Khwabon ke, tinko se, chal banaye aashiyaan...

I had heard a lot about 'Barfi! before I finally saw it... The music was some of the best this season, and that alone would have sufficed to pull me to the cinema hall... The cinema-goers of Bangalore, though, had other plans for me... A house-full first weekend ensured I had to wait a bit longer... This did turn out to be a blessing, since I got to watch it with my significant other... :)

Back to the movie... Now, I'm not going to comment on the merit of the selection of this movie as India's entry to the Oscars... Now that it is done, I trust the Oscar jury much more than the folk who shortlisted it here, to make the right choice...

That said, this movie is definitely near the top of my list of best films this year... A simple, heart-warming story, with a suspense angle to boot, it is further propelled by the stellar performances of the entire cast... We must doff our hats to Ranbir, who continues to pick roles very few others would have, and make them his own... I think he's chosen some excellent films in the past couple of years, and has graduated with ease from the typical casanova roles to the niche Jordan & Barfi... It would be unfair of me to ingore Priyanka Chopra who, like Ranbir, has pulled off another excellent performance... I have always maintained that she's showing an amazing improvement with every film, and there is no exception here... The romance that follows is touching to say the very least... Ileana is the also extremely good in her first Bollywood appearance, and I will not be surprised to see more of her soon... Saurabh Shukla, Ashish Vidyarthi, Rupa Ganguly and the rest of the cast all deliver and make this film an all round joy to watch...

Some people called the movie 'slow' but I believe it was the correct pace to show the story of Barfi. The script is amazing & some of the scenes will definitely move you to tears (atleast they did for me)... Anurag Basu has given us a romance which we will not forget for the rest of our lives...

Thoda sa tera sa hoga, thoda mera bhi hoga... Apna ye Aashiyaan...

Movies... Where dreams are made...

Hi... After another prolonged absence, I return to writing today... I stand inspired by Martin Scorcese, who's directed a cinematic masterpiece that opened in cinemas in the US in December... The name of the movie is Hugo...

Hugo is adapted from an illustrated book by Brian Selznick and is about a boy name Hugo Cabret... That's all I'll say about the story, because frankly that's not what impressed me about the movie... In fact, it's a little slow and I stopped watching it the first time around because it just went on without really going anywhere...

However, the next time I started looking at the other aspects... The movie is simply awesome to look at... The visual appeal is simply stunning... And I saw it in 2D whereas the movie is shot in 3D, so I can only imagine how good it must have been with another added dimension... The cinematography is amazing too (possibly why it won the Oscar for it)...

What interested me even more was that it was more of a telling of the roots of cinema than a simple story... It shows the genius of a man named Georges Melies who pioneered some of the earliest special effects in the movies (way back in the late 1800s & the early 1900s)... Even the Lumiere brothers, who practically invented the moving picture, credit Melies as the 'creator of the cinematic spectacle'... Well, its a fitting tribute by Scorcese, who's created another cinematic spectacle for Melies... However, this part is relegated to a mere 30 minutes in a 2hr long film... The rest of the movie is dedicated to Hugo searching for the truth about his father's death, and that's where the plot is lost... In creating a cinematic spectacle, someone forgot to include a compelling story-line.. That's probably why even though it was met with critical acclaim, it failed to set the cash registers ringing and didn't really earn up to it's potential... Even at the Oscars, the awards it won were all technical ones, Cinematography, Art Direction, Visual Effects, Sound Mixing & Sound Editing...

Well.. I will next attempt to watch another tribute to cinema of the mid-twentieth century, namely The Artist.. This movie pretty much took away all the other big Oscars this year, and promises to be an exciting watch... Till then, au revoir !

P.S.: The title of the blog is a para-phrase of one of Melies' dialogues in the movie to a young boy in his studio - "If you've ever wondered where your dreams come from, you look around... This is where they're made".