The Golden Compass

This was a very abstract themed movie with lots of special effects. It might take a few watches before the story is captured.
Lyra lives a parallel universe where the souls of humans live in their accompanying animals called the demons. She plays a lot with the street children and is lives at free will. There are Gobblers at loose, who are responsible for the disappearance of many children.
Lord Asriel, her uncle comes by to the college, she lives by. She saves him from a killing attempt by the Magesterium - which is the local organization controlling everyone to impose their ideas on the people. Asriel is about to propose the existence of Dust and parallel universe, which is a theory the Magesterium wants to discourage. But Asriel manages to get the funds and leaves.
After his departure, Marisa comes to the college and takes Lyra as her assistant for a trip to the north. Before leaving, Lyra is given an alethiometer (which is the last ever, since Magesterium doesn't want anyone to use it) by a member of the college. Although she is unable to use it, she takes it with her. When Marisa delays their trip, Lyra finds out that Marisa is part of the Gobblers and begins defiance. She runs away from them and just before getting caught, she is caught by the Gyptians who are on the lookout for their lost children. She travels with them over sea and meets the Serafina, queen of the witch clan.
When they stop by at a port, Lyra befriends an aeronaut Lee, who tells her to get the help of a polar bear in exile, Iorek. The bear has strong armour, which was trickingly taken away from him. Lyra finds the armour using her alethiometer and Iorek agrees to help her. Now she heads to Billy, with the instrument's help and finds him disoriented. During the stay, the tribe gets attacked by Samoyeds, Lyra is captured and taken to Ragnar, king of the polar armoured bears. Lyra tricks Ragnar into fighting with Iorek. Iorek wins the fight. Iorek carries Lyra to the research centre, but gets separated from her. Pretending she is lost, she walks into the centre and alerts Roger to prepare everyone to escape. She gets caught eavesdropping on the scientists' conversation to separate the demon from the child to stop dust from affecting the children. Just as the scientists are about to separate her demon, Marisa walks in and stops the whole thing. Marisa confesses that Lyra is her daughter and Lord Asriel, her father. Lyra also finds out that her father is further north and people have been sent to kill him. Lyra injures Marisa temporarily and escapes. She destroys the machinery leading to explosions and brings the children out of the centre. A battle follows, where the children are saved and the good side wins. Lyra then continues journey to the north to save her father.
An interesting movie with lots of special effects. The best was probably Dakota Richards' (Lyra's) defiance. Although in the beginning the acting was to be appreciated, after a while, she just seemed like a brat, but that's what the character needed to do good. I found the story pretty abstract, but apparently it was a good film for those who had read the book and thus, knew what the story was going to be about.

Enchanted

Mixing animation and real characters, the movie is about a bunch of fairy tale characters traveling through time to a modern American city.
Giselle lives in Andulasia - the perfect fairy tale world, where love blooms by sharing heart songs and animals and birds talk to each other. On one such day, when she is singing around about her true love, she gets caught by a troll and rescued by Prince Edward. They fall in love and are about to marry, when his stepmother Queen Narissa, tricks Giselle to fall into a bottomless pit throwing her in the way of Robert in New York City. Robert is a divorce lawyer, living with his 6-year old daughter and is soon to be married to Nancy. He takes Giselle to their apartment for his daughter. The next morning, Giselle calls all kinds of animals and pests to their house to clean up their house. Unknown to Andulasia's customs, Robert tries to shoo everything away and in the process trips together with Giselle, right when Nancy steps into the house. Thinking the worst, Nancy leaves. Robert takes Giselle to take her back to where she came from. At work, his colleagues aren't able to find the place she came from. And she starts messing around with Robert's divorce clients. Losing his patience, he asks her to leave, but realises she is too innocent to make it by herself and ends up taking a walk along with her.
Right after Giselle, Edward follows her through, followed by Nathaniel, who is the Queen's henchman and also her pet - Pip - a squirrel. All of them are searching for Giselle. Nathan finds her first, while she is walking with Robert and offers her a poisoned apple, but she escapes from eating it, with a huge musical. She reconciles Nancy and Robert with a flower bouquet and tickets to a ball.
Nathan tries to poison her again, when Robert takes her on a date, but fails again. The Queen gets agitated and joins them at New York. Giselle and Robert realise they are falling in love. The next morning, Edward manages to find her. Edward agrees to a date with Giselle, on her request. Both the couples meet at the ball, when the Queen tries to offer Giselle the poisoned apple and succeeds. Seeing her dead, Edward tries to give her the true loves kiss before midnight, but fails and prompts Robert to give her one. It works and the Queen turns herself into a dragon and vows to kill Giselle, but Robert intervenes and gets seized by her. In the end, the Queen dies, Robert and Giselle unite, while Edward and Nancy return to Andulasia with Pip. Nathan remains behind becoming a famous personality writing his book.
An OK movie, but very predictable story line. The music was good and worth listening to and Dempsey was worth watching :P. Also part of the cast were Amy Adams, James Marsden (Cyclops from X-Men), Susan Sarandon and Timothy Spall (Peter Pettigrew from Harry Potter 3 and 4).

These Three Remain

The final of the trilogy by Pamela Aidan, this book traces Darcy between the time he sees Elizabeth at Hunsford to the final engagement.
He sees Elizabeth at his aunt's house at Rosings and is attracted again, much against his reason and mind. However, unknown to him, fans of Pride and Prejudice know that Elizabeth is gaining more and more reasons to hate him. Her civility seems to mistaken as affection by Darcy, until the first time he proposes. She is shocked, but he is even more shocked, dejected and angered. Until he finishes the letter and hands it in to her, he finds no peace.
After this Darcy leaves for Pemberly. Terribly disturbed by Elizabeth's refusal, he does odd things, such as accepting and going to Lady Sylvania's party, where he is held responsible for her mother's death. But his friend, Brougham rescues him. Although Darcy had thought Brougham to be a silly man, he ends being a government spy and also a man, who sees much in Georgiana. At the nearby tavern, he confesses everything that happened to him. And the next day, with a hangover, he realises his arrogant behaviour and vows to change himself the way Elizabeth would have liked, even though she is lost to him.
He confesses the happenings to Georgiana. While he thinks his relationship is over, he is much surprised to see her again, while riding back from London, ahead of Bingley and company. He tries his best to be warm towards her and finds the same reciprocated. He also likes her uncle and aunt Gardiner, who seem to much sensible. He introduces his sister to them and the ladies take instant liking towards each other.
Just as the relationship is building, Elizabeth receives news about Lydia's elopement with Wickham. This was probably the best description and fill-in of how Darcy could have accomplished what he did to find where Wickham and Lydia were. Then with the promise to keep his indulgence in the affair a secret, the two are married.
Shortly, Bingley decides to return to Netherfield and after he and Jane are engaged, he seeks Bingley's pardon in interfering in his affairs, but is forgiven. Meanwhile, Lady Catherine hears of rumours about Darcy and Elizabeth's marriage and arrives at Longbourne to clear the way. But Elizabeth's stubbornness is disapproved of by her and she hastes to let her nephew know of what had happened. Along with annoyance, Darcy is ecstatic to find the ray of hope and hastens to propose to Elizabeth, only to be accepted heartily.
This was probably the best version of the two fan fictions I had read about Darcy's point of view. Although the wait was long and the second book, a complete deviation from Pride and Prejudice, the gap was sufficiently built to provide enjoyment. Definitely worth a read.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Written by Mark Haddon, the book is designed as the diary entries of an autistic boy, living with a single parent. He starts writing the entries after a curious incident happens in the neighbourhood - where his neighbour's dog is killed and he is held as suspect because the neighbour saw him peering over the dead body of her pet.
Even though he is brought away by his father, he harps on trying to find out who the killer. The diary goes on to show things that happened in his life and how he reacts to certain things and what he views and thinks of things.
Read the book to find out who the killer of the dog and how come his father is single. It was very interesting viewpoint of how autism affects individuals and what happens in their minds. The author works with autistic individuals and has brought out a good flavour of what actually would have happened in the life of an autistic individual. Definitely a good read. Thanks to ST for recommending it to me...

Gangs of New York

I wanted to watch this movie amidst much hype since Leonardo DiCaprio and Cameron Diaz were much appreciated for their role in this movie, but it was nothing but violent bloodshed all along.
new York was apparently split between the immigrants and the natives. The natives were mostly immigrants who had arrived earlier than the immigrants, who were mainly composed of Britishers, who left their homeland, because of the bad economy. With an explicit fight, a priest representing the immigrants fought with the Butcher, representing the natives and the Butcher won. Butcher becomes the reigning power in the area. Nothing happens without him. The priest's son is taken to an orphanage.
Priest's son, Leo, returns after many years and with some hard work becomes the right hand for the Butcher. He keeps looking for the right opportunity to strike him down. He finds love in Cameron. But his friend, who was in love with Cameron feels betrayed and exposes Leo's truth to the Butcher. Butcher nearly kills him, but leaves him almost breathing. Cameron takes care of him where his father used to live before. After recovery and loss of lives on both sides, Leo finally kills Butcher during a military fire haze.
The story was just killing over killing. Unbelievable to know that people just killed each other for fun. Of course, this is still happening, but the disregard for human life is so disgusting that after a while, this movie was so annoying to watch in itself. In one of the scenes, a candidate on the immigrant's side almost welcomes the Butcher to talk with him over tea, only to be killed by him. WHY? Why would any sane man, let down him guard and turn his back to a man who is known to kill his victims, especially if he is displeased with you in the election. I thought that was the stupidest candidate ever. In short, an interesting and attractive title, an attractive cast, but too much violence to behold. Worth a pass.

Sivapathigaaram

With Vishal, a new face for heroine and Raghuvaran as the main set of characters, the movie is about the faulty system of Indian voting.
Raghuvaran returns to his village with his daughter, with the intention of publishing village tunes and songs, that are passed along the generations by word of mouth. Vishal comes to the village as his research assistant. However, they seem to be having something secretive to talk about from time to time.
Election time is nearing, but all the candidates seem to be murdered one after another, until there are no more candidates left and the ones alive are withdrawing the nominations. An Arjun-look-a-like cop is involved in the investigation of the murders and tracks down the professor and the student.
Flashback shows Vishal to be an A student in college and Raghuvaran, his professor. Instead of the usual theoretical studies, Raghu brings a practical aspect to his project. As the election was nearing, the students are encouraged to publish pre-election likes. As the publication outlined, the election is diverted. The ex-ruling party is enraged and as a revenge carries out a mass murder at Vishal's school. Vishal is vengeful, but Raghu calms him down to take a stronger revenge.
The movie was a typical Vishal movie with big punch dialogues for a hero who looks like a college lad, supposed to be studying, instead of bashing up big guys. Interesting message about having criteria for politicians, who are interested to govern the nation, but could have packaged better. The heroine had almost nothing to do. Raghuvaran is definitely looking punier and older and seems like he is going to snap a bone if he moves too much. An OK story, but I could have taken a raincheck.

Happy Feet

Here's the story of Mumble, the penguin that can't sing. When still an egg, Mumble's father, Memphis, drops him for a short while and because of that Mumble can't sing. As he grows, his parents worry that Mumble will never find his soulmate, as soulmates are chosen on the basis of their Heartsong. Growing up, he has only his parents and his friend, Gloria, to turn to. After a series of mishaps one day, he is brought to a new colony where three Amigos befriend him.
When Mumble returns, it is mating season, and he succeeds in attracting Gloria and starts tap dancing with the rest of the penguins following him. However, the group's elders frown upon it and see the lack of fish to be a punishment for dancing and banish Mumble.
Mumble is determined to get to the root of the problem. He follows a huge fishing vessel and is finally sent to a zoo, where her tries to communicate, after a long period of inactivity, by tap dancing. He catches their attention and he is let to go back to his colony. When he reaches his colony, all of the other penguins start dancing together and the humans transmit this surprise and everyone come together to discuss what this could mean. Finally the humans decide never to fish in the area and the penguins are left free to their food.
A very cute story - of course with Jackman as one of the voices singing, little doubt could be present on whether the characters would be attractive! Although the story was flowing well, I just couldn't see the connection between penguin tap dance and leave my colony food theory. But other than that, an interesting story in comparison to many of the boring ones that get released out there.