Forrest Gump – Oh Baby, What a Movie

We had heard in several quarters that Tamil film director Gautam Menon’s upcoming movie Vaaranam Aayiram (Surya) is inspired by the Tom Hanks movie Forrest Gump. So we got the Forrest Gump DVD from Netflix and watched it last night. If (a big if) Forrest Gump is indeed the source for Vaaranam Ayiram, it’d be […]

What’s With the Tattoo Nonsense?

Nayantara, Aamir Khan (in the forthcoming movie Ghajini), Amrita Arora, Saif Ali Khan, Lara Dutta, Sanjay Dutt, John Abraham, Esha Deol ….the tattoo-ed list of the Indian glitterati goes on and on ad nauseum, ad infinitum. Forget the Bollywood and Kollywood stars, who in any case thrive on the oxygen of publicity. Even a sober Jewish friend of […]

Body of Lies – Disappointing

When you see the chief of CIA’s Near East division Ed Hoffman (Russell Crowe) taking phone calls from his top agent in the field Roger Ferris (Leonardo DiCaprio) on a dangerous mission in the Middle East while simultaneously helping his young son pee straight into the bowl or watching his young daughter throw a ball […]

Monsieur Hire – Remarkable Movie

We may not understand the French language but at the end of Monsieur Hire (1989) we did understand what fine acting is all about. Starring Michel Blanc and Sandrinne Bonnaire in key roles, Monsieur Hire is a lovely French movie made all the more remarkable by a fine twist at the end. Monsieur Hire tells the […]

Appaloosa – Nice Western

You can bet your last dime that even as the world is ending, someone somewhere will be making a Western movie. Such is the hold of this genre that 105 years after the first Western movie debuted, Hollywood still continues to churn out Westerns to feed the insatiable appetite of movie-goers nostalgic for an era […]

Hoysala – Manna from Heaven in New Jersey

If the poet William Wordsworth had dined at Hoysala in Somerset (New Jersey), he’d have modified the famous lines in his poem to read: Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive but to be hungry at Hoysala was very heaven. Most Indian restaurants in the U.S. are like our Bollywood movies. The skimpily-clad […]