"I hate endings."

           The power of denial is astounding, but it is time to face the facts and write this post. The time of the Ponds ended on Doctor Who with the fantastic "The Angels Take Manhattan". I don't think there is any point in me trying to recap the episode, since it has been out for more than two months now. Instead, I will look back on the run of Amelia Pond and Rory Williams, my very first companions and the longest-running ones in the modern Who series.

*SPOLIERS*

AMELIA POND

"Like a name in a fairytale."

We first meet Amelia "Amy" Pond when she is seven years old, a Scottish redhead living in a little English town. The TARDIS crashes into her garden and out pops the newly regenerated Doctor, dressed in rags and begging for an apple. He promises to take her on adventures in his time machine after he fixes it in five minutes. Little Amelia sits all night in her garden waiting for this raggedy man to reappear, but he doesn't come. In fact he doesn't come until twelve years later, when Amelia has become Amy, the beautiful and feisty kissogram. Played by the gorgeous Karen Gillan, I think Amy is the best looking companion in the new Who. Amy's and the Doctor's adventures start then- she meets Winston Churchill, saves a space whale, becomes possessed by a weeping angel, inspires Vincent Van Gogh, and then when her fiance Rory joins the gang too, she has many many more of these unbelievable experiences.

Amy Pond was an awesome companion. She was fiercely brave, bitingly sarcastic, and a strong and sensitive woman. As 'the girl who waited', she spent a great deal of her run with a fear (literally) of having the Doctor abandon her like he did when she was a kid. Still, he is her bestfriend, and they have a beautiful, tender relationship because he was her childhood hero and she was the wonderful little girl who was the first person he met and cared for. Her other relationship, which is even greater than that with the Doctor, is with her husband Rory. Though unsure of the degree of her feelings towards him at first, we see how Amy falls more and more in love with Rory throughout her run. 

The first series of Amy was probably my most favourite. She was young and wide-eyed and had a lovely chemistry with an equally youthful Doctor. Growing up with a crack in her wall, which was actually caused from the end of the universe, she was the crux of the series. The second series of Amy was not the best one in terms of realistic character development. Yes, she dresses like a pirate and gets kidnapped by aliens and so on, but she is a little unbelievable in her reactions to the crazy things that happen to her. This was when Amy stopped being my favoruite companion, but then the seventh series, which was Amy's last, happened. She came back with a bang and she was the sensitive yet badass Amy again. Her relationships with both Rory and the Doctor were at an all-time high and her farewell scenes were truly heartbreaking.

My top 5 Amy Pond episodes-

5. FLESH AND STONE (5x05)

This, along with its first part "The Time of Angels" was my first encounter with the terrifying weeping angels. Though they are scarier in their usual form, I did think that being possessed by them might be the worst thing ever. Poor Amy gets possessed by one of them, but she still makes it through, even while walking in a creepy forest with her eyes closed. Then of course, she came on to the Doctor, which is both funny, and well, a bit of a dream.

4. THE POWER OF THREE (7x04)

The more I think about this episode, the more I fall in love with it. Right before the last episode of the Ponds, we see what Pond life is really like and what happens when the Doctor comes to stay with them. Her fragile, complicatedly simple relationship with the Doctor is beautifully explored in this episode. Also I think this was the episode in which Karen Gillan looked the most fetching as Amy Pond.

3. ASYLUM OF THE DALEKS (7x01)

As I said, Amy had lost a bit of steam in the sixth series, but with the first episode of the seventh series, she comes back as her most mature and maybe damaged form yet. It starts shockingly with her giving divorce papers to Rory, and through this episode we see why she did so and how much she actually loves him. Heartbreaking performance by Gillan.

2. THE ELEVENTH HOUR (5x01)

This was her first episode, and she was seared into my heart since then. I have never wanted to be Amelia Pond more. We all have our childhood fantasies, and hers actually comes back to get her on his time machine. Also Amy is so feisty and sexy in this.

1. THE BIG BANG (5x13)

Throughout the fifth series, we find out more and more about the crack in the wall of Amy's bedroom and how it has affected her. We see how she ends up being the most important person in the universe- how her love waits 2000 years for her and how her imaginary friend is ready to be wiped from existence for her, but she brings everyone back and saves the day.

RORY WILLIAMS

"The boy who waited."

I think Rory "Pond" Williams in Doctor Who is almost how Ron Weasley was in the Harry Potter books. He started out as a sort of comic relief- slightly bumbling and confused, but slowly became the bravest, funniest, nicest and well, one of my most favourite companions ever. In fact, he is tied at the top spot with Donna Noble. A huge reason for that is the way the incredibly gifted Arthur Darvill plays him.

Rory is the sort of the perfect man- he is akin a hilarious knight who can live and die for his love. And by die, I mean die over and over and over again. It is kind of a joke that even Rory himself acknowledges- the number of times he has died in this show is ridiculous. But all that fades when one thinks about how he waited 2000 years outside a box to protect the woman he loves. The Last Centurion is mighty in every way. He has a consciousness that is even older than the Doctor.

Of course his relationship with Amy is to die for. Along with that, it is interesting to see his dynamic with the Doctor. Though always a bit insecure about Amy's closeness to the Doctor, he too can do anything for the man. In the seventh series, we also saw Rory with his adorable dad Brian, who for me is possibly the most tragic character I have seen in Doctor Who yet. His farewell scene, though necessary, were maybe a bit disappointing because I wish he had had a more emotional goodbye.

My top 5 Rory Williams episodes-

5. LET'S KILL HITLER (6x08)

Because Rory is the coolest. I mean he friggin' punches Hitler in the face, man! I love this episode because it gives Rory a sort of edginess. He can punch the Führer and drive a motorbike with utmost ease. He is suddenly an action star, but with enough of his Rory-style humour left.

4. THE PANDORICA OPENS (5x12)

This is the return of Rory, and his first appearance in the Roman soldier uniform. Through all odds, he returns and perhaps more in love with Amy than ever. I love his struggle at the end. I think Arthur Darvill has the prettiest eyes.

3. AMY'S CHOICE (5x07)

Why would a girl will choose a country doctor over the coolest being in all of universe? Simple. Because it is Rory. Rory, with his sweetness and caring and even a ponytail, battles with his insecurities over Amy's childhood infatuation with the Doctor but still does everything for her, and she realises her true feelings towards this magical man in this episode.

2. THE ANGELS TAKE MANHATTAN (7x05)

This episode culminates everything that we know about Rory- his deaths, his humour, his bravery and above all, his love for Amy. When Amy asks him if he would be able to let her sacrifice herself if it means that she wouldn't have to live to her old age without him, like he had just witnessed his own past/future self do, Rory's face and the way he says with utmost conviction, "To save you, I could do anything" just shatters me. Darvill is amazing here.

1. THE GIRL WHO WAITED (6x10)

Yes this is a big Amy episode too, but for me, it is all about Rory's unparalleled love for Amy. He would love her at any age, however she looks and acts. The final moments in this episode, when the Doctor asks him to choose between old Amy and young Amy, and that he is forced to go with a choice, are so poignant. That may be the hardest thing that Rory has done in any episode and such love is just staggering. Arthur Darvill is phenomenal in this episode.

         With this, I come to the end of the post. As much as I will miss Amy's boisterousness and her red hair, and Rory's humour and legendary nose, the thing I will miss most about the Ponds is their love for each other. Their's is one of the greatest love stories I have seen period, and I am so glad that that had a happy ending. 

Bye bye Ponds.

"I'll have what she's having."

Also, this:

"I love that you get cold when it's 71 degrees out.
I love that it takes you an hour and a half to order a sandwich.
I love that you get a little crinkle above your nose when you're looking at me like I'm nuts.
I love that after I spend the day with you, I can still smell your perfume on my clothes.
And I love that you are the last person I want to talk to before I go to sleep at night.
And it's not because I'm lonely, and it's not because it's New Year's Eve.
I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody,
You want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible."

         I regularly talk about my love for romcoms, and how they can actually be intelligent and funny and realistic, while still maintaining their almost fairytale-like idea. I mean I saw Sleeping Beauty yesterday and well, pretty much hated it. I actually had to google the message of the story, and that apparently was "dreaming of and believing in your true love". So this got me thinking about the whole concept of "true love" and how this inane story had to be woven around it to make people understand the importance of it. It seemed almost ridiculous because ever since we are born, we are told of this because it's such an obvious thing that everyone believes will happen to all of us! But maybe, just maybe, it isn't so... And when it does happen to someone, it is actually as magical as these fables of fairies and witches and kisses.

          Romantic comedies, at their core, cherish this idea. Having just watched When Harry Met Sally, it is full of random scenes of couples sitting together and talking about how they met and how they've been married for so many many years. These people, they found this fairytale ending to their life, and it is believable, and it is something we can adore and aspire for.

          Also the humour. The best example is the video given above. I like laughing and feeling happy during a movie. I even watched this film after one of the saddest days of my life, when my grandfather had passed away and I just needed to be cheered up. No it did not help me overcome my grief, but for a few of those moments, I needed to be swept away in a world without mourning and death and something like "baby fish-mouth" seemed to do the trick.

          Nora Ephron (1941-2012) wrote When Harry Met Sally. She had written and directed many other features, but this was always the one closest to my heart. It is as perfect a romantic comedy as they come. The characters are funny and sad and sweet, and someone you can (theoretically and hopefully) meet walking down a street. The dialogue is brilliant, like the little excerpt above. And it embraces the fairytale ending in a very real world of relationships. Nora Ephron was able to capture all that in this incredible script, due to which we have such an iconic and happy film. It is often so much more attractive to write something cynical or depressing, or fall into the trap of the film actually being silly instead of happy. This film is neither.

           Ephron, like the character of Sally with her specific food instructions, knew how the elements of a story work together to make it a lovely and unforgettable experience. When Harry Met Sally is but an example of her talent. While I haven't seen her dramatic stuff, her romances and comedies always brought a big smile to my face.

          It is sad when someone like that passes along, and we can't help but go over their life's work and be impressed and inspired by it.

RIP NORA EPHRON 

You will be sorely missed.

The Ultimate Sofia Coppola List

         
           It's Sofia Coppola's 41st birthday today. She is one of my most favourite directors, and definitely my favourite female director. Her films have this wonderfully romantic and lost aspect to them that make them endlessly dreamy. I just love it. The girls and women depicted in her films are exactly like that too, which is why I've always believed that no female can look prettier than in a Sofia Coppola movie.

            I was going to do a mini-reviews post on her films, but have now decided to do a sort of list with all of her directorial work, including short films, advertisements and music videos. This also makes it more interesting since a list with only the movies becomes redundant with a Favourite 100 Movies List like mine. I couldn't find her first short film Bed, Bath and Beyond anywhere. Also the music videos to "City Girl" by Kevin Shields and "Playground Love" by Air are basically just clips from the movies they were in- Lost in Translation and The Virgin Suicides respectively. The latter does include singing pieces of chewing gum, but yeah, I'm not considering that.

11) Shine by Walt Mink

This was all the way back in 1993. The video quality isn't very good, but one can see the theme of rich, bored, beautiful people that will be unique to her films later on. It was edited by her ex-husband Spike Jonze, who was apparently the basis for the Giovanni Ribisi's highly annoying character in Lost in Translation.

10) This Here Giraffe by The Flaming Lips

I'm not that well-acquainted with the music of The Flaming Lips, but I like the idea of these monochrome-clad rockstars visiting the zoo on a nice sunny day. Also the bed looks like it belongs to a very young girl. Also it has Leslie Hayman, who plays the Therese Lisbon in The Virgin Suicides- arguably the sister with the smallest role.

9) City of Light fragrance by Christian Dior, starring Natalie Portman

This has a kind of Audrey Hepburn-ish aura about it. Miss Portman looks gorgeous and I think Alden Ehrenreich is adorable, but still, the whole product ends up being a little bland.

8) Marni for H&M starring Imogene Poots

It is set in the beautiful Marrakesh, Morocco. I love the colours in this ad. Imogene Poots looks lovely.

7) Lick the Star

To explain this, I will use a set of quotes from another of Sofia's films- "What are you doing here, honey? You're not even old enough to know how bad life gets. - Obviously doctor, you've never been a thirteen year-old girl." While I've never experienced the "clique" system of an American high school, there are things even I find relatable in this short film. Also, I love the badassery of the lead character when we first see her. The second part is here.

6) I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself by the White Stripes

I'm not a Kate Moss fan, but even I can't deny the pure sexiness she exudes here. However it's not perverse... I think it's kind of sad. With the title of the song and how it is sung, it really feels like a lost soul trying to figure out her life in a most free sort of way. I really love it.

5) Somewhere

Many say this is the film that all of her other films were leading up to. As a star-child herself, Sofia's first-hand experience with all the loneliness and pointlessness that a Hollywood celebrity and their children face is an obvious basis for this film. It is a critical look at such a life, but her films ultimately look so gorgeous that it takes a while to get to that. Still, the malaise that her films are known for is most pronounced in this. I love Stephen Dorff and Elle Fanning in it.

4) Lost in Translation

This is the most celebrated of all her films yet, and rightly so. I don't think the meeting of two kindred spirits has never been shown more beautifully than in this film. The performances by both the leads is excellent, though just the little subtleties in everything that Bill Murray does leave me speechless. He should have won that Oscar. Scarlett Johannson's Charlotte is the character most of us connect with the best. Also that inaudible whisper... sigh.

3) Miss Dior Chérie fragrance by Christian Dior, starring Maryna Linchuck

This is my most favourite commercial ever. I want to live in it, for real. It's so pretty and girly! I love the liveliness in it, and everything the enchanting Maryna Linchuck does.

2) The Virgin Suicides

Ugh the Lisbon sisters and their eternal mystery that will never cease to baffle and entice the narrators or us. It's a very ambiguous, dreamy film, but there is a certain magic to it. I wish I could make something like this. I also wish Sofia revisits this kind of a film, one that has a certain amount of enigma and cheekiness to it.

1) Marie Antoinette

My very unique opinion, but I can't help it. With all the grandeur and the anachronistic pop tunes and American accents and everything that is oh so pretty, I absolutely adore this film. Kirsten Dunst embodies the lavishness and the confusion of the young and doomed monarch. People say it is too shallow- it can be, but only because it was expected of someone like the titular character. Also one of my most favourite endings ever. I think every director does one film like this- plain ambitious and well, selfish in a way. This is Sofia Coppola's and I love every minute of it.

So there you have it. I hope you enjoyed it. 
Also, A Very Happy Birthday to Sofia Coppola. 
Can't wait for Bling Ring!

"You may see me only as a drunken, vice-ridden gnome whose friends are just pimps and girls from the brothels. But I know about art and love, if only because I long for it with every fiber of my being."

It has been a good five or six years since I first saw Baz Luhrmann's musical romance Moulin Rouge!. It was one of those experiences that change our lives forever- we think different, see things in a new light, understand ourselves better. You may think that I am over-exaggerating, but I was (am) young and impressionable...and boy that film impressed me! I felt right at home with the revolutionary Bohemians of the Moulin Rouge, and found kind of soulmate in Christian- a Romantic to the core who, without any influence as such, just naturally believes in truth, beauty, freedom and above all things, love. However, when I was watching it today for The Film Experience's Hit Me With Your Best Shot, I also found myself identifying with Satine... "Why live life from dream to dream, and dread the day the dreaming ends".


Therefore you see how this film that often tells me more about myself than almost anything else. So it was a real dilemma to chose my favourite shot, there are just so many things to love in this film. For instance:


1) The sublime beauty of Nicole Kidman as Satine.

2) The humour (just had to put that).

3) Obviously the absolutely gorgeous El Tango de Roxanne, which has everyone screaming at some point, deserves to be shown.

While all these are fantastic, I am now left with two finalists. One is an actual shot within the film, another is a set of six shots that come in the end of the credits.

The Best Shot- This really shows the magic of the film. Here are two people standing on clouds, with an umbrella, the Eiffel Tower and the moon with a face on it in the background. The scene happens when Christian, played by the wonderful Ewan McGregor, is wooing Satine by "Your Song". A melody sung from his heart, for hers, and she is swept away so much so that she imagines a completely unrealistic, yet dreamy place where both of them belong together. I think the background pays homage to the great musicals of yesteryears...the umbrella from Singin' in the Rain, rooftop from Mary Poppins, the Eiffel Tower for An American in Paris, and well the singing moon. I love films which transport us to places, and this singular shot takes me to a wonderland of romance and delight.

The Best Shots- Seriously, this is the favourite part of the film for me. I especially wait for credits to end everytime I watch Moulin Rouge!, because it is incomplete for me until I see these final six shots. I weep, I smile, I feel warm- why? Because these shots reaffirm my belief in the world. The fact that what these wild Bohemians believed in is not something the world has forgotten. We sing the songs that they sing- from Bowie to Kiss to Madonna. Their anthems are our anthems now; art and beauty and freedom and love prospers. It is a little hard to notice with all these Dukes lying around, but come what may, everything the film and its characters holds so dear still exists. That is what the story is all about, and I ardently love it.

Moulin Rouge! is 10 years old now, and I do hope it goes down in cinematic history as the beautiful love story with a Bohemian Can Can twist and a total tribute to the great songs of the 20th century. I mean honestly as lovely as the shots are, the film is nothing without its songs. Do watch and listen!

“I’d like to grow up and be beautiful. I know it doesn’t matter, but it doesn’t hurt.” ~Kirsten Dunst

So I've been a fan of Kirsten Dunst for a very long time. Many of my friends don't like her for that wretched Mary Jane Watson role, but they barely look past it. I think the first film of hers that I saw was the fantasy-film Jumanji. She was so sweet in it, a typical older sister, who had because of the game been released into this world of surprising horrors and insane jungle-stuff. Prior to Jumanji, she had been in a few other films, most notably Interview with the Vampire and Little Women. Both adaptations of famous books; in the first she played Claudia- a young vampire who lives with fellow-vampires Lestat and Louis, played by Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt respectively. It was a very interesting role, certainly a predecessor to the young vampires we see everywhere now. I remember feeling very bad for her, never being able to grow up along with growing old, along with that strange relationship she had with both men. I though she was particularly powerful because she did demand my attentions in her scenes more than her much more accomplished co-stars. She played the younger Amy in Little Women, who is my least favourite March sister, but she was absolutely adorable in the role. From her nose-worries, to being a total brat, to having that very special relationship with Laurie (a very young Christian Bale).

I think Kiki was the quintessential teen-star, something that many of her successors have tried to be, but unfortunately failed. I think it's her blonde locks, and joyful face and sweet voice. This worked behind many of her late 90s-early 2000 films like Strike, Bring it On, Drop Dead Gorgous and The Virgin Suicides. The first two are much lighter roles like the cheerleader Torrance in Bring it On. She's funny and preppy and just plain contagious. I mean how can one not know all the cheers by rote, right? The latter two are much darker roles. I think as Amber Atkins in Drop Dead Gorgeous, she perfected the bright-eyed, beautiful, smart teenager-look that a teen-film like this needs as its protagonist. In all the craziness of the film, her character remains the only sane one. Now Virgin Suicides, which was done much before these, is one of her darkest roles to date. She played one of the younger Lisbon sisters, whose lives are doomed as shown by the title of the film itself. She's the main one, without doubt, just the kind of beauty that all the boys in the film are after... with darker undertones. 

After all of these, she did her most famous role to date- Mary Jane Watson, the love-interest of Peter Parker and his alter ego Spiderman. She was not that annoying in the first one, but as the films kept coming, the more and more I found myself hating this character. Infact, it's number 2 on my most annoying film-characters list, preceded by Bella Swan and followed by Frodo Baggins. While it did what she wanted it to do for her career, that is make her well-known all over the world, it did become one of the most stereotypical damsel-in-distress roles ever.

In between, she tried to let go of her teenage image by choosing more adult, or rather young adult roles. She was there in Michel Gondry-Charlie Kaufman modern classic- Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Her character Mary was this naive girl who is infatuated with her much older employer. he starred in the ensemble female-drama Mona Lisa Smile, a film set in the early 50s, which questioned the role of women in society then. She played a very traditionalist, headstrong character Betty, who is found often sparring with her free-minded teacher, played by Julia Roberts. While it's one of her least-likeable roles, she does adopt the look of a Stepford-ish housewife really well. She was also there in romantic films like Elizabethtown and Wimbledon, the latter being a particular favourite of mine. I liked her relationships with her heroes in these films- Orlando Bloom in the first and one very fit Paul Bettany in the second. 

After these came Marie Antoinette, which is the last film that I've seen of her, save Spiderman 3. I've written time and again about how much I love this film, and how much I love her in it. She got back together with her Virgin Suicides-director, Sofia Coppola and made one of the most unique period films ever. She's just transplendent in it. She looks uncommonly beautiful- a sort of decadence with the freshness of youth, and ofcourse those marvelous clothes and jewelery and hair. She plays the ill-fated monarch from her blooming early teens till her death in her twenties, which is a major part of any girl's life. In that time she has to get her prince to impregnate her, get love from her country, get respect from her mother, and have lots and lots of fun (and candy =P). Of course things do not go that way, and Kiki in the end is just so impactful, that atleast I felt like saving her.

Now the reason why I am writing this whole ode to Kirsten Dunst is because she has won the Best Actress award in Cannes for her upcoming film Melancholia! I am so happy that she is going to finally get the critical appreciation that she has worked so long to get. I thought that this looked bleak after the ban put on it's director Lars Von Trier, for his "Pro-Nazi" comments, but she did it. I will definitely be watching this film, which looks very intriguing from the trailer, and for her ofcourse. She also will be playing Camille in Walter Salles's adaptation of Beat-epic On The Road. I just can't wait!

CONGRATULATIONS TO MS. DUNST FOR BEING SUCH A WONDERFUL ACTRESS!

"The only greatness for man is immortality" ~James Dean

"James Dean made just three pictures, but even if he had made only one he would still be the greatest male star of the ’50s. The pictures are East of Eden, Rebel Without a Cause, Giant. Just the titles evoke epic visions, and all three films live up to their titles, constituting a three part heroic poem on atomic age youth, its beauties and its obsessions…James Dean was the perfect embodiment of an eternal struggle. It might be innocence struggling with experience, youth with age, or man with his image. But in every aspect his struggle was a mirror to a generation of rebels without a cause. His anguish was exquisitely genuine on and off the screen; his moments of joy were rare and precious. He is not our hero because he was perfect, but because he perfectly represented the damaged but beautiful soul of our time.”

- Andy Warhol

Happy Belated Birthday James Dean.

Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened

Dear Q,

It’s impossible to sum up in a short letter how + why I love John, but here are a few thoughts…
I love him because…he was a mate through our teenage years in Liverpool, he was the guy I sat across from as we worked out how to write songs, he was the man I admired as we evolved through the madness of fame, fortune and “fabness”, and he was, and still is, the heroic figure whose wit and wisdom, with a little help from his friends, shaped the thoughts and lives of millions of people.
AND SO MUCH MORE.
Love, Paul

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOHN!! YOU ARE SORELY MISSED...

John Lennon Google Doodle

Growing up is such a barbarous business, full of inconvenience... and pimples. ~ J.M. Barrie

Okay. I have not outgrown my kid movies phase. I literally vow to keep watching them and enjoying them till I am dead and buried/incinerated/lost forever in an ice glacier. The reason why I love them is because it gives so much joy and hope, and that too in such a pure form so as to leave the viewer with satisfaction and memories. The innocence of the children is what sets it apart from most films about grown-ups. Also I guess they must be amongst the most difficult types of films to make, with kids and all. So here’s my tribute to them.

•     Home Alone 1 and 2- Could there ever have been a cuter kid than Macaulay Culkin? I think not. His two adventures, the first being left home alone and the second being lost in the huge city of New York are absolutely amazing. Kevin McCallister’s wit and courage keep him safe, especially from the two evil crooks Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern. Oh how I love this film. Chris Columbus’ excellent ability to make mesmerizing kid movies and John Hughes’ genius made these films what they are today. There are very few (deeply disturbed) people who do not like these films. The sense of freedom that Kevin experiences and how he is able to completely torture the grown-up bad guys is just awesome! We also love Kevin’s huge and oblivious family, the ‘tough’ bad guys who get hit with bricks on the face, electrocuted, burnt, pecked upon by hundreds of pigeons and they just don’t give up, and obviously the old man in the first film and the pigeon lady in the second. And who can forget Tim Curry’s evil Grinch face in the in Home Alone 2?

•     Baby’s Day Out- Another John Hughes classic. I often talk about how I never got over Jack Dawson from Titanic and Jess Mariano from Gilmore Girls…but I never got over the baby in this film too. How incredibly brilliant is this film? A millionaire baby who is kidnapped but just because of pure childish joy escapes from his kidnappers living out the adventures in a book his nanny, none other than SATC’s Cynthia Nixon, used to read to him while his kidnappers get into trouble everytime. The various situations the baby and the kidnappers, led by Joe Pantoliano, get into are unforgettable- the gorilla scene, the park scene and obviously the construction scene. And the baby, with his “Boo Boo!” and “Tik Tok” and everything else he does is so infinitely adorable, you can’t help but love him!!!

•     Kindergarten Cop- I love it when big tough men do “sensitive” roles. How sensitive exactly? Enough to take care of an entire kindergarten class. Governator Arnold Schwarzenegger (this spelling was in my laptop’s dictionary btw) plays a cop who has to go undercover as a kindergarten teacher in order to catch a criminal whose son is in his class. When brawn meets bawling bubbling 3-4 year olds, you can count on hilarious consequences. I honestly think it’s one of the most ingenuous films because it is absolutely amazing to see this huge man take care of kids who are like a tenth of his size. The kids are all very sweet; my personal favourite being the precocious boy whose father was a gynecologist. Schwarzenegger too is absolutely convincing in this part action-part comedic role.

•     Little Rascals- This is probably the epitome of delightful, adorable kids that can be put together in a film. This film is EPIC cute. It’s a story of chauvinistic 4-5 year boys who run the “He-Man Women Haters Club” except one of the co-founders Alfalfa falls in love with “hottie” Darla. It is absolutely lovely to see this little kids understanding the dynamics of a gender-based world. The lines in this film are classics, like “The way you fill my heart I’ll fill your face”, “What’s the number for 911?” or when a snobby kid comes to town to vie for Darla’s attention and introduces himself by saying “My father owns the oil refinery” and Darla says, “That’s why you’re so refined” and Alfalfa adds, “And so oily.” GENIUS! The kids with the hair-sticking out Alfalfa to super pretty Darla to brilliant Uh-huh are so so cute that you just want to eat them up ( which happens to be one of the most disturbing phrases ever invented).

•     Up- What an enchanting film! I think after many instances people give of true love like Romeo and Juliet, Elizabeth and Darcy, Rick and Ilsa, Antony and Cleopatra, Tony and Maria, Jack and Rose, Joel and Clementine, one should put Ellie and Carl of Up in such a list too. I think more than any of these actually, their story is the actual dream. It’s a story of lifelong love, and what one does after their better half passes on. This is a magical film and makes us realize that why animation still matters so much in this world, and in that of cinema. The image of a colourful house floating in the air with the help of thousands of helium balloons could never have been as effective if it wasn’t a cartoon film. Carl’s adventure to go to his and Ellies’ dream destination in Paradise Falls in South America along with nosy, clueless and down-to-earth Ralph is incredible. There with a rare species of bird who Ralph aptly names Kevin and a talking dog Doug, Carl gets to have a fantastic journey even in his old age. This film also shows that the key to a kids movie is not to be a kid mainly, but to be one at heart.

•     Peter Pan- “All children grow up except one.” I love this story. The enchantment of Neverland, the mischief of the Missing Boys and the evil of Captain Hook, altogether with the hero Peter Pan make one of the most famous children tales of all time. After watching this film, I couldn’t help but wish to be Wendy and fly away with Peter Pan and Tinkerbell, all the way to Neverland. It’s sort of the dream to never grow up, and stay a child forever. As a species I think we are obsessed with such characters and people, whether it is an unnerving fixation with immortal vampires or hero-worshipping all the “good who died young” like James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Sid Vicious, Kurt Cobain and Heath Ledger. Peter Pan stands out to both adults and children because it fills us up with wonder and excitement- to visit Neverland and see pirates and Indians, to find out about fairies and mermaids, to see the good battle the evil. Jeremy Sumpter, Rachel Hurd-Wood and Jason Isaacs – are all amazing in this film.

•     Stuart Little- A kid is a kid even if he is a mouse. I mean forget Oliver Twist, it was Stuart Little who had a hard time fitting in. A most unbelievable tale about a family who decide to adopt a good honest mouse as a kid brother for their only son, and how they all fall in love with each other, true family style. Also don’t forget they have a furry white cat Snowball as their pet. Snowball’s jealousy and stray-cat connections spell doom for ‘little’ Stuart and the Littles, but family and love overcome all obstacles. This film has to be close to everyone’s hearts. This film is also, as far as my memory takes me, the first one I ever cried in, in the scene when Snowball tells Stuart that his family didn’t love him.  I love Michael J. Fox , Geena Davis, Hugh Laurie, Johnathan Lipnicki and Nathan Lane who voices Snowball.

•     Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory- Yes I love the classic more than the modern adaptation. It’s the whole deal with chocolates and Roald Dahl that makes this film magical. I love the Oompa Lompas in this film! And their songs; Deep Roy gives me nightmares. This film too is the dream. Which kid in the world does not want to win a trip to a highly elusive and expert chocolate factory? Everything, from the excitement of the finding of the Golden Tickets, to the Chocolate Room, to the evil spy- is so much fun to watch. Also though I worship Johnny Depp, I love Gene Wilder as the slightly crazy and immensely talented Willy Wonka. This is the cult classic, and though the new adaptation is closer to the book and directed by one of my most favourite directors Tim Burton, something about the classic just makes it better.

Notable mentions would be Mary Poppins (I was never a Sound of Music fan), Home Alone 3 (he wasn’t Macaulay Culkin), My Girl (NO DEATHS OF CHILDREN), The Good Son (awesome but creepy), Pan’s Labyrinth (it’s too different and tragic, brilliant no less, to be in this list) and Harry Potter (he grows up).