DIRECTOR: Anurag Kashyap

Anurag Kashyap saves the day. Or rather, the year, from ending on a dismal note. Hanuman Returns is the way we want our animation movies to be heading: filled with zippy dialogue, funny characters, and engaging situations, rather than the standard preaching-from-the- pulpit monstrosities we have been subjected to, all these years.

The first Hanuman was wonderful. It had a great hero, foot-tapping music, and the quality of animation was high: for the first time, it looked as if we could put the familiar dead stick-like characters, and turn them into life-like approximations.

Funnily, Hanuman Returns, the sequel from the same production house , doesn't have the same superior animated quality. What it does have in abundance is superb lines, and fun, quirky characters.

Hanuman sees the earth groaning under the weight of ancient and contemporary paapis (sinners). Bad guys Shukracharya and Rahu and Ketu threaten to gobble the world, and create pralay (doomsday). In a sharp move, D Day is also the result of humans who don't care for the earth and pollute it. So he comes to earth to deal with bullies who make life miserable for little boys in Bajrangpuram (nice touch). As well as the heavenly baddies, all of whom are sent packing. Like all beloved superheroes, he saves the world while he is at it. And leaves with a strong message: be green, stay green.

Some of our favourite lines: “tumhari poonch detachable nahin hai” (this to Hanuman as he is heading off to this duniya as a little boy called Maruti); “main pandit hoon, politician nahin” (this from Narad, who zips around the skies in a smart roadster, to the monkey god), and a Gabbar-like villain with the accents of Sanjiv Kumar's thakur, who yells at his cohorts: mujhe woh bachcha chahiye, zinda ya murda! Hanuman Returns is a nice holiday outing for kiddos, and mums and dads. Go with a gang.

Showbiz

CAST: Mrinalini Sharma, Tushar Jalota, Gulshan Grover, Saurabh Shukla, Sushant Singh

Director: Raju Khan

This has been a year in which the media has been seriously bashed in the movies. A few months ago, a film called, what else, Breaking News showed us how sting operations could ruin innocent lives. It was topical, but it was also very sleazy: a dirty cop films a hapless girl in the altogether, and then forces her into prostitution.

Mahesh-Mukesh Bhatt's 'Showbiz' takes the whole deal several steps further. A popstar newly-emergent-from-a-talent-contest (Tushar) is the target of a super sleazoid masquerading as a media magnate (Gulshan Grover). Use, abuse, misuse, thunders the boss, but get me breaking news. His stooges, led by Sushant Singh, take his word for it, and turn into monsterazzi. Said popstar spills out, reeking of alcohol, from a skidding car, along with one number hooker: it's flashed on TV screens, TRPs shoot up, and everyone's happy. Except popstar and girlfriend (Mrinalini): the former roams around with a bruised face; the latter wraps a towel around herself, and sings songs..

When did you last see a TV reporter roaming around with a beer bottle ready to sling it at a windscreen in order to cause an accident? When was the last time a talent hunt winner became big enough to boost the TRPs of a news channel? Sure, the media can be heartless, but then film (aka Bollywood) is media too: showing the reporter pulling the zip of the hooker's bustier down so that the camera can get a better view, and the blood-lust in Sushant Singh's eyes, is beyond bad.