Inception

Inception is one of those movies, where if you blink, you may end up missing a crucial link in the storyline. You may even forget to chomp on your popcorn or sip your drink, but blink you may not want to.
Cobb (Leonardo Dicaprio ) is accused of intending to murder Saito (Ken Watanabe) after being found on the seashore with a gun and a curious top- the kind that spins. Just when you think that this is another random story of espionage and conspiracy, there is a twist which shows a riotous crowd and Cobb being shaken awake to no luck.
The scene then shifts its focus to Cobb and him wanting to get back to his family. Saito promises him one last extracting assignment and freedom as his payment. Cobb first goes back to his father-in law for help, to get a replacement as an extractor. What does an extractor actually do? An extractor taps a person’s thoughts when they are in a dream like state, leads them to believe certain thoughts and can even change their mind. But this is a technique that does not come easily, and requires out of the box, a different plane imagination. He finds an able student in an architect and he starts his preparation on the last assignment.
The assignment given by Saito is that he needs Cobb to create an inception in the mind of Robert Fischer (Cillian Murphy), a business rival, taking the meaning of industrial conspiracy/espionage to a whole new level. The team eventually starts the project on a long 10 hour flight which Fischer takes to go meet his father, who’s on his deathbed.
Complications arise as Cobb’s wife keeps turning up, lowering his defenses which worries the young architect. Alternately Fischer creates his own defense mechanisms making way for those subtly inserted action sequences that suddenly seem out of place.
The screenplay and the visual effects shoulder the script very well. The entire cast has been well thought of with the icing on the cake being the role of Cobb played by Leonardo DiCaprio. Have not seen a movie with s simple concept but presented elaborately, without the mental agony of figuring out the predictability of the plot.
The entire movie keeps you on the edge with concepts like dream within a dream and how if you die in a dream, you end up with complicated results. You also need to have an object that allows you to differentiate between reality, your dream and someone else's dream. The climax is very well spun and is in line with the whole theme and gets a wee bit dragged out in an attempt to show the concept of multi-layered dreams among a group of people and who need to wake up exactly at the same moment.
My rating: 4/5

Aisha, We are family

Trailer of Aisha - releasing this August: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ugdn5sG4gVU
Trailer of We are Family - this September: http://in.movies.yahoo.com/video-play.html?video_id=4417

I Hate Luv Storys

IHLS is another product from the Dharma Productions, encouraging young and new talent. This time it is Punit Malhotra, nephew of the famed designer Manish Malhotra (who designs and makes all of K Jo’s cast look like they’ve just descended from heaven)
IHLS starts with Jay Dhingra (Imran Khan) who just cannot stand the mush that his boss Veer Kapoor(Sameer Soni – spoofing Karan Johar) makes and believes in. He thinks all the movies are just recycled with different actors with slight difference in the drama and location. He bumps into Simran (Sonam Kapoor) during one boring assignment of his and they start on the wrong foot. Next thing he knows, is that Simran is the Production Designer of the latest movie Veer is making, and Jay is her assistant.
Simran is one of the typical characters who we could have seen in movies from the Yashraj banner, Karan Johar movie; all mush…loves pink and romance. She has a long standing relationship to Raj (Sameer Dattani – whose character is somewhat like Subodh of DCH) and Jay thinks they are all too filmy to be true. Raj and Simran always are seen in clothes that have been coordinated, that somewhere you think they could’ve been twins rather than lovers. They even have a funda like ,”We don’t drink on weekdays”. For someone to be playing Raj on the lines of SRK, needs to be really good and convincing. All that this Raj comes up with is expensive gifts and a white flower everyday
While they’re getting to know and work with each other, Jay and Simran start covering up for each other she even starts noticing major differences in their personality that she can’t helpthinking about Jay every time she’s wth Raj .Simran think she’s in love with Jay,who does not believe in the concept of love. She confesses her feelings for him only to be turned down.
The scene then shifts to the outdoor location of the movie they both are part of, where Jay discovers his feelings for her and confesses. But this time she says no. After a few glycerin induced moments which kind of span about 30 min of the movie, which can make you get up and shake these two up and say “ Go and get a grip of yourselves”, and a dramatic enlightening moment, they finally get together.
What I liked:
The breezy first half which showed the chemistry of Imran and Sonam
Sonam’s presentation
Clichéd filmy moments
The title track set in the beaches of Goa, and the track “Jab Mila Tu”. The other 3 tracks are hummable
What bored me:
The 2nd half, where the movie just was showing me a moping Sonam and Imran.
Imran’s acting has gone on a downward spiral; all the promise he showed in Jaane tu…ya jaane na and the kind of gene pool he’s part has disappeared. He has concentrated more on getting a good lean look and lost all faculties of his facial muscles
Sameer Dattani –why does the third angle to a love triangle have to be such a loser, that it’s obvious?
My rating: Average (3/5) – it’s good for an audience which loves the romantic movies from YRF, Dharma with the chiffon and snow