The Social Network (U/A)
Cast: Jesse Eisenberg, Justin Timberlake, Brenda Song, Joseph Mazzello, Rooney Mara, Andrew Garfield, Max Minghella, Trevor Wright, Dakota Johnson
Director: David Fincher

The flick that clicked this year is “The Social Network” by David Fincher. At least I came out of the theatre not with interrogations but imbued with ideas that changed the world.

Yes, indeed “The Social Network” succinctly narrates the most sought after social networking platform “Facebook”. This film drives inspiration from the book by Ben Mezerich- “The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook, A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius, and Betrayal”.

“The Social Network” marks Mark Zuckerberg’s journey to fame woven with an intense elemnet of notoreity and success. The movie gathers a lot of hype with Aron Sokin’s engaging screenplay and Fincher’s rendition of fictional story-telling!

David Fincher has broken the conventional bio-pic structure though it is so. With fictional quotient, the movie stands out from the rest and more-so highlights the changing concepts of business and money! The Social Network, wrote our own Philip French, “takes familiar ideas about trust, friendship, endeavour, ambition, betrayal and greed into fascinating new areas of experience. It’s as riveting, lucid and open-minded a film as Rashomon”.

The film drives inspiration from the book “The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook, A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayal by Ben Mezerich. At th outset, the movie spins details on how Mark Zuckerberg acts as a narcissistic and a lonely sphomore studying at Harvard. Mark’s break up with his girlfriend pushes him to perform an extraordinary feat while he tries out computer coding. In just a bat of an eyelid, he creates Facemash- a website that enticed the students to choose between tow good looking females. This initaites the journey to success. This brings Mark into the spotlight as the two Winklevoss twins, Cameron and Tyler (both played by Armie Hammer with additional shots using Josh Pence as a stand in), and their partner Divya Narendra (played by Max Minghella) notes him. Next the action of the movie is triggered with some complicated lawsuits. The Facebook take off with a vigour and grows faster with almost 150,000 members. The description of the plot will never do justice to this fast paced flick. It is better one watches the lawsuit gimmicks and an array of events that is handled artfully.

The Social Network is like a fine thread between fact and fiction. Though events are bastardized, the movie is highly appealing as it connects us to the person who made Facebook! At times a turn off but mostly you would be carried off with the strong characters and cinematography! The movie springs from a series of interesting true events and would surely induce you to go back and log in to Facebook to cross-check that subtele irony! This is one of the great stories that inspires millions of young minds!

Harry Potter is back. The final movie of the epic series released on 19th of December 2010, only to welcome crazy, impatient Harry Potter fans once again in the world of Magic.
‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows’-Part I re-lives the prophecy of Professor Trelawney to Albus Dumbledore.

“The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches … born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies … and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not … and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives … the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies …”

Thus started the fight between the ‘boy who lived’ and ‘He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named’. Harry, along with his friends Ron and Hermoine embark on the mission that Dumbledore has left for them. The incomplete mission of tracking down Horcruxes will now be completed by Harry and his friends. Lord Voldemort returns in full power in this movie. Dark secrets engulf the innocence of the seventeen year old Harry, as he starts searching the horcruxes. With the death of Alastor Moody, Hedwig, Harry is shattered. Unable to bear that people whom he loves are dying in order to keep him safe, he prepares to leave. But, Ron reads his thoughts, and pulls him back. He has to stay, because Hermoine obliviated her parents’ memories and Ron also made up the story of having Spattergroit, and placed a Ghowl instaed of him, so that they can help Harry in his mission.

Death Eaters are searching for Harry. There is a taboo on Voldemort’s name in order to catch hold of anyone who dares to say the Dark Lord’s name.

Meanwhile, the minister reaches Ron’s place with Dumbledore’s will. Harry receives the sword of Gryffindor and the snitch that he caught in his first year at Hogwarts in the Quidditch match. Ron gets the deluminator which is an invention of Dumbledore himself. Hermoine receives a book~’The Tales of Beedle the Bard’ which is supposed to be a children’s book.

The scene shifts quickly to Ron’s elder brother, Bill’s wedding where the minister’s death is announced, and at the same time death eaters attacked. Hence, Harry, Ron and Hermoine disparate from there. From here starts their journey in destroying the horcruxes that is the key to Voldemort’s immortality. But the real issue is no one knows what and where are those Horcruxes. Dumbledore just started the mission, with no proper plan or predictions. It’s all up to Harry and his friends to search, spot and destroy them before things get worse. On the other hand, Muggle-born students are being driven out from Hogwarts, because Voldemort craves for only pure bloods. Same goes out for those working in the ministry. Half-bloods, Muggle-borns are tortured and driven out. The entire Muggle world is also not safe anymore. There are accidents and deaths, reasons of which no one knows in the Muggle-World.

The war that was supposed to happen sometime has started now. Harry is the only hope for all.

Roaming around clueless for days, finally they discover the story of ‘The Deathly Hallows’. This story is supposed to be a kid’s story, but it’s actually a legend. The legend is of three brothers who come face to face with death because of their powerful magic that they did to defy death. Impressed by their magic, death seeks to reward them. As rewards, the eldest brother gets the ‘Elder wand’, a wand that cannot loose any duel; The second brother gets the resurrection’s stone, a stone that can bring back the dead; and the third asked for something which will not allow death to follow him. Thus, he receives Death’s own cloak of Invisibility.
Little does harry knows how much this story is related to him. It seems so that Voldemort is after these hallows, especially the Elder wand that can help him defy death. But it is yet not know who the last owner of this wand is, and where it is.

With every step harry moves closer to the fate that was etched out for him seventeen years ago, when Voldemort decided the ‘boy’ in the prophesy is Harry Potter.

The film ends with Harry destroying a Horcruxe~The Locket of Slytherin,the death of Dobby, the Elf,who dies while saving Harry and Voldemort opening Dumbledore’s tomb, and taking the wand that was lying peacefully with him. It si therefore now clear, Dumbledore was the owner of the Elder wand.

The film leaves series of questions unanswered ~ Will the wand work for Voldemort?? He did not wil any duel with Dumbledore o own it?? So how will he be immortal? How will he defy death if he isn’t the owner of the wand? If it is not him, then who is it? Doea Voldemort knows that his Horcruxes are being hunted and destroyed by none but Harry Potter?

All answers are on their way… ‘harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows’- Part II is on its way…!!!!

Cardiology is the fifth album of ‘Good Charlotte’. ‘Good Charlotte’ released their first album in 2000. Next came their second album ‘The Young and the Hopeless’. This topped the charts and they shot to fame immediately. The band became a household name. However, compared to the first two albums, the third and fourth album failed to make a mark. Now, after a gap of ten years, Good Charlotte is back with ‘Cardiology’.

Cardiology’ has 16 tracks which are, for a change, not dance numbers. The album is said to be inspired by ‘Blink-182′, and the songs are supposed to be reminiscent of their second album ‘The Young and the Hopeless’ which, till date is the best album.

They have walked back the road to revive the old-school roots with tracks “Let the music play”. Another track “Counting the days” is one brilliant work done by twins Joel and Benjamin, with additional efforts of Paul Thomas on Bass and Billy Martin on Guitar, not to forget drummer Dean Butterworth.
“Like It’s Her Birthday” is a song that captures the playful mood, and thus emerges as a ‘good’ song. With two abums disappointing the fans, Good Charlotte has come up with unusual yet catchy numbers in their fifth album ‘Cardiology’. They have the tunes of their old songs merged with new tunes on guitar. An amazing mixing of tunes have been done, and the result is 16 awesome tracks.

Joel Madden has written the track “Harlow’s Song” which is dedicated to his daughter Harlow. The song is very melancholic and raw, yet it opens up the sensitive side of the writer/vocalist, which was never seen in their previous album. The song is sure to touch your heart. After achieving fame in the beginning of their career, and then seeing disappointment thereafter, the band is back with a zing, and has proved that nothing can dampen their spirits to fight and emerge as winners. Fan’s loyalty has been the foundation pillar for Good Charlotte, and it still continues to stand as strong as it had been 10 years back.

Good Charlotte is one band with which most of us has grew up.Its a band that has been a part and parcel of our everyday life. Now, after a gap, we can again hear our favourite singers- Madden’s Brothers. So, for all those who were waiting eagerly for your favourite band to return, ‘Cardiology’ is the one you have been waiting for all these days!! Hail The Band!!!

When you buy a ticket to a Rajinikanth film, you enter into a pact with the actor. The only rule in a Rajinikanth flick is that there are no rules. Rajinikanth, whose contract reportedly specifies that he be credited as superstar, reigns supreme!In Robot,we see that after 10 years of hard work and perseverance, Dr. Vaseegaran (Rajnikanth) creates an andro-humanoid robot named Chitti (Rajnikanth). Sana (Aishwarya Rai Bachchan) is Dr. Vaseegaran’s girlfriend for whom Dr. Vaseegaran doesn’t have much time. Chitti is flawless as a machine but things take a horrid turn when Dr. Vaseegaran instils human emotions into him. He falls for Sana and is hell-bent to marry her. But Sana considers him to be a ‘toy friend’ rather than a boy friend. This calls for doom.

Robot’s most intriguing feature is the character of Chitti. Deriving from sources ranging from Blade Runner to Frankenstein, Shankar uses Chitti to make a comment on the human condition. Like us, Chitti wants to live, he wants to love but like us, he is also tragically flawed, capable of blinding hubris and horrific destruction. Of course these sub-texts are buried under masala so extravagant that your jaws drop.
There are several gorgeously shot songs, including one in Machu Picchu, that has several llamas in the frame with a swaying Aishwarya. Sadly however, A R Rahman’s music is singularly unmemorable. As is the character of Sana who is essentially a Barbie doll required to look either gorgeous or afraid.

The content has so much life that it reduces Rajinikanth as a mere scientist and makes the Robot as the protagonist and the antagonist giving Rajini three roles to show his craft as an actor. Infact Vasi, the scientist just utters a few dialogues, walks around with the heroine in a few songs and has just one job to do, to look flustered, frustrated and the focus rightly is on Chitti the user friendly Robot and Chitti, the destroyer machine.The film moves on interestingly and only towards the end it kind of gets monotonous when the humanoid robot assumes monstrous proportions to wreak havoc on mankind. ‘The film is singularly lacking in one quality – emotion.The second half of the story has powerful imagery, dazzling special effects and a touching finale. Whether it is make-up, music, re-recording or cinematography, every aspect of the film dazzles. The dialogues are simple yet have spunk, there is one in which the Robot asks Aishwarya why she can’t marry him, is it because he cannot have sex or make children. Is that all a human needs? Doesn’t love hold meaning or can’t one adopt children? All the answers are given towards the end in the form of judgement at the court.

Some of the awe-inspiring scenes include Chitti’s train sequence or when he becomes a snake of many robots in the climax. You can’t stop whistling or clapping here.’Rajnikanth is simply outstanding. If one Rajnikanth is good for you, this has 100s of him at one point. And even though all except one are bad, they are still good to watch. Aishwarya Rai Bachchan looks ravishing and acts well. Danny Denzongpa plays his negative role to perfection.’ Through all the fantastical, futuristic images, Shankar keeps the flavor strictly home- grown. The robot is given his name by Dr. Vasi’s mother and even though Chitti menacingly abducts Sana, it never gets too risqué.

Robot would thrill kids and make an interesting watch for adults as well. Watch Robot for Shankar’s distinctively Great style of direction, for his ingenuity and imagination and the way he splatters the screen with animate and inanimate factors. If you’ve wondered why our filmmakers don’t come up with futuristic cinema, go watch this, it might not match international standards but will give you a feel that we are quite close to it.

An earthquake hits the town of Lake Victoria and from the depths arise a small army of prehistoric piranha with a highly voracious appetite for meat. ‘Lucky for the fishies Spring Break is in full swing bringing lots of youngsters into the waters for some splashy fun. And you know what that means? Open buffet.’Precisely,It’s spring break at Lake Victoria-really Lake Havasu-and hordes of drunk, horny college students have arrived to trash their perfect bodies. But there’s something swimming in the water that can do that much more efficiently. Actually, there are thousands upon thousands of them. The piranhas have razor-sharp teeth and ferocious eyes, but they almost look as if they’re smiling as they prepare to tear into some unsuspecting fool’s flesh. A seismic shift beneath the lake created a rift that unleashed these prehistoric creatures. Now they’re here, and they’re hungry.“Piranha 3D” is revolves round 3 things namely, girls getting naked over spring break. It’s about killer fish eating people. And it’s about 3D. Each facet is equally important, and in a way the movie is interesting because it doesn’t just use 3D to improve the experience.

Keeping at par with the genre of classic horror flicks,the victims get picked off one by one. Sheriff Julie Forester (Shue) and Deputy Fallon (Rhames) discover the first body and call in the scientific experts, led by Adam Scott (cast against type). But containing the fish is as difficult as stopping the partyers from dancing on boats in their bikinis to generic house music.Inevitable bloodbath happens — it’s vast and horrifying but with some giddy glimmers of absurdity sprinkled throughout. Stuck in the middle of this are Julie’s three kids, the eldest of whom, Jake (Steven R McQueen), has become an impromptu crew member on a Girls Gone Wild-style video shoot. Yes, there is plenty of nudity and girl-on-girl action here!

In “Piranha 3D,” director, Alexandre Aja, looks for new ways to thrill with the 3D effects. ‘Most of the time he resorts to what Fozzie Bear, in the MuppetVision 3D movie at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, rightly refers to as “cheap 3D tricks.” When a character on screen turns to the fourth wall and pokes a stick out into the audience’s faces, that’s a 3D trick. For much of “Piranha 3D,” Aja is simply looking for a new stick to poke.
Sometimes, that’s literally a stick, or a boat oar. Sometimes, it’s fish flying out of the screen. Because this movie is 1/3 “Girls Gone Wild,” (literally, the opportunistic soft-core porn angle is a major part of the plot), those cheap 3D tricks involve large breasts breaking the surface of the water as the camera, and the audience, sits below. Besides being titillating, it’s actually a cool looking shot.

The actual piranhas looked bad, and the killing sequences that featured them nipping away at people’s bodies looked even worse.This is a horror-thriller, so death scenes are expected but some of them were a bit unnerving. Mild Spoiler Alert: Faces get ripped off, bodies are taken a part (literally), and a certain male reproductive organ gets chewed up and spit out (right into the viewing audience’s face).Adam Scott has a supporting role as a scientist who’s more of a straight man than the comedic characters we’ve seen him play in the past. Why would he take on a role in a movie like this if he didn’t want to play it up? If you’re expecting him to delivery hilarity, it’s not going to happen.But ofcourse there could be a moral to this story: ‘Don’t go to the lake and act like a cheesy, drunk idiot during spring break. But that would be no fun.’Piranha 3D, a Dimension Films release, is rated R for sequences of strong bloody horror, violence and gore, graphic nudity, sexual content, language, and some drug use.

Piranha 3D is schlock horror at it’s funnest and goriest complete with the bonus of 3-D technology.Don’t worry, horndogs, the Wild Wild “mermaid scene” is perfectly illuminated so neither model falls victim to lack of lighting!So,if you’re into satires and lots of nudity, you’ll love Piranha 3D. It’s definitely not family friendly and it lets you know that within the first 10 minutes.Go for it if you wish to torture yourself and tittilate your senses!especially men!

The film is a hilarious ride. Starring Ajay Devgan as angry Gopal who gets irritated if anyone points finger at him. There is the orphan Tabbu (Kareena) and stammering Laxman (Shreyas Talpade). They all live together with their Mom (Ratna Pathak) who has actually adopted Gopal and Laxman, with Tabbu an added member in family. This goes one group. The other clan has father, ‘Pa’ (Mithun Chakraborty) with three more sons- Mad Madhav (Arshad Warsi), nonstop nonsense poet Laxman (Kunal Khemu) and dumb Lucky (Tushar Kapoor). Again, they are also adopted.

Ma of this clan and Pa of that clan happens to be the bichhra huya love birds who had only intezar in their kismaat. But Tabbu finds out this story and unites them, in spite of the fact that the other members are the biggest enemies of each other. What follows are some hilarious sequences when these ‘brothers’ come to live together. To add to the fun we have two dons, Pappi Bhai and Vasuli Bhai.

At one point when the truth reveals that they are all orphans, they reconcile their fights and start living like a happy family, much to the relief of Ma and Pa. Everything goes great. Pappi Bhai and Vasuli Bhai, in the beginning were part of each clan respectively. Now that they all came to live together, the Dons instead of investing separately for them, invest in a toy shop that the ‘brothers’ open together.

Things take a toss when Pappi Bhai (Jonny Lever) declares that the ‘Heeron Ka haar’ is with Mithun Chakraborty. Pappi Bhai suffers from short term memory loss. He forgets who he is, and that leads him to hide the necklace in Pritam’s (Mithun Chakraborty) bag, and forget it conveniently. There is the police officer who is as afraid as a small child. The short term memory loss plays its role, and Pappi Bhai suddenly remembers about the necklace. What follows is the revelation of the necklace, the self declarations of Pappi Bhai, and the receiving of a large sum of money to the family as a prize.
There are actions that happen in slow motion. There are some witty dialogues that are really catchy and hilarious as well. Every character has been portrayed well, and each actor has excelled in their performances. The film hangs between being extremely funny and being extremely boring. It’s a good time pass. Rohit Shetty’s ‘Golmaal 3′ is said to be inspire from three movies- Umesh Mehra’s ‘Hamre Tumhare’ (1979), Basu Chatterjee’s ‘Khatta Meetha’ (1978) and Hollywood venture ‘Yours, Mine and Our’s’ (1969).

Golmaal 3 has definitely lived up to the expections of the audience. With the first two already in the league, this film can be considered the only successful trilogy in India. A very colourful presentation, along with cool dialogues is a sure winner. If you want some fun and frolic back in your regular routine, this is it- ‘Golmaal 3’ is the best option. This Diwali the movie is a sure big time Cracker!!

If you have nothing outrageously silly to do, and is willing to do anything to kill time, watching “Crook” is a good idea in that case. The film definitely will tell you how being bad is actually good. Every character will teach you lessons on racism but they will practice it best!! So ironical..!!

Emraan Hashmi looks good like always, but the film is loosely made. A typical outlook of Indians is portrayed in the film. It starts well with various opinions on racism by different character. But all of a sudden the film takes a leap and goes ahead to make the Indians the biggest villains you can think off. The director definitely did not understand how mismatching everything was in the movie. The sequences are not properly synchronized. Everything happens randomly.

The story is about a carefree boy Jai (Emraan Hashmi) who falls head over heels in love with Suhani (Neha Sharma). Suhani happens to be a sufferer because her sister was killed by her Australian lover. It is her brother who is keen in taking revenge from that guy. The fil shows the Indo-Australian clashes but in a weak way. There is no proper bonding what-so-ever. The first half is pretty boring with those night club girls and skin shows. The second half gains some pace thankfully.Had it not been so, it would have been more pain to watch the remaining part than you had prepared yourself to endure.

However, it all comes to the same end.. mutual understanding and compromises, and happy ending!! Its another Mukesh Bhatt film with sleazy romance and sex, and then jumping onto ideologies and finally a social message.
Bhatt should be more careful with stories henceforth. Its after all just not about nie dress, cheesy dialogues and good places to shoot. There’s much more. Someimes Bhaatt forgets that there is something called “plot” in a film, and the result is ‘Crook’. He seems to think of a 2 minute story and then stretches it for 2 long hours. By god’s grace, I hope he has finally realized that he should concentrate in other aspects of the movie as well.
Now another warning for Emraan Hashmi. Though he seems to be deeply attached to Bhatts, still, being with them is not really good for his already low-profile career. He must try his hands with other projects as well.
Anyway, now for the audience, even if you are a movie lover, please, never think of watching this movie. It’s a time waste and money waste. Again, like I said, if you have nothing better to do, then you can watch ‘Crook’.

There is nothing much to expect from the film, apart from peppy numbers from Pritam, Emraah Hashmi, who looks really sexy throughout, and Neha, who has a strong screen presence. Apart from that there is nothing. Nice places have been selected to shoot. But in all these nice things, the story is the only thing that is not nicely portrayed!! Sad!!