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Black, a review by Tom

Title: Black
Year: 2005
Director: Sanjay Leela Bhansali
Rating: 12
Length: 119 Min.
Video: Anamorphic Widescreen 2.35
Audio: Hindi: Dolby Digital 5.1
Subtitles: Arabic, English, French, Hindi, Spanish

Stars:
Amitabh Bachchan
Rani Mukherjee
Shernaz Patel
Ayesha Kapur
Dhritiman Chaterji

Plot:
I know now that there is God...
He is not in the holy spirit we pray to... He isn't written about in
religious texts...
He is someone who is a part of our lives... Whom we live for...
Because of whom we live...
Michelle Mcnally is "special" in more ways than one. She cannot see ... nor hear nor speak...She inhabits a world of infinite black ... of a seamless, endless void where nothing reaches her and she reaches nothing. Her world is frightening in its complete remoteness. On the sheer will of her ferocious rage against destiny, Michelle struggles to stay afloat in the impenetrable whirlpool her life has become.
Into this devastating isolation enters a battle weary teacher, Debraj Sahai, life's wounded but arrogantly insolent warrior. With a single minded obsession, Debraj takes up a challenge that is next to impossible - to lead this wild, uncontrollable child into the light of knowledge.
Thus begins a journey of two headstrong individuals. They will overcome failures, obstacle, even ridicule as they tread the path less taken. What they seek is that moment of miracle when the ray of knowledge will penetrate through the dense black of Michelle's life...Black is the cathartic tale of a deaf, mute and blind girl who saw what people with sight fail to see, a vision of her God. Michelle Mcnally saw what other lesser mortals could not.
She saw her God, heard Him and walked with Him into the light...

Awards:

Filmfare Awards	2006	Won	Best Actor Award	Amitabh Bachchan
Filmfare Awards	2006	Won	Best Actress Award	Rani Mukerji
Filmfare Awards	2006	Won	Best Background Score Award	Monty Sharma
Filmfare Awards	2006	Won	Best Cinematographer Award	Ravi K. Chandran
Filmfare Awards	2006	Won	Best Director Award	Sanjay Leela Bhansali
Filmfare Awards	2006	Won	Best Editing Award	Bela Sehgal
Filmfare Awards	2006	Won	Best Movie Award
Filmfare Awards	2006	Won	Best Sound Award	Bishwadeep Chatterjee
Filmfare Awards	2006	Won	Best Supporting Actress Award	Ayesha Kapoor
Filmfare Awards	2006	Won	Critics Award for Best Movie
Filmfare Awards	2006	Won	Critics Award for Best Performance	Amitabh Bachchan, Rani Mukerji
IIFA Awards	2006	Won	Best Actor	Amitabh Bachchan
IIFA Awards	2006	Won	Best Actress	Rani Mukerji
IIFA Awards	2006	Won	Best Director	Sanjay Leela Bhansali
IIFA Awards	2006	Won	Best Movie
IIFA Awards	2006	Won	Best Supporting Actress	Ayesha Kapoor

Extras:
Featurettes
Interviews
Scene Access
Trailers

I stumbled across this movie when I went through the filmography of one of my favorite Bollywood actresses, Rani Mukherji. I became curious when I read, that this movie is about a blind, deaf and mute woman (Michelle), I wondered how this would work. If someone can pull this off, then it's Rani Mukherji. And I was not disappointed.
This movie is heavily influenced by Helen Keller and the movie "The Miracle Worker", which I have never seen. Also this one is a very atypical Bollywood movie. There is no singing, no love story and this movie is "only" two hours long. It has won multiple awards and is the record-holder for the most Filmfare awards (Indian oscars) won. And I can understand why, especially the actor awards. Both Rani Mukherji, who plays the adult version of Michelle, and the girl who played the character as a child, were faboulous. It is probably the best performance Rani has given to date. Amitabh Bachchan was great as always playing Michelle's teacher.

Rating:

(From Tom's Random Reviews on August 7th, 2009)

The Sticky Fingers of Time, a review by Tom

The Sticky Fingers of Time (2001/United States) IMDb (United Kingdom) Director: Hilary Brougher Writing: Length: 78 min. Video: Full Frame 1:33 Audio: English: Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo Subtitles:

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Stars:
Terumi Matthews as Tucker
Nicole Zaray as Drew
Belinda Becker as Ofelia
James Urbaniak as Isaac
Thomas Pasley as J.L.

Plot:
A stunningly photographed romantic thriller, The Sticky Fingers Of Time finds a new heroine in Tucker Harding, an ultra-smooth, modishly sexy, chain smoking, time-traveling, 50's pulp fiction novelist. Constantly shifting in style, content and mood, The Sticky Fingers Of Time is deliciously deviant and seductively offbeat.

Extras:

• Commentary
• Scene Access

A nice enough movie, though I don't like their talk of non-linear time. It feels like they want to convey a more profound backstory than it actually is.

Rating:

(From Tom's Time-Travel Movie Reviews on March 9th, 2013)

The IT Crowd: Version 3.0 - (mini) marathon, a review by Achim

6. Calendar Geeks
When repairing some computer on the 7th floor Roy agree to help with a charity; for boss-eyedness, of which one of the colleagues brothers suffers. For the charity they agree to create a nude calendar, but obviously things don't turn out as Roy had hoped... A nice conclusion of this series/season with the show going out in top form. Not the best of the bunch but a great one.



(From The IT Crowd: Version 3.0 - (mini) marathon on July 31st, 2009)