Dhobi Ghat (Mumbai Diaries)

Movie: Dhobi Ghat (Mumbai Diaries)

Cast:    Monica Dogra             (Shai)

            Aamir Khan                (Arun)

            Prateik Babbar           (Munna)

            Kriti Malhotra             (Yasmin)

Genre: drama

Synopsis: Arun is a successful artist in Mumbai.  Shai works in a bank in New York but is on a kind of sabbatical for which she going around Mumbai taking photographs of people at work.  Her family is extremely wealthy.  Munna is a “washerboy” by day and a rat killer by night.  He lives in a shack and is extremely poor.

Shai seems to be romantically interested in Arun.  Arun is experiencing something of a life crisis from dealing with a recent divorce and is having creative difficulties.  Munna is the washerboy for both Shai and Arun.  Shai takes a friendly interest in Munna.  She starts using Munna as a guide to show her the different areas of Mumbai for her photographic endeavor.  He is also falling in love with her.

Meantime, Arun has become obsessed with a set of video tapes left in his apartment by a previous tenant.  They are a series of “letters” the newlywed Yasmin made for her brother.  They started with her arrival in Mumbai and chronicle how her life changes.

The movie follows these four and their interconnecting and changing relationships.

My two cents: I really enjoyed this movie.  I really felt for poor Munna.  He is always conscious of the class difference between him and Shai, although Shai seems to be class-blind.  Most of the dialogue is in English, so you do not get overloaded with subtitles.

Bottom line: if you stumble across this movie on video or on TV, give it a try.  You might be pleasantly surprised.

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Yogi Bear

Movie: Yogi Bear

Cast:    Dan Aykroyd             Yogi Bear (voice)

            Justin Timberlake        Boo Boo (voice)

            Tom Cavanagh           Ranger Smith

            Rachel                        Anna Faris

Genre: animated comedy

Synopsis: The evil mayor wants to allow the trees in Jellystone to be cut down to make way for agricultural interests.  The only way to stop his plan is for Jellystone to become suddenly more popular (and profitable).  Yogi and Boo Boo take a break from "pic-a-nic basket" stealing to try to help Ranger Smith.  He also is aided by the beautiful Rachel who is filming a nature documentary.  They find a surprising way to save the park.

My two cents: I seem to have outgrown my fondness for Yogi.  The movie had a few amusing parts, but I guess I am just too far out of the age range of the targeted age group.  I got really bored really fast.

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Summer Wars

Movie: Summer Wars

Genre: Japanaese Anime

Synopsis: Kenji is an 11^th grade math-genius/geek with a crush on the beautiful Natsuki.  He agrees to help Natsuki when she goes home to the family estate for a visit. What he does not know is that his real job is to pass himself off to Natsuki’s family as her fiancé during her great-grandmother’s 90^th birthday party.

Oz is an internet site that is used by virtually everyone in Japan – and a lot of the rest of the world – to do everything from pay bills to run telephones to managing satellites.  His first night at the estate, a challenge is issued to Kenji via his internet-connected phone.  He wins the challenge by solving a 2,056 byte encryption algorithm.  Somehow, this allows a misguided application to unlock and take over Oz accounts.  Things start going wrong all over the world as more and more Oz accounts are appropriated.  Finally, Natsuki’s family teams with Kenji to battle the entity that is taking over Oz.

My two cents: This is my first Anime movie.  It was actually kind of interesting.  It took a while to get used to the type of animation and the script style.  The hardest part for me was to stop muttering to myself “well, that is totally ridiculous”.  If you go with the flow, it is kind of enjoyable . . . but definitely not everyone’s cup of tea.

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