I should have listened to Kathy Gibson. She remarked that Heroine was leaving Netflix on her blog, Access Bollywood, but said time would be better spent elsewhere.

The best that can be said is that I regained respect for Kareena Kapoor's acting. She shows she's not afraid to be raw in this film, and also go without makeup looking pretty awful in some scenes. Fairly predictable plot.

Amitabh Bachchan, Dharmendra and Hema Malini are absolutely fantastic in this. This is my first 70's era Bollywood film, and I am beginning to understand the aura and cool associated with Amitabh Bachchan.

I watched this with my brother-in-law who was visiting for the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. He was laughing and commenting along to his first Bollywood film. "Are they ALL like this?" "Oh, no, crazy eyes!" "The shoes, the shoes!" "Seventies slow-mo, and every cliche is now complete." "It's really a Western -- there's even cacti!"

So, I didn't watch this alone, and my impressions are tainted by his constant commentary. I can understand why this film is iconic and a classic, but since I didn't grow up with it, the dialogues don't have the same effect on me. I had to see it, as so many people reference it, and it's quoted about as much as Scarface and The Godfather are in America.

The music is great, and some scenes are truly unforgettable -- especially Hema dancing on the broken glass while Dhamendra is bound. But I really don't get the whole Hitler warden prison sequence, and the movie could have done without it. The movie is long enough, and Hema/Dharmendra provided enough comic relief.

Truly a bromance for the ages!

Rewatched with my sister and brother-in-law who were visiting for the holiday. Struck again by just who perfect the casting was for this movie. I'm crossing my fingers that Shailene Woodley gets an Oscar nom.

It's so disappointing when two actors you really admire get stuck in a bad film. Shaadi ke Side Effects starts out with a bang as a married couple played by Farhan Akhtar and Vidya Balan role play as strangers and have hot sex in a hotel. They yhave amazing chemistry in those opening scenes. Then Vidya gets pregnant. They almost have an abortion since they are not financiall settled yet, but Farhan stops her at the last minute. The marriage goes downhill as the reality of having a young child sets in. I found both characters very annoying. Vidya became a dish rag, and Farhan a selfish lout. The film drags on and on through the boredom and the estrangement. We didn't need 2 and a half hours to tell this story, especially when there are only a couple songs in it. Surely both actors can do comedy, but there's no evidence of it here. The bits just aren't funny enough, and if Vidya and Farhan are to be the straight men, the supporting characters should then be more funny and over the top. Judd Apatow treads similar territory in his films, and you like his actors and it's FUNNY. Is this film meant to be a comedy, truly, as EROS billed it? Not in my book, and there's not enough true pathos to be a successful drama either.

Best in the moments of absurdity and satire, as you would expect from Jon Stewart. Some of the moments that seem incredible really happened, as the movie is based on the true story of Maziar Bahari's imprisonment in Iran. When his jailer tells him to call his wife to tell her to stop writing letters, he then says, "You have to dial 9 to get out."

The movie is straightforward storytelling of the tumultuous events surrounding the Iranian election in 2009 and what happened to BBC/Newsweek journalist Bahari. Stewart uses Jordan as a stand in for Iran, but also interposes real social media footage like the death of the young student Neda. He refilms Behari's mock interview with Daily Show correspondent Jason Jones, and also includes British Journalist Lindsey Hilsum playing herself.

Gael Garcia Bernal is very good as Bahari, and the always fantastic Shohreh Aghdashloo plays his mother. Kim Bodnia is Rosewater, Bahari's interrogator that he nicknames Rosewater for the cologne he always wears. Bahari is blindfolded except within his cell thus knows his questioner by smell.

The movie has some really great moments, like when Bahari dances in his cell to a remembered favorite song that he had shared with his sister. But overall, it somehow didn't have some needed dramatic tension for me. I'm sure also the limitations of the budget led to the claustrophobic feeling. We don't see much of how his wife or mother are handling his imprisonment. The birth of his child happened immediately after his freedom, and that is referenced in a post film on screen note. I wonder at how effective that might have been to have been shown -- but they likely didn't have the money for that added scene.

My young 13 year old son watches the Daily Show every night. He is a huge Jon Stewart fan, and had been begging to see this movie. I took both my sons, on a school night no less, to see an R movie. I have jaded eyes, but he is too young to remember anything about the Iranian election and it's aftermath. For him, he was seeing all these images for the first time, of the hope those Iranian young people had of change, and how it was all crushed. Jon Stewart wanted this story to be told and shown, and he got impatient waiting for the "right" person to take on the project, so he did it himself so the film wouldn't be a historical period piece but still of the moment.

I can quibble that other directors and screenwriters could have made a better film, but I'm still glad the film was made. Especially so that my son and other young people who don't know anything about the Green Movement in Iran could see it.

I knew this was an anti-hero early film for SRK, but I didn't know much about the plot going in. I actually enjoyed it more than Darr. I will give you the acting in the monologue scenes in Darr may be superior, but SRK deserves the Filmfare award he won for Bazigaar, and the plot was much more engaging for me. And literally jaw-dropping surprising in parts. With the different eye colors for "Ajay" and "Vicky" I thought this was a double role for SRK like Don or Duplicate, with one sweet role and one villain. When the first murder happens, my mouth hung open in amazement for almost five minutes. I looked like a cartoon character sitting there stunned at what I had just seen SRK do. I read later than many other actors turned down this negative role, and when SRK read the script, he told the filmmakers no one else could do the role but him -- and he may be right. He completely sucked me in and fooled me in this Bollywood inspired by the noir film A Kiss Before Dying.

Unlike Darr, he's not simply psycho -- he's psycho with a reason for his revenge plot. The film opens showing Ajay as a child calling the doctor for his mother who is in a near catatonic state from psychological trauma. She stays that way for years, and only "wakes up" in the climax to hold the dying Ajay. It was a little disturbing that Kajol is standing there crying for him at the end, but she has learned what a douche her father truly is and what he'd done to Ajay/Vicky and his family. Kajol was pretty good in this movie as she slowly figures out Vicky is not what he seems to be, but the standout really is SRK's performance.

Wow the dancer costumes in Yeh Kaali Kaali are a pyschedelic 90's trip, but it's my favorite song and dance number from the movie. http://youtu.be/3CvSysBhwLg

I was lucky enough to see SRK do part of this number live in a medley at his SLAM concert. Same moves, much better costumes! http://youtu.be/OllYmQcnyUk (about the 4:00 mark).

I know this has been getting tepid reviews, but I really enjoyed it. It's stylish and fun, with a good mix of romance and action. I especially really liked the music in the film.

I had never seen Govinda in a film, besides his cameo in OSO, but the two Indian friends I saw Kill Dil with were disappointed in his performance. Maybe it was because I had no preconceived notions or expectations, but I thought he was very good in his role as the father/gangster. Ranveer Singh was like a hyper puppy, cute, but a little annoying.

The guy who played Ranveer's brother, Tutu, I had never seen before. He was channeling Johnny Depp cool swagger. Parineeti I really like, but if she's really supposed to be this savvy social worker type, she was pretty clueless about where her boyfriend got all his money.

I liked the way Parineeti's character really drove her relationship with Ranveer -- she proposes, etc. And as she says, he is really naive about love. A scene that particularly moved me was when Ranveer's character got so emotional at her family's Diwali celebration -- because it probably was the first time he'd seen how a "normal" family interacted.

Enjoyable entertainment, if not something that will resonate after you leave the theater. I hope the fact that this film is not doing well will not curtail Govinda's "comeback". I really liked his zany/scary gangster especially and hope to see more of him in supporting roles to come.

Just took my two teen-aged boys to see Whiplash. Just as amazing the second time (saw the premiere at Sundance). My boys, who are both in band, thought the film was absolutely fantastic. "It's just everything," said my younger one. Bumping up to a full five stars. The older one said, "What am I supposed to take away from it?" Not going to spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen it, but there's a lot to talk about on your way home.

I am so hoping J. K. Simmons gets the supporting actor Oscar for this film. He deserves it.

I saw Interstellar on IMax, and it was well worth it to see it on IMAX. This film demands to be seen on the big screen. The film is long, there is much telling rather than showing, it's pretentious and ponderous. And yet, I'm glad I saw it. I admire the ambition of the film, and trying to deal with the realities and implications of interstellar travel.

But, on reflection later that night and today, the flaws are glaring. There are four astronauts on the mission. Could one of them have had more personality than the wise-cracking robot? They were all SO serious and dour. How about a couple of notes of humor to break it up? The film feels cold to me. I read later that the script was originally meant for Spielberg to direct, and I can only imagine the "feels" he would have made sure were there. I can't fault any individual performance -- they worked with what was given in the script. Matthew McConaughey was great, especially in the scene saying good-bye to his 10 year old daughter. I didn't know Matt Damon was in the film, and I won't spoiler it, but he was great at his role.

This was supposed to be an Oscar juggernaut, and maybe Nolan will get a director nod, more for his entire body of work. I don't really anticipate with the slate of films yet to come that any one of these actors will win the Oscar.

It was curiosity about Varun Dhawan, who has been cast as a lead in the Bollywood remake of Fault in Our Stars (with Deepika), that led me to check out this Karan Johar film. SOTY is set at a junior college where the gay dean (Rishi Kapoor) has an annual contest for, you guessed it, the Student of the Year to win a scholarship to an international college. And this contest is not just academic, there is a triathlon, a scavenger hunt AND a dance contest. The film begins with the group of former students gathering at the hospital bedside of the dying dean, and then flashes back 10 years in the past.

Evidently, it was quite notable that Karan Johar debuted several young actors and actresses in this film, rather than matching one unknown with an established actor/actress. Of the students, only the college vamp is played by a familiar face, Sana Saeed albeit when she was a child actress in Kuch Kuch Hota Hai as little Anjuli.

This film reminds me of John Hughes films of the 80's with the rich kids pitted against the scholarship kids from the Indian equivalent to the wrong side of the tracks. Or Gossip Girl or The O.C., etc. Karan Johar is just SO good at setting up melodramatic love triangles. Varun is the rich kid and Sidharth Molhotra the scholarship kid, and Alia Bhatt plays the rich girl that they both love. I had not seen any films with these three young new actors, and while all are good, Sidharth Molhotra's performance is the standout. (Seems like all the Indian awards agreed, nominating him for best male debut.) Very Ben MacKenzie (a la O.C.) silently pining over the rich girl while trying to act all tough.

Also notable was a supporting role by Kayoze Irani who gets a big "Go to Hell Dean" speech near the end, who it turns out is Boman Irani's son. Huh, fancy that, a child of a Bollywood star getting a role in a KJo film. ;) Boman, Kajol and Farah Khan all have cameo appearances.

Fairly predicable plot with the Bollywood emphasis more on the bromance of the two male leads than on the romance of Sidharth and Alia's characters. Karan Johar is masterful at taking you on that emotional journey, and I tip my hat to him. Very entertaining and enjoyable.