It beats me how they do it. Every single time. When I heard the premise for 'Up', I thought this was it -- that this would be Pixars's Vista (I'm sorry, I work in a technology company). An old geyser and an enthusiastic kid in an adventure to some exotic land? Now haven't we heard that story before (like, countless times from the Hollywood stables itself)? I was looking forward to Pixar going 3D, and I thought this, combined with my belief that Pixar can never go altogether bad, would at least make this a worthwhile watch.

Instead, what I got is something akin to a truly 'enriching' experience -- and coming from a cynic like me, that's saying something. After a quick (and terribly sweet) introduction to two of the principal characters, Carl and Ellie, there follows a 10 minute sequence that runs, walks and hobbles us through their entire lives without any dialogues, but with a background score so beautiful that calling it magical would be a gross understatement. Well, if you thought Wall?E was good at this stuff, Up makes it look like a warm up act. Heart-warming and heart-breaking at the same time, it made me realize just how far the Disney-Pixar combo has gone beyond simply making people laugh, when I found myself with a lump in my throat and that prickly feeling in my eyes...

What Up offers is true 3D -- it adds dollops of that third dimension, depth. This is storytelling at its very best, and the animation is, as we've all come to expect, every bit as inspired. It's never gimmicky or showy in the way most 3D ventures seem to be at the moment -- instead, it's so lovingly realized it almost feels real, and yet a beautiful imagination, all at the same time. Witness the color of the balloons when the house takes flight, or that of a shy Carl's cheeks when the sassy Ellie takes his hand -- the attention to detail is so marvelous that it naturally begets our involvement and care for every story element, including the floating house...

The characters are of course very well etched out, and the humor is never forced -- the gags flow naturally and in the course of things, and I think this stems from the confidence that the guys at Pixar have in their stories and their ability to move their audiences, as opposed to the alarmingly common trend nowadays to heap on the gags to fill the vacuums of any emotional impact. Sample the talking dog's "I've just met you, and I love you!" -- it's probably not something that's going to make you roll on the floor with laughter, but it never fails to make me chuckle whenever I see a dog with a wagging tail nowadays.

However, the character that really stayed with me probably had the briefest appearance -- little Ellie sharing her wondrous dreams of adventure, growing into a woman as vivacious as she was boisterous as a child, only to have that vivacity diminished because of a cruel fate, and then the old dreams rekindled, but never realized, until it was too late.... Even with such an envious track record, I think the folks at Pixar will find it hard to ever equal the sheer, heartfelt brilliance that the first 15 minutes of Up alone manage to achieve...

I have to admit ? I did completely fall for the hype. Given the complete secrecy surrounding Christopher Nolan?s latest offering prior to its release, the extremely promising trailer, and the incredibly over-the-top-and-fawning initial reviews, I really thought we had another The Dark Knight on our hands.

And now it feels like I have a rare disease ? some infection of the senses that has prevented me from soaking in the supposed ?awesomeness? that is Inception. I don?t know what the exact ratio is, but I think I?m the one unlucky soul in every one thousand, that one lame boy who missed out on the land of dreams promised by the Pied Piper of Cinema.

Not that I didn?t enjoy watching it at all ? in fact, I went for it a second time, but mostly because there was so much of it that I didn?t get the first time. The second viewing did help ? as did the millions of plot theories available online that attempted to fill in the gaps ? but, to borrow from that common (and dreaded) appraisal parlance, I really didn?t get that WOW effect.

Some of the blame lies with my expectations ? I was certainly expecting (aliens on) the moon from it. But I think it also has something to do with the fact that the film was way too focused on its myriad puzzles for me to feel any genuine connect, empathy, sympathy, hatred and/or wonder (I?m obviously thinking of you, Heath Ledger; RIP!) for any of its characters.

Take Dom Cobb for example. For a man whose wife has committed suicide, implicated him for it, and penetrated his dreams to drive him almost to the edge of insanity ? not to mention (seemingly) separated him from his kids forever ? he seems remarkably in control (apart from the odd freight train crashing through his plans). So much so that when he hesitates to shoot Mal at a critical point in the narrative, his indecision seem almost laughable (and extremely contrived) given how assured he is the rest of the time.

Not that I?d blame DiCaprio for it ? he?s already won me over in a very similar role in the much more fascinating Shutter Island, where he gets his man-on-the-edge act just right to create a really haunting portrayal. Nopes, all that restraint is purely Nolan?s fault.

And then there?s the bit about a film with 5-6 good guys ? where the hell are all the bad guys dammit? How exactly do I feel that sense of fear, that sense of the stakes being really high, if all I can see is a bunch of gun-toting dummies just waiting to be shot? Heck, even the worst that can happen to these guys is only described in the vaguest of ways as being stuck in a ?limbo? ? and then towards the end we?re shown that it?s possible to even retrieve people from such a state, which just makes me feel that I was cracking my head to figure out the danger for a good two hours for no reason whatsoever. And I don?t like being made to feel that way.

Even if I?m totally wrong about the logic of this, I don?t care ? if I want to rack my brains out, I?ll go take CAT, instead of paying 500 bucks (+200 for the food and popcorn courtesy my better half) to have my brains liquefied and oozing out of my nostrils. If not for the fascinating premise, and the genuinely innovative weightless sequence with Joseph Gordon-Levitt (and a really funny line from Ken Watanabe which I won?t mention because it?s the only bit of comic relief in the entire film), I might just have come away entirely disappointed.

And yes, while it may be true for the freight train, you have to be kidding me if you say you didn't see that end coming from miles away.

When it comes to Batman, as far back as I can remember, watching the (animated) TV series or reading the strips was always a very different experience from the other superhero comics. From the stories to the coloring of these strips, from the characters to their alter-egos (and every character would seem to have one), there was one underlying theme that was ever-present -- shades of grey. The lines between 'good' and 'evil', 'right' and 'wrong', were definitely in place, but they were always a lot more blurred here than elsewhere. Every now and then, I was left with a distinctive feeling that was bordering on empathy towards the antagonists. It was the only form of pop-corn entertainment that left me with more than a happy ending (which it, in fact, often didn't); in a very small, yet unique way, it taught me to fear the power of the human mind, rather than the superhuman powers of the erstwhile 'villains'.

Christopher Nolan's 'The Dark Knight' is a return to that very characteristic that was so true to the comics. This movie is chalk-full of dilemmas -- dilemmas of choice as much as of morals. When the Joker asks the Batman to choose between Dent and Rachel, by switching the locales, it's almost as if he's laid a test -- if the Batman can give due precedence to the very principles that he's fighting for, over the 'selfish' desires of his alter-ego, then he would be rewarded with that very object of desire that he had renounced. That the Batman is shown to fail proves his humanity; that he rises again to fight back, without compromising on those ideals again despite his loss, is what ultimately makes him truly superhuman.

To say that the performances were top-notch would be an understatement. It's quite depressing to know that Heath Ledger's finest moments on screen should be his last; his performance alone, was worth the price of the four admission tickets that I've already spent on this movie. That said, it would indeed be unfair to dub this as Ledger's film alone -- Christian Bale is superlative in his reprisal of Batman; assured and flawed at the same time, he lends his role a complexity that's visible, yet subtle. There's a tiny moment in the movie when he dismantles a gun after snatching it from one of the Joker's cronies -- the level of authority that he exudes in those few moments is frankly, quite astonishing. And then there's Aaron Eckhart, brilliantly portraying Harvey Dent's tragic descent into the character Two-Face. His performance during the final few moments of this film is breath-taking to watch, where, tormented by the tragic events that shape his character, he toys with the fate of a ten year old boy with the flip of a coin. Throw in a haunting musical score, and you've got one of the most cerebral, thought provoking and respectable movie-making attempts to come out of Hollywood in recent years.