Blue Jasmine (2013)

Plot Summary

After everything in her life falls to pieces, including her marriage to wealthy businessman Hal, elegant New York socialite Jasmine moves into her sister Ginger’s modest apartment in San Francisco to try to pull herself back together again.

Director: Woody Allen
Writer: Woody Allen
Stars:  Cate Blanchett, Alec Baldwin, Sally Hawkins

Trailers

Reviews

Wall Street Journal: Cate Blanchett tops anything she's done in the past with her portrait of a fallen woman who's a hoot, a horror, a heartbreaker and a wonder. The mystery of the movie as a whole is that it depicts a bleak world of pervasive rapacity, deceit and self-delusion, yet keeps us rapt with delight. - 5/5

New York Observer: Richly chronicled characters, sharp dialogue and that stupendous centerpiece performance by Cate Blanchett are contributing factors in the best summer movie of 2013 and one of the most memorable Woody Allen movies ever. - 5/5

Rolling Stone: Want to see great acting, from comic to tragic and every electrifying stop in between? See Cate Blanchett in Blue Jasmine. - 4.5/5

The New Yorker: Cate Blanchett, who played Blanche on Broadway only a few years ago, gives the most complicated and demanding performance of her movie career. The actress, like her character, is out on a limb much of the time, but there’s humor in Blanchett’s work, and a touch of self-mockery as well as an eloquent sadness. - 4/5

New York Post: Blue Jasmine may sound like a topical satire, but it isn’t really. It’s a character study of an obnoxious, selfish and supremely self-absorbed woman oblivious to the pain she inflicts on others. - 3.75/5

NPR: As written, Jasmine is a hopeless neurotic, trapped in a perpetual panic. As played, she has a wicked hint of Scarlett O'Hara. - 3.75/5

Village Voice: Blue Jasmine is so relentlessly clueless about the ways real human beings live, and so eager to make the same points about human nature that Allen has made dozens of times before, that it seems like a movie beamed from another planet. - 1.5/5

MovieMoReview Rating of Blue Jasmine -  3.75/5

Bhaag Milkha Bhaag (2013)

Plot Summary

The true story of the "Flying Sikh" - world champion runner and Olympian Milkha Singh - who overcame the massacre of his family, civil war during the India-Pakistan partition, and homelessness to become one of India's most iconic athletes.

Director: Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra

Writer: Prasoon Joshi

Stars: Farhan Akhtar, Sonam Kapoor, Rebecca Breeds

Budget: $ 5,200,000 (estimated)

Trailers

Reviews

DNA: Bhaag Milkha Bhaag is the kind of cinema that doesn't tempt us to share the protagonist's life with any false hopes. We the audience are driven into a desperate urge to share Milkha's life not only because he ran fast, but because he wasn't afraid to stumble, falter and fall - 5/5

IBN: The film itself is well intentioned and shines a light on an important figure. But it's too long and too unfocused to leave a lasting impression - 2.5/5

NDTV: Bhaag Milkha Singh is a 400 metres sprint that feels like a cross-country race. Go for it only if you trust your endurance threshold. - 2.5/5

Zee News: ‘Bhaag Milkha Bhaag’ may not impress an average moviegoer, for it comes across as a very slow film. But it will certainly leave you with a sense of pride for having the legendary athlete as a fellow countryman. - 3.5/5

Rediff: Bhaag Milkha Bhaag fails to achieve that level of clarity or coherence, primarily because of Prasoon Joshi's faulty screenplay and sleepy editing by P Bharti, which appears both overwhelmed and clueless about putting together the many chapters of a sportsman's eventful existence. - 2.5/5

Economic Times:  Bhaag Milkha Bhaag doesn't run as consistently as Milkha Singh might have. Nevertheless the sincere effort by Farhan Akhtar makes it a significant watch. - 3/5

Firstpost: Bhaag Milkha Bhaag calls itself a biopic but it never stops feeling like an exaggerated yarn — the creative liberties taken are just ridiculous and expecting anything factually correct goes out the window when Akhtar as Milkha Singh starts singing a country western style Hindi song at a Melbourne bar with an Australian girl - 2.5/5

Deccan Herald: “Bhaag Milkha Bhaag” could have been an inspiring, uplifting film about one man’s journey, but Mehra botches it up completely. Sport has enough inherent drama. All he had to do was show that. Mehra chose to play games instead, and ruined it. - 2.5/5

Deccan Chronicle: Rakeysh Om Prakash Mehra is back in form after the higgledy-piggledy 'Delhi 6'. For sure 'Bhaag Milkha Bhaag', his salute to an athlete, leaps out straight from the heart, which may skip several beats but cannot arrest the impact left by the three-hour-plus epic. - 3.5/5

Bollywood Hungama: A handful of films sprint that extra mile beyond providing meager entertainment to its spectators. Bhaag Milkha Bhaag is one such cinematic experience - 4.5/5

MovieMoReview Rating of Bhaag Milkha Bhaag -  3/5

Pacific Rim (2013)

Plot Summary

When monstrous creatures, known as Kaiju, started rising from the sea, a war began that would take millions of lives and consume humanity's resources for years on end. To combat the giant Kaiju, a special type of weapon was devised: massive robots, called Jaegers, which are controlled simultaneously by two pilots whose minds are locked in a neural bridge. But even the Jaegers are proving nearly defenseless in the face of the relentless Kaiju. On the verge of defeat, the forces defending mankind have no choice but to turn to two unlikely heroes-a washed up former pilot (Charlie Hunnam) and an untested trainee (Rinko Kikuchi)-who are teamed to drive a legendary but seemingly obsolete Jaeger from the past. Together, they stand as mankind's last hope against the mounting apocalypse.

Director: Guillermo del Toro

Screenplay: Travis Beacham & Guillermo del Toro

Story: Travis Beacham

Stars: Charlie Hunnam, Idris Elba, Rinko Kikuchi

Budget: $180,000,000 (estimated)

Reviews

The Telegraph: At first, watching Pacific Rim feels like rediscovering a favourite childhood cartoon – but del Toro has flooded the project with such affection and artistry that, rather than smiling nostalgically, you find yourself enchanted all over again - 5/5

Film.com: It is one of the better dumbass sci-fi action movies to come down the pike in quite some time - 4/5

Total Film: A huge, CGI-heavy popcorner that still feels personal. Come for the epic monster-on-mecha showdowns, stay for the likeable humans - 4/5

The Guardian: Pacific Rim's wafer-thin psychodrama and plot-generator dialogue provides little for the human component to get their teeth into - 3/5

Village Voice: Pacific Rim is big and dumb in a smart way - 4/5

The Hollywood Reporter: To kill time between action set-pieces, del Toro has done an above-average job of avoiding tedium via some flavorsome casting, passably interesting plot contrivances and, above all, by maintaining strong forward momentum. Unlike so many similar crash-bang action spectaculars, this one feels lean and muscular rather than bloated or padded; the combat is almost always coherent and dramatically pointed rather than just splashed on the screen for its own sake - 3.5/5

indieWIRE: Too in love with itself to ever totally go off the rails, Pacific Rim doesn't qualify as the first full-on dud of del Toro's career, but it's hard not to get the sense that something's missing - 3.4/5

Slant Magazine: Guillermo del Toro doesn't rise above the obligations of staging a film of this sort as a multi-level video game, a stylish but programmatic ride toward an inevitable final boss battle - 3/5

Empire: Del Toro is giving scope to a boyhood lust for mayhem, the multi-million-dollar equivalent of kicking over sandcastles and torturing insects. There is something infectiously juvenile in that - 3/5

Variety: Although assembled with consummate care and obsessive attention to visual detail, Pacific Rim manages only fitful engagement and little in the way of real wonderment, suspense or terror - 2/5

The Verge: Del Toro makes one of the most satisfying movies of the summer - and one of the best of his career - by creating not just a new world, but one whose mythology actually deserves a universe - 4/5

Yahoo Movies:  Pacific Rim offers a few laughs and a few thrills, but it feels like a very large platter serving a disappointingly meager meal - 3/5

MovieMoReview Rating of Pacific Rim  -  3.5/5

Lootera (2013)

Plot Summary

The year is 1953. A visiting archaeologist called Varun Shrivastav comes to the village of Manikpur in West Bengal to excavate the temple grounds of the local Zamindar. With knowledge and experience beyond his young demeanour, Varun greatly impresses the Zamindar and his family. Especially Pakhi, the Zamindar's feisty and only daughter, who finds herself irrevocably drawn towards him. But Varun isn't all he seems on the surface. And as the simmering attraction between him and Pakhi leads to a tender and deep love, he is forced to choose between her and his past. Making his choice, Varun disappears. Pakhi struggles to move on with her life, determined to forget him and their relationship. Until one day, when he returns under the most extraordinary circumstances. Inspired from O. Henry's "The Last Leaf", Lootera is the uplifting story of two lovers. Of heartbreak, betrayal... and ultimate redemption.

Director: Vikramaditya Motwane

Screenplay: Bhavani Iyer & Vikramaditya Motwane

Dialogue: Anurag Kashyap

Budget: $6,000,000 (estimated)

Reviews

Rediff by Raja Sen: Lootera is an absolute masterpiece - 5/5

NDTV: Lootera is a Bollywood miracle – a rare Mumbai film that is mounted on a lavish scale and yet dares not to play by the established norms of the marketplace - 4/5

Times of India: Lootera is a love saga of yore - 4/5

DNA: Lootera charms you and slowly draws you into its lost world - 3/5

Firstpost: Sonakshi impresses but Lootera is boring - 2.5/5

Oneindia: A classic love story - 4/5

Economic Times: While it has a lot of its own, Lootera will steal our heart too - 3/5

Indian Express: Sonakshi Sinha is the real looteri - 2.5/5

in.com: Lootera steals your heart - 4/5

India TV: ‘Lootera’ is surprisingly that one love saga which portrays the flavour of that period so efficiently that nobody has anything to complain but to adore the glorifying feel that results out of the hushed moments - 3.5/5

Bollywoodlife: The classic love story mesmerizes, but does not overwhelm! - 3/5

MovieMoReview Rating of Lootera  -  4/5