It Happened One Night is a comedy released in 1934, from the stable of Director Frak Capra. The movie was based on a story by Samuel Hopkins Adams, called Night Bus. The movie was very popular, and was the first movie to win all 5 major Oscars
- Best Picture,
- Best Director: Frank Capra,
- Best Actor: Clark Gable
- Best Actress: Claudette Colbert
- Best Screenplay: Robert Riskin
An interesting tidbit is that Clark Gable’s award statuette was auctioned in 1996, Steven Spielberg had the winning bid of $607,500. He got it, and then donated the award to the Academy. No such luck for Claudette’s award; when it was offered for auction in the next year, nobody bid for it.

The movie had a different sort of love story – a mismatched couple; an indifferent out of work reporter out for a story, and a superior acting heiress running away from a protective father. The story of how they came together over a period of time (the title is a bit misleading, no climatic event happens on any one night), and realize that they are in love with each other was skilfully presented, making this an all time great movie. And this was after neither Gable nor Colbert were satisfied by the script, but after starting the movie, they accepted it. The end result was a movie that was reckoned to be smart, sexy, funny, and a great see. Imagine a movie in the 30′s having a scene where the hero claims to be an expert at hitch-hiking, but is unable to stop a single passing vehicle. Then the heroine uses her unfair advantage by lifting her skirt and flashing a bit of thigh, presto, a vehicle stops.
The movie is about this rich heiress Ellie Andrews; spoilt rotten by her father. She falls for a rich money-seeking and handsome weasel, King Westley. Her dad stops her in the nick of time, but the call of love is over-powering and she jumps off from her prison aboard the family yacht and wants to make her way to New York to join her love. Boarding the bus, she meets Peter Warne (Clark Gable). Gable has just been fired from his newspaper. They have a brief skirmish over a seat; when that is settled, she misses her bus the next day (hilariously assuming that the bus will wait for her when she is having a great breakfast). Her purse has been stolen, she has no money, and the reporter has recognized her. He threatens to tell her dad about her location unless she gives him the story, and what a juicy story that will be.
They have to spend nights at motels on the way, and he uses a clothesline with a blanket to separate the single room in which they are staying (staying as a married couple in order to save money). All the time he taunts her for being a rich spoilt girl (when she suspects him of being funny by booking a room as a husband and wife, he turns it around by telling her that he is only interested in the story and not in her). Near the end, he leaves the motel for some work, and the couple owning the motel kick her out suspecting some funny business. Ellie is so disoriented that she calls her dad, who is so relived at getting her back that he agrees for her marriage. In a misunderstanding, she thinks that Peter has betrayed her, while Peter believes that she has double-crossed him.
Peter does contact her dad, but not to claim the large reward, but only the sum that he spent on her. Her father is so intrigued that he gets after the reporter until Peter tells the truth, he is in love with Ellie, although if he were rational, there was no reason that he should be in love with her. The climax, the marriage scene. Andrews tells his daughter that Peter did not betray her, he only came for the expenses, and if she really loves Peter and wants to make her dad happy, she should run away. There is a car waiting at the back, and she does. The happy dad negotiated with Westley to get the earlier marriage annulled, and everybody is happy.

Some years back, the quest to make limitless energy from the concept of cold fusion seemed like the answer to our energy ills; it was propounded as the next frontier in research – unfortunately, the entire research imploded in a drama of falsehood and accusations. The Saint, use the theme of cold fusion as the central scientific thread running through the movie. However, the movie is more than that. It gives the 2 main characters of Val Kilmer and Elizabeth Shue a good platform to display their acting abilities, and I liked Val Kilmer in this role.
The Saint is not a new concept, being based on the main characters of Simon Templar in the series of books (created in 1928) by Leslie Charteris; these books were published under the series ‘The Saint’. These series finally ended in 1983, and also found their way into multiple movies, a radio series of the 1940′s, a British television series starring Roger Moore, and others.

In a slight deviation from the original, this movie does not have the hero claiming to be the character from the book, but the name is instead combined from 2 names, Simon from Simon Magus, and Templar from the Knights Templar, a medieval sect of warriors. The movie also had an interesting twist; in the original version, the female lead, Dr. Emma Russell is killed and Simon Templar goes back to do battle, to avenge her, leading to a final climatic battle with guns, tanks, exploding oil, and so on. However, test audiences did not like this ending, and the movie ending had to be changed drastically, ending in the current form.
The movie has a fair amount of adventure and action, with some amount of unbelievability. To be able to get into the Russian President’s bedroom, bypassing his entire security, and that too without much external support seems somewhat difficult, but the Saint managed it without too much effort.
The movie is essentially about the scientific efforts of Dr. Emma Russell, who is developing the formula for cold fusion, and has achieved some success in it. On the other hand, there is Simon, who has been tormenting the British police with his various heists, committed under different names (each name being that of a different saint). He has one final heist left so that he can reach the $50 million mark. This comes to him in the form of a Russian oligarch, Ivan Tretiak, who wants to get the Presidency of the Russian Federation, and wants to hire The Saint to steal it. After some hesitation, when threatened with the death of Dr. Emma, Simon agrees to do it.
He woos Dr. Emma, steals it and then turns it overs to Ivan. It is however incomplete. In the meantime, Dr. Emma comes to Moscow after him; and Tretiak is now after both of them.
The action gets more heated up, and leads to the Russian President’s bedroom where Simon bursts in, and then Tretiak and his son comes in to capture both of them. Tretiak plans to expose the President’s wasteful expenditure in buying such a formula in a show trial. However, during this process, the missing part of the formula is released, and the experiment is shown to be a grand success. The President quickly resumes power. There is a final tease scene where The Saint shows himself to British police, and then meets Dr. Emma.

Shark Tale is a great animation movie, a continuation of the animation movie series from Dreamworks SKG (earlier movies being Shrek, Antz, Chicken Run, etc). The movie is centered around the tale of a mellow young shark (who does not want to be the feared killer) and a loser fish Oscar. The movie’s story of the shark family has a strong resemblance to the Godfather (with a Marlon Brando type father running the show), combined with the additional elements of a love triangle for Oscar and his debt problems / loan sharks. Given that the Godfather is an old movie and rated R, and the other elements of the story are also not exactly children related issues (unlike other animation movies such as Toy Story, Shrek (based on an interpretation of a fairy tale), Finding Nemo), there is a perception that Shark Tale is not exactly a movie for children.

Putting these issues aside, Shark Tale is a delightful movie. The voices of the actors used in the movie seem to portray the characters much more realistically; the actors who lent their voices to the movie are: Will Smith, Jack Black, Renée Zellweger, Angelina Jolie, Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro. The movie was nominated for the Academy awards for Best Animated Picture. Shark Tales got a mixed review critically, and was a much bigger commercial success, picking up approx $357 million worldwide in the year of release.
The movie is about 2 water-dwellers, a fish named Oscar and a young shark called Lenny. Oscar is a perennial loser who works in a Whalewash, and owes money to his boss Mr. Sykes. When Oscar makes another mistake on the job, he is called by his boss and asked to pay up by the next day. His best friend Angie offers him the way to pay back his debt by pawning a pearl necklace, but he uses this money to play the races, loses, and is doomed.
In the meantimes, the shark family head Don Liro is bemoaning the fact that one of his sons Lenny is not exactly the picture of the fearsome killer shark, and decides that another son, far more the picture of a killer, Frankie, must teach him. The 2 separate stories merge when Frankie spots the 2 jellyfish (Ernie and Bernie, henchmen of Mr. Sykes) electrocuting Oscar and decides that this is a good place for Lenny to attack. However, Lenny does not do any of that, telling Oscar that he will not eat him; seeing this dawdling by his brother, Frankie gets impatient. However, in a stroke of the luck that changes fortunes, Frankie gets killed by an anchor, and since Oscar is the one closest to the incident, he gets all the credit and sees this as an opportunity to become a hero.
Things change for Oscar. For one, Lenny now tags along with him. He also gets very famous, and attracts the attention of a gold-digger Lola, and becomes more distant from Angie. And then the Don wants revenge, and plans an attack. Eventually Oscar manages to lure the sharks into a trap; he also turns a leaf and reveals the truth, marries Angie and makes peace with the sharks. Eventually the Don also makes his peace his son Lenny.

Pride and Prejudice is truly one of the classics. Jane Austen wrote a number of books, and this particular one was published in 1813 (yes, you read that right, this was almost 2 centuries back). A romantic book with a flavor of comedy, Pride and Prejudice has remained popular throughout, and has inspired many a movie to be made on the story (the latest starring Keira Knightley & Matthew Macfadyen). However, nobody should believe the book to be a classic version of a Mills & Boon type romance novel; the story brings out the England of the time, the class distinctions, the pressures on a family at that point. Most critically, the heroine of the novel is not a girl wont to swoon romantically, but a girl with pride.

The novel has a very famous line right at the beginning, a line that can be easily quoted and remembered: “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife”. Such a line may seem strange in today’s politically correct world, but in the world of the book, it was very true. The description of the England of the time, where a man with a fortune is seen to be a good catch is combined with the sheer drama and emotion of social interactions (calling it hypocrisy is not out of the question). And it’s not only the 2 main characters who build the story, but a whole host of characters from different social strata and with different motives who make the story to be a much better one.
The story is set in a small English county village where the Bennet’s (a family, not rich, live with the parents and 5 daughters). Mrs. Bennet aim in life is to see her 5 daughters marry comfortably, so when the rich Mr. Bingley and his richer friend Mr. Darcy come visiting, they are the center of attraction. However, the 2 friends are a contrast, with Mr. Bingley seemingly a well natured man, enjoying the attention of all, particularly the eldest Bennet daughter, Jane. Darcy, on the other hand, is more of a man full of himself, and soon starts to put off people, especially the second elder Bennet daughter, Elizabeth (and the main heroine of the story). Soon, because of a quirk of fate (Jane’s illness while visiting the Bingley’s), Elizabeth comes to stay at a place that Darcy visits, and he continues to fall for her. However, a soldier, George Wickham narrates to Lizzy an injustice done to him by Darcy, and the estrangement is complete.
Elizabeth has already a rich suitor after her (her cousin Mr. Collins who will inherit the Bennet property), but she declines to the horror of her mother. In addition, when Mr. Darcy proposes to her, she declines as well (no doubt helped by the fact that she finds his proposal style as pretty insulting and imperious). What compounds matter is the fact that it was Darcy who persuaded Bingley against going ahead with his relationship with Jane. This is the high point of their separation. However, things slowly turn for the better. He hands her a letter that tells her that some of her thoughts were incorrect, and he also tells her the truth about Wickham.
Later, she meets him in another location, and she feels him to be distinctly warmer. What makes the relationship much closer is when Darcy helps in finding Wickham and her younger sister Lydia (they have run away together), and then persuades Wickham to marry Lydia. Now Lizzy feels much closer to Darcy, and what makes them get together again is when Darcy persuades Bingley and Jane to get together again.