Let's begin with the title, rumoured originally to be called 'Khan' to fit in with the previous set of Karan Johar films that all started with the letter 'K'. From Kuch Kuch Hota Hai to Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna he has maintained this for over a decade. So, when the title was announced as 'My Name is Khan', it was fair to say that something had changed. Karan was leaving superstitions behind him and focussing efforts on making something that spoke for itself.

Synopsis
Rizvan Khan (Shah Rukh Khan) is a Muslim man from India who suffers from Asperger's Syndrome, he moves to San Francisco and lives with his brother and sister-in-law. He falls in love with a Hindu girl Mandira (Kajol) and despite protests from his family marries her, starting a small business together. They are happy until the events of September 11, 2001 when attitudes towards Muslims undergo a sea-change. As unfortunate events unfold, Mandira has an outburst of guilt, sorrow & desperation where she decides to split with Rizvan. Unable to understand her reasoning, Rizvan, confused & very upset that the love of his life has left him, embarks on this inspiring journey across America to win her back. The film begins with him already on this journey, feeding us the history behind it through narration and flashback sequences, so when I say he is on a mission to regain his love, we get to learn of how this love came about, how this journey began, beginning from the beginning with his own childhood.

It is fair to say Khan is a common enough surname in the Islamic community as a Smith or Jones in the Western world. So when our protagonist sets on his mission to meet the President of the United States to pass the message "My Name is Khan, and I am not a terrorist", there's no need to spell it out, it symbolises a bold message. From the released trailers and footage it would be rather easy to draw the conclusion that it's a story of an average Joe, labeled a terrorist because of his name, out to prove his innocence, but in truth it's not. It's about an unconventional hero overcoming obstacles to regain the love of his life.

Some thoughts:
Firstly, I'd like to say my heart goes out to all the people of Mumbai who are having problems getting to see this stress-free in theatres. If I was out there I would still be going to see it bindaas. I stand by SRK, he has no reason to apologise for anything & should not be bullied this way by the 'supposed' government.

This article is triggered by Film Stalker .. I do it for them each year & cross-post it here ..
You should check it out if you're not already subscribed .. Bar Bollywood (for which you come here, or speak to me on twitter, all your other film news needs will be covered at Film Stalker.

Okay then, as the new year settles in & shows us it's colours, let's have a brief look at what was memorable shall we? As my usual disclaimer, these are in no particular order, (I lie, they are alphabetical). They are the 10 films I most enjoyed this year & suggest you watch if you haven't already, this is not to suggest the others were crap (just crapp-er or I didn't see them), neither is it to suggest these are the best, after all, personal preference is too a factor, right?

Well here goes:

(500) Days of Summer
Bundling this in as another romcom / chick flick would be a major injustice to it. I mean for starters it's from the guy perspective, plus this is most certainly one of the best written films I've seen in quite a while. Written as a journey through a relationship, it moves back & forth in time to fill yu in on the details, just as you need them. Definitely a tough balance to find, so Kudos for that, but beyond this treatment, it felt novel too.

I think Joseph Gordon-Levitt is definitely an actor to look out for, This is the 2nd time that one of his films has made my Top 10 of the year, a couple of years ago there was The Lookout, both of whic were surprise films, hadn't heard anything about them until a week or so before their release. I'm not going to suggest the guy is the best actor since sliced bread, but he's certainly making some wise career choices that I think may be worth following.

District 9
Getting yourself a novel concept isn't enough. The other day I saw Daybreakers which I thought was a novel concept, and a lot of thought was given to a lot of the details, but large things had been ignored, making it average overall. This one on the other hand was not only a novel concept, but novel execution too. Aliens come to Earth and don't stop by at the US Embassy and say hi to the president, novel in itself, but adding to this there are many aspects to this film that were unexplored previously. From the anti-hero hero, the setting & ofcourse the actual story-line. Definitely worth checking out if you haven't already & I promise you the word prawns will never be the same. ;)

Drag Me To Hell
Sam Raimi helms another Evil Dead style horror flick I was told. I gave a toothy grin & fobbed the guy off. I didn't want to admit I haven't seen the Evil Dead films. Now having seen this I understand what the big craze is all about. The story is simple, this is all about the execution, skipping comfortably between hilarious & shocking you out of your skin with less than a second in-between. It settles you down to shock you even more. It's been no secret that I'm not a fan of horror, but if they were all this effective, I would be. It doesn't depend on cheap jumps or extremely gruesome violence to gross you out, yet manages to do both. Bravo Mr. Raimi, if you stuck to this & gave up the Spider-man films I'd respect you even more, but we all need a franchise & that's a whole different story.

Fantastic Mr. Fox
Wes Anderson films are always a bit special. Take that as you will. So when I hear that he's now working on a children's story originally written by Roald Dahl who was an exceptional writer & a bit of a nutter in his own right, I'm certainly intrigued. The result is almost perfect. The quirkiness Anderson provides is only one of the assets. The stop motion animation was novel and works well too. Adding to this the voice actors really really get into their roles. I totally got lost in this world. With Pixar and Dreamworks both churning out animation that seems to be losing the spark to pull me in, this was just what was needed to renew my faith.

Gran Torino
While many action heroes are renewing their franchises, some enjoyable, some less so, Clint Eastwood brings us a film that is a little more grounded in reality. Only a little though. :) In recent years we've seen him direct more than act, which I always thought was a shame. I used to love the Dirty Harry films and teh others that followed under the Malpaso banner. So, I was extremely happy to see him on the big screen again & trust me he's stil a bad-ass. You would not mess with this guy. So, is there anything here for non Eastwood fans? Well yea'. A simple enough story, but the way it pans out and takes you in is magic in itself.

Hurt Locker, The
Forming a bit of a trend here, but much like 'modern-day' horrors, I don't like war films. War is bad, people die, families cry & above all America rules. It bores me. Unless the 'setting' is war and there is an interesting story within it, normally I don't care for them. I saw the trailer for this & was intrigued by it. It's about a bomb squad. Those guys that get called when there is a threat, to assess and diffuse where possible. This interested me. After watching it, what amazed me is how involved it made me. Specialised jobs in war or otherwise always have an aspect that an outsioder wouldn't even think about. When this requires immediate action and means instant life or death, you get real tension, which in turn makes good film-watching.

International, The
Many run-of-the-mill thrillers about government conspiracies, revenge & the such come & go, month after month, some are good fun, some are less so, but only some every once in a while leave you with more than that. This was one of those few. Now the way I phrase this may make it sound like the whole film hinges on it's end. It doesn't. It is a pretty good thriller throughout, but the more that I learned about the characters & as the plot unravelled, I found myself not only rooting for the heroes but also wondering if anything was won in the end of it all. Was there satisfaction in unravelling the mystery, was there redemption or wasn't there. & it's this part that makes it fit into a highly respectable film to me.

Julie and Julia
This one turned out to not only be a sweet film about struggles & places where people find a space to artistically vent but also turned out to be a very personal film. There were aspects of this film that I felt very closely mirrored where I am in my life, professionally and emotionally. I mean sure, putting yourself in people's shoes is what film-watching is about on some level, but these shoes fit curiously too well, to t he point where it kinda got me a bit paranoid about flies on the wall. So, of the 10 ths one is probably the most personal one, but that said I'm sure people out there are loving it for more reasons than it reminding them of me. ;)

Star Trek
I actually have very little to say about this one. I've watched 2 or 3 Star Trek episodes in my entire life, maybe 2 of the films, didn't think much to any of it. This however is fantastic. It caters for the outsider. I'm told it also caters for the fans. I think simply the opening scene should be enough to grip you, if not, I have no idea what will. I saw a webcomic somewhere tha even Jesus Christ liked Star Trek & I can believe it. Superb in every way.

Terminator: Salvation
Now this is the film that's a little controversial. I know a lot of people that'll huff & puff seeing this in my Top 10 list, but frankly, I'd find it wrong if it wasn't. Despite it's flaws, this for me was one of the most anticipated films of the year & for me, it delivered. Everything that I wanted from the film was right there. Christian Bale as Connor was not at all 'distracting', but I think he had the show stolen from under his feet by relatively recent starter Sam Worthington. The CGI Arnie obviously took it to a whole new level & was worth the admission price in itself, but all in all I enjoyed this a lot. If you missed it I'd certainly recommend it a a rental.

---

Well there you have it, my Top 10. There's a couple of World Cinema films I'd like to mention as a must-watch before I sign-off & that's Fermat's Room - I'd describe it as Saw with less brutality meets Mathematics geeks & then there's Let The Right One In - A film about a little girl vampire & her fraandship with her next door neighbour. Both pretty engaging films that I think could have done with a little more promoting & wider spread releases.

Well, as the kids from Looney Tunes'd say .. That's All Folks ..

Considering the four hours of sleep at best, I was apprehensive about this day. I figured perhaps I hadn't yet adjusted to the time difference (IST = GMT + 5:30), jet lag, all that jazz, but anyway, as planned I made my way by auto to Bandra having spoken to Mr. A from M's phone (as mine still wasn't working).

He said he's pick me up from the National College Gate. The driver had no real clue where he was going & kept stopping to ask other autos where this college was, most of them just pointed straight ahead. Obviously I had no clue at this stage, an hour or so later eventually I gave up on the guy & told him to drop me next to a payphone & that I'd work it out. I did.

Mr. A (joined by Mrs. A too) then took me to a Thali place. Thali just means plate if you take the literal translation, but when you see thali restaurants, what they mean is an assortment of foods (in a plate), this place had 4 curries, 2 starters (dhokala & samosa), dal, rice, papadoms, dessert, 2 types of bread, a lassi & a bottle of mineral water. Ample to feed on. Approximately double the variety I'd expect from a Thali in the UK. In addition, and as though this wasn't foodie heaven already, they come & top-up anything that you want at no extra charge. It goes without saying that I topped up on starters & dessert, repeatedly. The bill came to 175Rs [about £2.50]

The place was called Aram & I'll re-visit it at some point during my stay for sure. I don't think it was intended by Mr. A, but it was quite symbolic that we began here. Aram means to rest, as does Vishram, which is the name of my film banner. It was a name that conveniently came from merging part of my own first name with that of my business partner Vishal. The intent of this whole trip (which I may blog separately at some point - is in aid of developing this company), so it was a sign.

Moving on, we then went to the Mr. A residence by car & hung out there for a while. I might point out I hadn't yet got over the heat factor, any opportunity to hang indoors under a fan was welcome. It was comforting that they felt the same way about the afternoon heat in particular. He had wi-fi, so there was tweetage. I'd moaned earlier about my Sim not working yet & had some helpful suggestions to try (none of which worked, but they were sensible & appreciated), one suggestion was to pick up an alternative sim with Tata Docomo, for they would activate the Sim then & there.

So later, when it got cooler (read tolerable heat), we went for a stroll, I felt the need to get some more cash out of the SRK Bank ATM. In hindsight, I didn't need to, but better to have cash than not is what I'd figured from the previous day. Quite near the ATM I had my first of many fresh coconut waters. From my previous trip to India when I was 12, this was one of the memories I recall well. We used to have 2 or 3 a day. It doesn't seem as common these days, or perhaps it's a regional thing. *shrug*

On the way back we stumbled into a place that did the Tata Sims. In India, they seem to require a lot of documentation to even get a pay-as-you-go sim, so we got the information on what was needed, picked up relevant stuff from his place & returned to this stall. Note: it's useful to keep a few spare passport-size photos with you all the while on your travels, it was required for the sim & it was a fluke that I just had a couple in my wallet, coz I do fancy myself like that. ;)

As the myth suggested, it was active in seconds, i started texting all the tweople I'd yet to reach out to.. Data wasn't working, but simply needed APN settings, then I'd be tweeting away on the move, free, like the wind, or some such.

It was evening by this point & Mr. A was going to a Malwadi (regional Maharashtrian) event relatively close to where I was staying, so I hiked a lift & since I wasn't feeling tired, I thought I'd tag along. Upon enquiring what the event was in aid of nobody seemed to have much of a clue, much like the Belgrave Mela in Leicester each year. We Indians don't need a reason to celebrate, we just do. :D

Okay I'll admit, I didn't care for the event. I was looking forward to meeting Ms. P who was also planning on attending. In fact we organised to pick her up on the highway, so, pretty much as expected, the event didn't really interest me, it was overly crowded & was in no way film-related. I was bored & by the time we got there, I was getting tired too, I think there might be a picture of me & Ms. P somewhere where I don't look too pleased. I assured her it wasn't her, I think she believed me. :) *fingers-crossed*

The journey back was the most excitement I had all day. Despite Mr. A being a local, he got lost & in the process we managed to scout locations just as I had visualised them. Seedy allies, with occassional cows, rams & numerous dead ends. We had a vague sense of direction (I think), but many of the allies we were driving through looked like they'd reach nowhere, despite the drivers frustration, I was loving it! This is precisely what I wanted to see! It made my day.

After getting back, I pretty much passed out after having a quick shower. It had been a good day & I knew that this was only the beginning.

The early hours:
Despite having slept at stupid o'clock, I was up at about half nine. This is when the heat had become a hindrance to my movement. I found myself wide awake mentally, but unable to move away from under the fan. That's when I wrote-up my first blog entry & caught up with e-mails, facebook messages, tweets & suchlike. Okay, I'll admit, I'm just trying to make myself sound supremely organised, truth is I probably let quite a few messages slip between the cracks without even realising. ;) When you manage your inboxes by practically having an iPhone embedded in your hand 24x7, shifting to checking once every few hours when in a wi-fi zone is a tad overwhelming.

Anyway, shifting from under the fan for over a few minutes was like walking into a sauna. Quite the predicament. As I sat around, a number of thoughts were running through my head.. I'll share 'some' ;)
- is what the rest of my trip would be like? spending my days racing between fans & air conditioned places until dawn & then coming out to play at night like The Batman?!
- still kicking myself for booking a flight on a Friday. I'd seen London Dreams on Thursday in London. That's 1 of the 2 releases. Aladin had been out for at least 36 hours & I hadn't seen it yet. Shameful. This said, to my surprise, I have yet to meet somebody who has that sense of duty towards releases.
- Aaaargh, need cash, so many people I need to get back to, meets to organise, so many things to do.. go-go-go-go gadget!

The afternoon:
Like one of those kids who keep testing the water temperature of a swimming pool immersing themselves a little more with each test, I eventually shifted out to non-fan territory. The temperature was tolerable. Okay, maybe I got pushed into the pool somwhat. It was past noon & my babysitter, whose place I'm staying at was headed to the dentist in Navi Mumbai (which is a couple of hours drive away), so I figured I'd get on with what I had to do too.

My agenda for the day was clear:
1st priority, acquire funds via an SRK Bank ATM,
2. acquire local sim card (ideally with data),
3. go see Aladin,
4. do that socialising thing .. provided time allows.

My babysitter was kind enough to organise an Airtel Prepaid simcard on the way to the cinema, a spare key to the flat & some Dhokla for brunch. So we got a Rickshaw to Inorbit Mall (near Malad) via these pit stops & then parted ways.

It was a relatively smooth ride, with the exception of one small collision. Our driver smashed the back lights off another rickshaw when trying to maneuver. The incident was quite amusing. Both drivers stepped out of their vehicles, had a bit of a stare-off for a minutes, hand gesturing away & then just decided to carry on.

I'd been informed by the seller that the sim card should be active within the hour, so by the time I was done with the movie, I could get hold of the people I wanted to meet & so on.. wait hold up, I forgot to acquire funds from the SRK Bank ATM.

Luckily I'm at a mall, so they do have ATM machines, but they didn't have an SRK Bank one in particular. At this point I was unaware if much like in the UK, you can use any cashpoint to withdraw money. So I withdrew a small amount of cash from my NRE account. I didn't want to use the UK account in case I did get charged then it's possible I'd get charged twice as much sue to currency conversion too. I've yet to know whether I was changed but at that point in time, it was a necessity, if I didn't acquire funds I wouldn't even have money for a cab anywhere, the film, etc, etc..

I saw Aladin at the 15:15 show. During Intermission I got me a fruit juice smoothie, I was dubious that it was blended with ice & that the ice would be from water that wasn't filtered, but I caved. It looked good, so I thought I'd risk it. The juice wasn't as good as it looked. Mweh. Wasn't expecting much from the film yet was disappointed, but still, at least I had seen it now.

The evening:
3 of the 4 things were checked off my list & it was only around 18:00, time to get hold of some people I thought. So, I tried calling Mr. A. The call failed. Well that's rubbish. Tried calling C*, same message, tried calling their customer services, eventually got info from them that it can take upto 24 hours to activate. Baah .. This sucked.

I had a coffee at Barista, got some change & then figured out how to use the local payphones. I called Mr. A who was quite enthusiastic, tried arranging to meet, but I was rather unsure about where I was, what I was doing, etc, etc so it wasn't quite happening. I decided to go for the safer option & waited for my babysitter to return & share her plans, there were a number of people coming round to the flat in the evening & it'd be a fun & frolics driven evening. I rescheduled meeting Mr. A to Saturday lunchtime, with an easy going evening ahead. In good time, the tweople arrived staggered in numbers, 6 or so by about 3am. We ordered in take-away. Much merry-making & conversation was had overnight, the conversations were quite random, reminded me a little of my lunches with Adam at work, one of the girls pointed out that I have good looking feet. :) At around 05:30, a few of us went to see the sunrise on the terrace of the building. I took my camera along too. Most my snaps turned out crap, too blurred. Eventually, I slept at around 7am (for 3-4 hours).

As I'd been told a gazillion times, the first thing that hit me was the heat. It's those first few seconds after you leave the airport where there is a sudden punch of WTF, that's not right, who's been playing with the thermostat?

Merely a few minutes later, I got over it, it wasn't so bad. It was hot, but there was a nice breeze too. I met with M who had come to receive me & we got declined an auto-rickshaw by the first driver we approached. Another agreed & took us on board. As we hit the roads, the abundance of stray dogs was notable, we scooted over to Smokin' Joe's pizza place where I had my first meal.

Pizza. Quite ironic, I know, but it was late at night and only a handful of options were going to be available really. Ah, I didn't mention the time before did I? Yep. It was 1am at least, oh, and that thing about getting over the heat. Yea' .. now that it's daytime, I take that back.

Anyway, back to the narrative: We'd put my luggage inside the pizza place & were waiting outside for the arrival of K. Once he arrived, he did suggest an alternative place to eat but with luggage already sitting in this place we decided to stay put. The pizza wasn't half bad. The cheese here seems quite different, not bad, not good, just different. If you'd offered it to me in the UK I would just think it's one of those cheeses people buy for their wine-tastings, not cheddar, not mozerella.

So, after fighting a mustard bottle to its death, discussing the philosophical integrity of whether mustard really even is mustard once it merges with other things, in time we left & got another Auto back to M's flat where I'm staying currently.

I was amused that halfway through the trip, the driver skidded to a halt & asked another fellow driver on the side of the road to give him a paan. The other guy shuffled about a bit. Our driver demanded that he was given a paan pronto, he was, upon receipt, he did the side-nod shoulder to shoulder thing & off we went again at 40 odd miles an hour. It was so random, yet cool.

During the journey I found myself smiling away as I took in the unique smell, that very smell I find in every official letter I've received from India. I can't describe it any other way but the smell of India. :)

Silent Salutes,
_ram-jaane'

Notes on the Auto front:
- Some will flat out refuse you any service
- Stray Dogs
- Paan
- 1.5x rate after 1am

Kaminey (Scoundrels)'

Runtime: 134 min 54 secs
Tagline: Dhan Te Nan
Language: Hindi (with English subtitles)
Written & Directed by: Vishal Bhardwaj

As I did with Love Aaj Kal, I'll say a little about inspirations & plagiarism. Vishal Bhardwaj is a name people associate with Maqbool (an Indian representation of Shakespeare's Macbeth) and more recently Omkara (this time he chose Othello), in neither case would people accuse of plaigarism a) considering it's Shakspeare, b) because openly admitted and c) because these were both exceptional films that he really made his own.

This time no films were named as being the 'inspiration' for this film & with good reason I would say. Why? Because Vishal Bhardwaj tells us openly in an interview about it. When I read that he'd basically bought the idea from a film student, I was pretty impressed. There was only 1 thing missing, the name of this inspiration. I'll add here that the film opens with: "Based on an idea by Cajetan Boy". Full credit given where it should be. All-respect & thumbs up from me!

So the film.. the trailers just hadn't given us much to go on. We knew that it was a crime caper & the fact that it would be focused on a number of colourful yet shady characters, beyond this all we knew was that the background score would rock. They were either very smart not to reveal much about the story, or it was intentional. I must admit I took this quite apprehensively. I tweeted on Wednesday that: "considering the trailer gives us nothing beyond a feel of theme & Dhan Te Naa.. I'm irrationally excited to see it." but I had concerns that perhaps it didn't have a decent story, or it hadn't turned out too well so they were covering it up, thankfully I was wrong.

Love Aaj Kal'

Runtime: 128 min 0 secs
Tagline: Pick your choice: Black Coffee or Kali Chai?
Language: Hindi (with English subtitles)
Written & Directed by: Imtiaz Ali

Our easily misled people often without even collecting the facts, spot similarities between films & jump to the conclusion that this is a simple case of plagiarism. They can't be blamed entirely, as there are many such cases of almost scene by scene rips out there.

SInce watching Love Aaj Kal last night, this morning before writing it up I decided to watch Zui hao de shi guang (Three Times). This is the Taiwanese film that people connected to Love Aaj Kal as a possible re-make, inspiration, rip, whatever you want to call it. This way I could confirm / deny the given accusation.

Having seen both now, I'll share my thoughts: Three Times contains 3 stories set in three times 1966, 1911 and 2005 respectively. The two actors who play the main characters who fall in love in each story are kept consistent in all three segments, beyond this the stories themselves are pretty independent in their content, though certain themes, communications in particular are kept in focus.

Love Aaj Kal contains 2 stories set in 2 eras (1965 - the year of birth of King Khan I might add) and (2009), but it connects them both quite methodically. It's an old man (Rishi Kapoor) advising a young man (Saif Ali Khan) by telling his story with the flashbacks of the old man also played by (Saif Ali Khan) the same actor as the young man. Similarities end there really. Comparing the films is almost like saying all films of a genre are the same. If inspired by it at all I could only say the concepts have some common ground.

Around this concept there's one large factor in common, but again it's so general that I can't really pin it as theft & that is how communication between couples seems to have receded even though we are actually more 'free' to communicate in the current age. I think this is the poignant message that both films try to convey.

Brief thoughts on Three Times:
Segment (1966) - A Time for Love - This one held most charm, a simple story, executed to perfection. A man who has to fulfil his civic duty and enrol with the military. He meets a girl at a pool hall and decides to stay in touch through letters and beyond.
Segment (1911) - A Time for Freedom - Done like a film of the silent era, with music & inter-title captions. I can see what they were trying to do, but it just didn't connect with me. It's the relationship of a courtesan singer seeking an escape and a regular client at the brothel.
Segment (2005) - A Time for Youth - This didn't work for me either. A girl struggling with epilepsy tries to find love as she is conflicted between her girlfriend and a photographer that she's having an affair with.

Frankly, though it works well in showing contrasts in times, overall Three Times just didn't click with me beyond the 1st segment, which I thought was a sweet little story. I think the film has it's audience, but those like myself checking it out with Love Aaj Kal being the film that led them here will probably be disappointed. It's a whole different flavour of film.

Okay, over to the main event that brought you here ... #LoveAajKal

I won't make any promises of weekly comics just yet (though at some point i hope to, but it seems I 'may' finally be in a position to publish comic strips every so often. Myself and an old colleague have collaborated on this one. Our style is obviously in it's early stages, but I hope you enjoy what you see.

It's been brought to my attention that it's not obvious here that you need to click the above picture for the 'full' comic. So yea .. 'Click it' ;)

well like most tests should be, short & sweet is the way.

People might recall from earlier in the year how Christian Bale set that stupid DP Shane straight by ranting at him with ample profanities & giving intense looks on the sets of the recently release Terminator: Salvation (which wasn't T2, but was still pretty impressive).

Well, as it happens, recently it's been reported that this DP got a job on the Alvin and the Chipmunks sequel aptly titled Alvinator 2: Munchin' Day on which the same events seem to have unfolded. A frustrated Chipmunk recording was leaked by some guy on set that signed the envelope 'Theo'.

That's all we've got I'm afraid.. & ofcourse the recording itself.
http://ramchandra.me.uk/technicolor/alvin_flips.mp3

So, Tic Tac Mints.

You want one & you usually get one. Great.
You rarely want one though, you want two don't you? and there-in lies the pinch.

If you try & remove two from the given container, the likeliness is that you'll end up with just one or three.If you get one, you persist, but if you get three .. now, do you put the one extra one back, or do you think, well whatever & take all three? I'm guessing the latter & this is probably how they make their money.

The question that's haunted me though, is if this was intended or a fluke?
I was going to tweet about it, but as a colleague pointed out, it's not really a 140 character discussion, this is BIGGER than that. A lot bigger. So what do you think?!

While we discuss, I'm going to write to them & ask too.
I'm not expecting a serious response,but it'll be interesting to see what they say, if anything. :)

I begin here: http://www.tictacusa.com/. The answer isn't in the FAQ and I also find that the contact page has a postal address. No e-mail address, so I think I'll send them a postcard with my question. Will let you know how I get on.

Silent Salutes'

"Really? What evidence do you have?" you might ask. HERE is your answer.

On January 29th this account @shahrukh_khan became quite a trending topic on twitter. I know many bundles of people joined just out of curiosity. Had the King of Bollywood joing the micro-blogging forum?

On January 31st when supposedly reputable news provider DNA confirmed this with the following tweet, many rejoiced.

With some hestitation, I too was hopeful. I asked a few people I trusted & that were able to enquire & investigate, especially since nobody else was confirming the news. My friends over at Bollywood Mantra even wrote a letter to SRK's company Red Chillies to which the account linked itself.

In a few days, things had calmed down. The odd tweet here & there were still emerging from teh account, but the imposter had slipped up. Any avid fan of the King Khan would know he would not be making banana bread. He's stated in interviews in the past that he hates cooking. The big fans understood & stepped back. I thought this would pretty much be the end of it.

Alas, this was not the case. It breaks my heart to 'still' see so many people genuinely believe this account is SRK himself. I am subscribed to the RSS feed showing the replies that this imposter gets. With a few of them I have responded, telling them, but now with concrete evidence, I just had to blog this for everyone to share. Many many thanks to Shak Siyya from Club Asia for asking on behalf of the Twitterville community & for allowing me to share this snippet with you of his interview with SRK confirming that he is NOT on twitter.

Right Click & 'Save As' to Download if you wish.

If you want to hear my rambles on twitter, feel free to follow; i am @jun6lee

Films that I saw:
Chandni Chowk to China
- Quite a large production where the Sippy's (who brought us Sholay, Seeta aur Geeta & Shaan) joined hands with a Hollywood production house. Though amusing and entertaining, the overall consensus was that it was a let-down. I'm in agreement. It was an updated version that blended aspects of the 3 mentioned hits of the 70's, which is fine, but the way they handled the content of the story fell apart in it's drama quotient.

I must admit, despite it's flaws, I personally enjoyed it & am glad I saw it, but I could see that when the story took a dark turn at intermission point, what followed could have been an excellent revenge plot. Much like director Nikhil Advani's excellent Kal Ho Naa Ho, they could have taken the 2nd half in a very different direction, almost forcing shock upon the viewer. However they maintained the slapstick humour of the first half which no longer suited the story, thus making the last half hour far too silly for us to feel the satisfaction of the revenge being attained.

Luck by Chance
- This film was by far the most brilliant & accurate portrayal of the Hindi film industry that I've seen to date. It deserves a post of it's own. I'll see what I can do, if time permits. For now I'll say this is by far the 'must watch' film so far this year.

Billu Barber
- Shah Rukh Khan producing always means there's no way you can miss the marketing of the film. What initially concerned me was the content of the marketing. I'd seen the theatrical trailer and knew that the story was supposed to parallel the traditional story of good friends Krishna and Sudaama which I've hear many a time as a child. The marketing on the other hand were pumping heavily these 'item songs' with Shah Rukh Khan on-screen throughout them & very little of Irrfan who I knew was supposed to be the protagonist. Was it going to become a film that centered around someone who wasn't by default supposed to be the protagonist?

Talk on the grapevine, from friends in the industry was that these songs were added to make up for the content of the film not being enough to 'sell'. Upon my first viewing of the film, I was relieved more than anything else. All of the above was justified and a perfect balance had been found. The songs which I feared would feel out of place, were just fine. In fact, upon my second viewing were the highlights of the film, just as marketed. Irrfan still is the centre of the story and the film & isn't at all over-shadowed by SRK. This said, the story is 'too simple' for a feature duration. Even with the tweaks made to modernise the story, something feels missing in the narrative for it to hold up. It was a risk to produce, but I'm pretty sure it'll have made it's money back by now already. So, though it's far from his best production, I'm still proud of this film.

Delhi-6
The marketing didn't show much at all when it came to what the story of this film might be, but we had Sonam Kapoor who has an instant on-screen presence, Abhishek Bachchan who has earned his respect as a dependable actor, the feel of the streets & the people of Delhi and of course the music of the recent Oscar Winner A.R. Rahman going for it. Enough to pique my interest & motivate me to see it on opening night. I kid you not, the music is so much more of a selling-point with Hindi flicks that English films that I can't stress it enough.

Having seen it I was sorely disappointed. Yet again, quite like CC2C above, the first half is all hunky-dorey. The very essence of the Delhi city is felt through what you see & this part could not have been better. However by intermission point I had already realised that this can't really have a satisfying resolution & it really bothered me.

The problem I could see was that we had spent a lot of time focussing on so many little story threads that it was like a house of cards, it lacked the backbone structure. There wasn't a linear & clear one story line that you were involved in from the initial scenes to the very end & numerous subplots suffered because of it. Let me stress that I'm not saying it was all-bad. As mentioned before, the music was wonderful & watching Masakali on-screen was enough for me to consider the admission worth it, but I did find even the music was quite misplaced at times. I'm a big fan of music integrated into the narrative, provided it doesn't 'feel' out of place. The Ram-Leela scenes & a number of the songs in this film did.

Films I didn't catch:
Raaz - The Mystery Continues
- A limited UK release that was on late shows on week of release. I didn't get a chance to see this. Admittedly I wasn't overly motivated to either. I haven't even see the first in the series, though I've heard it's a decent film & did enjoy the songs. Not being a fan of horror, not having a soundtrack that hooked me, not having marketing forced in my face, it didn't really stand a chance to impress me.

Victory
- A sports film, about cricket, with cricketers 'acting'. I'm not a big sports fan. I like the love and enthusiasm that surrounds cricket, but the game doesn't interest me enough to make me want to see this. So, why even go see Lagaan or Chak De India you might ask? Well, the answer is simple, Star Power. Aamir and Shahrukh both simply by being attached to a project, make it worth watching, here though I've heard Harman Baweja has done a great job, it wasn't enough for me to be motivated to go see. Yet again, if a soundtrack, or even 1 song was on the radio that made me think, I want to see how this has been picturised, it could be enough to sway me. There wasn't.

Other Hindi flicks that released but didn't make it as far as the UK:
Jan: Bad Luck Govind, Kaashh... Mere Hote, President is Coming, The, Aasma - The Sky is the Limit, Chal Chala Chal
Feb: Dev D, Mere Khwabon Mein Jo Aaye, Jugaad, Kisse Pyaar Karoon, Siddharth - The Prisoner

Admittedly most of them I probably wouldn't have ended up watching anyway, but the surprise one here is Dev D. I'm very surprised this didn't get a wide release. Dev D is supposed to be a modern day interpretation of the much critically acclaimed novel Devdas . A tragedy comparable to Romeo & Juliet that has been made into films a number of times over the last century. The most famous ones featured Dilip Kumar (1955) and Shah Rukh Khan (2001) in the lead role. This time with the story being handled by Anurag Kashyap who made Black Friday and No Smoking, I expected this to be not only getting a wide release, but being advertised very heavily. It's a film that was guaranteed a bit of a cult following even before it's release. The soundtrack is refreshing & demands attention, whether you like it or not. Alas, I've yet to get my chance to see it.

So in the previous 2 years I've done a new year's post: 2008 and 2007 .. Maintaining this tradition I thought I'd do one in this new year too .. I missed publishing this on the 1st, 2nd 3rd, even 10th, ah well like it really matters as long as I do ..

With the end of 2007 I put out some of my goals for the year with the pretext that when I did 'this' post I could "share the progression rather than just me gloating to myself." .. as I egoistically put it. So let's have a quick look back at these before enforcing some new ones. Did I meet these goals? In dribbles ...

The film reviews and articles: I promised a rating system which I provided (with no explanation, but in essence I labeled films green, amber & red, based on whether I considered them 'must-see', 'well, it depends' and 'seriously don't bother' & mentioned in passing that I would try & improve the quality of my writing. I think I've achieved this, as always there is yet much room for improvement, so this shall remain on-going, after all you can always be 'slimmer' as Patrick Bateman once said. ;-)

I said I'll focus on the realistic goals, that way I'd be a total idiot if I failed: [let the demoralisation & entertainment ensue]

Online Screenplay:
I know that I haven't got a problem with doing the work required but have a problem getting my act together and to 'keep' doing it. The lack of motivation is the barrier that I hoped to overcome. To achieve this I suggested that I build a screenplay here in front of you all. 3 pages each week and I quote myself again: "At the end of year -- if you don't find a complete screenplay, with a beginning, middle and end (length: approximately 150 pages) than I have failed." -- and here I 'have' indeed failed!

What happened?!
Firstly, this is no excuse for failing, it is merely a real logical justification as to what happened. I started depending on a readership & feedback from friends & readers. Initially this worked well, but soon I found people just wanted a 'read', every month or so they'd catchup & I wasn't getting anything back from it. Since the story didn't engage me too much, I let it go & started work on other things. Nobody seemed to miss it or quizzed me about it so that was that. 2 and a half months & the project was pretty much dead.

What I learn?
The obvious. Only to work on something for myself, not to expect feedback/support et al, to remain as independent as possible?! Not quite, I need to make a point of infiltrating like-minded crowds. Expecting the average audience to critique, is all fair & well, but primarily they're just going to have a positive or negative feel, not a full-on structural analysis. Expecting more was perhaps a little unrealistic of me. As well as this, had I picked a story that I liked a lot, I probably would have continued. [but on the flip-side I'm not sure I would have been comfortable sharing it then.]

Vocabulary:
Considering my aspirations to sell what I write, I think it only makes sense that I should constantly be improving my vocabulary. As a bare minimum I said I"d go for learning 1 word a week (& sharing it). This means at the end of the year, provided I stored it all in my RAM then I'd have a larger bank of words to use than I did then. -- Part-Fail

What happened?!
Well, I did quite a few such posts. For more than half of the year, each Wednesday, I posted about the word I learnt over the last week & how I learned it. The logic behind it being, that a story attached to a word makes it easier to remember. It worked, however I sort of lost steam when my reading of Books came to a halt [I'm still less than half way through Haunted, which i have been for many months now]. At this stage the only new words I was encountering would be from films & people, (mostly on Twitter, I might add). So, with a recorded conversation there I didn't feel I needed to double post here, considering that half the audience here has exposure to my twittering anyway.

What I learn?
Well, new words, obviously. :-P In addition, recently I've learned that Twitter might be deleting older posts, in my archives I can only see about 800 tweets, which may sound like a lot, but considering the frequency of my twittering that is around a couple of weeks worth. Basically these recorded conversations potentially may be lost in the mist in no time. Taking this into consideration, I'll resume posting these 'here' shortly.

Other listed objectives to work towards:

• The "Koffee with Ram" section is still rather empty. - I had a rather adventurous plan for this but was unsure if I had the time or scope to pull it off. The idea being having coffee with random people, to develop personal communication & social skill, as well as an appreciation for different social groups & networks. It was quite a large time-hungry project and though things are potentially still feasible & in the works, I'm not certain of its long-term outcome. It's closer to fruition than last year, but I'm tempted to just latch on to something simpler. We'll see.
• The "About Me" section: I know that if somebody wants a simple snapshot over-view of what I'm all about, the only thing they would pick up from an initial browse is that I'm quite full of myself, and I seem to have a certain love for films, the Bollywood ones in particular. So a clear and concise page would be a good addition to show what the Ramchandra brand if you can call it that is really all about. - Still practically non-existent. Need to fix that.
• More photos -- I'm not very clear as to what I want to get out of this, but firstly I need to work out an optimal way of displaying pictures an a reader-friendly format. I've tried a couple of Photo album style add-ons to the Movable Type package but nothing I've been satisfied with. I may just port this project to Flickr. Primarily I need to take more pictures. Of the 100's a handful may be worth sharing. If I only take a handful, you do the maths.
• The "comic" that I've been promising for ages will still happen but is on the backburner somewhat. It links in slightly with the above, but that's just an excuse to a degree. I have a lot of ideas, characters and even complete strips on paper, but my drawing is terrible and I'm not entirely comfortable with the rough drafts that I've been doing as to be able to share them. - A friend has volunteered & putting together some character art, which seems potentially like it might go somewhere.
• There is also the building of a database-driven look at my film collection, that I'm hoping to progress. The hindrance here is the rumoured API for imdb has yet to be released. I may look into alternative ways of doing this, but I think I have got a fair chunk on my plate considering I have a full-time job doing something else entirely.

Well, there you have it, how I fared with my aspirations set in 2008.
Obviously that's not 'all' that I did, given time I'll do a follow up post for things achieived in '08 .. & things to do in '09.

I have Richard from FS poking me for a top 10 so here's a quick skim of the 'Non-Hindi' films that left a positive impact with me in 2008 .. as with before, by no means are these the most successful or the best, it's entirely based on 'my' preference.. so here goes..

Bank Job, The - The true story of a heist gone wrong... in all the right ways. Set in the early 70's this caper is about a team of Londoners who manage to (to some degree by fluke) achieve things that they never would have dreamed of. It's a well put together flick with attention given to maintaining the feel of the era its set in.

Charlie Bartlett - Popularity is a state of mind. Well, that's something that Anton Yelchin will soon be, if he isn't already. He plays Kyle Reese in the new Terminator film, & I can already picture some of the audience turning back to see what else he's done & bumping into this under-rated gem. It's the story of a bored rich kid & how he deals with his boredom when transferred to a public school.

Charlie Wilson's War - Based on a true story. You think we could make all this up? To date, the only war film that I've considered watching again. Maybe because, it seemed apologetic to me, they felt sorry that they didn't do better & sooner, as well as the mess they left behind. Considering how ignorant I can be when it comes to sbjects outside of my forte', It was quite educational for me too. Backed with seasoned actors & a sense of humour, I have to say, it came as a total surprise, impressed & stuck with me.

Cloverfield - Some thing has found us. Some Godzilla style monster that we actually never see in detail. Why?! Because, it's not a traditional hero film where Will Smith or who have we saves the world with every government agency at his leisure, it's from a more real perspective. The man on the street flee-ing, trying to save his loved one. It had a unique novelty & buzz surrounding it & it delivered.

Cottage, The - I've said it time & again, I'm not a fan of horror. Add humour to the carnage & I'm sold. This one does just that. It's your typical-fare, out in the woods, crazy in-breds hunting down the outsider type stuff, but with humour. 2 men have kidnapped a girl for ransom & headed to the cottage. It's all the bickering & pre-carnage humour that cranks this up a notch.

Dark Knight, The - Why So Serious?! It was the god-damn Batman, it was amazing & it warrants being in the Top 10 films of the year, yet it's the one I was most reluctant about. It's an excellent follow-up to Batman Begins, with Heath Ledger stealing the show as The Joker, no doubt I will end up getting it on Blu-Ray soon enough, but it's definitely over-rated in the public eye.

Gone Baby Gone - Everyone Wants The Truth... Until They Find It. This film left me thinking, what would I have done in his place?! When a film has that level of power over you, they've done something right. It follows the investigation of a missing child, but leads to answers that are morally ambiguous, though tied up logically.

In Bruges - It's in Belgium. Shoot first, Sightsee later says the tagline as these assassins hide out, in Bruges. When one is instructed to dispose of the other & doesn't, the big boss is not happy. The most quotable film of the year, no doubt. Probably also one of the funniest. It's smart, witty & will leave you wondering about what it's like to be a 'dwarf'. With the exception of Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi, it's the one film this year that I've seen most times. It holds repeat watching value, and time after time it doesn't get any less funny.

Iron Man - Heroes Aren't Born, They're Built. When billionaire Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) is kidnapped, under bad conditions, in some cave where he is imprisoned he builds a protective suit that allows him to escape unharmed. Mark 1. Upon his return to the USA, after having a Burger King he decides that he's Batman. I mean Iron Man & goes with it. In essence it's just another comic book character origins film, but it is great fun.

Rambo - People die. A lot. Every once in a while this is the sort of entertainment you need. Switch brain off, & watch one man take out an entire country with his bare hands, well a town & with guns & stuff, but you get what I'm saying. The only complaint I had with this film is that he spent too much time on that mini-gun. More archery would have been nice, but hey I still loved it.

A couple of International films I feel I should mention: Orfanato, El (Orphanage, The) - a horror without humour that I didn't mind, liked even. There is always something refreshing about seeing things from a child perspective. I'd recommend a rental of this at the very least.

The Good, The Bad, The Weird This one when I saw it a couple of months back was set for a December release, looking it up now it seems to have shifted to February, one worth keeping your eyes open for. Visually stunning, one of the best stylised films I saw this year, without a doubt, let down only by its story. If you've seen The Good, The Bad & The Ugly, you'll see exactly where it needs to go & the way this climax is reached, seemed a little forced.

Okay then, as the end of year approaches, let's have a brief (sarcasm - I rarely keep it brief) look at what was memorable. As a disclaimer of sorts, these are in no particular order of preference, in fact to avoid just that I have ordered them alphabetically. They are the 10 Bollywood films I most enjoyed this year & suggest you watch if you haven't already, this is not to suggest the others were crap, neither to suggest these are the best, after all, personal preference is too a factor, right? We're all allowed our guilty pleasures and I have knack for announcing mine proudly.

A factor I should point out is how I compile this list. I have a list of releases that I maintain on a weekly basis. I then pick out the films that I got the chance to see & then pick out 15-20 that I enjoyed, or rather remove all the stuff that I didn't and narrow down. At this stage it's tough, some flicks get pushed out though I enjoyed them & survival of the fittest takes cause, this said if I were to do it all over again, it would probably vary a little, so if you feel I'm doing injustice to something you loved by not having it here:
a) make your own list, I'm sure Richard would gladly publish it over at Filmstalker,
b) know that it's possible that it made the top 20, but that you'll NEVER know for sure unless you ask! :-P

Well here goes, I've tried to go by World-class production value & keep it fairly diverse:

Dostana - A love story with a twist is how they advertised this. I wouldn't have quite put it like that. I'd call it a comedy that pushes the envelope. The plot is basically that this gorgeous girl Neha (Priyanka Chopra) is seeking two 'female' flat-mates in her apartment. Enter Kunal (John Abraham) and Sameer (Abhishek Bachchan) who seek a flat quite urgently, they manage to convince her to take them on, despite her being apprehensive that there wouldn't be any awkwardness. How?! The guys pretend to be a gay couple. Mischief & mayhem ensue. They both try & make their advances towards her, while maintaining the public façade of being a couple, but in the end the film isn't really about that, it's about the fun ride and the friendship that forms between the three of them. Shot entirely in Miami, it's a fantastic feel-good entertainer..

Golmaal Returns - The Diwali film this year. A laugh-a-minute slapstick comedy sequel to Golmaal (which wasn't that great to be honest). Luckily, this is not a straight sequel, it has much of the same cast playing similar characters in a whole new story arc & backdrop. This means you don't have to have seen the original to get into it. This story arc is about a jealous wife (Kareena Kapoor), and a husband (Ajay Devgan) who realises the extent of her jealousy. He tries to spare the agony & repercussions of an event, by creating a fictional alibi. This goes terribly wrong, when a fictitious friend at a fictitious address actually happens to actually exist. All rather silly, but sometimes that's just what you need. The main strength here is that it's nothing short of hilarious.

Halla Bol - In sharp contrast to the above, this has Ajay Devgan play a fictional Bollywood Superstar, reminiscing his journey to achieve his stardom and the things he lost along the way. Things take a turn for the worse when a certain event triggers his conscience into gear. He realises that though he's been selfishly giving a blind eye to so many wrongs around him, these things have knock-on follow-ups that affect him & his own, even if indirectly. Taking a turn to try & fix his life, as always, is no easy battle. This film raises awareness into the more darker side of the film industry, but centrally is an entertainer about a hero & his righteous journey.

Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na - To a degree, a generic-fare chick flick but there is a certain freshness in the actors & dialogue here that puts it up there as one of the most enjoyable films of the year. It's earned newcomer Imran Khan star-status practically over-night & I have to admit, though initially apprehensive, after seeing this I was pleasantly surprised to find it all the praise is well-deserved. A R Rehman's soundtrack was a definite plus too.

Jodhaa Akbar - This historical spectacle is about the Emperor Akbar (Hrithik Roshan) and his lady-love Jodhaa (Aishwarya Rai). It in a nutshell, it follows how they became a married couple & how she made a better man of him, but its strength lies in its moments. Though it has been criticised for skipping out on a lot of interesting history of the emperor, I'd say this was a necessary opportunity cost for the sake of having a coherent & linear story. There's no denying that much detail & effort has been put into the sets & costumes. Visually it pays of, it looks fantastic, epic even.

Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi - Shah Rukh Khan's only full-feature of 2008, it was bound to rake in the money, that was a given. Whether the film delivered the quality expected with such a name attached was in question. It has been getting mixed reviews, but from my point of view (SRK fan-boy bias aside), it's a well-structured film, one of the few this year that uses its songs as a narrative progress rather than promotional tool. Worth a watch if your expectations aren't sky high due to the director's prior works. Of the lot, I'd say if you're a recent Bollywood consumer, this is a traditional slice of what it's more commercial side offers.

Roadside Romeo - Disney teams up with Yashraj Films to give us this animation flick about a stray dog finding his way in the streets in true Bollywood style. It keeps the story relatively simple, almost generalising to the point it shows a lot of reflection to Hindi films of the 60's and 70's, but the main focus is the showcase of computer graphics & though it's not quite polished enough to be mistaken for Pixar, it's not far off. A healthy team-up in Productions for sure.I look forward to what they might conjure up next.

Rock On! - Perhaps a little stereo-typical here, but it's a story of a bunch of youngsters who had a Rock Band and parted ways under not-so-nice terms. Years later when fate brings them back together, they've all evolved but still have that unquenched desire to Rock On! If it wasn't for the supreme music of Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy this could have sunk lower than the Titanic. Thankfully as well as an awesome soundtrack that it hinges on, the performances & direction too are convincing & te characters are difficult not get attached to, leaving us with a happy-go-lucky flick that inspires the artiste in us.

Sarkar Raj - This is a sequel to the 2005 film Sarkar, which was a re-imagination and an official tribute to The Godfather from Ram Gopal Varma. Though it almost mirrored the story, one large change was made. The Godfather lived. The sequel is no longer attached to the Godfather franchise, it simply follows on from where the first film left off & shows how the ruling of the Nagre family holds its footing and power. There are new characters in the form of allies & enemies. What will keep you engrossed is the on-going twists & turns that unravel in one of the smartest political thrillers I've seen to date.

U, Me aur Hum - This is the love story of Ajay and Pia (real life couple Ajay & Kajol Devgan), who meet on a ship. She works as a bar-maid, he gets served & he's already fallen in love. The duration of the cruise is spent with his numerous attempts to win her over. Eventually, she caves. They marry, have a family & then she falls ill. She starts forgetting things. I found this a very sensitive and emotional film, though there are similarities here with The Notebook & even 50 First dates to some point, it's in a whole different time frame. Its focusses shift away from both those inspirations and individually raise the question of whether sending patients to an institute is actually helping or is it giving up on them. I'll admit it, it's a tear-jerker, grab your tissues, lots of them.

Okay, though that wraps up the 10, I really need to mention that there are films that released this year that I didn't see and really really still want to. These definitely would have been considered for this list had I seen them. I feel very bad about this, since they didn't make it to an area where I could catch them (legally). The films are: A Wednesday!, Dasvidaniya, Mumbai Meri Jaan, Aamir, Tahaan and Fashion. It really is a shame that these more hard-hitting and non-commercial flicks don't get the exposure that they deserve.

Something to work on for sure, but how?! Ideas most welcome. My approach currently tends to be to try & raise awareness within crowds that I feel would appreciate them but otherwise never hear of them, such as a subset of the readers here, but I really hope to find a channel to do more than just that.

So, the fairy-tale story teller is back upto his tricks, directing again after an 8 year, 2 month hiatus. Let's go over the history here first for those that aren't in the know.

Diwali of 1995 came his directional debut: Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge. A story that expanded its audience-base by encompassing the NRI (Non-Residential Indian) within its central character base. At the time, this wasn't unheard of, but it wasn't a common occurence. It's only fair to say it was widely appreciated & accepted as the new hip approach to films. Many numerous films have followed from here. Yet, nobody had expected the epic success the film would become. If you ask me, I'll admit that though it is an amazing film to watch, the success attached to it got out of control. Way out of control. It wasn't 'that' great. The closest example I can think of in recent times is The Dark Knight. There's no denying it was pretty damned good, but should it be labelled one of the best films of all time within minutes of its release?

Now when you've made a debut that is one of the longest running films of all time in the country (India), with cinema halls dedicated to showing it 'many years' later, the people's expectations are going to weigh pretty heavily. So, what happened? 5 years later, as the DVD for DDLJ had finally released, In Diwali of 2000, he brought us Mohabbatein. To a large extent he played it safe here. As well as making a pretty good feel-good film, he had another card up his sleeve that guaranteed the success & ofcourse the moolah.

Amitabh Bachchan (or Big B as he's fondly referred to) has been the icon that labelled Bollywood since the 70's with nobody matching that level of star value, except, perhaps in the last decade or so, Shah Rukh Khan. So what's to happen if the arguably 2 most popular & publicised faces of the Bollywood film industry, were to be sharing space on-screen for the first time? Damned straight, that Diwali there were fireworks & it raked in the money just as anticipated.

Another 8 years pass. Diwali 2008 -- Nope. For some reason the film isn't ready for a Diwali release, maybe he's thinking he hasn't got a good enough film for a Diwali release, or maybe I'm reading into it too much & they simply don't want to clash with other films being released by the same distributor (Dostana & Roadside Romeo were out around Diwali). Hmm ..

So, in front of Dostana, I see this trailer for Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi, having only seen the 2 posters up to this point. The story here appeared to be as simple as: Middle-class geek has makeover to impress the girl in the backdrop of Punjab.

I took this away & had a real think about it, will the film really just be that? I mean sure, that can work, but what about the expectations attached to this. Then it hit me, this film in some ways is all about notching the expectation mark lower. I read somewhere the next day that the entire feature is shot in India, and it only took 4 months to shoot, & like an epiphany it all now makes sense.

To a degree having seen it now, I was right, but where I was wrong came as a surprise. I almost underestimated its content. So having banged on about everything but the film, I'll now get to it.

So, Ram, What's going with your blog?!
Good question. You must be missing the ramblings of the coolest guy you've ever known to exist (on Earth, anyway).

Truth is, nobody is. I ran a report of visitors to the blog a while back & it's been a handful of people that I'm in touch with by other means anyway. Every once in a while I did get a stumble or a new visitor, but usually they found me by googling for something pretty specific & rarely return. Then I came across this article on how 'not blogging' is in. Since I've struggled through most of my life to try & 'fit in', I feel the urge to shut down the blog now -- forever!

Took this snap from my phone at the cinema on Wednesday. Though an official poster has released for moustache wielding SRK, the other still seems to be hidden away. It was one of those that changes depending on where you stood. Better quality posters will unveil soon I'm sure, but here's a glimpse:

Released for the birthday of SRK, I guess this is the Official poster, since the below one was a teaser:

& the official Teaser poster:

Kidnap'

Runtime: 149min 38secs
Tagline: He set the RULES. You will OBEY them.
Language: Hindi (with English subtitles)
Written by: Shibani Bathija
Directed by: Sanjay Gadhvi

Plot Outline:
When Dr. Mallika (Vidya Malvade) asks her daughter Sonia (Minissha Lamba) what she wants for her 18th birthday, Sonia tells her she wants her Dad. Mallika divorced Vikrant Raina (Sanjay Dutt) when Sonia was just 10. The bitter custody battle was settled in Mallika's favor and Sonia has not met her father for eight long years. Rebellious Sonia is hell-bent on meeting her dad, but Mallika does not want her to have anything to do with him. After a spat between mother and daughter, Sonia walks off in a huff and doesn't return.

Mallika panics when she gets a call from a stranger that he has kidnapped Sonia. The kidnapper, Kabir (Imran Khan), has only one demand - that he will negotiate with nobody but Sonia's father - Vikrant Raina. Reluctantly Mallika brings Vikrant back into their lives to save Sonia. Vikrant Raina, one of the richest Indians in the world, with a net worth of 51.7 billion dollars obliges without a second thought, after all his daughters' life is at stake, but he chokes at the thought of taking orders from a criminal.

Kabir holds the trump card though. His intentions & his plan are what form the crux of the story.

Pretty knackered in the lounge of the Picture House, I contemplate whether I should see this or not. On my twitter feed @filmstalker warns me to avoid it. I leave a message asking why and go in anyway. The curtain opens, the film begins, or does it?

In the City of Sylvia'
En la ciudad de Sylvia

Runtime: 84 minutes
Language: French (with English subtitles)
Release: September 14th (in Spain - UK Release Unknown)
Written & Directed by: José Luis Guerín

Plot Outline:
A young man (Xavier Lafitte) arrives in Strasbourg and spends his days sitting at an outdoor café, sketching the figures of the women around him, patiently waiting for Sylvia, the woman that he fell in love with six years earlier, to appear.

He finally thinks he sees her in Ella (Pilar López de Ayala) and gives chase, but it turns out to be someone else. He resumes his quest for his lost love and the innocence he longs to regain. Sylvia's presence lingers, but it is impossible to return to the past.

Overall Impressions:
So, as I was saying above Mr. FilmStalker warned me about this. The film had begun but appeared to be very still. The guy in it was pencilling something. A couple of minutes later, things begin to kick off. Well, I say that but there was a lot of still camera following certain angles of streets.

UK Shorts 2'

Title: Home Time
Runtime: 6 mins
Directed by: Natalie Brady
Synopsis: D At the end of a school day there's one girl in the playground who doesn't want to go home.
Quite a subtle way of story telling through indicating rather than show & tell. I certainly think this should be practised more often in film, but I understand why it isn't seen too often, its a tough balance to set. Good to see it done well here.

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Title: Breath
Runtime: 11 mins
Directed by: Mark Gillespie
Synopsis: Hard hitting drama based around the delivery of a donor organ.
Though it was emotionally balanced & encompassed well distinguished characters. The hero on the motorbike, the hopeful parents, the innocent child, the irresponsible driver. There were a limited umber of ways it could pan out & so I began looking more at the locations & background music used & this is what struck me as more impressive than the story. A good portfolio film I feel, execution above content would be my criticism for it, but that could be its strength if used/pitched accordingly..

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Title: I Was Here
Runtime: 12 mins
Directed by: Richard Porter
Synopsis: The story of a man who decides not to go to work one day. He simply walks away, with no idea of where he will go or what he will encounter.
With absolutely no dialogue, again music came as a saviour for it. Though nearer the beginning I wondered if this is going anywhere, by the end I looked at the character with some envy. I wish I had more days like that. In the rut that becomes work/home routine, it is unfortunate to simply just not have the time to 'get away'. Even precious holidays (a measley 25 days or so) have to be managed carefully. Here I am using them up at film-festivals. *sighs* ..such is life.

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Title: Home
Runtime: 11 mins
Directed by: Debs Gardner-Paterson
Synopsis: Sometimes leaving brings you back.
This was the mandatory grim one. There's always one. It deals well with handling past & present & I did take away some sort of message out of it. Which is where I feel depressing tales quite often fail. I find I want to receive some sort of small reward if I have to endure pain that these characters I invest in endure. Here I walked away with more than just 'home' being where the heart is, but that giving up, attempting suicide is just passing the misery on to another. Its quite irresponsible. Hopefully the idiots that keep dropping off at Surbiton might see this.

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Title: Legion of Plotters
Runtime: 10 mins
Directed by: Tom Martin
Synopsis: Conspiracy or paranoia? Plagued by a deluge of aggravations, Mr Jasper draws a dark conclusion. Adapted from a short story by Richard Matheson.
Another befriended film-maker. I pretty much made the effort to come see this batch at 10:30 on a Saturday morning primarily because it was the only time I'd get the chance to see his film. On the corner of your mind you always have that concern that you might not like it. What then? How will you face this 'friend'?! Thankfully, it held up as the best of the lot. *phew*

It was very well edited, from the very opening, the credits impressed. Seeing Richard Mathesons' name stamped on it impressed even more & the dark humour worked a treat for me. If anyone follows me on twitter they'd probably see why this would appeal to somebody like me. Those plotters really are out there I tell you, in the form of cute & cuddly 'infants'. Grrrr

Even as the credits closed I was left with an additional unexpected chuckle.

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Title: The Imaginary Girl
Runtime: 11 mins
Directed by: Richard Porter
Synopsis: Seven year old Amy, whose recently separated parents hold different views on her social development, is enthralled in her world of make-believe.
When writing comments for these films, some times this is the 1st time I have read the synopsis & it's interesting how some appeal more on paper & some don't feel quite what I saw. In this case, the film sells itself better than he synopsis. The 'mother' was so irritating I wanted to shoot her myself. Unfortunately she doesn't get shot in the film either, but she got close.

What we see the child going through is infuriating. It actually reflected an old memory a little too close to home to be honest, but I cant hold it against the guy. A job well done uncovering old wounds Richard!! :-P

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Title: Crosswords
Runtime: 10 mins
Directed by: James Malcolm
Synopsis: Mrs Mitchell thinks people are sending her messages through crosswords. Her eccentric house, packed floor to ceiling with thousands of old puzzles, is about to be targeted by the Pristolux Homecore Company.Dark humour. Love it. A brilliant atmosphere for it. The ending too nailed it. Stupid Man. Stupid Hoover. lol

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Thoughts Overall: I didn't dislike any. Not that many of you will get the chance, but these were the unmissable ones. Glad I missed the screening earlier in the week, else following batches would have had too much to live up to.

The idea is this. People send a synopsis to Screen East before a certain deadline (earlier in the year) Six of these get chosen as finalists & the filmmakers will pitch their idea for a microbudget feature of under £150,000 to a panel of experts who'll give their feedback on the idea, and how feasible a "micro" budget production it is.

The filmmaker of the best pitch will win a one-to-one feature film development session with The Script Factory (worth £300). Results will be announced at this event & then printed in the BAFTA and Screen East newsletters.

Me, in the audience getting to see 6 pitches & the feedback may not sound interesting to all of you, but it most certainly was. For me, from the ideas, only 4 out of 6 worked. 2 of them could have done with some more preparation, a hook to sell their film better, and 2 genuinely interested me. 1 of these 2 intrigued me to the point, I have requested to be kept in the loop with the project.

Oddly enough, the winner was one of the 2 I dismissed as not terribly interesting content-wise, but, I have to admit, his pitch was good. He had locations planned already, an outline of areas he's have permission to shoot, basically a lot more feasibility study than the others & that wins a pitch contest. It makes sense.

Another interesting truth that came about was that UK Film seems to be getting labelled as 'gritty', 'dark' and generally quite unpleasant. I'd agree. The pitches backed this theory. Maybe I should put a pitch together for the 'Ranjeet' screenplay after all. Seems like they could do with it. I guess I should finish writing it first. Hmmm'

Best of ..
Screen East
Digital Shorts'

Screen East's Digital Shorts is a short film scheme in partnership with the UK Film Council. Each year emerging talent get the opportunity to make a fully funded short film using digital technology.

To coincide with the launch of the 2009 scheme, a selection of films from past years will be screened followed by a Q&A session with a past writer director and Sam Burton, Executive Producer of the scheme.

The Lineup:
THE TECHNICAL HITCH Director: Jon Dunleavy. 2006. Written by Luke Wright
MONOCULTURE Director: Jason Cuddy. 2007. Written by Simon Edmondson
BILLY'S DAY OUT Director: Iain B Macdonald. 2005. Written by Antony Mann
BLASTED ANGELS Director: Ian Claxton. 2006. Written by Paul Burke
BLOOD ON HIS HANDS Director: Justin Coleman. 2007. Written by Justin Coleman

"The Technical Hitch" was a refreshing little animation with poetic narration, that used some profanities when I least expected, humorously I might add. It came across as symbolic of chaos being a part of the larger order & somewhat also the butterfly effect of cause & effect. It was pleasant to watch visually too. Worth seeing if you see it on show anywhere.

"Billy's Day Out" and "Blasted Angels" with a lack of synopsis *shame on you Screen-East people* .. I can't actually recall at the moment. I'll edit if it comes to me. Blatantly they didn't leave too much of an impression. This is probably due to the above & below being the standout ones.

2 of these badgers I'd seen last year, my thoughts towards them haven't differed:

Title: Blood on his Hands
Runtime: 9 mins
Directed by: Justin Coleman
Synopsis: James must make a decision about his brothers killer....
A drug addict, should he be allowed he chance to be rehabilitated or should he get the harshest of all penalties through the law? A thought provoking little short, that leaves the resolution open to the individual.

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Title: Monoculture
Runtime: 9 mins
Directed by: Jason Cuddy
Synopsis: Harry grows a magical plant and finds happiness, but can he keep it?
By far the best short I have seen here so far. In black & white we see the monotonous lie of a young man, late o work, day & night at work, ending up home, only to rise another day to a similar routine. Until he gets his hands on some seeds that he decides to plant. As the plant flourishes it brings colour to his life & everything that he allows.

He finds himself, living the colourful life with a partner, decorating every aspect of hs life, until the plant itself gets neglected and wilts. Slowly he ends back into the monotone that he originally began in. There is a message here. It's the little things in life that make itcolourful & worth living. It's crucial to remember that these roots need watering, whatever they are.

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Thoughts Overall: I think I'm confident enough now, maybe I should apply for this scheme.

International Shorts 2: Lost and Found'

Title: Dear Fatty
Runtime: 7 mins
Directed by: Hsin-I Tseng<
Synopsis: In this stop-motion animation,a little girl is writing a letter to her runaway hamster "Fatty" and wondering about its experiences in the outside world.
My thoughts as I saw this & afterwards was largely envy. Children have a certain innocence that is enviable. The animation was fitting, but what grasped me was the voice-over of a child. It made the film come to life. Wondering about thins that realistically would be far more harsh. I found it touching.
You can see 30 seconds of it here:

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Title: The Back Room
Runtime: 17 mins
Directed by: Greg Ivan Smith
Synopsis: Two utter strangers uncover astonishing connections as they search for a mysterious Renaissance painting.
A man trying to close up a book store 10 minutes earlier than closing time was somebody you were sympathetic to. Enter the conflict, the big hefty guy that 'may' be a problem. The common ground they find was believable. The fairy-tale ending they go for not-so-much. It ruined it a little for me. Had they simply left together, this would have been okay.

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Title: For You My People
Runtime: 5 mins
Directed by: Jose Pablo Gonzalez
Synopsis: An animated short film that tells the compelling story of a senator who must confront his secret deeds of corruption.
I think the message here was Corrupt Politician pays for this that & the other being covered up, and parallel to this greets all the victims of such as equal individuals publicly. Either that or I missed the plot. Interesting use of animation though. Would be interesting to see what else this guy has done.

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Title: Radu and Ana
Runtime: 8 mins
Directed by: Paul Negoescu
Synopsis: Radu is the unluckiest guy on earth. Things might change. Or not.
The pick of the lot for being the stand-out comedic one. The escalation of things that went wrong for the poor guy, really were rather amusing as well as making him a character you wanted things to go better for. When a motion of events that look like its looking up for him finally, I did find myself wanting that for him. Does it happen? Well Yes & No. Definitely worth checking out f you see it screening anywhere.

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Title: Amma (Mother)
Runtime: 5 mins
Directed by: Aparna Kapur
Synopsis: After receiving a ball of yarn at her grandmother's deathbed, Mia diligently begins to knit a weave that will eventually reunite the two of them.
The use of animation showing progression of one life to the next, how generations & legacies evolve (if I interpreted that right), has been done a number of times, but the music really had be involved in this one. It was pretty amazing. Another person I'll be keeping my eye open for. I've been listing to the Maa (Mother) song from Taare Zameen Par on repeat since I saw this yesterday.

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Title: Girl in Red Sarong
Runtime: 13 mins
Directed by: Jeremy Sing
Synopsis: A spoof of a Singapore national icon, told through a day-in-the-life tale of Leng, a waitress who is simply, trying to survive.
The maker of this one had flown in from Singapore & I kinda felt bad for him, for I didn't understand the film. I saw him around later, but didn't mention the film. I feel kinda bad now, I probably should have pressed him for an explanation of some sort, but I think that it was quite a cultural thing. A woman struggling to pay her rent manages to find work by her traditional garments or something?! It was well-shot, at least I can say that

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Thoughts Overall: This has been the best set of shorts I've seen yet. Either that or my attention span is getting worse & worse. Though I wouldn't say I liked them all, I do feel I took away more from these than I did prior screenings. All of them had something for me.

International Shorts 1: Sensitive Souls'

Title: Punch
Runtime: 10 mins
Directed by: Sotiris Dounoukos
Synopsis: In a city of beauty and noise, a broken man tries to escape his pain and loneliness by playing the clown he feels like...
I didn't see it as hugely original, yet it engaged me emotionally. It reminded me of a scene from Mera Naam Joker (My Name is Joker) which covered 3 acts, as 3 different time periods in the life of a clown, but what differed was that this clown was only a clown to us as a viewer, to the surrounding people on-screen he was being treated as just another person seeking some attention, which I'd say was its hook.

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Title: Hello, Goodbye
Runtime: 16 mins
Directed by: Antoine Bourges
Synopsis: A short drama that depicts the first and last day of a foreign student in Vancouver, from his initial observations to his last farewells.
Discussing with one of the other film-makers, there was more to read in here than I initially anticipated. It follows an interns beginning & end at a school for architecture, which was engaging enough in itself. However there was something larger her in his actual project. I'd be interested in seeing it again to see if my thoughts change on how I interpreted this part.

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Title: Puppies & Pickup Trucks
Runtime: 18 mins
Directed by: Vincent Biron
Synopsis: The chronicle of a dying childhood.
Absolutely hated it. Something terrible happens & I empathised with the boy, however this was simply it. Very little followed events-wise, lamentation which didn't suffice for me as a resolution to what we'd been put through as a viewer.

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Title: Dreamers
Runtime: 14 mins
Directed by: Vlamyr Vizcaya
Synopsis: A tender coming of age story in a crude world!
Another dud for me I'm afraid. The fact t hat only the next day I can't even remember this short shows how much of an impact it left on me.

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Title: Man
Runtime: 15 mins
Directed by: Myna Joseph
Synopsis: Maggie and her sister form an unusual bond during an encounter with a young man.
This one was interesting. I'm not sure how often this sort of thing happens in real life, where an online relationship comes to life when a boy & girl finally meet & decide to fornicate on that first meeting, but having the sister there in this instance made it odd & interesting. On the one hand the one sister was the cause & on the other she was trying to protect her sister. There was also a sense of envy here. The mix of emotions is what made this believable & engaging.

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Title: Legacy
Runtime: 15 mins
Directed by: Grant Sputore
Synopsis: A coming of age story - an account of innocence lost and a life saved in Australia during World War ll.
I befriended the maker of this a few days earlier, so I'm a little conflicted about reviewing it, but I will anyway. The World War setting put me off a little, just as its a genre I don't tend to get on too well with. This said, the message of the story (even relayed in its title) was clear & well portrayed. It leaves us with he question of whether our duty to our own outweighs the progression of oneself.

In this instance, it is a story of a War Veteran drunk father, a young soldier son who is seeing himself becoming his father, while trying to convince the younger son, his brother, to 'not' follow in his own or his fathers' footsteps. The resolution being left quite open though hinting towards a specific angle.

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Thoughts Overall: Bar the two films that I found pretty dull, this was a good batch. I did have concerns about them because they were largely over 10 minutes, which means they need to be good to not bore me, but they panned out quite well. Rather impressed.

This film I'll admit, I saw for Sarah Connor. I feel quite like Linda Hamilton, a label is being attached to Lena Headey although it's also allowing her an emergence to a larger audience. Provided she keeps doing roles outside of Terminator, I feel she has scope for larger things. It obviously helps that she's far from bad looking. ;-)

The Brøken'

Runtime: 88 minutes
Release: To Be Confirmed - Probably 2009
Written & Directed by: Sean Ellis

Plot Outline:
Having premiered at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival as a part of the 8 Films to Die For theme, this film follows the story of a woman in London.

Gina (Lena Headey) wakes up in the hospital following an encounter with a mysterious doppelganger. Her life begins to turn sour & ridden with nightmares as she tries to come to grips with the incident.

In the process of trying to make sense of her repressed memories of the incident, she thinks she sees herself drive past in her own car. Stunned by this strange event, Gina follows the mystery woman up to her apartment.

From here, events take an unexpected turn for the worse, to the point where Gina's awareness slides from solid reality into a world that will haunt more than just her nightmares.

UK Shorts 3'

Title: Speechless
Runtime: 8 mins
Directed by: James Cooper
Synopsis: D has plenty of time on his hands. He could be doing all sorts of things.... but generally he isn't doing very much. Disillusioned with just about everything around him, he takes solace in gangsta rap, bags of family sized crisps, chips, sausages... and 'texting'.
By far, the funniest of the lot. I'd actually like to get hold of this at some point to show a few friends, where its all at. Conveying takes skill. Conveying without words is a good way of practising this. Which was in part what I was going for when I wrote 'Building Character'. Kudos for pulling it off with numerous laughs.

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Title: Time Out
Runtime: 8 mins
Directed by: Angus Gafraidh
Synopsis: What would you do if you could see twenty four hours into the future?
This was humorous & well executed, but it it did have a dash of familiarity about it. The concept is not all-that original. Numerous TV shows through the years have been based upon it. Though technically this doesn't affect the end-product, it did notch it down a bit in my liking of it.

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Title: Terrafarmer
Runtime: 2 mins
Directed by: Will Adams
Synopsis: A lone astronaut attempts to terraform a hostile planet with a malfunctioning robot as his only companion.
This felt like a showcase of 3d Animation. Humerous yes, but perhaps too short to actually get into. Perhaps an impressive series lies ahead?

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Title: Blunder
Runtime: 8 mins
Directed by: Simon J Riley
Synopsis: A sales rep, witnesses the kidnapping of a female jogger whilst driving to meet a client. After following the kidnapper to his house and trying to save the jogger, Jack realises things aren't quite what they seem.
This went well for its first half, the setup & tension were working well upto a point. Once the story unfolded, it lost steam & became predictable.

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Title: The Legend of Ol' Goldie
Runtime: 8 mins
Directed by: Matthew Snyman
Synopsis: A fairytale about a boy and his only friend... his pet goldfish. The thing is, Goldie isn't your average Goldfish.
The clichéd arguing parents annoyed, but the story of a boy with a pet & how it became a lasting friendship was engaging. Overall, I felt sort of neutral about it.

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Title: And The Man is Born
Runtime: 9 mins
Directed by: Pravel Prokopic and Marie Morgan
Synopsis: A comedy of life's disappointments for one young woman. Realising her dreams never felt so bad.
Just plain weird & not in a good way. I don't have much else to say.

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Title: Sun in the Night
Runtime: 4 mins
Directed by: Anne Wilkins
Synopsis: A mother hopelessly waits for her lost son to return, whilst her young daughter plays with a strange imaginary friend.
You can actually watch it yourself here:

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Title: 21 Seconds
Runtime: 9 mins
Directed by: Ru McArdle
Synopsis: A gritty romantic tragedy. Maddie is looking for a place to commit suicide; security guard Keith is out to save her. Fairytale ending? Definitely not.
This felt too silent. It had an interesting use of motion to encompass the business surround the principal characters, however the story for me fell flat. 2 self-absorbed, self-pitying losers whine about how their life sucks. I must admit I wanted them to meet & suddenly be happy, even though it wouldn't be realistic, but instead it ends with more moping. Boo hoo. Die already! Sound too harsh?

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Title: Charon
Runtime: 13 mins
Directed by: Chiara Ambrosio
Synopsis: Charon, the mythic ferryman over the river Styx, sails off on a journey to recover his childhood and mortality. This is a film about loss, mortality and time.
The use of puppets impressed, but it ran too slow in showing off this very skill. I did feel for the old chap working so hard for a little bit of peace & rest. I think it was supposed to be a deep & meaningful portrayal of the generations before us, which does come through, just too slowly.

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Title: Sundays
Runtime: 6 mins
Directed by: Sarah Bick
Synopsis: A visual study of spending Sundays in make-believe. Because six bad days is bearable. Seven is not.
A visual study yes. A film no.

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Thoughts Overall: As a set of shorts, a better ratio of good stuff to so-so stuff compared to the 'UK Shorts 1' programme, largely I assume this is because of the humour factor. What can I say? I like to be entertained.

This film is a large production, you'll probably see posters for it if you keep your eyes open. This thought it was a great film to watch was a bit of a mistake on my part, as I would certainly have had a chance to see it again in a few weeks time, plus, the alternative "The Man from London" I hear is fantastic, but isn't getting the deserved attention (ie; Limited showings worldwide & hence no 'wide' release).

I've Loved You So Long'
Il y a longtemps que je t'aime

Runtime: 117 minutes 3secs
Language: French (with English subtitles)
Release: September 26th
Written & Directed by: Philippe Claudel

Plot Outline:
In this gentle yet suspenseful drama, two sisters attempt to
reconstruct their relationship after a long separation, as haunting family secrets slowly emerge.

Juliette (Kristin Scott Thomas) has been abroad for fifteen years for mysterious reasons and is outcast by her family. On her return, only her sister Léa (Elsa Zylberstein) is willing to take her in, but Juliette's presence disturbs the household, as Léa's husband is deeply suspicious of her sudden reappearance in their lives.

This is the story of her gradually finding acceptance within a family now alien to her & in the process finding her own capacity to heal from the past that haunts her.

UK Shorts 1'

Title: Hand Gum
Runtime: 9 mins
Directed by: James Farrant
Synopsis: A poetic study on the cruelty and innocence of youth in modern society.
Interesting representation of when kids just aren't innocent any more. Like with plants, they should be grown under controlled conditions & given a lot of attention, else hey're just weeds!

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Title: Trip
Runtime: 9 mins
Directed by: Harry Wootliff
Synopsis: An emotional tale of what happens when a father tries to do the right thing by his two daughters but chooses the worst way to go about it.
The synopsis pretty much sums up what I thought of it. You see it from the outset that it can't end well, but he 'tries', bless him.

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Title: K
Runtime: 20 mins
Directed by: Piers Thompson
Synopsis: 15-year-old Kaylee encounters an enigmatic stranger who compels her to re-evaluate her future.
This was pretty slow, pretty long & pretty boring to be honest. Largely I think a lack of background score, really didn't help it here, but I just found it a bit pointless, which is okay for a short short, not for something greater than 10 minutes

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Title: Ripple
Runtime: 18 mins
Directed by: Paul Gowers - Official Site
Synopsis: A black comedy. One small random act of malice forces an ordinary man off the safe road and on to a dark journey that he'll never forget.
This was pretty funny, the over-use of profanities may not be comfortable for 'everyone', but the concept & execution otherwise is pretty good. it's a simple story of a bad day escalating for a man. Nicely done. When a short film is over 10 minutes long & doesn't make me want it to end, they've done well. This one I could have watched as even longer, the escalation was engaging, the music suited it too.
I managed to find a trailer for it:

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Title: Veils
Runtime: 13 mins
Directed by: Dan Susman
Synopsis: Veils is a story about a Jewish girl and a Palestinian guy on their wedding day. But this is not a standard Romeo and Juliet story of forbidden love..
This was looking predictable, but interesting none-the-less, but they then ruined it by putting in a twist for the sake of having one. Easily done I suppose. I wonder if my next short will have a twist?!

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Title: Tide
Runtime: 4 mins
Directed by: Felix Wiedemann
Synopsis: He kisses her. Is this the beginning of a great love - or the end ? A short film which plays with the audience's perception - backwards.
I thoroughly enjoyed this, its short (like shorts should be) & captures you unaware. It took me a moment to realise it was backwards (which you do eventually). However the way it plays with perception was quite smart. Interestingly, my friend didn't pick up what was going on until I explained.

Thoughts Overall: As a set of shorts, with the exception of Ripple, they were a little serious for my liking, but a decent compilation that improved within its duration. I take away Ripple as most humorous, but Tide left me most moved.