Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland is a brash, old-fashioned fantasy adventure, with a subtle heart. Having chosen to take the original adventures of Alice forward into new territory, Burton has preserved the essence of a classic while also creating fresh facets for a wider audience to enjoy.

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Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes is a fun, action-packed frolic through the gritty chaos of Victorian London, with a frantic pace and a fabulous sense of humour. Whether by design or by coincidence, by breaking away from the conventions of previous outings, Ritche has created the definitive on-screen version of the world’s most famous fictional detective.

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I don’t remember the first time I heard the name Sherlock Holmes. There has to have been a first time. Maybe someone mentioned it, or perhaps I picked it up in a movie or a comic book. The details of our first encounter remain shrouded in the mists of my early childhood memory. But, however it is that I got to know of the illustrious detective, I do know that at some point I read a small story in school about the doctor who Arthur Conan Doyle used as inspiration for his creation. It was that description of the mental prowess of a Doctor Joseph Bell that made me want to read about Holmes.

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Chance Pe Dance is a Hindi movie by director Ken Ghosh, starring Shahid Kapur and Genelia D’Souza. It’s the story of a struggling actor in the Mumbai film industry, and the people he meets on his journey. If you saw last year’s Luck By Chance, you’d be forgiven for thinking this will be more of the same, but it managed to surprise me on several levels, and left me smiling.

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If you watch Rocket Singh – Salesman of the Year, and find it boring, it means you weren’t paying attention. Because if you were, you are guaranteed to either love it or hate it. The film is polarising because it bravely puts forward a view of life that is not only uncommon, but unpopular. In the process, it shows the popular view of life and work for the petty sham that it is. If you are one of the people who want to challenge the status quo of the world, you will love this movie, and if you are one of the many who are the status quo, you will likely hate it. It really is that simple.

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All good art reintroduces you to a part of your humanity. Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra’s Delhi-6 does just that, many times over during its running time. Starring Abhishek Bachchan, Sonam Kapoor, Waheeda Rehman, Rishi Kapoor, Atul Kulkarni, Divya Dutta, Deepak Dobriyal, Prem Chopra, Vijay Raaz, Pavan Malhotra, Supriya Pathak, Om Puri, Sheeba Chaddha, K.K. Raina, Aditi Rao, and Cyrus Sahukar, it is an energetic tale of urban India with a mythic quality usually assigned to stories of a much more ancient variety. Roshan(Abhishek Bachchan), a fairly Americanised young man whose parents moved there decades ago, is unexpectedly thrown back into a small locality of old Delhi when he offers to bring his ailing Grandmother(Waheeda Rehman) back to India; She wishes to die there. What follows is an intricate study of humanity, of a small slice of India, how it affects Roshan, and how he affects it.

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Yet another hijinks-laden Anees Bazmee movie splashes onto cinema screens. But this seems to be the big one. Singh is King, oh sorry, Singh is Kinng … or is it Sinngh is King? Singh is Kinng is the next big Akshay Kumar movie. There, that should be enough of a review. I predict that the readership has immeditely split into those that hate Akhay Kumar’s guts, will never see any of his movies and say it is horrible anyway, and those who will go and see it no matter what and won’t care that it’s horrible. It’s Akshay Kumar. He needs to be watched on the big screen and that’s all there is to it. But if that’s not enough for you, the film also stars the talents of Katrina Kaif, Om Puri, Kiron Kher, Ranvir Shorey, Javed Jaffrey, Neha Dhupia, Yashpal Sharma, Manoj Pahwa, Kamal Chopra, Sudhanshu Pandey, and Sonu Sood. If there is still anyone sitting on the fence about this, and you’re impatient, let me just say that Singh is Kinng is stupid, badly made, and a LOT of fun.

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