Movie weekend.

Had a mad movie weekend this time. Saw 3 movies. Had planned for 4. Could not watch 'M. Kumaran ...' as the CD was taken on Saturday and the shop was closed on Sunday. :(

1. Page 3 - the inside story.

Initially, on hearing the movie's title (without the tagline), I thought "What the heck !". Just another 'candy' movie. (as our wing calls those sweet movies where everybody has lots of money and keep flying to US and Europe whenever they feel like, the hero has no worries in his life except whether the herione loves him. Eg: Almost every other Bollywood movie). Three weeks after it was released and after hearing reviews from my roommate and others, I realised that one shouldn't judge a movie by its title. (As Subbu does, so often).

Haunting - that best describes the movie in one word. Each and every character starting from the NRI investor who wants his picture on Pg 3 every day, the paedophile industrialist, the homosexual make-up man, the two party gate crashers, and of course, Konkana and Atul as the journalists, have been very intricately etched by the director. In the end, the movie is about contrasts, hypocrisy and conflicts in one's mind. Most of the dialogues are crisp (and at times funny too, especially between the chauffeurs), except for a very few hanging dialogues like "Nanda, you are ganda" (??!!!) The background score is another haunting feature of the movie. 5/5 is my score. Don't miss this really slick movie.

2. National Treasure

Its a mix of a robbery movie (with those high funda gadgets, master plans etc) and a treasure hunting movie. End result : Just another Hollywood movie. Those who have read "The Da Vinci Code" will find lots of similarities with the book (The Knights Templar, the brotherhood, cryptic clues, churches etc etc). The film talks a lot about Democracy and how citizens should take the power upon themselves in times of crisis. As usual, Nicholas Cage does a fine job. I would say : don't watch this movie if you have something else important to do.

3. Swimming Pool

Nice one. I like those movies with open endings where the audience is left to wonder and form his/her own theories about what really happened. I had initially assumed that it would be like those thriller college flicks where murders take place every other night and the killer is revealed in the end (atleast the tagline - "On the surface, all is calm." hinted at something like that). Nothing remotely close to that. Its about an best selling crime fiction author who goes to France (the publisher's villa) to be alone and get the inspiration to write another book. There she meets the publisher's sex-crazy daughter (who makes a lot of noise, pun intended ;) ). Things don't go well between them initially, though later on, the author becomes interested in the daughter. Lots of weird happenings here and there, and finally a surprise ending. Though the explanation of the ending is entirely left to the audience. Dialogues are really less in the movie, though there appears to be strong hints and analogies in many scenes.

I read a lot of interesting (and plausible) theories in the IMDB site. But I couldn't find one single explanation that links together all the intracacies of the movie. Frankly speaking, at this stage, I myself am confused and would like to have a good discussion with anybody who has seen this movie and has a good explanation for the ending. I would rate this movie at a good 4/5.