My Favourite Movies !

Borat: Cultural Learnings of America For Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.
What can I say about this movie ! If you haven’t seen this movie , you have probably missed out on the biggest and the best comedy movie ever. Dirty, Ugly, Repulsive , Crude , but downright funny. With its satirical pranks played on unsuspecting Americans by the main characters – Borat Sagdieyev and Azamat Bagatov , this movie is two hours of non stop laughs. (caution: after the movie , you tend to speak in a Russian accent for a few days) .
Trivia: this movie won a Golden Globe for best actor in a comic role , and an Oscar Nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay (too bad ‘The Departed’ won).
I have always seen movies like Air Force , a couple of James Bond movies where the Americans were always the good guys and the Russians the terrorists.
Well , finally the Russians have struck back and in style ! Waawaaveewah !
Recommended Watching : Any day when you are feeling low or anti American.

Andaaz Apna Apna
Crazy Movie , Crazy Dialogues , Crazy Characters and Crazy situations. That’s all this hilarious movie is all about. Shakti Kapoor in his only non villainous , non raping role in Hindi Cinema is actually funny. The first time Paresh Rawal’s comic side came to the fore with his senselessly funny dialogues like “mark idhar hai , Teja mai hoon!”
Karishma , Raveena were good. But Aamir , Salman , the Ajit look alike and Viju Khote (Robert) with their excellent comic timings make the movie an absolute winner. One of the few movies you can watch over and over again.

Swades
Easily one of the best Hindi movies made in the last 20 years. One of the main reasons I liked the movie was because Shah Rukh Khan played ‘the character’ – Mohan Bhargava , and not himself – ‘Shah Rukh Khan’. To clarify my point, I’d like to point to all of SRK’s other movies – Kal Ho Na Ho , K3G ,Mohabbatein , Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna , Veer Zaara , Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. Don’t you think it’s the same character – Rahul / Raj ie. Shahrukh Khan. who is growing up and the different movies have just captured different phases of his life .
Why for that matter even in Asoka , he seemed just like Rahul wearing a different costume with his typical smile , laugh , arrogance , that tiny bit of stammering and that weird thing he does with his eye brows while kind of squinting his eyes!
Aamir Khan, on the other hand, never seems repetitive – DCH, Lagaan , Mangal Pandey, RDB . SRK- He just doesn’t come out of his Raj/ Rahul mould . BUT Swades , thankfully saw director Ashutosh Gowariker do just that. For a change Shah Rukh Khan did act well.
Amazing background score.Brilliant songs.Excellent acting by others in the cast such as Kishori Balal (Kaveri Amma) , Gayatri Joshi (Geeta). Few scenes get a lump in my throat everytime I watch the movie – the scene where the water boy is running past the train screaming “paani lo paani, pachis paisa, pani lo pani”and Mohan is moved to tears as Melaram hands over some change to him to buy a glass of water.
Outstanding movie.
Recommended Viewing : Jan 26th of Aug 15th, I guarantee you will stay patriotic for a year atleast!

Airplane !
The God of all slap stick comedies. Non sense comedy all around. This movie was one of the first few movies of Leslie Neilson. Right from the opening titles to the ending credits, not a moment that does not have some humour in it – subtle or overt.
Caution : Try not to watch the movie before flying out to some place, and definitely not while on an aircraft.

The Godfather(I)
A Masterpiece!
The only movie of Marlon Brando I have ever seen , And I do not want to see any other movie of his simply because I fear that movie might not match up to what he has done in The Godfather. Gripping right from the beginning to the end.Epic scenes : Bonasera meets the Godfather ; Godfather meets Sollozo ; Godfather meets Bonasera (undertaker) after Sonny is dead – each scene , each dialogue , each word stays with you , haunts you.
One of the finest movies to have ever been made.
Recommended Viewing : Any day any time.

Satya
Dark and realistic .Ram Gopal Varma - (RGV) ’s first of his underworld Trilogy – Satya stands out for its superb emsemble cast and stupendous acting by each of them. Chekravarthy as the protagonist – the silent intense ‘Satya’ is excellent. But the real stars of the movie for me were Manoj Bajpai (Bhiku Mhatre) and Shefali Chaya (Bhiku’s wife).
One of the first movies in Hindi Cinema to portray the Mumbai underworld realistically.
One of RGV’s finest works.

Company
The second of RGV’s trilogy.
If Satya was brutal , crude and hard hitting ; Company was suave , sophisticated , stylish , but with the same impact. Although he got much critical acclaim for his part , I personally think Vivek Oberoi overdid his part and did ham his way through quite a few scenes. None the less , Ajay Devgan was intensity personified and he did a fantastic job.
Now blame my mallu roots or call it the effect of sub conscious Asianet/Surya TV viewing, but for me , the real hero of the whole movie was Mohanlal. Just loved him in the movie.
Be it the accented dialogues , or the typical malayalee mannerisms , he was absolutely brilliant through out the movie.

Sarkar
RGV’s last movie in the Underworld Trilogy. The movie begins with a note from RGV that this is his tribute to The Godfather. Similar in many ways to The Godfather yet dissimilar in many ways. Sadly Sarkar saw only a few ‘complete’ characters who had depth and some recall value – Sarkar , His sons (Shankar, Vishnu) , Rashid , Selvar Mani , may be Swamiji.
But once you saw The Godfather , you almost knew everybody –The Godfather , Tom Hagen , Sonny , Michael , Luca Brazi , Sollozo , Kay Adams , Tessio , Clemenza , everybody !
Nonetheless , Amitabh , even though essaying a role that had already been acted out in the best way possible , did a mighty good job of it. As did Kay Kay Menon and Abhishek.
Good Background music and tight editing keeping it only a little over 2 hours made it a good movie.

Maqbool
The Indian Adaptation of Macbeth.I haven’t read or seen Macbeth in any form. Maqbool makes you go through the whole gamut of emotions.The chemistry between Tabu and Irrfan Khan is magical. Personally I think Tabu has acted out of her skin , so much so that you start hating her for the treachery she commits in the movie.Great songs. Very Marlon Brando / Godfatheresque performance by Pankaj Kapoor. Hindi Cinema at its best.