Sundeep Verma

If you've ever wondered why people seek clarity in life, or if you find yourself looking beyond the surface of things, then watch this incredible piece of cinema called American Beauty. You can read the full story on Wikipedia, but I’m sharing my second or third reaction to the film, having just watched it again after many years. I always thought the movie was about Lester Burnham (note the pun in his name) and his life, but it's really told from the perspective of the young boy, who, in one scene, says, "There’s so much beauty in the world that sometimes my heart caves in!" This is the theme that director Sam Mendes gently explores with you, revealing it one rose petal at a time. The performances in the movie are excellent, but certain scenes stand out where specific actors truly shine. Here are the top five most incredibly acted scenes in the film: 1. Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey) tries to reignite romance with his wife, only to end up in a fight because she’s more concerned about the couch. When he shouts, “This is not life, this is just stuff!” it perfectly captures the movie’s central theme. 2. The scene where Lester first sees Angela in her cheerleader outfit at his daughter’s school sports day. It’s beautifully shot, with both characters suddenly isolated under a spotlight, emphasizing their connection. 3. Ricky Fitts' look in the final scene, when he gazes at Lester Burnham’s face, echoes his earlier line, "When God looks at you, all you can do is smile back." 4. The White Plastic Bag: One of the most memorable "characters" in the movie is the flying plastic bag, which beautifully encapsulates the film’s theme. 5. Colonel Frank (Chris Cooper)'s confrontation with Lester, after he throws his son out, is a powerful scene where the Colonel is forced to confront his own repressed sexuality. It’s the most intense and revealing moment of the film. Take some time to reflect after you finish watching this beautiful piece of art!

Few things first: 1. Watching Jack and Rose grow up, married and moving to 1950’s Suburban USA and then how their married life goes down the hill because they discovered they have different value systems, it’s in my opinion is a true and realistic sequel to Titanic. Now if you move pass from the hangover of Jack and Rose and really see them as a relatable suburban couple then you will catch reflections of many people you had known in your life. The toxic marriage where they both can’t seem to resolve their issues because of their fundamental differences and life goals. .It becomes so repetitive that I got bored watching them quarrel scene after scene. The whole moving to Paris metaphor just didn’t elevated the story to any level because we knew from the beginning that they are incompatible and something will stop it. Even the reason of it happening was predictable too. However you keep watching it like you watch your neighbours fighting! And it all ends up in a tragedy. Of course! Still, if you have to, then You can watch Kate Winslet play your neighbiur’s supressed wife shouting at him three times a day with unbelievable realism. Leo, is Leo as he has been in any movies. He could be one character walking through his movies reacting to different scenarios as the same man! And then you move on, have along stretch and exhale!

Rakesh Omprakash should hang his filmmaker’s gloves now after another disaster called Toofaan. It an over stretched, over used Bollywood formula movie that makes you go facepalm. It’s so boring that I literally had to fast forward the movie at many times to keep my motivation to watch it. With so many videos available on YouTube about film making and storytelling, I don’t understand why these mediocre filmmakers do not watch and learn to improve India’s filmmaking standard. People have literally dissected great cinema and explained how to make good movies. Honestly, Farhan Akhtar deserves a better quality of film industry and we as Indian deserve much better cinema in our country.

The movie opens with a call to arms at Indian Airforce base at Srinagar during Kargil war. We see Jhanvi Kapoor running in slow motion towards an army chopper in Tom Cruise running style (chest out, arms bent at elbows, palms up). She reaches to the pilot’s seat of the movie, cut to the flag of nepotism that flatters across screen with Dharma production as its emblem. Back to Sri Devi & Bony Kapoor’s daughter, Anil Kapoor’s niece, the other fat Kapoor actor guy’s sister and another star kid investment of Zee group and Dharma productions: Jhanvi Kapoor, who is now saying something into the helmet mic, raises a thumbs up towards someone with expressionless dead eyes and a smirk, is ready to fly. She is going with smirk, into an urgent rescue mission during Kargil war in the mountains or may be she is excited to be born in Sridevi’s house and during the times when Karan Johar heads Dharma productions, the unofficial factory of re-packaging the talentless privileged kids. Biographies are deeply driven by lead actors, so here we have Jhanvi or is it Sara Ali Khan or Anayana Pandey or was it Sonam Kapoor earlier…it doesn’t matter they all equal each other in acting skills and life story arcs too I.e. Stay in the limelight through Dharma productions, earn money through brand endorsements then find a rich guy, get married, make a baby then launch that baby with Dharma Production so on and on. Well, back to the movie review again… The opening scene of the lead actress is so cringe worthy, with acting so off the situation and, emotions so invisible to our perceptions , that you wonder looking at this travesty of justice to those talented actresses who were denied the chance to illuminate, this path breaking true story of the fight of women’s right for equality in a patriarchal country like India by going through the heart of its masculine landscape: the army. This bad acting never improves throughout the movie. Not even a tiny spark of acting talent shines on the face of Jhanvi for once during this 2 hrs movie. You look and search for answers in the eyes and brains of all those who looked at this privileged girl, her auditions, her facial expressions, her ways of saying dialogues and then ‘forced’ themselves to visualise her in such a pivotal historic role! Imagine yourself sitting in a room watching her audition reel with Saran Sharma, Karan Johar and some executives from Zee productions and saying “she is truly brilliant of them all, let’s cast her!” Did someone really say that? And who finally decided that they will invest crores of rupees, manpower, creativity, human labour and then lure the public (Second time!) to invest their time, energy and money to elevate the talentless daughter of a rich Mumbai family to the status of an actress? This movie is sad reflection of how an entire machinery is put into place to deny a chance to truely meritorious talent so that some talentless privileged ones can have effortless access to opportunities again and again! In the 2000’s it was Abhishek Bachchan and the gang and now we have another generation of Jhanvis and Sara Ali Khans and their ilks of talentless kids crowding the space truly meant for the talented ones! May be real Gunjan Saxena should have had a say in her own historic story and ought to have turned down the engines of the nepotism machinery for good! And for you who accepted it…You can’t do it. But One day. Someone will.

Like every movie about a cult group with a central figure at the centre, this movie is trying to extend the story of a female member of the group who propagated that she saw her master or guru alive after his death. A bewildering myth that other members of this cult group believe to be true and Further propagate it. A boring story laced with superstition and a touchy feely cult leader name Jesus of Nazareth who builds a following of low IQ humans by serving them a fictional kingdom of god story. It was amusing to see over dramatic founder of this cult talking in whispers, dramatically falling down after each superstitious act of healing someone and finally attacking a temple of other cult group while talking about forgiveness etc. leading to his getting hung on a piece of wood specifically designed by Romans in the shape of a plus (+) sign. Ridiculous. Slow. Over dramatic. Superstitious. Propaganda. Movie. 2 ** for art direction.

Kartik, my man! Put your ACT together!! I am so confused after seeing the movie!!!! It looks worse than the dress rehearsal of a school play. Ofcourse they got the entire script out of the Korean movie so that was fine, but such poor execution, almost unbelievable. They put in that much money for the visual effects and other fancy stuff but the makers forgot to ask the cast to perform, like legit act. Ironically only the special appearance (Mrunal Thakur) performed well, rest all looked like some kind of spoof. No no no Bollywood, you'll have to do better, just copy pasting stories doesn't work. Karthik, my man, what's wrong with you? You are kind of getting a little worse in your acting skills. It is appreciated that you chose to take on a different genre and experiment but honestly some sincere efforts should have been put to your performance, which was missing. I also absolutely blame the direction coz it didn't look real at any point, infact at some points the serious scenes looked so fake that I bursted out laughing. So many lame characters shown were absolutely unnecessary and added no value to the movie. Overall very poor direction and execution and below average acting. Not a real thriller in true sense but it's also entirely unwatchable.Kartik, my man, put your act together!!

Vibhasta: Episode 4, The only rasa that brings the flavour and of some remarkable quality in this anthology series, The rasas of rest of the 8 stories, screenplays and plots very bland in taste, texture and engagement. If this nava rasa was a thali you ordered at a South Indian restaurant, you will be disappointed. Predictable, mediocre and very ‘youtubish’ with mediocre technicalities in cinematography, sound and editing too. However, do watch Episode 4, purely for the acting prowess of it’s lead actor displaying brilliantly jealousy and loneliness as an emotion. Rest you can skip and save your time & energy. Thank me later.

I had a headache watching this to be honest.

BELL BOTTOM: Well, “as long there is cinema in India, Indians will continue to be….” A famous movie director said these words and they seem to be so true for the year 2021. With Bhuj and now Bell Bottom, these boomer movies are not made to fit the 21st century. Their logic, aesthetic and acting lies in the 90’s and we know how 90s movies were. Bell Bottom is no different. An ill cooked plot with one of the headache inducing logic in a movie’s climax. With a compete non-sense occurrence of things it reflects as if this movie is probably written by the dumb teenage kid of the producer of this movie. The more surprising is the fact that this is supposed to be based on a real life story. Bollywood is a laughing stock of the world! My review in a nutshell:? Bad story. Bad direction. Boomer acting. Remember what the movie director said!