Hollywood

Ben Affleck burst onto the scene when he, along with Matt Damon won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for Good Will Hunting. Since then, their careers as writers have been put on hold, perhaps for more financially rewarding careers as actors. But this is a comeback of sorts for Affleck who not only co-writes but also makes an auspicious debut as a director. The material for the film comes from a book by Dennis Lehane who also was the author behind Mystic River.

Not many realize that Sergio Leone was offered the chance to direct Puzo's The Godfather but opted to make Once Upon a Time in America. They say he regretted this decision later in life--but it would be pertinent to know why someone like Leone would have made such a decision.

Any Leone fan would know the importance the director gives to music, structure of the story, the importance of money and how it corrupts many values. All these elements are underlined in this gangster film. In Coppola's work, the story afforded more importance to social details, character details and fabulous camera-work. Both works are monumental--but I preferred Leone's work, truncated to less than 4 hours than his original cut of 6 hours.

Who, rather what, is Bob Dylan? Musician, balladeer, poet, social commentator, star, enigma, hero -what exactly is he? For all his fans, he is all of this, and maybe much more than this. And fans he has in legions all over the world (in our part of the world, the most famous one, probably, is the 60-plus Low Majaw of the band The Great Society, a legend in himself in Meghalaya in North-East India and beyond as a musician, who since last nearly 30 years has been organizing Dylan's birthday every year without fail, the event now having grown so big that cinematographer Ranjan Palit has made a film on it for BBC).

Changeling starts with a crane down to the city. It ends with the camera returning to the sky. Its like Eastwood is descending into LA of 1928 to tell us a little bit of a tale. And then returning to today. Its something between a story and a tale. If it wasn't for the suspense it would be an out and out tale. LA has been painted in a minimalistic way. Something one doesn't get to see with period films. But then, LA in Changeling is as lyrical as Madisson County or Iwo Jima. The gruesome story doesn't take away the beauty of a complex city.

A brilliant set of actors absolutely without any scope to showcase what they are known for, a limp script that barely gives any scope for a few laughs and would make even Sajid Khan's Heyy Babyy seem like a masterclass in comedy filmmaking, a wafer thin plot - and a completely lost (or disinterested, depending on your viewpoint) Aishwarya Rai Bachchan. This is what sums up the latest installment of the Pink Panther series, The Pink Panther 2.

The Reader could have been an intriguing film. But every intrigue demands that it be sufficiently resolved before the end. The film prompts you to ask many questions but none of them are satisfactorily answered. When the end credits started rolling I scratched my head wondering whether I had missed something. Let me try and re-create my confusion.

Don Siegel's Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) is a sci-fi horror film that has been remade or adapted more than once but it provides evidence that even ‘˜fantasies' don't owe only to the imagination but are prompted by historical circumstances. When the circumstances are overcome, the theme - though nominally ‘˜fantastic' - loses its immediacy and all its technical advantages cannot rescue the remake.

One day, it's the pastor of the college (Hoffman) who becomes the victim of her suspecting eye. A private session the pastor has with a black student raises questions as to exactly how "private" the session was. And you really can't blame Streep for thinking so. Check your own thoughts. What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you see a pastor being over-friendly with a young boy?

Nobody in India is talking about the "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button", which has clinched 13 Oscar nominations, including those for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor. The attention is all riveted towards "Slumdog Millionaire", which is being touted rather incorrectly as Indian and is comparatively a poor work. David Fincher's "The Curious Case...", on the other hand, may be a fable, but told so fantastically that we forget how unreal it is....

I like movies that choose a known event from history and take us beyond that. JFK for instance, which took us beyond the assassination to the trial that followed. Or Munich which went from the massacre of the athletes to the payback. You may think you knew everything there is to know, but there is this minor chapter which you may have missed out on which makes the plot instantly attractive.