The Fifth Estate- Reveal the unknown

Do you think you know everything about every incident that has ever taken place in the world? Can you say that the government has provided all information about the country through the media? Julian Assange was one of the first people who felt cheated and wanted to know the entire story about incidents and attacks that shook the earth. He wanted every bit of information without any omission. This started the revolution of the Wikileaks.

Julian Assange, a hacker from Australia meets Daniel Berg, a journalist, in Berlin at the Chaos Cummunication Congress. After learning that Daniel was trying to find Assange through the web, the two start working on the project called Wikileaks, a website devoted to release information withheld from the public while retaining anonimity of its sources. Their first target was Julius Baer, a private Swiss bank regarding illegal activities taking place in one of their branches. Originally, as they reveal this new found information to the world, the judge bans Wikileaks and shuts them down. But, after seeing the outpour of people supporting Wikileaks, the judge had to put them back online. Soon, they were into revealing all kinds of scams and revealed secrets on Scientology and the list of members of the British National Party.

The two of them were unstoppable with this new success and Wikileaks started gaining popularity and support. People from around the world searched for Julian and Daniel and wanted to join this new "justice league" but Julian was not a man who trusts very easily. With great difficulty, Daniel was able to persuade him to let his friend on board. As days turned into months, the relationship between the two founders starts becoming strained. Both of their ideas no longer match and Assange was all in for revealing information without thinking what its repercussions might be. Assange mocks Daniel for being so concerned about petty issues and moves on to newer leaks.

Almost as though addicted on a drug, Assange cannot stop himself from publishing every small, insignificant detail online for the world to see and soon starts getting suspected by his team as a con man rather than a mentor. With the White House getting involved and the Wikileaks uncovering every hidden thought, both Julian and Daniel's lives are at stake. Will Julian be able to control his thirst for truth or will uncovering the truth be the end of him.

Based on true events, the Fifth Estate gives us the true story behind the biggest revolution of this century, the Wikileaks. A powerful movie with an even more powerful message, this is a must watch from my side. But the question that arises here is to what extent does one go to reveal the unknown?

Bans and India- An endless list of non-democratic decisions

India is one of the fastest developing democracies in the world. But is it a democracy after all? With bans being slapped on everything one touches, we're not looking at a very bright future. How many things has India banned? We've banned beef, banned the usage of a few selected words from our movies (like the word 'lesbian'), we banned the documentary made on the Nirbhaya rape case, we've banned Maggi and now we've tried to ban pornography.

Basically, anything and everything that disturbs us, even remotely, needs to be brought down. For me, bans are like Pandora's boxes. The more restrictions and bans you impose on me, the more curious I would be to see it. Tomorrow we'll ban hard metal rock because it's perceived as noise by someone. Later, we might ban Facebook because of people expressing their views. We have the capacity to ban anything, and then call ourselves a democracy. This isn't democracy. Democracy would give you the choice to do what you wish to, it lets you choose for yourself and not have opinions forced on you. It lets you have a voice and have a perspective about things.

What we claim to be isn't what we are shaping to be. Democracy in India is looking more like a formality than a choice. But, maybe I am wrong. Maybe some people out there have valid points to ban all these things in India and I respect the flip side to this situation. All that I feel here, is that we are losing the basic ideas of a democratic government and changes need to take place as soon as possible.

Despicable me- From Mr. Evil to Mr. Nice guy?

Mr. Gru was a villain, a supervillain. A person who had steel nerves and no sense of humour, a person who tolerated less than he could and basically being a bad, bad man. But when three cute little girls enter his realm of villainy, his world takes a turn for the better side.

Starting from scratch, Gru was very disturbed to hear about a villain who successfully stole the Pyramids of Giza! He decides to put his long term plan, his big break, into action. He assembled his minions (cutest little creatures you can ever come across) and his right hand man, Dr. Nefario to explain his idea. He wanted to steal the moon. Ambitious, yes. But first he had to get a loan from the bank to build his spaceship.

He goes to the bank and there he is questioned at his audacity to ask for a loan without the shrink ray for making this plan a success. So Gru goes to a top secret lab in East Asia and steals the shrink ray. Later, as he's getting back to his lab, the villain who stole the pyramid, Vector, steals the shrink ray from Gru. Absolutely disgusted with everything, Gru decides to go to Vector's lair to get the shrink ray. His attempts fail because of multiple booby traps all around Vector's facility. As Gru turns to go back home, he sees three girls from an orphanage come to sell cookies at Vector's place. He is left in awe when they get free passage through to go in because of their cookies and decides to impersonate himself as a dentist to adopt the three girls, Margo, Edith and Agnes.

The girls come to Gru's place and instantly understand that he was not a dentist. He then revealed to them that he was a "secret spy" and he was working on a "top secret mission". With help from the girls, he uses cookie robots built by Dr. Nefario to infiltrate into the vault in which the shrink ray was located. He successfully gets the shrink ray! As they were all heading back home, the girls see an amusement park and badly want to go there. Gru gets an idea that it would be the perfect place to leave the girls, now that their job was done. But as the evening proceeds, Gru starts having fun with them and they come back home with painted faces and cotton candy.

Dr. Nefario was not at all happy having these girls as they were becoming a major distraction for Gru. So, he threatens Gru, saying that if he doesn't get rid of the girls, he would take things into his own hands. But with Gru finally seeing the bright side in him, seeing the good side, will he want to go on with his plan of stealing the moon? Will the girls be able transform Gru from Mr. Evil to Mr. Nice guy?

This movie defines cuteness! Right from our three girls, Margo, Edith and Agnes to our adorable minions, every scene leaves with a sweet smile, teary eyes and a permanent "aww" slapped on your face. Seeing Gru's transformation from evil villain to a genuine father is beautiful. But, for me, the main attraction is the minions! The yellowness, the happiness, the cuteness, it's almost too much to fit into something so small! Definitely a humorous and fun-filled movie. Another must watch from my side.

About time- Time travelling at its simplest form

If anyone told you that you had the unbelievable ability to travel back in time, you'd probably use it for getting successful, changing the course of events right? Well, when Tim Lake gets to know about the family powers of time traveling he decides to use it to find love.

Our story begins with the New Year's Eve party at Tim's place. The party goes on as boring as it ever is for Tim and finally as the clock strikes twelve, he neglects sharing a kiss with his dance partner later rebuking himself over it. The next day, after a bit of a hangover, his father has a small chat with him. As he recently turned twenty one it was customary to let every man of the Lake family know that he was born for travelling back in time. With simple, clear cut rules of finding a closed, dark place, balling up your fists and closing your eyes thinking of a particular incident or event you were a part of, Tim goes off to experiment it, thinking it was just a joke. But as he enters his wardrobe and does as instructed, he finds himself back in the same clothes as the previous night's party and undoes the one mistake he made that night. After a long talk with his dad in the present, he decides to use it to find love.

Within a week he moves to London and lives with his father's friend, a play writer. He starts going to law school and things get as monotonous as a rainy day in London. One day, he and his friend decide to shake things up and go for dinner to a fancy restaurant where everything is eaten in complete darkness. There, Tim finds a charming girl (at least she sounds charming then), Mary and is instantly interested in her. Once the dinner was done, he waited for her and when she came face to face with him, he was hit hard by the four letters he was searching for, love. He took her number and came back to his dingy apartment to hear his play writer moan about how a character forgot his lines, turning the play into a catastrophe. Tim tries to make things right for him by going back in time and helping the actors. Later as he searches for Mary's number, it's gone because in actuality, he was never there at the dinner, so he never met her!

On a race against time, he tries to search for her and pick small details of her interests to see if he can find her somewhere. The question is, will he find her or will he be lost forever in the circle of time traveling?

A beautiful, witty and humours movie with the subtle features of Britain etched across, this movie is a slow moving, yet lightning paced journey. Tim and his travels make you wonder about the ideas of time travel and the endless possibilities if you ever got that ability. A definite must watch from me.

Confessions of a Shopaholic- For all the shopaholics like me

Being a shopaholic is hard. But we enjoy it thoroughly. Walking past those stores and staring at the dresses falling perfectly over the mannequins, shoes with the best colours and the brilliant sheen that almost gives a matte finish to the leather, takes your breathe away. You just want to open those doors, try all those beautiful things you lay your eyes on and you want it all! And when you swipe your card, your heart skips a beat and in seconds all of that belongs to you! But on the flip side, the dress you loved a week ago may be sitting all alone in the corner of your cupboard and probably you don't even remember it was ever there.

Rebecca Bloomwood had the same story with just a small addition that's quite large. She had to pay a huge amount of debt and a debt collector, Derek Smeath was relentlessly following her to get that money. Rebecca tried every way possible, every small, absurd excuse to evade him. And it did for a while. Rebecca's dream was to write in Alette magazine, the most upcoming fashion magazine. So as she goes for the interview, she's informed that the position has been filled but she's given another post in Successful Savings, a sister company to Alette. She's told that from Successful Savings she may be able to jump to Alette. She takes the offer and goes for the interview.

She meets Luke Brandon and realises that he was the man who gave her twenty dollars that morning for her to buy a scarf (apparently, for an aunt who's sick). Embarrassed, she leaves the scarf outside but someone returns it and things get awkward. She obviously doesn't get the job. So she goes home, has a few drinks with her best friend, Suze and writes two letters, one for Alette and one for Successful Savings. She mixes the two letters up and they get interchanged. So, a letter ridiculing the head was going towards Alette and a perfectly good article towards Successful Savings. In the morning, Rebecca gets in time to steal the letter from Alette and is then called to Successful Savings and gets the job.

To celebrate she goes on a shopping spree and finds discounts on all her favourite brands. As she's admiring the cashmere coat she's bought, she sees that it's not 100% cashmere wool and writes an article about being duped in the market. Under the pen name, The Girl in the Green Scarf, she submits the article and it's an instant hit!

But a small little thing from her past keeps showing up, the debt collector. Trying to evade him as much as possible and bringing up every lie she could ever think of, she tries her best to get away from him. But things get complicated when Luke and Rebecca start having feelings for each other. Rebecca feels responsible and scared about what would happen if he gets to know about her being up to her eyeballs in debt! Will she still have this job? Will she ever fulfil her dream of writing for Alette? And will she ever be able to pay off her debt?

A movie every shopaholic will relate to, the shoes and clothes and so many other beautiful things you see on your screens leave you awestruck. Seeing Prada and Gucci at half price, a sale at Versace, trust me, you'll get a small tear and a sniff. This movie is relatable to me, not just because of being a shopaholic but because my blogger name was inspired from the Girl in the Green Scarf. Definitely a must watch from me.