Inception

Rating : 6/10
Release Date : 16th July, 2010
Time : 148 minutes
Director & Writer : Christopher Nolan; Music : Hans Zimmer
Starring : Leonardo Di Caprio, Marrion Cottillard, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page, Tom Hardy, Ken Watanabe, Dileep Rao, Cillian Murphy, Tom Berenger, Michael Caine, Pete Postlethwaite
Confusion and intrigue.


Its about dreams. People who can come and extract your thoughts from your dreams. Of dreams within dreams. Of people who can protect themselves from extractors using their sub-conscious. And of inception. The planting of an idea within a dream, which is so real that it stays with the person even when he awakes….



Whats summarised above is the intrigue part. Confusion stems from the myriad rules that surround this concept. Of killing yourself to wake up. Or having a totem. Or going into limbo. Or needing a kick. The unstability of dreams within dreams. The projections. The ability to feel pain without regaining consciousness. And most of all, the character of Mal. Leonardo’s wife. Who can interrupt every dream involving him. Cause he has a secret.

Its interesting, innovative. Some superb special effects, great visuals. None more interesting than when a cute Ellen Page begins to get the hang of the rules, decides to tamper with the laws of physics, or when the buildings / crates start exploding all around her. But eventually though, none of the characters was sufficiently built up for me to care about them. And that’s why, it remains interesting without touching the scales of brilliance.


I hesitate to talk any further for fear of giving it away. Of ruining the confusion that adds to the intrigue and you’re never quite sure of what you’re watching is a dream or is it reality ? And that merely adds to the confusion. And the intrigue. Enjoy.

I Hate Luv Storys

Rating : 5/10
Release Date : 2nd July, 2010
Time : 135 minutes
Director & Writer : Punit Malhotra; Music : Vishal - Shekhar
Starring : Imran Khan, Sonam Kapoor, Sammir Dattani, Samir Soni, Bruna Abdullah, Anju Mahendru

I hate Bollywood love stories. People seem to fall in love too easily. The characters are usually stereotypical, too black or white. And they’re very very predictable. This film is no exception, with only a certain freshness from its lead pair, Imran and Sonam, and some decent humour carrying it through. It is also so heavily inspired by the romantic track within Dil Chahta Hai that it could almost classify as a remake of the same (there is as much similarity between the two as between Chetan Bhagat’s book and 3 Idiots)


Imran, hates love stories or mushiness of any kind. He has a revolving door girlfriend policy. He works as an Assistant Director to a Bollywood director who specialises in corny love stories. And to make things worse, his new boss, Sonam, the art designer, is also as corny as they come, loves pink, chocolates, flowers and lovey dovey-ness of every kind. She’s engaged to be married to Sammir, childhood sweetheart, family friend, but boring, investment banker types, with romantic, weepy eyes and a disposition to match (gives her one white flower everyday, doesn’t drink on weekdays, for example, not that he seems like the kind who parties hard even on weekends). Sonam now has to choose. Who do you think she’ll go for ? (it’s a rhetorical question, BTW)

Leaving predictability (most love stories suffer from this) and imitation of DCH aside, what makes this film a strictly one time watch at best is the lack of depth of its lead characters. We don’t really understand them, understand the emotion they’re experiencing or really connect with them, remember them after the film. The line between friendship and love seems to blur too easily and conveniently. Imran and Sonam work as a pair, he being stiff and cute enough to have a girlfriend a day policy and she being candy floss-ish enough to make her character believable.


Some genuine funny moments are Imran’s interactions with Gabbar Singh, and also his experience with the cue-sheet towards the end. His friend, Samir, seems interesting (especially his T-shirts, graphs and advice) but is never sufficiently built up and neither is Sammir’s character. There was a more interesting angle in the film, why do good looking women fall in love with Mr Wrong vs Mr Right, but its never fully explored. Apart from Bin Tere, I found the songs also highly forgettable, esp the one song right at the end where we see too much of Imran (pun intended).


This film is cute. Works for a certain audience. I was never into cute…..