.

And some of the characters are indeed interesting.There is Silsila (Kunal Khemu), the manager of Kelkar Marg signal who collects hafta from those ‘working’ at the signal.There is Rani (Neetu Chandra), who sells traditional clothes at the signal.There is Noorie (Konkona Sen Sharma), a prostitute who solicits customers at night.There is Dominic (Ranvir Shorey), a drug addict telling his sad stories to everyone. And there is Haji (Sudhir Mishra), a local Mafioso to whom all the money collectors from signals give their share.

One by one, the film takes a peek into the lives of these characters. But the story lacks a common thread. Instead of a linear plot, the story keeps shifting tracks for most part of the film.The assorted and disjointed sub-plots only make the first half of the movie a collage with little meaning.The movie picks up in the second half, after a murder. And the conclusion to the story is very unconventional by Bollywood standards.

At many instances it appears that Madhur wanted to shock his audience by bringing forth certain aspects of lives of these people which laymen may never have known. For instance, the man who begs during day goes to see a movie in a posh multiplex at night. Or beggerboys buying fairness cream from their day’s labour. Or a gay who offers his services to those willing to take.

Yet ‘Traffic Signal’ keeps the audience interest alive for most part of its running time. And the credit should go jointly to Bhandarkar and the actors for portraying the characters with conviction.

The film also has emotional moments like the death of the drug addict (Ranvir) whom the prostitute (Konkona) loves. Or the killing of Manoj Joshi that actually sets the story in motion until its abrupt climax.

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r ignal Bhandarka handra, S c i f a. Traf dhur etu C

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a e rm tor : M hemu, N a Sen Sha c e r i D n lK onko Kuna Cast: Shorey, K ir Ranv

90 The end doesn’t show the protagonist thrashing the bad guys. Bhandarkar gives a very realistic conclusion to the story. ‘Traffic Signal’ is entertaining in parts only.There are moments when the film looks completely pointless. It looks like a mere exposé of the lives of people living on traffic signal. And it gives no message. What saves the film is performances by the actors. Kunal Khemu is brilliant as a shabbily dressed, beedi-smoking goonda with a golden heart. Konkona Sen impresses very much in a role that she was hesitant to take in the first place. Ranvir Shorey is simply superb. He has a natural flair for acting. Neetu Chandra is effective. Sudhir Mishra, with his stoic presence and piercing gaze, perfectly suits the role of a local gangster. Madhur Bhandarkar puts a strong element of realism in the film.The dialogues are in street lingo, with some foul language thrown in.The ambience looks very authentic and hardly seems like a set created by Nitin Desai. Cinematography is appealing to the eye. Among the film’s songs, ‘Yehi Zindagi’ is the only one that stands out. In a nutshell, ‘Traffic Signal’ is not a bad film. Only it has no point to drive home.

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Umrao Jaan Director: J.P. Dutta Cast: Aishwarya Rai, Abhishek Bachchan, Shabana Azmi, Sunil Shetty & Divya Dutta.

Umrao Jaan is based on the Urdu Novel ‘Umrao Jan Ada’ by Mirza Hadi Ruswa. The story tells of an 8 year old girl called Amiran, who is kidnapped from her home in Faizabad by Dilawar Khan who wanted revenge upon Amiran’s father for imprisoning him. He then does not kill her, but sells her to a brothel in Lucknow run by Khannum Jaan (Shabana Azmi). She is fortunate enough to have surrogate parents who care for her. Amiran then is taught in the art of a Courtesan - dancing and seduction. Amiran turns into an elegant beauty by the name of Umrao Jaan (Aishwarya Rai). Her beauty and poetry catchs the eye of Nawab Sultan (Abhishek Bachchan) which begins a passionate love affair. But when his father finds out he disowns Nawab Sultan, pennyless Nawab goes to his uncle in Grahi to regain his fortune and Umrao prays everyday for his return. In the mean time Faiz Ali (Sunil Shetty), a bandit, falls for Umrao and wants her at all costs.The rest of the story tracks Umrao Jaan’s life, loves and losses...

Director: Ram Gopal Varma Cast: Amitabh Bachchan, Abhishek Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai, Govind Namdeo,Tanisha Mukherjee.

irst things first:A huge round of applause to Ram Gopal Varma.The director has redeemed himself after the failures of Nishabdh and Aag.This here is vintage Ramu at his best, no doubt about it. Just goes to show that one should stick to what one is best at.And no one uncovers the under-belly of crime and politics as succinctly as RGV. SARKAR RAJ is a thriller to the core. It may have the background of power politics but when it’s time to reveal his cards, Ramu pulls out his ‘Aces’, one after another to dish out a gripping fare.The final ‘Ace’ he delivers at Sarkar’s house is mind numbing! To reveal more would be a crime. Just goes to show that it’s not only the ones bred in the city who are power hungry, but also those in far off villages! Hence, he does full justice to the tagline: ‘Power cannot be given. It has to be taken’. And on this line rests the plot of SARKAR RAJ, a sequel to SARKAR! Yes, it also takes a fresh look at the tradition versus modernity debate. Anita Rajan (Aishwarya Rai-Bachchan) is the CEO of Sheppard Power Plant.This

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Sarkar Raj

international company wants to set up a power plant in rural Maharashtra. Only the Nagres can help.A meeting is facilitated by Govind Namdeo (Hassan Qazi) an aspiring politician. Sarkar (Amitabh Bachchan) sees no sense in this project and dismisses it outright. But Shankar Nagre (Abhishek Bachchan) thinks otherwise. He feels that this power plant will be a huge benefit for the villagers in the interiors of Maharashtra.After convincing his father, Sarkar, he mobilizes support from the villagers and goes about the business with Anita. But things are not as easy as they seem. Shankar meets with obstacles, one after another and as the plot unfolds, you realise how the characters are used as a pawn for a completely different game! The background score by Debashish Mishra is commendable. Even when there are no dialogues being spoken, Mishra creates the mood, which speaks a thousand words with his music, as the cameraman, Amit Roy, takes astute angles.The sepia tone throughout the film maintains the mood of this exciting fare.The dialogues, the one-liners, are awesome. RGV is the real star of the film. Ê filmFOCUS

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Life in a... Metro Director: Anurag Basu Cast: Shiney Ahuja, Shilpa Shetty, Kay Kay Menon, Konkona Sen Sharma, Irfan Khan, Sharman Joshi, Kangna Ranaut & Dharmendra.

Sadly despite the movies merits, the film gets bogged down by the fact it has a significant portion of the film copied directly

from a previous film - A Hollywood classic called “The Apartment” (1960) with Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine. In Life In a Metro, the Kay Kay Menon, Shilpa Shetty, Sharman Joshi and Kangna Ranaut stories were all ripped off from The Apartment. Life In A Metro ripped off almost completely the story-line and dialogue. Even some of the jokes were taken directly from the The Apartment but Sharman Joshi is no Jack Lemmon.

people living within Mumbai, all connected. Rahul (Sharman Joshi) is working at a call centre He silently loves his boss, Neha (Kangna Ranaut). A smart young woman who has made it up the ranks in a very short time. And hard work is not her only secret, but her affair with her boss, Ranjeet (Kay Kay Menon). Ranjeet is married to Shikha (Shilpa Shetty). They decided Shikha she should stay back at home and take care of the house and the kid. So Ranjeet ventured out on his quest for money and success and forgot his family somewhere on the way. Neglected by an indifferent husband and bogged down by family chores, Shikha is soon attracted to a maverick in Akash (Shiney Ahuja). Akash is a struggling theatre artist and Akash and Shikha’s love blossoms. Shikha’s sister and Neha’s room-mate, Shruti (Konkona Sen Sharma) works in at Radio Mirchi. In her 30s and still a virgin, she is desperate to get married. She is dreamy-eyed about her RJ, Wishy K. Her boss hooks her up with Wishy K.While she also meets Debu (Irfan Khan) through a matrimonial site. She hates him. But Debu, an ordinary man, is ready to marry her. Her affair with Wishy K blossoms. Amol (Dharmendra) is a 70 year old man who’s returned to India after 40 years to spend last few years of his life with his first love, Vaijanti.This a movie which looks at 8 people’s life, in a metro. Sadly despite the movie’s merits, the film gets bogged down by the fact it has a significant portion of the film copied directly from a previous film - A Hollywood classic called “The Apartment” (1960) with Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine. In Life In a Metro, the Kay Kay Menon, Shilpa Shetty, Sharman Joshi and Kangna Ranaut stories were all ripped off from Apartment. Life In A Metro ripped off almost completely the story-line and dialogue. Even some of the jokes were taken directly from the Apartment but Sharman Joshi is no Jack Lemmon. Leaving the unoriginality of some of the movie behind, it has several points that make this movie a nice one.The Konkona Sen Sharma and Irfan Khan story-line is the highlight of the movie. Debu (Irfan Khan) is 35, has been looking for a wife for a long time and is a bit weird. Shruti (Konkona Sen Sharma) is 30 and desperate to get married. Although she meets Debu, she doesn’t like him - instead she dreams of an ideal man such as her boss Wishy K. There are several strong scenes between Kay Kay Menon and Shilpa Shetty. Some of their scenes are the most believable and intense; Anurag Basu does a superb job extracting these performances from them. Anurag Basu were able to excellently direct/weave all the film’s stories together. Often these multiple story-line movies can fall flat due to the assembly of the stories together - either feeling rushed or too choppy. But in this film, the stories just seemed to inter-link and relate to each other with very much ease. Anurag Basu also excels in the technical aspects of the film and manages to nicely balance all the story-lines (which is a huge achievement!).

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Mind you, putting together the story of Mangal Pandey poses no easy task and the dedication of director Ketan Mehta and his crew towards creating a polished entertainment package, stands

tall through every frame of the film. Nitin Desai’s production design and Himman Dhamija’s splendid cinematography re-create the aura of the 1800’s with innovative artistry.Yet, the narrative fails to grip the viewer, unable to create the kind of fervor in the audience the way “The Legend of Bhagat Singh” and “Lagaan” did.The main culprits - writer Faroukh Dhondy (“Kisna”) and editor Sreekar Prasad (“Terrorist”, “Asoka”, “Kannathil Muthamittal”) .

The exposition patiently stretched for the first 70 minutes of the film,“Mangal Pandey” really kick starts just a reel before the intermission.The pacing is poor and the storytelling lacks cohesiveness and flow, the narrative spilling all over the place. Once Pandey’s goal is finally identified, the story thickens, performances impress, as does the exploration of the East India Company’s political games.Yet, every so often Dhondy’s amateurish writing, cliche dialogues, and random, cheesy one-liners such as “put the genie back in the bottle” steals the seriousness out of the situation and the viewers’ interpretation of it.

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t’s painful watching great opportunities being thrown away. “Mangal Pandey”, with its stellar cast, crew, budget, and platform had just about everything going for it - almost. Many may blame the hype preceding the film for why it disappoints.With Aamir Khan returning to the screen after four long years, “Dil Chahta Hai” and “Lagaan” behind him, over-hyping “Mangal Pandey” was inevitable, and rightfully so. Of course Khan nails his part in the movie to perfection, explosive to say the least as the hotheaded, bhaang loving Mangal. But gone are the days when a talented star alone could rescue a film despite its short-comings.

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After introducing a plethora of characters through his elongated exposition, barely a handful are awarded any development by the end. For example, the much-hyped Jwala (Amisha Patel) serves no purpose in the narrative to influence the course of events that may affect the protagonist, Mangal.Yet we see so much of her through the film. Ditto for Heera (Rani Mukherjee) whose liaison with Mangal creates no dramatic impact whatsover because Dhondy and Mehta decide to rush through what could have been a very intriguing aspect of Mangal’s life. That said, Rani Mukherjee does work her natural charm in the little that she has to do. Toby Stephens makes a brave effort as Capt. William Gordon pulling off some very difficult Hindi dialogues, effectively portraying his character’s dilemma, having to split his loyalty between friendship and nation. The other British charac-

ters suffer however, slotted into caricature, stereotypical representations. A.R. Rahman’s songs though pleasing to the ear with their rustic nature, only jar the narrative further as Mehta and Prasad uninspiringly place them in unwarranted situations.The score too suffers a similar spate due to ineffective usage. Mehta’s use of Om Puri’s monotone voice-over treads on the verge of annoyance, repeatedly translating English dialogues when simple Hindi subtitles would have been more suitable to this cause.

“Mangal Pandey”, with its talented team and intriguing story could have worked quite some magic, had it only been for a taut, cohesive screenplay and sensible editing. Despite the epic canvas and colossal production value, “Mangal Pandey” fails to make its mark as the classic it was expected to be. The film warrants a viewing certainly thanks to Aamir Khan, but it’s not one that will stay with you once you head back into the real world.

Mangal Pandey Director: Ketan Mehta Producer: Bobby Bedi, Deepa Sahi. Cinematography: Himman Dhamija Editing: Sreekar Prasad Music: A.R. Rahman Lyrics: Javed Akhtar Cast: Aamir Khan,Toby Stephens, Rani Mukherjee, Amisha Patel.

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Jodhaa Akbar

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Director: Ashutosh Gowariker Cast: Hrithik Roshan & Aishwarya Rai.

shutosh Gowariker’s Jodhaa Akbar is the un-told love story of the greatest Mughal emperor who ruled Hindustan (now India), Jalaluddin Mohammad Akbar, and a fiery young Rajput princess, Jodhaa. Set in the sixteenth century, this epic romance begins as a marriage of alliance between two cultures and religions, for political gain, with the Hindu King Bharmal of Amer giving his daughter’s hand to a Muslim Emperor, Akbar.When Akbar accepts the marriage proposal, little does he know that in his efforts to strengthen his relations with the Rajput, he would in turn be embarking on a new journey, the journey of true love? From the battlefield where the young Jalaluddin was crowned, through the conquests that won him the title of Akbar the Great (‘Akbar’ in Arabic means great), to winning the love of the beautiful Jodhaa, Jodhaa Akbar traces the impressive graph of the emperor and his romance with a defiant princess.

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odhaa Akbar - its finally arrived! Prepare yourself for a very long 3.5 hour grand cinematic experience. It has action, espionage, deception, romance, sensuality, grand sets and costumes to die for. But please keep your historically accurate mind at home.This is a movie which on the outside has historical real life events that happened to Akbar, but most of the inner workings of the court and the Jodhaa Akbar relationship has been based largely on the imagination of Ashutosh Gowariker.

ou forget the actors and believe the characters - you forget that its Hrithik Roshan playing Akbar and Aishwarya Rai playing Jodhaa.Their performances are so convincing you easy forget it’s them and can easily believe they are in fact Akbar & Jodhaa.This especially applies to Hrithik as Akbar who gives a commanding and balanced performance for Akbar.

inematography/Visuals - whether it was the grand sets or the grand battle scenes, there is no other word to describe the cinematography other than grand and breathtaking. You can watch this movie in the cinema for at least the visuals.

ets - they look like they were real, straight from the Mughal ages. Colourful, fine delicate detailing, extremely large exactly why everyone loves Mughal architecture, and unbelievable to think someone created them recently.

here is a controversy about who Jodhaa Bai was and what her real name was. Ashutosh Gowariker, when making the film, took the name and story of the Princess that the common man knows about. No one said a thing about Mughal-E-Azam and Jodhaa's status and name in that.

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Guru, a period flick, is the story of a simple but ambitious villager, Gurukant Desai. He dreams big and to fulfill his dreams arrives in Bombay (1958). He is married to Sujata (Aishwarya Rai). He also has something else; two shirts and Rs.15,000 to start his business, along with the Rs 25,000 he got as dowry! But soon he realizes that the business world is ruled by a handful of rich and influential people and for him to make his foray here, he has to “force” his way. So it’s both black and white sides to him now. His fair side wins him admirers, at the same time as his grey side earns him a few detractors. Nanaji (Mithun Chakraborty) who runs a newspaper Swatantra and Shyam Saxena (Madhavan, the honest reporter) are

The way the story unravels keeps the audience to their seat. Guru simply refuses to hear a “no’ and supposedly has an answer to every problem which sees his meteoric rise, until Mithunda (Nanaji) decides to expose him.

two of them who stand up to fight Guru’s unjust ways. The movie begins with an older Abhishek, whose makeover is a little comical. At times it reminds us of SRK’s older avatar in Veer Zara.Why can’t our make-over match that of our Hollywood counterparts? Look at Russell Crowe aging in A Beautiful Mind. It’s simply amazing. If we can get in foreign stunt directors and fight masters, Mani Ratnam could have done well to rope in a Hollywood ‘magician’ to do the trick for AB Jr. Apart from this, the movie rolls on without a glitch.

In the end, it’s Guru’s gujju brain that wins him the day and the inquiry commission instituted to delve into his supposed many frauds can prove just two. It’s the junta that stands behind him who he has helped make big bucks.

A very young Guru, just out of school, goes to Turkey in search of work and in seven years there, he makes an impact with the English bosses who promote him with a hefty hike in salary. He spurns the offer and returns to his village to do bijness instead of working for the goras. “Sab kuch pehle se hi likha hai,” he tells his friend who berates him for thinking big. His father too, is not kicked, but Guru is adamant and makes his way to Bombay.There are obvious references to the late Dhirubhai Ambani.

Aishwarya Rai emotes well as the wife who stands by her husband through thick and thin. The chemistry between the off-screen couple sets alight the screen. Mithunda impresses with his mature performance playing his age, but one wonders what Vidya Balan is doing sitting in a wheelchair. Clearly, the actress is far more talented. However, Mani Ratnam has done a fab job with the story-line. The acclaimed director has caught the audience pulse with Guru, which is no run-of-the-mill Bollywood flick.

The movie begins with an older Abhishek, whose make-over is a little comical. At times it reminds us of SRK’s older avatar in Veer Zara.Why can’t our make-over match that of our Hollywood counterparts? Look at Russell Crowe aging in A Beautiful Mind. It’s simply amazing...

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urukant Desai (Abhishek Bachchan) is set to rock you with his controlled performance that makes you want to hug the gujjubhai, who puts his foot in every door and bribes his way through others that refused to open, to race his way to the top.

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Director: Mani Ratnam Music: A.R. Rahman Lyrics: Gulzar Cast: Abhishek Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai, R.Madhavan, Mithun Chakraborty,Vidya Balan, Mallika Sherawat.

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Bangkok or o t y a b Bom Kukuno : Nagesh

Director hai ubhash G S : tterjee r e c u d Pro deep Cha u S : y h p a gr Cinemato b Datta nji Editing: Sa li Husain a, A ay Maury Karekar. ir ij M ,V : s a n ic e r y L L de, tin eyas Talpa ikram Inamdar, Ya Cast: Shr ,V o ri Sachde Rajeshwa

the local m o fr ls a e k to ney, st relief wor ed of mo r e n fo e g t a in r d e a desp k his rs he of Docto In Bangko . tty thief, in s e m o p a a e a t h , c a r e a o h is h hank .The hitc is way int y bag in t e h e n s in o e p m m a s c t a s J n e vely porta the Don and ps into lo the all im s his way m e s u e b m s o e lo c h t e u e p b wher as of ho Bangkok, all. A ray ar posing n at a bar k t w a n a o r h d e S h e ! r id h docto ns ups ol, rse wit need of a world tur n’t conve is whirlpo a h c in t e o ly t h e t in d a n r s hai a jump from despe chinder, turns up she is all T ning away a n e R u in r y m e d s il d h Ja u as res, w when ardar b h Shankar g adventu next day it e goofy S n w li h t b s r h m o it u r b r w y of e along into his ... us comed a doctor ts pulled io e r g a il Bangkok n h o o is t o s h t y e a o b in t n m m Bom . Hop o while Jas g ride fro enchmen h in k is ic h ll o & r on a the Don e and life v lo s r e v he disco

agesh Kukunoor of ‘Hyderabad Blues’, ‘Iqbal’ and the more recent ‘Dor’ fame, is back with a movie titled ‘Bombay to Bangkok’. Akin to his other movies, Nagesh has written and directed this movie starring Shreyas Talpade and Lina Christianson in the lead. Nagesh Kukunoor films guarantee quality cinema, does it live up to the expectations?

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Shankar (Shreyas Talpade) a cook from Dharavi is in desperate need of money, to fly to Dubai and make his fortune, steals money from the local Don.To escape from the clutches of the Don he joins a team of Doctors heading for relief work to Bangkok. In this chaos, he hides his money bag in one of the medicine boxes which was being shipped to Bangkok. He is forced to stay in the camp for a few days, until he got hold of his bag. Meanwhile, he bumps into a beauty named Jasmine (Lina Christianson) at a massage parlor. But all is not ‘happyhappy’ as she is all Thai and he cannot understand a single word she utters.With the help of a sardar named Raz, he manages to take the help of Jasmine in traveling to Bangkok in search of the bag.Will he escape the clutches of the Don and gets hold of his money once again? Bombay to Bangkok indeed marks a huge fall in quality from Kukunoor’s earlier works, and his fans are definitely

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bound to be disappointed. Bombay to Bangkok is no rollicking ride. Although some credits could be given to Nagesh for his direction, he fails as a writer.The story just gets dull and boring with each reel.The repetitive dream sequence of Shreyas annoys with time.With such sequences the movie drags on too long and gets extremely difficult to sit through. It gets from barely watchable to being unbearably tedious and preposterous. Also, the climax of the movie is arid. On the whole, the movie with a weak plotline fails to entertain and is tiresome to sit through.The movie in fact is devoid of moments that would at least make us chuckle. Instead we are served with lame slapstick humour. Also, the film requires some trimming. Cinematography by Sudeep Chatterjee is poor.The beauty of Thailand is hardly covered in the shots. Music is yet another let down.The track ‘Same Same But Different’ is good. Despite a poorly written character, Shreyas Talpade delivers a brilliant performance. With his diverse expression and fun performance, he wins the heart of the viewers. Lina Christianson is all beauty and no talent; Lacks expressions - a woody performance. Vijay Maurya, the don and rap star, is excellent. Raz alias Rachinder Singh is also good. Naseeruddin Shah appears only in one scene which was just not necessary.

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Chameli T Chameli Director: Sudhir Mishra Cast: Rahul Bose, Kareena Kapoor.

here are some films where the central performance carries the narrative forward in ways that are so unpredictable, exciting, enchanting and life-giving that you wonder which is greater: the actor or the vehicle!

Kareena Kapoor as “Chameli” in Sudhir Mishra’s richly textured tale of a prostitute’s night-out with the un-likeliest of male companions is as delicately perched on the slim and sensitive plot as a dewdrop trembling on a wind-swept leaf. All the fabulous fragility of a woman who sells sex for a living and all the inbuilt self-deprecatory humour and irony that she employs to survive in the brutal and harsh flesh-trade are mapped on that face - an enchanting map of the human heart, if ever there was one. And what a face! Whether swaying to Saroj Khan’s informally seductive rhythms in “Behta hai man” or mocking the banker Aman (Rahul Bose) for his starchy cloistered middle class civility, Kareena goes way beyond anyone’s expectations, including most decidedly her own, to deliver an all-time great performance, on a par with Nargis in Mehboob Khan’s “Mother India”, Meena Kumari in “Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam” and Shabana Azmi in Mahesh Bhatt’s “Arth”. Kareena flashes an intuitive brilliance that comes to movies very, very rarely indeed.The larger picture that emerges from the power and glory of the central performance is also incredibly incandescent.

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Director Sudhir Mishra, who delivered a fiasco last year in “Calcutta Mail”, returns to his roots to make yet another linear story situated during one night. He’s done another film. “Iss Raat Ki Subah Nahin” in the same format but his endeavour to suffuse anxious lives in smouldering colours fell short for the lack of inherent charisma in the actors. Rahul Bose and Kareena work wonderfully as incompatible companions on a rain-splashed night. From Bose’s initial white collar outrage at being stranded with a woman of sleazy repute, to the growing awareness of a compassion that flows between them like a two-way river nourishing one another’s famished yet festooned life, he and Kareena make Richard Gere and Julia Roberts in “Pretty Woman” look-like candidates rehearsing for a play on the prince and the showgirl. The one stand out component in this vivid portrait of one night’s unstoppered vagaries is the technical polish. Seldom has an off-mainstream film, which “Chameli” undoubtedly is, exuded so much skill and efficiency in the execution of the story. From the sound-mixing (which conveys mostly the melody of the rain without toppling over into a torrential downpour), to the background score and songs by Sandesh Shandilya, “Chameli” is a portrait of ravishing restraint and lyrical harmony. Director Mishra mixes echoes of the film’s un-definably tortured past with the jostling melee of the rain-drenched present in a chamber-piece that stirs memories of Bimal Roy’s “Bandini” and Gulzar’s “Mausam”. In some ways, Mishra goes beyond both the films in search of a contemporary content through caustic, yet sensitive, characterizations.

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Taxi 9211 Direction: Milan Luthria Script: Rajat Arora Cinematography: Kartik Vijay Music: Vishal-Shekhar

ell, the rumors that Milan Luthria's TAXI NO 9211 bears resemblance to the Tom Cruise-Jamie Foxx starrer COLLATERAL have been dispelled.The film on the contrary is one helluva joy ride that is plentiful in action and humor.The movie however is targeted at the multiplex audience and is basically Mumbaiya in its texture.The slick execution and perfect characterization makes it a treat to watch!

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Phir Milenge Direction: Revati Production: Percept Picture Company Cinematography: S. Ravi Verman Screenplay: Atul Sabbharwal Lyrics: Sameer, Prasoon Joshi. Music Direction: Shankar Mahadevan, Ehsaan Noorani, Loy Mendonca. Art Direction: Sabu Cyril Sound Designing: Deepan Chatterjee Cast: Salman Khan, Shilpa Shetty, Abhishek Bachchan, Revati, Mita Vashishth.

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amanna (Shilpa Shetty) is a very successful and hardworking executive of an Ad agency. Her boss treats her like his own kith and kin and it’s obvious that Tamanna is going places. She lives on her own with her younger sister, Tanya, who works as a Radio Jockey, they both having been orphaned at a young age, when their parents were killed in a car accident. However,Tamanna’s routine is thrown helter-skelter when she receives a call from a friend telling her that Rohit Manchanda (Salman Khan) is going to be coming to India for a school reunion and that she must take off two days to come down for this long over-due meeting. Clearly,Tamanna is still living a college romance which never came to fruition and throwing caution to the winds, goes off to meet her pals, despite the urgency with regard to one of the Ad agency’s biggest clients. Rohit and Tamanna meet and they appear to rekindle a light which seems to have waned in the 10 years that Rohit has been in the US. Rohit returns to the US and Tamanna home, in bliss... But this is not to last for long when giving blood, it turns out that she is HIV positive. Stunned by this, Tamanna comes to realize that the only way that this could have happened was through un-protected sex that she had with Rohit. Delirious, she tries to reach him in vain and after informing her boss, her world slowly starts to collapse in front of her.Think this is just another story? Come and see, it could happen to anyone of us.

TAXI NO 9211 is the story of Raghav Shastri (Nana Patekar) and Jai Mittal (John Abraham) who meet up one fine day and their collision sparks off the tumultuous events that change their lives forever. Raghav is a cabbie, who is an insurance agent for the world, and Jai Mittal is a spoilt brat who is heir to a wealthy businessman, and is desperate to seek claim in the court to his father’s property. Raghav is a hot tempered, skeptical cabbie while Jai is a suave but stubborn man who is willing to trade any path to get hands on his familial wealth by challenging his father’s will in the court. If he fails, all the estate will be bestowed on the father’s trusted supporter Mr. Bajaj. Raghav gets hold of the key, which is the sole decider of Jai’s fate.The key is of the locker where the will is kept and at any cost Jai wants that key. But Raghav has other plans and thus begins the appalling feud between the two ‘gentlemen’ that forms the rest of the story. Of course, the film ends on a happy note but not before stirring a healthy dose of action and some straight-in-the-face humor. The performances are first-rate. Nana as usual is the stand-out enthraller who so effortlessly essays the raucous but sensitive cab driver Raghav Shastri. His funny one-liners and witty sarcasm is ‘paisa vasool’ stuff for the audience. He once again proves that he is one of the extremely talented actors in Bollywood. Sonali Kulkarni as his wife is rational and shares a fine chemistry with the mercurial actor. Sonali, unfortunately, has been underrated so far and one hopes that Bollywood would offer her more opportunities that can justify her talent.

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Omkara Direction/ Music: Vishal Bharadwaj Producer: Kumar Mangat Cast: Ajay Devgan, Saif Ali Khan,Viveik Oberoi, Kareena Kapoor, Konkona Sen, Bipasha Basu, Naseeruddin Shah.

mkara is based on William Shakespeare’s 17th century classic, Othello. Regarded as one of the Bard’s finest plays about the human condition, it is being brought to life in an Indian milieu for the first time in a mainstream Hindi film, by noted writer-director Vishal Bhardwaj.This is his successive Shakespeare effort after the highly celebrated “Maqbool’’which brought the brooding Macbeth to Indian screens a couple of years back. Set against the milieu of political warfare in the interiors of Uttar Pradesh, Omkara follows one man’s descent into sexual jealousy and the final wreckage of his love at the altar of blind obsession. Love is blind but jealousy is even blinder and can tear apart even the strongest and bravest of warriors...

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Omkara or Omi is a gifted chieftain who heads a gang of outlaws, which include the crafty Langda Tyagi and the dynamic Kesu amongst his chief cohorts.The story begins when Omi appoints Kesu and not Langda as his chief lieutenant. Langda’s pride is slighted and raging with envy, he hatches a plot to falsely implicate Omi’s beautiful fiancé Dolly, in an illicit affair with Omi’s “favourite lieutenant’’, Kesu. Using petty insinuations and lies, Langda keeps poisoning Omi’s mind till one day he snaps and goes amok tearing up his secure world, leading up to a horrific tragedy at the end of which Omi realizes the backlash of his actions but is it too late... In the original play, Othello’s “tragic flaw’’ is his jealousy, his inability to take things at face value, a quality that Iago provokes to the hilt. Omkara, in spirit, stays true to that central theme and weaves all other conflicts around it. Having said that, Vishal has made the story his own and ends up humanizing Shakespeare’s characters with the necessary folklore and ethnic charm that is unique to an Indian setting. All in all, a gripping modern-day adaptation, that makes this one of those rare instances of Shakespearean cinema, that anyone can tune into and enjoy.

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Scarlett Johansson, Monica Bellucci, Angelina Jolie, Jennifer Lopez, Cameron Diaz, Gwyneth Paltrow, Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Leonardo Di Caprio, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Renee Zellweger, Salma Hayek, Penelope Cruz, Julia Roberts,Tom Hanks, Hilary Swank, Halle Berry, Julianne Moore, Meryl Streep, Jodie Foster, Uma Thurman, Liv Tyler, Drew Barrymore, Audrey Tautou, Adrian Brody, Demi Moore, Charlize Theron, Collin Farell, Owen Wilson, Jude Law, Russell Crowe, Johny Depp,Val Kilmer, Sandra Bullock, John Travolta, Nicholas Cage, Kate Winslet, Catherine Zeta Jones, Kate Blanchett, Kirsten Dunst, Laetitia Casta, Nicole Kidman,Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes, Sharon Stone, Ewan McGregor, Morgan Freeman, Robin Williams, Keira Knightley, Samuel L. Jackson, Rachel Weisz, Jennifer Aniston, Alicia Silverstone, Anne Hathaway, Antonio Banderas, Gene Hackman, Jack Nicholson, Anthony Hopkins, Sean Connery, Juliette Binoche, Marion Cotilliard, Ben Affleck, Mel Gibson, George Clooney, Andy Garcia, Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, Bruce Willis, Richard Gere, Harrison Ford, Meg Ryan, Mathew McConaughey, Dustin Hoffman, Kevin Costner, Denzel Washington, Denise Richards, Diane Lane, Kim Basinger, Orlando Bloom, Elizabeth Hurley, Joseph Fiennes, Jim Caviezel, Jim Carrey, Ethan Hawke, Eva Longoria, Eva Mendes, Sarah Jessica Parker, Michael Pfiffer, Daniel Day Lewis, Minnie Driver, Hilary Duff, Jennifer Connelly, Ben Kingsley, Helen Hunt, Keanu Reeves, Christian Slater,Winona Ryder, Judi Dench, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Jessica Alba, Kate Hudson, Kate Beckinsale, Kate Moss, Liam Neeson, Rene Russo, Lindsay Lohan, Megan Fox, Robert Redford, Clint Eastwood, Paul Newman, Emma Thompson, Naomi Watts, Natalie Portman, Nicole Richie, Paris Hilton, Sheryl Crow, Michael Douglas, Ralph Fiennes,Tobey Maguire, Zhang Ziyi.

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Muppets Movie With Angelina Jolie As Miss Piggy?

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isney has enlisted Jason Segel and Nick Stoller to create the next Muppet movie for the studio. Both will write the script and Stoller will direct. Segel got his first sole writing credit with Forgetting Sarah Marshall, which Stoller directed. In Sarah Marshall, Segel’s character writes a “Dracula” musical performed by puppets.Those cloth creatures were custom-made by the Henson puppeteers, and the experience emboldened Segel to pitch his concept for a Muppets movie when he was invited in for a general meeting with exec. Kristin Burr. Segel got a deal in the room and enlisted Stoller to co-write and direct the project. And a new rumor connected to the project is that Angelina Jolie is being lined up to star in the new Muppets movie.The 33-year-old actress - who is set to give birth to twins - has reportedly been approached to feature in the film, because she is such a huge fan of the Jim Henson creations. “The idea is to re-launch the Muppets with a big name and a big movie.Angelina is a big Muppets fan and being so passionate about kids, there’s a very real chance that she’ll take this project on.” “Even Brad might want to have Miss Piggy as a love interest!” Angelina has previously revealed she thinks she looks like one of the comical puppets.“I am odd-looking. I sometimes think I look like a funny Muppet!”

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Alicia Keys To Adopt In The Future?

licia Keys at the premiere of We Are Together at the Director’s Guild of America in New York, talked a little about her admiration of Angelina Jolie and her multi-racial family.

“I’ve always loved kids. Kids are so important. It’s important to nurture and spend time with them and listen to them.” “I’m not ready to be a mom. But adoption is something that is important to consider. That’s what I really admire about Angelina. I think it’s beautiful the way she embraces children of the world.” And she insists she would like to create a family of different cultures, like Jolie: “We are all one.We’re not as separate as we often-times think. So I possibly would, when I’m more in the motherhood stage of my life.” Keys leads an intensely private personal life, but is rumoured to be dating and planning to marry record producer and business partner Kerry.

Anna Kournikova Still Hits It

Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony spent $1.4 million dollars on the births of their babies

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nna Kournikova is the sexiest woman to ever play tennis. She’s no longer in the top 100 players, but it is a treat to see her graceful form back on the court...

Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony spent $1.4 million dollars on the births of their babies

ennifer Lopez gave birth to a healthy baby boy and girl at North Shore University Hosptial in New York. Lopez shelled out $700,000 to reserve the luxurious

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birthing suite in the hospital. She also spent $175,000 per week for the suit, which was reserved three weeks before she checked in. The suit has a large Apple computer monitor, private kitchen, two flat-screen tv's, and white couches. The couple also paid $300,000 for private doctors and nurses, $300,000 for security, and $100,000 for a personal assistant.

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Buzz Scarlett’s Stage Fright

carlett Johansson’s debut album Anywhere I Lay My Head will be released soon. She say’s she is so pleased with the disc of Tom Waits covers, she wants the chance to play them live at a music festival - if only she could get over her stage fright. “It would be sad to not get everybody (band members) together.Whether it’s at a festival or somewhere that’s kind of fun.” “(But) I have horrible stage fright, so it would have to be overcome. People approach me (about playing live) and my usual answer is, ‘Ah, I’ll think about that’.” “When I do think about it, I start to get really sweaty and uncomfortable and itchy around the neck.”

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112 Cameron Diaz in July 2008 Shape Magazine

ameron Diaz, who is definitely known for being in great shape, is the cover girl for UK’s 2008 July Shape Magazine. She says her biggest weaknesses are burgers and fries, that she had to alter her eating habits, because she was gaining weight as she got older, and that she attributes her active, healthy life-style to keeping her sane. “I eat healthily but love my burgers, and if you put a bowl of fries near me, then it’s over. Normally, though, I’ll have a half-order of something and save the left-overs. I’m queen of left-overs.”

Jessica Alba Gives Birth to a Baby Girl!

essica Alba and Cash Warren welcomed a new baby girl into their family on June 7. Jessica had a very large room in the maternity ward (at Cedars Sinai Medical Center) on reserve for her delivery. She wanted a lot of privacy and very few people knew she was going to deliver there, but there was buzz all over the floor, because everyone heard a celebrity would be in ‘any minute now’, and that she wanted mega VIP service, so everyone guessed it was Jessica Alba since they had seen her in and out of the hospital a lot recently.The baby’s name is Honor Marie Warren. Jessica Alba and Cash Warren got married on May 19, at the Beverly Hills court-house.

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“I used to be able to eat and drink anything I wanted - fried chicken, onion rings, half a bottle of wine - then go right to bed. But as you get older your insides rebel against you!” “I hike, snowboard and surf. I admit I do hire a personal trainer as well, but for me working out is a big part of keeping mind and body together.”

-year-old Cameron Diaz says she would like children of her own at some point in her life, but is happy looking after her friends and family at the moment. “In a sense, I’m a mother now. I think we all have that maternal ability and we all give that to our friends and our family. I think that’s a nurturing nature that we all have. I definitely don’t want to have children right now.”

“I think I’m pretty good with kids. I love kids. Kids are great. I treat kids like human beings because that’s how I was treated - I talk to them like people and some kids get it and some kids don’t.” Cameron is still trying to find ‘the one’. “You're always told that he has to look like this, and this is how he exists in all the story-books we’ve been given over the years - but it doesn’t always come in those packages. And people are not always what they seem to be. I wasn’t really big fairy-tale girl when I was growing up.”

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Ashton On His ‘Illogical’ Decision To Marry Demi

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ometimes the most illogical decisions you make in your life can be the best ones when it comes to love. In a lot of cases, when you think about things too much, you make the wrong decisions.When I (Ashton Kutcher) married Demi Moore, I was 25, I was the host of ‘Saturday Night Live,’ I had the number one show in America, I had the number one show on cable and the number one show on FOX, and I’d just beat Prince William as the most eligible bachelor in the world. If I thought logically, my logical mind would have talked me out marrying a woman with three kids, an exhusband and a whole different life - but I let my illogical mind and heart talk me into it.”

Lindsay Lohan Selling Leggings

verybody believes that the bigger the celebrity ego, the more second careers they try to have.And if they keep trying new careers instead of working on just doing one thing right… well that’s what I like to call the Lindsay Lohan formula. No one would really call Lohan a good actress anymore. She was great in Mean Girls and a few other films back in the day. But everything since Herbie Fully Loaded has pretty much sucked - the pinnacle of suckitude of course being I Know Who Killed Me.

“But now, every morning I wake up, and finally my logical mind caught up to my heart and I know marrying Demi Moore was the smartest decision I’ve ever made.”

Kate Winslet & Leonardo Di Caprio Together Again

ere they are after 10+ years together again on set, filming their new movie Revolutionary Road. They had such great chemistry in Titanic, this is sure to be a good one!

ate Winslet has sketched a portrait of her curvy behind for the upcoming Paint4Poverty charity auction. She is famously proud of her curvy figure and has previously insisted it is her responsibility as a role model to promote a healthy body image to her fans. She said: “In the past, people have been unkind about my weight, but I’m happy with my shape and size. I don’t understand the obsession with skinny celebrities.” The artwork will be auctioned at Bath’s Guildhall, in England. Ê filmFOCUS

Instead of working on becoming a non-sucking actress, Lohan decided to get her to the music studio, with varying results. Now that’s done with, Lohan has moved on to the number one favorite celebrity second career: fashion designer, or more accurately known as product endorser. Lohan has put out a line of leggings, which will range from $40 to $140.

Angelina Jolie says that people hating on her makes her feel stronger

ngelina Jolie says that she keeps guns in the house, and that she would shoot anyone who tries to hurt her family. It’s a real concern for her as someone with small children who’s had a past break in, and is followed by paparazzi wherever she goes. She incites a strange kind of a fanaticism among some who will rant about her on one hand, while saying they don’t want to

read anything about her. With a heated subject like guns, it would have been worse. She gets asked about the most controversial topics in her well-documented life and she answers without mincing words or using a long explanation that she’s not going to answer, as a lot of celebrities do to protect their privacy. She talks about her past, her family, and her relationship with Brad Pitt. Angelina says that when people express strong dislike or admiration for her, she takes it as a sign that she’s making the right decisions in life.

LINDSAY LOHAN’s leggings are getting closer to store shelves! The starlet’s new line, named “6126?” after MARILYN MONROE’s birthdate, has been picked up at L.A.’s posh Fred Segal Boutique and online retailer www.revolveclothing.com and will start shipping around soon. Recently, Lindsay caused a frenzy in Beverly Hills when she and two models posed for publicity shots wearing the pieces. So far, the “6126?” collection includes “footless tights” made from “Supima cotton and Modal ribbed knits” along with other fabrics spruced up with zippers, foil prints, yarn dyes and sexy metallic and screen prints. Cashmere leg warmers and something called an “ankle glove,” a modified warmer that covers the ankle, are also part of the line, which will start at $40 and go up to $140. Ê filmFOCUS

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Ben Affleck Hated Jennifer Lopez Video

en Affleck reportedly has a lot of regrets when it comes to Jennifer Lopez, one of them being his appearance in one of her videos, because he believes it nearly ruined his career.When the Hollywood actor started dating JLo in 2002, he made a cameo in her video “Jenny from the Block” where he was rubbing sun tan lotion onto JLo’s big booty.

manly? For the record, did she hurt my career? No.” Of course being with her hurt his career! His movies were awful after he hooked up with her. However, maybe it wasn’t her fault he chose those dumbass roles, but during the same year he hooked up with JLo, he was named People’s “Sexiest Man Alive” and then after that, but while with her, he seemed to lose his appeal. Well, it’s a good thing he’s not with her and probably shouldn’t mention it anymore.

He said: “If I have a big regret, it was doing the music video. But that happened years ago. I’ve moved on.” However, he insists he’s not blaming JLo for practically ruining his career, even though his career seemed pretty doomed while he was with her. He claimed: “It not only makes me look like a petulant fool (to blame Lopez), but it surely qualifies as ungentle-

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116 Marisa Miller Named Hottest Woman In The World

ccording to Maxim magazine, Supermodel Marisa Miller is the hottest woman in the world. They say the blonde bomb-shell “embodies the official return of the all-American super-model. Not since Cindy Crawford ruled the catwalk, has a pin-up born and bred on U.S. soil, so thoroughly captured the imagination of the American male.” Of her career, Miller says: “I get a kick out of it, but it would be stupid to let it go to my head. It’s modeling - I didn’t find the cure for cancer.” Other hotties on the list include newly-engaged Scarlett Johansson in the No. 2 spot, Jessica Biel at No. 3, and Eva Longoria Parker, who the magazine dubs “hotter than a truck-load of jalapenos,” at No. 4. Also in the top 10: Sarah Michelle Gellar, Elisha Cuthbert, Eva Mendes, Christina Aguilera, Lindsay Lohan, who topped last year’s list, and Ashley Tisdale.

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g movies: f up and comin o t lis r e h ’s re front. He l on the movie al at n w o d d e hasn’t slow

ale Kate Beckins 9) (post-production)

Fine (200 on) Everybody’s (post-producti ) 8 0 0 (2 th u r the T Nothing But ) ost-production (p ) 8 0 0 (2 t u -o White d) 008) (complete (2 s e r tu a e r Winged C

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Name : Monica Bellucci Birth Date : September 30, 1968. Birth Place : Citta di Castello, Perugia, Italy. Height : 5' 9 Education : Drop-out of law school, University of Perugia, Italy. Nationality : Italian Profession : Actress, Model.

Buzz

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...it’s me, Tom Hanks...

Psst... Psst... Psst... I heard these stories... somewhere...

Ê Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes are set to move to New York

118 Liv Tyler Wants To Reconcile

ust a month after announced their separation, Liv Tyler reportedly wants to reconcile with her husband of 5 years, Royston Langdon.Tyler has had a change of heart after chatting with married friend Gwyneth Paltrow, and now she wants to salvage her marriage for the sake of her three-year-old son Milo. “(She) is desperately sad and thinks she may have made a mistake. She now feels that no matter how bad it was, they can still make it work… Liv even suggested they (she and Langdon) go on a trip together.”

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he Hollywood couple - who recently held a star-studded house-warming party to celebrate moving into their new $35 million Beverly Hills mansion - will buy an apartment in Manhattan while Katie Holmes prepares to make her Broadway theatre debut in ‘All My Sons’. The show’s producer Eric Falkenstein said: “Katie and Tom are committed to keeping the family together, so they have to get an apartment here in New York.” Eric believes Katie - who has a two-year-old daughter Suri with Tom Cruise - is perfect choice to play Ann in the stage adaptation of Arthur Miller’s play. He said: “Katie is not a celebrity type. She has done brilliant work in films like Pieces of April and The Ice Storm.” “Ann starts out as a simple, sweet, average Mid-Westerner, and by the finale gets up the gumption to stand and confront what’s wrong.” Katie basically has that exact moral fiber [of her character in the play].”

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d o o w y l l o B Buzz ...it’s me, ‘Big B’... Psst... Psst... Psst... I heard the Buzz... somewhere...

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d or so, r o w s s it is a smile ; r e w o p ow true is H y . e d a eaut e R s er Charle it r w h s li g populan g E in m says im r b s it od and o w y ll o B f o s it hold faces... y tt e r p f o n o ti thing y n a t a k o lo ’s hard to it d n a m e etically g th t lo a o k p o a n lo u e n d n O nning a u t s ly g in t c a else. Distr gorgeous...

angana Ranaut is no doubt a future Super Star. She has the talent and the oomph to bring herself the Start Dom in Bollywood. Apart from these two qualities, this lady has one more unique quality in her - she excels in designing her clothes - both onscreen and off-screen. The actress has done almost 90% of her clothes on screen and need less to say that she looks great in those.Well, it will be hard to resist such deadly combination of talent and loads of talent for directors. Here is Star in making!

he actress Katrina Kaif has been going places post ‘jab we met’ and the weight loss. And one of the places she has made her mark is on the cover-page of ‘Verge’.The latest issue has the profiles of top female achievers of which, Katrina is one.The magazine though, hasn’t given any ranking. The list includes ladies like Kareena Kapoor, Ekta Kapoor, Preity Zinta etc… With Katrina being the first choice of most of the magazine covers, looks like she’s gonna ace this field too.

on ‘Coffee it ix D i r u h d Ma with Karan’

hak Dhak be a steamy D to g in go is uri ’ aran er than Madh th o ‘Koffee with K e n o n is ty ainext celebri ne hour entert O episode! The n lf. e rs e h l se the dam ector, this Dixit Nene am-weaver dir re d ’s d o o w ch out lly y Bo an’s show.Wat ar K f ment packed b o ts h lig h o is a diene of the hig ted actress, wh n show is sure o le ta d an st you e ood’s fin is she? Well… o h W t! si as one of Bollw vi se rpri wraps fan makes a su when the Q&A st ju d hard Madhuri n A ! ing ch wait and wat d! Who accord to n u e ro av h e fir st ju id p ill w ry ra Ram, bles with the fie ma? Other than e in C i d in H up, the fun dou in a’s e hottest hunk . Sooraj Barjaty th d e is iv ri ce u h re ad as M h to l she does arriage proposa i or Juhi? Who ev the sweetest m id Sr t? x e n s Bhansali’ next or Sanjay ? Madhuri choose Ê filmFOCUS

121 Katrina enters the cover page of ‘Verge’

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Mallika Sherawat - One of the 100 most beautiful

he has indeed made it to the elite circles of Bollywood! Though Mallika Sherawat started of to do the usual but nevertheless consequential roles for publicity, she took the fame forward with remarkable and bankable work nationally and also internationally. Mallika Sherawat has long made it internationally like all the A-list stars in Bollywood.What more, she has also walked the red carpet with the legendary Jackie Chan at Cannes.The lady is now ready to be termed one of the 100 most beautiful women in the world. One of Hong Kong’s premiere luxury fashion magazine asks her for the cover page.This monthly claims to be a leading authority on fashion, beauty and entertainment in the Asia-Pacific region. Editor Ellie O'Ready says,“We feel that Mallika is truly one of the 100 most beautiful people in Asia and our list just wouldn’t be complete without her.” So be ready to see our very own Mallika on the prestigious magazine’s cover soon. Ê filmFOCUS

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John and Bips reported to have split

t might be tough to realize but looks like it is all over between John Abraham and Bipasha Basu. Rocky S, Bipasha’s designer friend, says the lady declared, “I am single for the first time in ten years.” First it was rumors of John having flings with his co-stars and then it was Bipasha’s friendship with Saif Ali Khan that got the media talking too much about the rift between the couple. After Bipasha’s smooch with the famous sports person Ronaldo, media went berserk about the split rumors. Looks like, finally the media has been successful in splitting the couple.

? Amrita Rao is the next in M.F. Hussain's list

fter being an ardent fan of Madhuri Dixit, M.F. Hussain has found his latest interest in Amrita Rao. Hussain says, “Amrita has tremendous potential. After Madhuri Dixit she will go a long way”. “She is the ideal woman of today, someone who still has her Indian values intact,” he added. Hussain saw Vivah nine times and is planning to see it again. He is soon going to launch an exhibition for his ‘Rao paintings’.

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he cupid has finally able to struck Amrita Rao, with her mom accompanying her everywhere she goes, the cupid had a tough time targetting her. But all said and done Amrita Rao is going around with her new man, and he is none other than Farhan Saeed. Farhan Saeed is the lead vocalist of Pakistani Band Jal (famous for their Woh Lamhe). Jal had roped in Amrita for their new music video for their new album Boond. Amrita was bowled over by Farhan’s mannerisms and attitude.The duo hit off very well and soon became good buddies. After awhile both Farhan and Amrita developed special feelings for each other. They started hanging out together and were regularly spotted at many restaurants together. Farhan is unable to stay away from his lady-love, and is flying frequently to Mumbai from Pakistan just to be with Amrita.

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Amrita Rao finds love in Jal singer Farhan Saeed

Neha gets experimented

eha Dhupia, who shot to fame with her meaty roles, is now surely trying to have an image change (which is quite preffered by the bollywood hotties… shot to fame as sex symbol and then get a change of image once you are famous enough). This hottie though has become really choosy with her roles, and beyond showy roles, she has her bag full of big movies this year.The actress says she is liking the experiments she does with the roles and that her co-stars in her next flick, Vinay Pathak and Rajat Kapoor inspire her to go towards comedy too.

Aamir’s new apprentice

amir Khan, who has recently become very popular as a mentor, finds himself a new disciple. This time, post Jiah Khan as his disciple, his new follower will be South Indian star Kamal Hasan’s daughter, Shruti Hasan. The actor has the little girl casted in Luck, opposite his nephew, Imran. Now, with a mentor like that, who wouldn't do well??

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Vinay Pathak to share screen with Shah Rukh Khan

Vinay will now appear in Aditya Chopra’s Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi.“Yes, I have signed Aditya Chopra’s Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi in which I will be playing an important role. But I cannot divulge into any details as the director and producer have clearly asked me not to do so.And I really cannot break a promise”, states Vinay.

In addition to all that, he now has another film in the Yash Raj Film’s camp after Aaja Nachle.

Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi will be Aditya Chopra’s directorial venture after 8 years.The film has Shah Rukh Khan and debutante Anushka Sharma. His last film was Mohabbatein.

is comic timing has been fantabulous. Witty, smart, adorable, and talented, Vinay Pathak is all this and much more. After his stint in Bheja Fry, directors and producers are lining outside his house, and he has already signed a number of films.

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Ash Abhishek having fights??? The perfect looking couple, who seem to have no fights, has finally started to live a normal married life. And with a normal married life, come the enhancement called fights. But then, this couple seems to not know how to deal with it. Recently, at IIFA, Bachchan seemed to have lost his temper on Ash and the couple was found screaming so much that the voices could well be heard outside their room. Apparently, the reason was the typical eager-to-catchattention nature of the actress.While Jr. Bachchan tried to keep her low in an award function, the lady was busy being over-expressive with Kunal Kapoor at the function.This allegedly made Bachchan to excuse himself and Ash, to take her to a corner and talk about the issue. Ash seemed to be unconvinced and thus the duo, later had a huge fight!! Now, this is like what it is to be really MARRIED!!

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124 Shilpa Shetty’s smell to engulf all London Beauty, Indian Fans

n a recent survey conducted by a magazine, actress Kareena Kapoor was voted to be the ‘Sexiest Woman In The World’. The competition though, was not easy. It had Asia’s Sexiest, Bips, along with other bollywood babes like Deepika Padukone and Katrina Kaif. The list also had hotties from hollywood like Rihanna, Madonna, Angelina Jolie, and many more. Over 5 Lakh voters took part in this online voting contest to crown Bebo as the sexiest woman. With huge hits to her credit, and now the title to add on, looks like the stars have finally started favouring the beauty, haven’t they?

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he has been planning to have her restaurant chain in London and also her own cloth line. But one thing that has seen the day’s light is her perfume S2.

“It is really unique and very international yet it has an ethnic feel to it. It’s something that is very synonymous with me. I chose the name S2 because I thought that is a brand that can go on for my other products as well my own clothing line which I do intend on doing. I may even have a jewelry line,” said Shilpa. She was recently honored at IIFA for the global impact she created through Big Brother. Great going Shilpa!

SRK says no to sequel of Don

RK, who had faced sharp criticism and comparison with Amitabh Bachchan post Farhan Akhtar’s ‘DON’, has shown his dis-interest in the remake of the film. SRK, who was quite interested in the sequel, even before ‘Don’ was released, has now, had a change of plans. Now that’s a good move to avoid Bachchan related controversies, SRK!! Ê filmFOCUS

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Kangana is pleased with her new counselor

No,

the two hot Khans don’t share the same hair-stylist.We are talking about upcoming movie produced by SRK’s Red Chillies Entertainment, which will have Irrfan Khan playing the main protagonist. SRK is collaborating with ace director Priyadarshan for a comedy flick titled, ‘Billo Barber’. Unlike all SRK produced movie, Billo Barber will have SRK in a supporting role and Irrfan Khan is the main hero. The story for Billo Barber is inspired from the legend of Krishna and Sudama.The film is the story about friendship between a rich actor (SRK) and a poor barber (IK). The duos were langotia yaars in their childhood. But later drift apart only to meet again.An industry “Billo Barber is a story based on the relationship between Krisha and his childhood friend Sudama. Priyan is adapting this story of friendship between two friends in a completely new avatar. Here SRK represents Krishna, he plays an actor. On the other hand Irrfan Khan represents Sudama and plays a village barber. The two are friends from school who grow up and drift until they meet again.” According to rumours, SRK will be romancing three top actresses - Kareena, Priyanka Chopra and Deepika Padukone. Meanwhile the lady opposite Irrfan Khan is yet to be finalized. Priyan is looking for an energetic actress for the role. Most probably Ameesha Patel or Tabu will clinch the deal. Lets see the sizzling chemistry between the two hot Khans.

angana Ranaut has found a new counselor for herself on the sets of her latest flick, Fashion. And it’s none other than Priyanka Chopra. The duo shared a great friendship on the sets of fashion, with Priyanka ending up giving some great piece of advice to the coactress of her. And Kangana seems to like it a lot and has finally decided to change her career plan according to the counselor. The actress would now not stick to doing 1 film per year and go by Priyanka’s advice of making it big. Well, thanks Pri, for making the hot Kangana availble on screen much more often now.

SRK and Irrfan Khan come together for ‘Billo Barber’

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Bips enjoys the company of youngies

ipasha Basu is all set to set the floors on fire soon with the screen chemistry with the hottest newbies of the bollywood: Ranbir Kapoor and Neil Nitin Mukesh. Not just this, the older lady also admits that working with the kids makes her feel great.The vibrancy of the actors makes everything around them alive.

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“So what if these actors are younger, is there an issue? My pairing with these younger men looks good.With Ranbir, I have great chemistry on-screen. Neil and I complement each other thanks to a fabulous script.They are cool and contemporary”, chirps the dusky beauty.

Vidya Rules Yusuf ’s Heart

H Ê

ere’s another cricketer who is wildly wooed by the bollywood actress.The budding cricketer of the Indian cricket team, Yusuf Pathan, says Vidya Balan is his dream girl. He also adds that he wants his girl to look exactly like Vidya Balan.The cricketer who recently contributed a lot in the victory of the IPL team, Rajasthan Royals, says he loves the soberness and beauty of the actress.This statement has been the latest talk of bollywood town. Let’s see what Vidya has to say about it...

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Where did she go??

een this lady lately?? She doesn’t need an introduction, but just in case you lost track, she is Sushmita Sen… former Miss Universe and a brilliant actress. But the question is, where has she disappeared?? The lady who has been so popular

among her friends, especially men (going by the number of her affairs), has been out of the social circuit for really long. She was in news with her film under making, Rani Lakshmi Bai, but then the rumors are that even that film isn’t going on well as there is some financial problem. Come out girl…The fans wanna see more of u…

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Dia to look different in ‘Acid Factory’

he beautiful actress Dia Mirza is surely at cloud #9 after being casted opposite six men in her next flick, Acid Factory. The Lady is said to undergo a total personality change for the film. The stylists are thus trying to give her a different look, especially by changing her hairstyle. Dia insists that her role in this film will be very different from what the audience has seen till now. With Priyanka Chopra coloring her hair, seems like bollywood is having a Hair Change Trend!!

Sallu and Priyanka: Not friends anymore

ctor Salman Khan has done it again. He has started on with a cold war against the dusky beauty, Priyanka Chopra.The duo have stopped interacting or even looking into each other’s eyes at the sets of “God Tussi Great Ho”.The duo also had this hard time earlier, but then, they patched up. But the history has repeated itself really soon and the duo have again gone in No-Talking mode. It all began with Sallu getting his ego hurt after Priyanka couldn’t say yes to his brother Sohail Khan’s movie, “Main aur Mrs Khanna”, due to lack of dates.This really hurt him and he started passing rude and indirect comments to the actress on the sets of GTGH. After the total ignore act by the actress, Sallu finally stopped this and the duo have not spoken since then. Ê filmFOCUS

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John gets friendlier with environment

ith celebrities coming in news only when their films are about to release, here is one actor who is always in news for his creative and noble acts. Actor John Abraham was recently awarded with the Eco Warrior Awards given to the people who contributed in maintaining the environmental balance.The actor has fought his way and was to a very large extent successful in saving the elephants.The list of awardees contained 15 people, with John as the only actor from bollywood. With this, will our bollywood actors try and learn doing something really concrete rather than just showing off??

Esha with an increased respect for air-hostesses

sha Deol, who plays the role of an air hostess in her film, ‘Hijack’, has developed an immense amount of respect for the air-hostesses. She says that all this time, she thought that their job was quite an easy one, but only recently, while shooting for ‘Hijack’ did she realize how tough their job is. Let’s see if her movie takes her high in the sky this time.

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Auteur Cinema

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3-Iron/

(Bin-Jip)

Kim Ki-duk

3-Iron (Bin-Jip) Directed by: Kim Ki-duk Cast: Jae Hee, Lee Seung-yeon.

startling tale of burglary, domestic abuse and golf from Kim Ki-Duk, the Korean film-maker of The Isle and Bad Guy.

The Korean title of Kim Ki-Duk’s film translates as “empty houses”, which is fitting since most of its action takes place in apartments that have been vacated by their owners. Tae-Suk (Jae) spends his days driving around on a motorcycle delivering takeaway menus. Later, he returns and breaks into the houses that haven’t removed the taped menus from their doors. Once inside he lives there until the owners come back, fixing anything that’s broken and doing their laundry. It’s an aimless, isolated existence that lasts, until he breaks into an apparently empty house and finds SunHwa (Lee), a victim of domestic violence. Kim scooped the Best Director award at Venice Film Festival for this strange, stylised love story that plays with themes of voyeurism, violence and angst, all familiar from his other works. Focusing on its silent lovers as they break into the homes of rich and poor alike, it’s a fatalistic film which offers little explanation for its characters’ damaged personalities and skimps over the issues of misogyny and domestic violence that it invokes.

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There’s always been something rather juvenile about Kim’s cinema: his concern with inarticulate characters unable to express the burden of existence is distinctly adolescent. Here the violence which inarticulacy can lead to - the 3-Iron of the English title features heavily as a weapon and a golf club, and occasionally both - is laced with feelings of dark despair and Oedipal tension. Beating Sun-Hwa’s violent husband Min-Kyu (Kwon) with his own golf club, then absconding with his wife,Tae-Suk sets in motion a train of events that become increasingly dreamlike as the film unfolds. After Tae-Suk is arrested, Kim moves towards magical realism with the imprisoned hero disappearing from the world altogether: he perfects the ability to hide behind his prison guard, “shadowing” his movements long enough to escape back to Sun-Hwa. Once there, he becomes an invisible ghost-like figure, standing between Min-Kyu and his wife in a coda that makes little sense at all. Kim ends with a gnomic note: “It’s hard to tell that the world we live in, is either a reality or a dream,” which undoubtedly obscures far more than it illuminates. Is this a battered wife’s fantasy about being saved? A young man’s fantasy of playing saviour? Or simply a morality play without a moral? We’re left uncertain. What is clear is the haunting atmosphere that pervades proceedings. Partly that’s a result of the decision to keep his two protagonists almost silent.Yet it’s also aided by the slow but sure pacing that lends an air of inevitability to all that follows. Whatever Kim’s flaws as a writer-director, he remains one of Korea’s most consistently intriguing film-makers.

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eo-jin and Jae-young are young teenage girls and best friends, cl oser than most that call themselves that - they are more like soul mates. They are normal girls in almost every way, save one. Jae-young is a prostitute, although she mainly does it for companionship and a spiritual need to bring happiness through sex, and Yeojin is the one who sets up the rendezvous, although she despises what’s going on. Then when a police raid ends up in tragedy for Jae-young,Yeo-jin seeks to reverse the process which ended in her friend’s demise, by going through the appointment book, giving the same men sex and paying them back the money they originally paid. However, there’s a snag in the plans, as Jae-Young’s police inspector father has found out his daughter might be a prostitute herself, and he’s going to do whatever is necessary to put an end to her behavior, with the exception of shaming her with the knowledge of his awareness.

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Acclaimed Korean film-maker Kim Kiduk filmed Samaritan Girl in between the two films that would bring him international acclaim, Spring Summer Fall Winter... and Spring and 3-Iron, although this is not really a lesser film in terms of provocative and fascinating subject matter. Although the story is a simple one, the themes run very deep, marrying the

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occupation of prostitution with religious healing, with sex as a means for bringing happiness to those who partake, as evidenced by the perpetual smile on the young girl’s face for making her men feel joy, if only for a few minutes. Beneath this, it is also a tale of love between two girls, one that feels a higher calling and another that sees the euphemistic blessings as a sin, and also what took her love away. She seeks to reverse the pattern as a way of paying back and washing away the shamefulness of everything that has taken place. The final player in this threepart act is the father that can’t come to terms with his virginal daughter’s innocence given so freely away to men undeserving of such a thing. Although he doesn’t understand Yeo-jin’s motivations, he is also following in her footsteps, doing his own part to see that her deeds are atoned for, only his methods of operation include righteous retribution. Samaritan Girl isn’t an easy film to understand fully, although one could watch it as a straight narrative, but that’s probably only seeing half of the full story. Motifs abound, especially of stones and of concrete, and how these can bring life and death in varying ways - a burial marker, a murder weapon, a way to ward off the unwanted, something hard to fall on, a way to get stuck, a way to free oneself, and a way to come into woman-hood. At the same time that one may not come away

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understanding the symbolic significance of things in the film, so too is Samaritan Girl not an easy film to like outright. It deals with subject matter we don’t like to see or know exists in this world, and the way events play out, we grow increasingly sure that there can be no road back to happiness once the domino effect of these disturbing events-chain react. Samaritan Girl is a film that some will not quite feel the impact of, until after seeing it, as the images and events of the film settles uneasily in one’s mind in a way that can only be resolved through contemplation and understanding. In the end, it’s about guilt, shame, and forgiveness. Shame for a girl, shame for a family, and as a growing epidemic, a shame for a country. Ultimately, it puts a face on the smiling young girls as sympathetic, putting the blame for this problem on the men that seek to use them, because they do not see how adversely the prostitution affects the lives of these children and their friends and families, while in the confines of a hotel room for a few minutes. As Kim may have intentionally set forth in his morality tale, if the men who willingly pay for child-prostitutes can see the full picture, as Samaritan Girl painstakingly portrays in its own metaphoric fashion, perhaps the tide can finally be turned on a problem, that is currently running rampant in his native country of Korea, and indeed, throughout Asia and the world.

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Cast: Cho Jae-Hyun, Seo Wun, Kim Yun-Tae, Choi Duek-Mon, Choi Yoon-Young.

hile walking through a crowded street Han-Gi notices Sun-Hwa - a young college girl - waiting on a bench for her boyfriend. Immediately fascinated, Han-Gi approaches the girl and sits down next to her, prompting the young girl to move away quickly.When her boyfriend arrives Han-Gi suddenly grabs the girl and gives her a long kiss, while the boyfriend attempts to pry him off of her.The police get involved and beat Han-Gi when he refuses to apologise to the girl - who then spits in his face. Later, Han-Gi tracks SunHwa and her boyfriend down.When Sun-Hwa is alone, she falls for into a trap, which Han-Gi has set, which puts her thousands of dollars into debt and forces her to sell her body for cash.

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BAD GUY is not a nice film. Director Kim Ku-Duk seems to intentionally try to offend, insult and degrade his audience in much the same way that Sun-Hwa (Seo Wun) is treated throughout the story.That’s not to say that BAD GUY doesn’t make for interesting cinema, it just means that you should prepare yourself for an uncompromising subject with equally disturbing imagery. BAD GUY is a strange combination of a sleazy sex film, an unlikely love story and an examination of obsession, class, voyeurism and violence. It is these themes that you have to concentrate on while watching the film, otherwise it feels un-inspiring pretty quickly.The narrative itself is confused and unconvincing: Sun-Hwa’s life as a prostitute never rings true - there’s many reasons why this would may not happen to her, and never convinces us why Ê filmFOCUS

she would submit so easily. In fact, the film barely cares about Sun-Hwa at all, as she is stripped of her identity and comfort and reduced to nothing but a figure for Han-Gi to obsess over. Instead the focus is directed towards Han-Gi, the bizarre central ghost-like pimp and thug of the film.While thematically the film is at times thoughtprovoking, the narrative is - in many ways - a cheap, dirty tease. Han-Gi (Cho Jae-Hyun) is a strange central character. For the first half of the film it is almost as if he is not even completely there. Although events unfold as a result of his actions and scheming, Han-Gi watches those around him from the background with a mad, wide-eyed stare and an otherwise totally un-responsive expression on his face. Han-Gi also barely utters a word (typical of the ‘mute’ character re-occurring in Ki-Duk’s films). This makes both those around him uncomfortable, as well as us the viewers. We are forced to empathise with a figure who is committing these terrible acts - but it is almost impossible to try to understand the reasons why. This is the reason why the film is both interesting and at the same time, unsatisfying. In a film that presents us with some contradictions and ironies in class (Han-Gi is a college girl reduced to a street whore), violence (Han-Gi beats some of Sun-Hwa’s dis-respecting clients even though he is responsible for putting her in her unfortunate situation) and voyeurism (Han-Gi watches Sun-Hwa through a double-sided mirror, while we watch him watching her), it never worries about reasons why.

Kim Ki-Duk seems to be saying ‘look at this - it’s terrible - what do you make of it?’ It’s as if Ki-Duk asks this over and over without offering his own interpretation. BAD GUY is quite a surreal film. Visually the film is a treat, full of blindingly obvious paradoxes and ironies the red-light district is a sea of colour and energy, but it is essentially a loveless environment, Han-Gi’s office is lit only by unforgiving artificial white light, and scenes on the beach are grey and cold, but strangely comforting.The theme of voyeurism is explored not only through Han-Gi’s two-way mirror, but scenes are often framed at a distance, or through objects such as fences and plants. Several key-images are what makes the film worthwhile such as a moment where the two central figures are on opposite sides of the double-sided mirror, cleverly symbolising role-reversal and reflection.

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The film is nasty and violent; there are scenes of rape, but surprisingly this doesn’t stop us from liking the film. The final third of the film veers off as Ki-Duk makes an attempt to tie up his ideas and the result is less interesting than the earlier part of the film.The narrative takes over at the end of BAD GUY, the themes become bloated to a ridiculous level and start making little sense before starting to disappear up their own backside. Ultimately, what BAD GUY leaves us with is some shocking imagery and ideas which are less complex than it seems to think they are.There’s little subtlety in the film, but this is probably it’s strongest point: there are moments which may well haunt you long after viewing. Ê filmFOCUS

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10:06 AM

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Time is unusual in Kim’s filmography in that its heroes are not marginalized characters who exist on the outskirts of society. Jiwoo and Sehie/Saehie lead middle class lives, pursue art as a hobby and (quite rare for Kim’s films) don’t get tangled up with the police. Nonetheless, the force of their emotions lead to frequent public outbursts, and they are often the object of onlookers’ stares;

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In this sense, perhaps, they are outsiders. For the viewer as well, the emotions of the characters and that of the film itself - are sometimes expressed in such extreme ways that we, too, feel alienated, or simply turned off. Kim eventually pushes the symbols and narrative patterns of his work so hard that the underlying structure starts to crack. Characters’ actions violate psychological norms, and the film’s coincidences flaunt plausibility. The hand behind the film seems to be taking over. We might say that Kim simply lost control of the film.Yet he has been doing this for so long and with such consistency that perhaps we should just accept this as an aspect of his filmic style. In the lesser works among his filmography, even a leap of faith on the part of the viewer isn’t enough to hold everything together.

Nonetheless Time, despite its sometimes cringe-inducing deficiencies, exhibits a weird sort of attraction. When Sehie sends Jiwoo a letter saying that she will return, and then appears with a photo of her old face strapped around her head as a mask, it looks absolutely ridiculous. And yet it’s oddly compelling in some ways, too. The film is well-acted and always engaging, if awkward and uneven at times. It is refreshing to watch a film from Kim that is neither outrageously misogynist nor out to make a deep philosophical point.

Kim Ki-duk

Cinema

Hot young actor Ha Jeong-woo (The Unforgiven) plays Jiwoo, a man who is basically content in his long-term relationship with his girlfriend Sehie, but who feels somewhat restless. Sehie (played by Park Ji-yeon) senses this restlessness on his part, and notices when his eyes shift towards other women. This unease starts to eat away at her, and soon she erupts in storms of jealousy. One day, she decides to disappear from his life, and she finds herself at a plastic surgery clinic. “I’m not sure I can make you more beautiful,” says the surgeon. “I don’t need to be more beautiful,” she says. “Just make me unrecognizable.”

136 Meanwhile, Jiwoo is shocked at her disappearance, and months pass without a word from her. He eventually starts to approach other women, but something or someone seems to be following him, preventing him from getting close to anyone.Then one day, a woman appears (played by Sung Hyun-ah of Woman is the Future of Man), who attracts him immediately, and who at the same time feels oddly familiar. She says her name is “Saehie.”

Contempo ra

im Ki-duk’s 13th film Time opens with video footage of a women undergoing plastic surgery. The images are predictably gruesome, displaying the violence that lies behind a re-shaped face. We might expect such an opening to lead on to a story about society’s obsession with beauty, peopled by narcissistic heroes, eager to do whatever it takes to be pretty, but in fact this is a work with less predictable trajectories. Kim Ki-duk has been known to occasionally drive home an obvious point - The Coast Guard perhaps being the best example - but in Time his film remains balanced enough to undermine easy conclusions.

Breath/

Auteur

Cinema

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im Ki-Duk casts Taiwanese actor Chang Chen in a quirky meditation on life, death, and the change of seasons. Not a very forthcoming motion picture, but within its inaccessible, opaque moments lie recognizable truths and emotions.

Kim Ki-Duk goes for something a little less extreme with Breath, a spare and potentially less disturbing film than one might expect from the well-known auteur, whose predilection with cruelty and violence have made him a notorious art-house figure. The film stars Taiwanese actor Chang Chen as Jang Jin, a death row inmate who attempts to hasten his upcoming demise by stabbing himself in the throat with a sharpened toothbrush. The attempt is unsuccessful, only raising the concern of his cellmates, one of whom, who carries an unspoken homo-erotic crush on the doomed Jang. The suicide attempt also makes the news, reaching the attention of disaffected housewife Yeon (Zia), who passes her days sculpting, doing laundry, and generally looking like she’s going to step off her balcony one day.

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Yeon has a daughter and a husband (Ha Jung-Woo), but the latter has strayed. Impelled by her anger or perhaps merely her daily monotony, Yeon visits the prison, and asks to see Jang Jin, saying that she’s his ex-girlfriend. She’s rejected, but is let in soon afterwards by the prison’s apparent incharge, a faceless, nameless individual running the prison’s security cameras.This person seems to have an odd and perverse interest in seeing Yeon interact with Jang Jin, first separated by a window, and then within the confines of a visiting room during her later visits. At the first visit, she tells Jang about her own near-death experience, when she held her breath for five minutes underwater as a child. After telling Jang Jin not to hurt himself again, she leaves, returning to her cold, evidently unfulfilling life. But she returns again and again, bringing a new season each time. During each visit, she wallpapers the visiting room to resemble a season, dresses in the appropriate clothing, and even sings a song, while Jang Jin looks on quietly. He’s mute because he stabbed himself in the throat - which helps out the Korean-impaired Chang Chen -

and he watches her curiously, intently, and ultimately affectionately. Chang turns in a fine performance, considering that he can only communicate through minute actions and facial expressions, creating a character that’s interesting and even sympathetic, though the enormity of his death-row crime seems a little jarring once its revealed. It seems that the characters in Breath must step outside the norm to find life, and create it for themselves if it’s not there. Otherwise, life is a drag, with people seemingly uncommunicative and unsympathetic towards one another. Kim brings unspoken understanding between characters and the promise of accord that seems to indicate better times even outside the visiting room’s walls. Meanwhile, other characters take an almost perverse interest in Yeon’s activities.The security monitor and even Yeon’s husband seem to be okay with watching, almost like they see the benefit and even approve of her extreme play-acting. Again, it seems like Kim is sending us a positive message. Maybe what he’s saying is we all need a vacation, even if it’s to a visiting room filled with colorful wallpaper, announcing the arrival of fall.

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