The online dating and mating game

Perfect Stranger has the gorgeous Halle Berry playing the part of an investigative journalist, Rowena Price. She gets her hands on a good story of a handsome, happily married senator, who is staunchly against gays but he himself is one - albeit still in the closet. And Rowena has pictures of him cavorting with his male interns and so ofcourse he manages to stop that story from being printed.

She goes off in a huff and quits the job but then finds herself quickly trailing another influential and wealthy man, Harrison Hill (Bruce Willis) because she believes he lured her friend, Grace, to him via an online chat forum and they had a torrid weekend affair and he later dumps her. He then has her killed for blackmailing him about the affair...or so Rowena thinks.

Rowena gets on his tail but the truth is actually far from obvious. I didn't have too much of a problem with the script because there were a couple of red herrings that keeps the finger pointed away from the real killer, almost till the end.

But I don't understand why the director - James Foley - was shooting almost most scenes from below, where the audience gets too many views up Halle Berry's and Bruce Willis's nostrils. Not a good camera angle. Besides there were gratuitous scenes of nudity that the script just didn't require.

Everyone knows Halle Berry's got one of the best bodies on this planet and no one is really disputing it so there was really no need for a scene where she's looking through her lingerie drawer, while being stark naked. (Don't go rushing to see the movie for this scene because she's not facing the camera!). This scene just didn't need to be there.

Some actresses don't take care, over how they dress on screen, despite the enormous budgets allotted to precisely that - dressing them up. (See Meg Ryan in 'Proof of Life' and you'll know exactly what I mean...in a lot of scenes, she has not even bothered to wear a bra.) But Halle Berry looks hot in almost everything she wears and she (or her stylist) have picked good clothes that make her look stunning. Ofcourse, Berry is a very good dresser in reality as well.

Here again, in the world of a Hollywood film, office-goers working for an advertising agency all dress as if they are readying for a photo shoot. But, I guess we are willing to forgive because even the extras look good in their figure-hugging leather pants and coordinated jewellery and makeup.

All in all, it's a film that I wouldn't watch twice..but it does highlight the dangers of the online dating and mating game. You truly don't know who is the one you are chatting with anonymously in a chat room....these perfect strangers could become life partners or completely wreck lives. So, that's a message that screams loud and clear in this movie.

Written for www.moneycontrol.com

Dixit charms in 'Aaja Nachle'

This movie is the gorgeous Madhuri Dixit's comeback movie after her marriage and two kids. And time hasn't marred her beauty - just like wine she's become better with age. And her dancing skills seem unmatched. She's poetry in motion and that beautiful smile of hers lights up the silver screen.

She plays Diya, a New York based choreographer who comes back to her hometown Shamli, after her guru dies to save his institution - Ajanta - being torn down to make place for a shopping mall. She comes back to save her roots and also to find herself again because she gave all this up to elope and get married to a foreigner. Her parents leave Shamli because of the taunts of their neighbours and her teacher loses all his students because the other parents are scared their daughters will do what she did.

But Diya is one of a kind. A small town girl with guts to follow her own heart and the will to make a success of her life despite her marriage breaking down in the US. She comes back with her daughter, Radha, and takes on the narrow-mindedness of her hometown. She has to fight a local politician, a local businessman who wants to build the mall (Irffan Khan) and win a bet with the local 'raja' (Akshaye Khanna), whose family has owned that open-air theatre for generations, and now it's up to him to either let it remain a theatre or give it to the government to build the mall.

How she does rescue Ajanta is the plot of the film and you have to watch it to really see her work her magic on Shamli's residents and us - the audience. She's bold, modern, broadminded and just the right person her guru chooses to rescue his school. Does she succeed? Ofcourse she does...this is a Hindi film after all. But it doesn't look easy and even she has her doubts but that's just what makes the film so likeable and believeable.

Watch it for Madhuri Dixit. She makes acting look so effortless because she's so good at it - the other actresses better wake up!

Written for www.newsgaze.com

Bridal Boutique

Are you getting married and thinking of putting together your trousseau? This is the exciting bit for most brides - but where does one go to shop for hi-end ethnic wear. Sure, there are designers like Ritu Beri and Ritu Kumar and ofcourse Tarun Tahiliani but sometimes even their prêt lines may be out of reach of the upper middle class budget.

So, there is a great new alternative option – a store called Kalki which has opened just over a month ago in Worli. This store is the first retail store of Suarabhakti Goods Pvt Ltd, who are into exporting and importing textiles. This store showcases those textiles as finished products.

While materials like georgette, chiffon and velvet can be bought for Rs 2,000 onwards, the readymade salwar-kameez suits in unique colours (like mustard yellow) and with gorgeous hand-work, start from Rs 5,000 onward.

The store also has wedding saris going all the way up to Rs 60,000 and I saw a lady trying on one made out of dark green velvet with silver embroidery on it and it looked stunning. That’s because though the store does have four trial rooms, it also has an upraised ‘stage’ kind of area in a corner, where wannabe brides get help to drape their sari and model it for their loved ones in front of a mirror.

The store also custom dyes a fabric for you. For instance, if you like a certain fabric and the texture but want it in another colour, then they do it for you.

The store also stocks some Indo-Western tops and tunics but the range is limited, though the owner has promised to bring in more variety this Christmas season.

The store also has a small accessories range - like heavy ‘jhumka’ type earrings, tiny hand mirrors and elaborate jewellery boxes and embroidered cloth bags. Though the selection is limited, it is great quality stuff. The jewellery boxes, especially, are beautifully done up and look good enough to gift away by themselves. You can put chocolates and even a bottle of champagne in some of them!

So, do step into this store and add colour and fizz to your celebrations.

Details

Store name: Kalki

Address: 227, Dr Annie Besant Road, Worli, Mumbai – 400025

Tel no: 91-22-24912361

Fax: 91-22-24912362

e-mail: info@kalki.co.in

Read classics free of cost!

Going online to do research for your projects or to check on new hairstyle trends is not the only reason you should be doing your internet surfing. Well, try to make it more varied and less need-based. Meaning? How about just letting yourself go with a good book – an e-book to be more precise.

If you find you are way behind in your reading of the classics, then this is just the site for you. Check out www.online-literature.com. There are complete works - including some which you never see in print - of 260 authors and 2,260 complete books have been scanned and posted on this site. There are also 3,664 poems and short stories as well to chose from.

A detailed biographical sketch accompanies all the authors and you can even post your own quiz, of any novel that you may have read. A related and very useful link takes an explorer of this site to the Essay Archive site which has access to some 35,000 term papers.

This link makes for a great study tool as well. Imagine finding critical essays on existentialism and Jacques Derrida’s surreal influence on a writer. This is the place for just that kind of plagiarism. I wouldn’t advocate it ofcourse, but then there is so much to tempt you!

Go to this site and relish the caustic wit of George Eliot with a dash of Alexandre Dumas’s mysterious romances. Or if you prefer bland but never dull Charles Dickens with mischievous E Nesbitt novels, then this is just the site to wander….and get lost in.

A nice touch that has been added is that you can order a CD of any of the authors and gift it to someone. At the moment though, the site claims to have just put 268 titles onto CDs and no short stories and poems are available. But what is available is a great resource, which is already a vast repository of more words than most people read in a lifetime anyway.

So, begin your journey ..one word at a time.