movies reveiws

Jatt And Julliet 2
RELEASE DATE: June 28, 2013
DIRECTOR: Anurag Singh
CAST: Diljit Dosanjh, Neeru Bajwa, Jaswinder Bhalla
RUNTIME: 2 hours 17 minutes

Hit trio of Anurag Singh, Diljit Dosanjh and Neeru Bajwa have once again reunited for ‘Jatt and Julliet 2’ in order to reinvent the spell of brand ‘Jatt and Julliet’.
Plot of the film narrates the tale of a Punjabi cop Fateh Singh (Diljit Dosanjh) who is sent to Canada by one of his insecure seniors, Joginder Singh (Jaswinder Bhalla) to mollify and bring back commissioner's daughter who is at odds with her father. Soon after, everything is set at its place for Fateh's departure to Canada on the pretext of searching a wanted fugitive Shampy.
On reaching Canada Fateh has a rendezvous with a female cop, or rather 'Shapaatan' P. Singh (Neeru Bajwa) who is deputed by Canadian authorities to help Fateh in his mission. As the frames roll ahead Fateh has a rendezvous with Preeti (Bharti Singh) whom Fateh mistakenly believes to be the commissioner's daughter. So amid this amusing game of hit and misses will Fateh manage to find Shampy and succeed in finding and convincing the Commissioner's daughter? To know more, check out this laughter riot crafted by Anurag Singh.
From commencement till culmination there is hardly any moment in ‘Jatt and Juliet 2’ which in any manner compels you to avert your eyes from the celluloid. Be it gluing up of various instances or humour punches, everything is knitted with such a daintiness by scriptwriter Dheeraj Rattan, that you never feel distracted throughout the run time of the movie.
Even the screenplay of the movie is dauntless and thoroughly attention grabbing. Be it flow of the narration or the cutting edge editing everything pertaining to the movie, successfully adds to the overall appeal of the movie.

The East
RELEASE DATE: June 28, 2013
DIRECTOR: Zal Batmanglij
CAST: Brit Marling, Alexander Skarkskard, Ellen Page, Toby Kebbell
RUNTIME: 1 hour 56 minutes

Sarah (Marling), a former FBI agent, takes a job with a private agency and goes undercover to infiltrate the East, an anarchist collective which carries out attacks on misbehaving corporations. Attracted to their leader Benji (Sharskard), Sarah starts to sympathise with their cause.
In a post democratic America where espionage in contracted out to the private sector and law enforcement is handled by unaccountable corporations for their own ends, it’s almost too obvious that a feeling person like the heroine will side with the anarchists. The instances of corporate evil here, though horribly credible, are cartoonishly extreme, with Patricia Clarkson as a Disney villainess sending princess Brit out into new wave hobo jungles to hook up with masked raiders.
What’s missing is the complexity John Sayles brings to this sort of project, but Marling and Batmanglij do show that members of the East don’t always agree with each other on tactics, tend to go off on personal crusades and are aware of the cost of their estrangement from straight society. There are footnotes about how to live off perfectly good food that’s been thrown away, and good, engaged and engaging performances from Ellen Page and Toby Kebbell as subordinate Easterners, Marling and Alexander Skarsgard strike sparks, but the romance angle feels forced Skarskard’s charisma makes the East feel as much a cult as a collective, but the film gives his character too easy a time of it, just as it shies away from the true repercussions of a key character’s actions.
Well-acted and suspenseful, with a great deal of editorial content, this feels a little awkward and earnest, and perhaps not angry enough.

A Field In England
RELEASE DATE: July 5, 2013
DIRECTOR: Ben Wheatley
CAST: Richard Glover, Peter Ferdinando, Ryan Pope
RUNTIME: 1 hour 26 minutes

During the English Civil War in 1648, three soldiers (Richard Glover, Peter Ferdinando, Ryan Pope) and a scholar (Reece Shearsmith) find themselves away from a battle in a mysterious field where O’Neil (Michael Smiley), an Irish alchemist, forces them to help him search for a perhaps-magical treasure.
The Wheatley oeuvre to date encompasses a domestic gangster movie (Down Terrace), a crime/horror hybrid (Kill List) and a serial killer comedy of manners (Sightseers). Now, with partner/regular screenwriter Amy Jump, he’s made a period piece (homing in on that fascinating, underfilmed era the English Civil War) in black and white, which avoids undue expense by being set entirely out of doors in the eponymous patch of countryside. A tough film to synopsise or encapsulate, it evokes classic British horror (obviously ticking off Witchfinder General and Blood On Satan’s Claw as influences), but is closer in tone to a grittier yet still metaphysical brand of arthouse mystification. The heavily symbolist Bergman of The Seventh Seal or the hypnotic Herzog of Heart Of Glass come to mind, while a few tics black frames between scenes, followed by live-action freezes as the actors pose in tableau could be from the weirder elements of German silent cinema.
Less approachable than previous Wheatley films, and liable to frustrate those wanting explanations for everything, A Field In England is nevertheless compelling and strange. 
Very physical, with intense performances and half serious period talk, it’s an impressive, haunting picture though the sort of thing you have to meet at least halfway to enjoy.
ISTEN
The Gifted by Wale
Washington, DC is rooting very hard for Wale. Only last weekend, the Post ran an A1, above-the-fold feature on the city’s native son, its only rapper of note in the game right now. The story painted a picture of an artist very much in flux, one clambering to reach the next rung on the ladder. “They are gonna love you a little different when you at the top,” he explains on “LoveHate Game”, an early track on his just-released third studio album, The Gifted. The problem is, Wale isn’t at the top, he’s simply borrowing that swagger from the A-list guests that decorate The Gifted. Those big names cast long, long shadows, and the thing that both drives the 28-year-old and haunts him is that, while he certainly has the top in sight, he knows as well as we do that he’s not quite there yet.
While, theoretically, each new album by any artist, regardless of genre, should bring them one step closer to that “top” – to notoriety, to fame, to recognition – the let-down of The Gifted might be that it’s instead more of a lateral move; there’s even a callback to his Seinfeld-name dropping Mixtape About Nothing with ‘Outro About Nothing’. Tracks like ‘Vanity’ are notable for their self-awareness of the posturing that goes on in the rap world, but this very same quality is absent from ‘Clappers’, where our protagonist keeps it simple and painfully obvious.
While The Gifted is a solid and even enjoyable effort, DC can only hope that there’s more – and better – to come.

Tv Shows, Serials & More...
The Call Centre
There’s a lot of stress among Nev Wilshire’s workforce, largely due to the ‘colourful’ responses their unsolicited sales calls provoke. Who’d have thought? So fag breaks offer a welcome chance to get away from the phones for five minutes. Except the cheeky so-and-sos have been dragging out those five minutes to a point where Nev has decided to take action for the sake of productivity. And tidiness. But will bribing his employees with a tenner get them to kick the habit?

Secrets From The Workhouse
Who do You Think You Are? Meets Britain’s Secret Homes in a two-part adventure through time and space, which sees a set of modern-day celebs trace their roots back to one of the nation’s former workhouses, the Victorian version of slave labour for the poor. Tonight’s social history expedition finds actor Brian Cox, Author Barbara Taylor Bradford and model-turned-actress Kiera chaplin – granddaughter of silent movie star Charlie – exploring the harsh realities of a time that’s a world away from modern i-Lives.

Love Your Garden
Hardy TV perennial Alan Titchmarsh returns with this emotional wringer of a show, transforming the gardens of people in sore need of some TLC. Last week, tears started flowing before Alan picked up his secateurs as we heard how 49-year-old Malcolm, diagnosed two years ago with motor neurone disease and now confined to a wheelchair, and wife Trish wanted to be able to enjoy their garden together. Currently it’s accessible only to the couple’s nine-year-old son George and the family’s bouncy black dog.




QUEEN

 
RELEASE DATE: March 7, 2014
DIRECTOR: Vikas Bahl
CAST: Kangana Ranaut, Lisa Haydon, Rajkummar Rao
RUNTIME: 2 hours and 26 mins

The internal chatter of a bride in the making, the blinking lights of the heartshaped 'Vijay weds Rani' sign that never quite finds its place, and the gradual development of each family member's role, are the threads weaving the complex fabric of Kangana Ranaut's character as she opens ‘Queen’. The delightful film tells a simple story of a young Indian girl, dumped by her fiance, two days before her wedding, who chooses to go on the pre-booked honeymoon to France and Amsterdam on her own anyway. The standard Indian cinematic response would involve a tedious amount of emotional drama; the reconstruction of this object of pity rebuilding her life, and fighting society to redemption.
Instead, Dadi tells her weeping grandchild how one day she will be thankful this happened. Her nonplussed but supportive parents drive the daughter who has never left Delhi in an uncomfortable, restrained silence to the airport. And that is the film's beauty: its pauses, its silences, its not saying too much when it can say less. Vikas Bahl allows the woman to emerge from the turmoil, in her own way and that is uniquely a mastery of his own.
The art of direction is in the small things: the hesitation of a single-woman on a journey to ask a stranger to take a picture, Rani slipping easily back into the comfort of Hindi even with foreigners speaking other languages, her non-judgmental acceptance of companionship from the French-Indian single mom in Paris. Bahl defines circumstances by gestures immediately recognisable to the women who have lived them. It is an incredibly nuanced film. Rani finds her own terms for worlds she has not encountered. Much is told through gestures: a raised eyebrow, a widening of the eyes and a subtle shift in body language. Kangana occupies the nuances like she was born in them. The film acquires a pace which it wraps around its lead character and that it remains true to until the last note.
Rajkummar Rao, a convincing London educated guy, forces a reluctant dislike, first with his ardent pursuit of Rani, and then his easy betrayal of her. His words are chameleon-like, smooth with just the right amount of self justification. Body language is Kangana's most powerful tool. From the languid shoulder-dropping shuffle to the confident canter of a woman set free, a woman happy in herself, ‘Queen’ is a journey of self transformation every woman, dumped at the altar or not, must take. - 


The Book Thief
 
RELEASE DATE: November 8, 2013
DIRECTOR: Brian Percival
CAST: Sophie Nelisse, Geoffrey Rush, Emily Watson, Roger Allam, Nico Liersch, Ben Schnetzer
RUNTIME: 2 hours and 10 mins

This handsome Holocaust drama was actually released again, to qualify it for the Baftas pointlessly, as it turns out. The only real impact it had was the early disappointment felt by fans of Markus Zusak’s original international best-seller.
A beloved book club favourite aimed at a young adult audience (always a tricky one for movie studios to target), Zusak’s story presents a child’s eye view of German small-town life under the Nazis. Ever solid bets Geoffrey Rush (hangdog but lovable) and Emily Watson (sour but lovable) are the ageing, impoverished couple who adopt our heroine, Liesel (a blank Sophie Nelisse), after her communist mother is branded an enemy of the state. The illiterate Liesel has just buried her little brother and, at this funeral, snatches a book the gravedigger lets fall, sparking a love affair with words and a habit of pilfering books.
Given the oppressive Nazi back-drop of book burning, ‘disappeared’ parents, starvation and witch hunts, it is actually quite amazing just how little jeopardy and dramatic urgency ‘The Book Thief’ manages to conjure up during its two hour plus run time.
Well-behaved and never letting off the safety catch, it is an over-prettified Holocaust film where every flake of fake snow has been styled and the wide eyed, perfectly ringletted Nelisse looks like she’s been primped for a beauty pageant not a life/death drama. Meanwhile, the narrator, Death (Roger Allam), has a cuddly grandpa presence that removes the sting of responsibility from the human realm.
The movie is unmissable only if the alternative is double history. It is a book about books that should have remained a book. -