Kudos to Aamir Khan for proving us wrong by giving us a brilliant dekko into the mysterious, magical mind of a child who really doesn’t know why befuddled adults are hell-bent on mutilating everything’s that beautiful, innocent, free and fulsome…All because they feel there is no faayda (profit) in it.

Ostensibly, the film is about children with special needs and the story revolves around the efforts of a dyslexic child to fit in, adjust and perform in a ‘normal’ world where competition is the norm and regimentation the principle.

A world where it is natural and ‘normal’ to rap eight-year-old knuckles and discipline with verbal abuse and physical battering, if a child gets his spellings wrong, forgets to do his homework or fails to give a copy book answer. But the canvas of the film is so sensitive, so vast, so meaningful, it includes any and every child in its ambit. So much so, Taare Zameen Par becomes the story of any and every child who is being robbed off his childhood by insensitive parents and teachers who believe their job is to create race-winning rats for the rat race rather than Einsteins, Edisons, Agatha Christies and Leonardo Da Vincis.

Eight-year-old Ishaan (Darsheel) is a happy-go-lucky child with a fertile imagination that can see fish flying but fails to grasp the difference between B and D. When asked to solve his three times table, he confidently picks up his pencil and sees a war of planets on the firmament of his mind where planet 3 smashes into planet 6 and beats it into smithereens.

Naturally, the answer of 3 x 6 is 3 for our little genius. But that’s between you and me. Berated by the teachers, his parents send the kid away to a boarding school and deliver him to a living hell, where he faces ridicule and begins to lose all self-esteem in his effort to fit in. It takes an unconventional art teacher (Aamir Khan) to bring him out of his solitary confinement and unleash a whole new energy force that blinds the boring world with its colours and configurations.

The story is simple and connects instantly with every adult and child in the auditorium, even as the climax is predictable and plays heavily on your emotions. But what uplifts the film is its very simplicity, sensitivity and its performances. On the one hand, there is the non-filmy script which doesn’t make anyone the villain…even the adults are victims of ignorance. On the other, there is the towering portrayal by young Darsheel who trapezes between lively and lost with great agility.

And holding it all deftly together – the tears and the smiles, the lows and the highs – is Aamir Khan who makes a measured directorial debut. Almost as measured and meticulous as his performances. Of course, the second half does get a bit repetitive, the script needs a bit of taut editing, the trauma of the lonely child seems a shade too prolonged and the treatment simplistic. But the film never does stop tugging at your heartstrings.

We recommend a mandatory viewing for all schools and all parents.

Directed by: Laxman Utekar Cast- Kartik Aaryan, Kriti Sanon, Vinay Pathak, Pankaj Tripathy, Atul Shrivastava, Alka Amin, Aparshakti Khurana. This comedy is set in Mathura wherein a news channel reporter Guddu (Kartik Aaryan) and his intern Rashmi (Kriti Sanon) decide to live-in together before tying the knot, hilarity ensues when their families get dragged into it resulting in confusion, chaos and melodrama. Utekar as the director does a good job and the movie has an old world charm reminding you of movies like Piya Ka Ghar(1972) or Prem Vivah (1979), though not the premise but the genre is very ‘slice of life’. It has the same ‘middle of the road’ feel like Bareilly Ki Barfi(2016) and Badhaai Ho(2018). The music is a major letdown with songs heavily remixes and borrowed from hit Punjabi originals. To give Utekar due credit he has brilliantly used Mohammed Rafi’s ‘Jaan Pehchan Ho’ and Sharda’s ‘Bidaai Geet’ in two hilarious situations. Kartik Aaryan is brilliantly adorable in the lead role, his comic timing and dialogue delivery are excellent. Kriti Sanon fails to impress but looks charming and tall, just too tall. Both Aparshakti and Pankaj Tripathy are fantastic and perform with aplomb especially the latter who gets into the skin of his characters so effortlessly in his recent acts. Now, there are some religiously offensive dialogues which may not go down well with some viewers, but the overall intent of the director and the almost clean and ‘Family viewing’ nature of this comedy can easily overshadow the minor flaws. ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Release date: 6th November 2009

Cast: Ranbir kapoor and katrina kaif

Director: Rajkumar santhoshi

Run time: 2hrs 14mins

Rating: 3/5

Prem (Ranbir Kapoor), with his friends, runs a Happy Club that works towards uniting people in love. When a new-girl Jenny (Katrina Kaif) shifts in the fancy town, Prem is predictably attracted towards her but doesn’t dare to propose till half the film. So when Jenny accepts Prem’s proposal and they start singing songs, you clearly know it’s a dream sequence.

Jenny’s foster-parents take her to Goa to get her married against her will. Prem reaches there and promises to bail her out of the situation ala Shah Rukh Khan from DDLJ. Soon Jenny reveals she loves Rahul (Upen Patel) giving the film a Jab We Met triangular twist. Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa comes into picture as Prem tries hard to get Rahul away from Jenny.

A politician and an underworld don create more chaos until the film reaches its cliched climax. It’s for the zillionth time since Dil Hai Ke Maanta Nahi that realization strikes the bride on her marriage day as she walks out to seek true love. The happy end is a result of the divine intervention with a literal Christ Ne Bana Di Jodi conclusion.

• Directed By: Alex Aja
• Written By: Michael Rasmussen (III), Shawn Rasmussen (II)

When a massive hurricane hits her Florida hometown, Haley (Kaya Scodelario) ignores evacuation orders to search for her missing father (Barry Pepper). Finding him gravely injured in the crawl space of their family home, the two become trapped by quickly encroaching floodwaters. As time runs out to escape the strengthening storm, Haley and her father discover that the rising water level is the least of their fears.

Rating: 4/5

• Directed By: Jordan Peele
• Written By: Jordan Peele

Set in present day along the iconic Northern California coastline, Us, from Monkeypaw Productions, stars Oscar (R) winner Lupita Nyong’o as Adelaide Wilson, a woman returning to her beachside childhood home with her husband, Gabe (Black Panther’s Winston Duke), and their two children (Shahadi Wright Joseph, Evan Alex) for an idyllic summer getaway. Haunted by an unexplainable and unresolved trauma from her past and compounded by a string of eerie coincidences, Adelaide feels her paranoia elevate to high-alert as she grows increasingly certain that something bad is going to befall her family. After spending a tense beach day with their friends, the Tylers (Emmy winner Elisabeth Moss, Tim Heidecker, Cali Sheldon, Noelle Sheldon), Adelaide and her family return to their vacation home. When darkness falls, the Wilsons discover the silhouette of four figures holding hands as they stand in the driveway. Us pits an endearing American family against a terrifying and uncanny opponent: doppelgängers of themselves.

Rating: 4/5

I expected IT to be more scary, I love horror. The whole idea of it gets me excited on levels completely unique to everything else, don’t get me wrong this is a great movie. Effects are boosted to the 21st century and IT actually has scenes that will make people jump. But I have been a book-fan to Steven King like forever, and it is definitely possible to get a scary SK movie because it’s happened before like in Shining and Pet Cemetery. But this lacked that emotional and long-term scar that truely terrorises my mind for the next week. I have to say I am impressed with how it came out, with the 1400 paged complicated piece of writing they were left with and a disappointing 1990 version my hopes weren’t that high. But long complicated (half) story short, they got the easy part down. When I see IT chapter 2 then I’m in for a ride, complications and confusion come like a tidal wave with the ritual of chüd, power transferals and telepathy battles I cannot wait to see how they tackle the next half of IT. Overall complete nail of IT chapter 1, I just wish it was more scarier.

• Directed By: Jordan Peele
• Written By: Jordan Peele

Now that Chris and his girlfriend, Rose, have reached the meet-the-parents milestone of dating, she invites him for a weekend getaway upstate with Missy and Dean. At first, Chris reads the family’s overly accommodating behavior as nervous attempts to deal with their daughter’s interracial relationship, but as the weekend progresses, a series of increasingly disturbing discoveries lead him to a truth that he could have never imagined.

Rating: 4.5/5

When you make a riotous romance like Jab We Met, you really can’t blame the audience for expecting the moon and the sky with your next film.

Chalo, let’s get drunk with one more heady potion of Pyar, Imtiaz ishtyle, you tell yourself before sauntering in for his latest, Love Aaj Kal.

And no, you aren’t disappointed at all. Because, this time, the effervescence and adrenalin rush of impetuous love, resonant in the romance of Geet and Aditya in Jab We Met, has been replaced by a more serious and realistic take on modern love. The film literally holds up a mirror to the commitment phobia of the young, successful professionals who keep changing their status from `committed’ to `single’ on the sundry social networking sites. Much to the chagrin of their dads and mums who fail to understand this emotional dilettantism and keep badgering them with love-of-a-lifetime cliches.

The secret of director Imtiaz Ali’s film making lies basically in three primordial areas. Instead of relying heavily on a three-hour long script, he chooses to concentrate on his dialogues: crisp, concise and completely in sync with aaj ka lingo. All of Saif’s babblings about love sans marriage and Deepika’s discourses on career and cumbersome commitment are straight out of real-life ramblings in pubs, discotheques and coffee shops.

Secondly, it’s the characterisations that literally set the screen on fire, with their highly individualistic streak coupled with their sad vulnerability. Here again, Saif Ali Khan’s Jai and Deepika’s Meera aren’t your run-of-the-mill Romeos. While cool dude Jai dreams of building bridges like the Golden Gate and cannot see romance coming in the way of his career, restoration artist, Meera too feels long distance relationships are a drag when she decides to move from London to repaint frescoes in Delhi. Refreshingly, this romance actually begins with a break and then goes through umpteen twists and turns, before the new age Jai realises he ain’t much different from the old-fashioned Veer (Rishi Kapoor) who lived out the Heer-Ranjha story in the less cluttered 1960s. Both Jai and Meera try to live out their lives independently, simply as friends, pursuing their careers and different love interests. But ironically, they keep bumping into each other at odd junctures of their life, babbling incoherently (and funnily) to avoid the senty soulmate signals. And Saif’s absolutely delightful with his gibberish take on I’m okay, you’re okay, we’re okay, while the scene’s actually yelling out something else.

Thirdly, like Jab We Met, this film too scores in the lush atmospherics that anchor the drama so exotically. London, San Franciso are fine, but it’s actually Delhi that once again sweeps you off your feet as it stands by as a sweet and vibrant witness to the wooing and shooing, both in the 1965 romance and the 2009 something-like-love story. Playing a major role in creating the right ambience is Pritam’s foot tapping music score too which boasts of a number of chartbusters.

On the flip side, the first half does ramble a bit and takes time to build up into a riveting second half. But the alluring performances by the lead pair do cover up for the langorous bits. Deepika is definitive and strong as Meera, the modern girl who has an individuality of her own. But it is Saif who renders so many shades to his character to make it seem so very real: confident, confused, careerist, homebody, fancy-free, foolishly in love.

• Directed By: John Krasinski
• Written By: Bryan Woods, Scott Beck, John Krasinski

John Krasinski’s “A Quiet Place” is a nerve-shredder. It’s a movie designed to make you an active participant in a game of tension, not just a passive observer in an unfolding horror. Most of the great horror movies are so because we become actively invested in the fate of the characters and involved in the cinematic exercise playing out before us. It is a tight thrill ride—the kind of movie that quickens the heart rate and plays with the expectations of the audience, while never treating them like idiots. In other words, it’s a really good horror movie.

Rating: 4/5