Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (English, 2007)

Disgusting waste of time. With absolutely no indication of a main plot, the film keeps on jumping between various senseless sub-plots and entirely wastes the talents of a superb cast.

This movie has scared me about sequels. Hollywood, some originality please.

Recommendation - Avoid it, unless of course you owe a debt to Davy Jones or Jack Sparrow or any other stupid character in the movie.

And I am not wasting any more words on this.

Rating - ✘✘✘✘✘

Bridge to Terabithia (English, 2007)

In one word, Wonderful.

In our reminiscences, we always remember childhood as a time when everything was possible, when we were full of dreams and hopes and not touched by the bitterness of life. That's not quite true, though, is it? I am sure most of us as children actually faced an eternal doubt on whether anything is possible and being frustrated at not knowing the answer one way or the other. We were taught by everyone around us to be disciplined, tow the line, fit in and so on. All the teaching around us - at school, at home and the society in general - was targeted to classify things into good and bad, into possible and impossible.

Hats off to this movie's central thought - Keep an open mind and anything is possible. In a world full of prejudices, failures and disappointments, where one thing difficult to find is a person with an open mind, the movie brings to us this beautiful thought. And in a non-preachy way.

Jesse (Josh Hutcherson) is a misfit in school. Leslie (Anna Sophia Robb), the new arrival in the class, becomes his best friend. Together, they learn to open their mind and create the imaginary world of Terabithia and have adventures there. The story is about friendship and about opening your mind.

A beautiful story, beautifully portrayed. If any of you are worried about monster like creatures shown in the trailer, don't worry, that's not the focus. Good acting by the two protagonists and some very beautiful cinematography will leave you with a smile on your face when you leave the theatre.

Recommendation - Must Watch.
Rating - ✔✔✔

Magicians (English, 2007)

Just yesterday, I was watching The Peep Show on BBC - that's the famous British TV serial starring David Mitchell and Robert Webb - and I was laughing out loud throughout the show. I had been warned that Magicians, even though it is a Mitchell-Webb show, is not in the same league, but I did not expect it to be such a damp squib as it turned out to be.

Magicians has Harry (David Mitchell) and Karl (Robert Webb) playing two stage magicians, who are partners, then turn rivals and unite again in the end.

Don't get me wrong, the movie has its good moments; and laughable moments. If only it was a half-hour episode of The Peep Show instead of a full-length movie, it would have been wonderful. Unfortunately, in the process of making it a movie, the story looks so imposed and unnatural that the jokes seem like ones out of a cheap old joke book. Stifling and boring.

Recommendation - Avoid. Better rent a couple of DVDs of The Peep Show instead.

Rating - ✘✘

Ta Ra Rum Pum (ता रा रम पम)(Hindi, 2007)

Ta Ra Rum Pum is the story of RV(Saif Ali Khan), his wife Radhika(Rani Mukherjee) and children Princess (Angelina Idnani) and Champ (Ali Haji). RV is a star race driver, who likes to live life as it comes and does not believe in planning for the future. After an accident on the race track, he finds himself psychologically scarred and unable to get back into racing. As he does not know how to do anything else, he soon finds himself penniless. Ta Ra Rum Pum is the story of how the family fights the "poor" days together, how they keep their spirits high inspite of adversities and how, when faced with the issue of saving his son's life, RV finds his groove back and wins a race again.

That the movie is an "inspired" version of Cinderella Man is not news. What is news is that it is a good movie in its own right. The story of keeping up the spirits in spite of adversities is an age-old draw, but it still works. Saif and Rani come up with good performances, as do the kids. Javed Jaffery is very good in the role of a friend and supporter.

An interesting tid-bit. The movie shook me up to some degree. In the scene where the family moves from Manhattan to the poor cabbie district, a person comments - "Must be some IT guy having lost his job". Scary, isn't it, given that we also have everything on loan just like in the movie. God, please keep me afloat.

Recommendation - Nice fell-good movie.
Rating - ✔✔✔

Spiderman 3 (English, 2007)

Thanks God for someone finally recognising that Spiderman is a early-teenage comic book and not a complex grown-up relationship novel. Spiderman in my childhood was all about a superhero who has troubles with his own conscience, whose girlfriend is high-maintenance and who has difficulty maintaining a balance between various aspects of his life. Basically everything a young teenager faces, just that this guy was a bit older and he was a superhero. And given that we were children, all this background helped, but eventually it was about Spidey and his villains.

There are times when you simply differ with everyone's opinion. This is one of them. Everyone around seems to be saying - Spiderman 3 is not as good as Spiderman 1 and 2. Well, I differ absolutely. Spiderman 3 takes you back to that childhood feeling I described above. It is more simplistic, more silly, if you like - more comic-book like; than any of its predecessors. And I love it for that.

Spiderman 3 sees Peter Parker (Tobey McGuire) fighting his own demons, and Venom and Sandman and Green Goblin, while establishing a balance between his duties as Spiderman and the time he is able to devote to MJ.

The special effects are all there, the comic-book feel is finally there and you finally get closures rather than everything being confused all around.

Recommendation - Look out! Here comes the Spiderman.

Rating - ✔✔✔

Provoked (English, 2007)

There's a fashion these days of popular mainstream Bollywood actresses acting in "meaningful" films. Provoked is Aishwarya Rai's turn to do this.

Based on the true story of Kiranjit Aluwalia (Aishwarya Rai), a victim of domestic violence, Provoked traces the events starting from Kiranjit not being able to tolerate it any longer and trying to burn her husband and take us through her struggle - first with herself to realise that she is a victim, not a criminal; and then with the British judicial system to have them realise what "provoked" means in context of domestic violence.

Domestic violence is a very serious issue. It is very appreciable that such movies are being made and are getting the appropriate limelight. Quite good acting by Aishwarya Rai and Miranda Richardson, accompanied by a good narration of a powerful true story make Provoked a reasonably good movie to watch.

If I have any complaint, its just this. For such a serious subject, the movie is not as hard hitting as you would think it to be. The perpetrators of domestic violence won't really have a "oh shit! this is me" feeling. People not feel like going out and just shooting anyone they know who inflicts domestic violence. Its a glamorised presentation of a very serious subject, and this tendency to sugar-coat serious issues with glamour to make them more palatable is not really something that I agree with.

Recommendation - A must watch, just for the issue it tackles and good performances.

Rating - ✔✔✔

Painted Veil (English, 2007)

Can a girl love a man simply for his virtue?

In one of the most beautiful and romantic movies of the year, the love that Dr. Walter (Edward Norton) and his wife Kitty (Naomi Watts) find for each other by discovering each other's inner beauty is a poignant story of rediscovering what love is all about.

Kitty gets married to Walter simply to get away from her surroundings, but when she accompanies her husband to Shanghai where he works as a bacteriologist, she finds him quite boring and uninteresting and gets into an extramarital affair. When Walter finds out, he takes up an assignment in a remote village in China where a Cholera epidemic is spreading and takes her with him. Painted Veil is the story of the unhappy couple learning to forgive each other, rediscovering their love, and eventually themselves in each other, amidst the sufferings and misery.

Absolutely wonderful acting by both Edward Norton and Naomi Watts, backed by a touching storyline and some very good cinematography of what must be one of the most remote and most beautiful places on earth. Here's one that touches your heart.

Rating - ✔✔✔✔