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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.

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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 ..

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

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.