The following “review” is actually a direct transcription of a conversation that took place between myself and my ever-reliable neighbourhood GP.

The inimitable Dr Shonk (the Crikey legal department insisted his name be changed due to privacy concerns). I brought to our appointment my Dictaphone pen and.

A peculiar sickness of which no medical dictionary appears to be capable of explaining. This…is my story. Well not really – it’s just a transcript of my doctor’s appointment.

Coming up next week: when Luke goes to the dentist. But for now, without further adieu, here is my most recent appointment with Dr Shonk…

Me: Morning Doc. Thanks again for seeing me at such short notice. Dr Shonk: No problems Luke, take a seat. We had a few cancellations today anyway.

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A street kid is answering the nature’s call in the open when two more join him for a common laxation act and strike an impromptu interrogation on the spot. But rather than repelling, the smutty scene keeps you riveted. This isn’t the usual crap that Bollywood serves you almost every week.

Thanks Maa is no shitty business. Never since Salaam Bombay or Slumdog Millionaire have the street kids from Mumbai slums been portrayed more realistically and rivetingly in a feature film. All thanks to this maa of meaningful cinema.

Five street kids team up in pickpocketing unsuspecting passengers on platforms. Soda (Salman) leads the team with Municipality (Shams) while the kiddos including Dhed-Shana (Jaffer), Cutting (Faayaz) and Sursuri (Almas) follow suit.

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As a movie that is based on one person traveling around America and firing people- I must admit I was a little hesitant about going to see this one.

However as soon as the opening credits were finished and the first scene started I knew this was going to be a good movie.

I have seen in different reviews this movie listed as a comedy, but I am pretty sure that, that would not be.

The genre I would place it in purely because of what the movie is based around. “Up in the Air” is a well- acted and timely film from writer/ director Jason Reitman.

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In 'Cop Out,' Bruce Willis bides his time between 'Die Hards' as Jimmy Monroe, a veteran New York City detective who operates as straight man to his loose cannon, fast-talking partner Paul Hodges (Tracy Morgan of '30 Rock').

The pair work together to take down some Mexican gangsters and retrieve a stolen baseball card so Jimmy can pay for his daughter's wedding. Seann William Scott takes on the Joe Pesci role as the miscreant who cracks wise in the back seat.

Directed by Kevin Smith from a script by Robb and Marc Cullen (the first time Smith has helmed a feature that he hasn't written), 'Cop Out' is a send-up of those black-white buddy cop flicks a la '48 HRS' and 'Lethal Weapon' that were so pervasive in the 1980s.

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Everybody's Fine is actually a remake of Giuseppe Tornatore's Stanno Tutti Bene and follows a widower who embarks on an impromptu road trip to reconnect with each of his grown children only to discover that their lives are far from picture perfect. At the heart of Everybody's Fine is the theme of family and physical and emotional distances travelled to bring the members back together.

An all star cast (including Robert DeNiro, Kate Beckinsale, Sam Rockwell and Drew Barrymore) feature in this bitter sweet comedy about a widower reconnecting with his grown up children starts really well with DeNiro in sparkling form. But 30 minutes into the movie we are literally swimming in a sea of treacle — this is the worst piece of turgid schmaltz I have had the misfortune to sit through in ages.

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Game reviewers have applied numerous labels to the PS3-exclusive Heavy Rain: next-generation adventure game, player-driven movie, and developer Quantic Dream's preferred term "interactive drama."

Yet most Heavy Rain reviews agree on one word to describe the video game: new.

Heavy Rain, which comes out today, tries to answer one of video gaming's most nagging questions. Why are the games that 15 year olds want to play the same titles that 45 year olds sit back and enjoy? Adults and teenagers watch different TV shows, see different movies, listen to different music, but often buy the same video games. Is there really no market for truly "mature" games?

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After raising the expectations of the audience top-notch, Shekar Kammula's political flick releases with a bang. The film comes in an avatar that is both commendably realistic as well as exceedingly direct and straightforward.

Leader has a soul, but it also has a frail body. It's a film which will be counted as Kammula's first ever movie where the talented director has taken creative freedom to an extent that is more than what he should actually have.

This film on the ultimate political leadership that a people should be given, is fresh-looking, bold and partly slice-of-life. However, there is a splurge of platitudes and schemes that you would never expect the film to throw up in the latter half.

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The story is set in Palanpur, Rajeshwari (Tabu) stays in quite a huge house with her husband and her two children. Very careful with money, talkative and does what she feels and believes is right.

Even if she does something wrong she convinces people around her and herself that it is meant to be for the good of everyone. The setting is old, thinking is small and village like, wives, women are overpowering characters, husbands look henpecked and everything is laidback.

Dressed in salwar kameez with deep necks showing off her color bone and cleavage, Tabu plays a concerned woman who is hell bent on finding a right man for her sister, she bulldozes Sharman Joshi into her house and creates a perfect setting for him and her sister Uvika Chaudhary to fall in love. When the invitation cards are getting ready she bumps into another guy who is financially better off then Sharman, she plots and haves the latter off from her house and quickly arranges for a wedding.

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In Mitchell Lichtenstein’s “Happy Tears,” Parker Posey and Demi Moore play two sisters, Jayne and Laura, who return to the house they grew up in when their cantankerous father, Joe, played by Rip Torn, goes a bit wobbly in the head.

This is the kind of movie where life lessons are posted every quarter-hour. (I timed it.) The sisters, who grew apart, grow back together; Joe, with his crack-addict girlfriend (Ellen Barkin) in tow, learns the meaning of – well, I’m not sure he learns much of anything. He might as well have the word “rascal” pasted on his forehead.

Up in the air is so much more than just a film. It is a reflection of the modern day society we live in. It is a realization of how inhumane and cold we’ve become under the pretext of being progressive, practical and professional.

The film aptly uses irony to bring to our notice where the rat race and herd mentality can lead us to. Up in the Air is a film that defines the kind of people we’ve become today... how numb.

We have become towards our surroundings and thus the people surrounding us! It questions our philosophies and relationships in life in the wake of the current economic crunch.

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