Water

Albeit the controversies that hogged it and the media attention that it received, Deepa Mehta has still managed to come up with a winner. A touching movie dating back to 1938, the focus - Widow remarriage. It looks closely at the atrocities that the society inflicted on the widows. The little 7 yr old widow, the older Seema Biswas and Lisa Ray have each done justice to their roles.
The little girl, 7 yr old "Chuhiya" (fondly "little mouse) is married off at a young age, when she just attains puberty, to an older man, who is shown as passing away shortly. The parents then take her off to a Widows home (quite like an Old Age home), and she is left among other widows (age ranging from ~20s to late 80s). The castigation that follows is worse than death; a lonely life of self denial. The story turns around when Gandhi gets out of prison and is shown propagating "The Harijan Concept". Narayan (played byJohn Abraham), a nationalist, staunch believer of the Gandhian and Raja Mohan Roy philosophies, decides to marry a widow but is unable to since she commits suicide. Soon after the death of this young widow, Seema Biswas (shown as a more mature, compassionate older widow) decides to send Chuhiya off with Narayan to join the Gandhians.....just ensuring that she is safe from the evil clutches of the society which looks down at the widows with disdain.
When little Chuhiya enters the Widows home, her question about "where the male widows live" moves all.
A well made movie!

Casino Royale

After Sean Connery, George Lazenby , Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan; Daniel Craig comes across as yet another avatar of Bond. With every era the series seems to be belong to a different genre. While Sean Connery had what it takes to portray 007, I did not think much of the others until Pierce came along. He had none of the crass, roughened approach that is so characteristic of the earlier Bonds. He was the suave gentleman or Remington Steele who made every woman's heart skip a beat. Daniel Craig is definitely a toughened soul, but adds very little to the "lady's man" label that 007 usually portrays.

I read a little while ago that the director Martin Campbell had a plan of showing Madame M as a lesbian (keeping with the times?!), but Mr. Craig was dead against it, could be because of the bond that James shared with Madame M. Also given that this is the first book by Ian Flemming, it may not have gone down too well with the audience.

Casino Royale is based in MonteNegro and has millions of dollars exchanging hands. Bond's first mission is to ensure that the banker does not win the million dollar prize money and use it to fund terrorism. The movie has Bond falling in love and seen treating women as "meaningful pursuits" rather than "disposable pleasures".

The movie is the usual Bond fare, with predictable Madame M, no Q (did Ian Fleming not have this character in his first book, I wonder!).

It took me a while to get used to new Mr.Bond, James Bond :)

The Departed

It's been rated "outstanding" by some reviewers. I would give it a "very good"
The title of the movie says it all "The Departed". For the sake of some fun...let me tell you that everyone dies at the end ;)
A multistarrer with Jack Nicholson as Francis Costello - The Goon, Matt Damon (a cop who is attached to the Costello gang), Leo (d Caprio) (as the police informer who has found place in the Costello Gang), Sr.Sheen and Mark Wahlberg as the only 2 top cops who know that the police dept has planted Leo- the police informer in the Costello gang to seek out clues and evidence to catch Francis Costello red-handed! Alec Baldwin is seen throwing his "weight around", very literally, as the top cop! favouring Matt Damon as his blue eyed boy. The movie is inspired from Hongkong movie which supposedly has a little less blood shed.

The good part is that it kept me completely engrossed. My heart reached out to Leo :)