Reviews

First, it will be difficult for young people to understand the charm of this movie if they are not accustomed to Indian Hindu immigrants to the US & Europe in the 60's. Most of them were educated, had good knowledge in the language and respect for others culture, but lacked practical experience (for example: about the game "pool", or underlying racism).

Peter Sellers has done an outstanding job in portraying an apparently well educated, creative & overly well mannered Indian man who always runs into trouble due to his lack of experience. Every gesture, facial expression, protruding eyeballs and using words like "Jao jao" to the dog or "Oh dear" to Monet were so flawless, so typical of Indian immigrants at the time, it literally amazed me.

Another aspect of the movie is Sellers' accent. Sometimes its hard to believe that it was not dubbed by a real Indian.

The attitude of stereotyped characters like "Wyoming Bill Kelso" when a man is drowning, or the "wife of the congressman Dunphy" were also very typical of the 60s. I almost relived those days myself while watching the movie.

But sadly, people watching the movie in 2009 or later, will not be able to relate to the South Asians they meet in the US or UK today. So I guess this movie will only have an appeal to a very limited number of people, most of whom will be over 60 years old right now.... and will be gone after a few years.

The most important aspect of this album is Andrea Bocelli's voice. He is not a great singer of Opera, but his voice is full of 'appeal' (that is the best word I can find) and has an intense calming effect on the listener.

On the down side, his voice loses smoothness at the extremities, and his tempo is not uniform, especially when the crowd applause, but his songs never lose the sweetness, and are very entertaining to listen to throughout the album just because of the passion in his voice.

Considering the fact that he cannot see the conductor or read the notes, (he does not even know how far he is from the microphone) the listener should not expect a great opera experience, but whatever he delivers, surpasses my expectations by far.

I should recommend this album for people who are more used to pop crossover or are being newly introduced to opera. But even seasoned listeners should find this album beautiful, because not all beautiful things are always perfect.

This movie is more deep than it appears to the general crowd expecting a laugh on a Sunday. Most people will go to watch it as a funny movie, but it is not a funny movie in that sense. It is a Satire about how people in many parts of the world still feel about homosexuality, equality of women, need for a woman's consent to a marriage, prostitution as a profession, racism, and so on. It also portrays how even some westerners feel about religion and Jesus. The scene may seriously bother you if you are too much into Jesus (It is supposed to bother you, if you really get it).

People who say this movie is disgusting, just do not get it at all! If this is disgusting, then Charles Chaplin's "The Great Dictator" was disgusting, "because it glorified Adolf Hitler, and expressed hatred against the Jews".

If you want to feel sad about how stupid, clumsy and ignorant still many people are in the corners of the world, you should watch this movie to open your eyes. But if you are too classy to understand how people live, think and get used to sufferings in backward countries, you may call it "disgusting".

Watch it with a true open mind.

If you are young and dissatisfied with your family, if you do not have too many good friends, and you are having a feeling that the whole world is stupid, evil and against you, and you are wishing that someday you will have some special scientific power to destroy all evil and save the world..... Donnie Darko is the perfect movie for you.

Its a fairy tale cashing in on introvert teen sentiments! Surreal is not the right word, Donnie Darko is based on science. Well at least it has a few sprinkles of unexplained scientific twists here and there to help you spend a lot of time looking for logic even after the movie is over. This is an added advantage because you spend money for a two hour movie, and then wonder and discuss about it for two years. Great deal?

Well, the movie is about a boy who seems a bit retard and drowsy because of his psychotic medications. He faces his family which is not too supportive about his confusions about life. He faces friends in school who are not exactly his type. He faces other grown ups like teachers and doctors around him who do not have enough intellect to understand the depth of his mind. And everyone around him is mostly dishonest, blunt or evil to the core!

Being shy and drowsy, there was not much chance that he could find a girlfriend. But one day the most beautiful girl in school chooses him as the cutest guy in class! A perfect dream come true for a troubled teenage boy! So at last it seems like his troubled life will come to an end! But not for long....! Soon he will have to play the role of a knight in shining armor to save his girlfriend's life... and by lying down on his bed.

The director is smart! He was only 25 when he made this movie. He remembered his teenage days and the complexes that an average troubled teenage mind usually has about the grown up world. He totally cashed in on that. He added some new concept from hypothetical science to make a few parts of the movie a bit difficult (often impossible) to understand, so that the viewers do not feel its cliché, and get a subject to talk about it for years to come.

So if you are grown up and confident about yourself, you will readily figure out what this movie is trying to do. But if you are still confused about the world, you will probably love this movie, irrespective of your age!