Life in a metro

I donno how I missed this film. For quite some time I have been trying to see it and finally managed to get a CD from one of my colleague.

After quite some time, this was a film where adultery did not mean sleazy scenes or quarter dress wearing and boldly love making heroines. This is a dark movie with dark characters where every character is guilty of his/her acts in one way or other. And the point is that they continue to do that as they find a guilty pleasure in doing it.

This film is a fine take on the ruthless city life and how it dilutes the moral of the humans and turns them savage, demanding, fighting and mere mortals who care about nothing but themselves. It has got some of the best actors of the present generation (most of whom of course dont have the star presence of the khans, kumars and Roshans) like Kay Kay Menon, Irfan Khan, Shiney Ahuja, Konkona.

But yeah the surprise package was the performance of Shilpa Shetty and Dharam paaji. While Shilpa shetty effortlessly slips into the desperate housewife role, Dharam ji stops grunting and instead broods of his one act which changes the course of his life. Nafisa Ali is adequate as his long lost lover while Shiney Ahuja does a decent job as the frustrated and love searching theatre guy.

The characters are intertwined very well in the story and it follows the parallel story mode quite well. While we are used to Kay Kay Menon playing the bad menacing guy, its quite refreshing to play Irfan play the middle aged-bride searching average indian male. Sharman Joshi and Kangana do their job quite well.

Another nice aspect of the film is the music. Pritam's rock band appear out of nowhere and start singing (which of course can irritate you towards the end), but the songs are really good. In particular, I have been listening to the song below for quite a long time.



The only sad part is that I read somewhere that some part of the film is a direct rip-off of the english film 'The Apartment'. I hope someday our makers would buy the rights legally and credit the original story and film writers.

Overall this film is recommended to you ONLY if you prefer some different real cinema instead of the usual masala and bindaas fare.

Pesugiren

Vasanth is one of the mature directors in tamil cinema. Although his story telling has been very simple and sweet since his first movie "Keladi Kanmani" then 'Aasai', 'Rhythm', it is also amazing that his music sense is amazing.

Every movie of his whether rocked the box office or not, atleast the songs did. Ever Nerukku Ner (which i personally believe was the worse film he made) had awesome songs.




This song in Saththam Podaade is different. Usually heroine oriented songs have hundreds of girls dancing around her and the hero, irritating with thumkas and jhatkas. In real life we dont dance around the trees and certainly the rest of the lot certainly dont join us.

The song is melodious with the saxophone filling it so beautifully with minimum orchestration. And yeah, Padmapriya looks very elegant :-)

Tumse hi

I dont know why, but I am unable to take this song out of my head for quite sometime.

Obviously I loved this song the first time I saw it in the movie, although I had not heard it before. Not only it has been amazingly sung, but nicely and neatly picturized.



For once Pritam seems to have struck something melodious and original. At first I thought that it was sung by Kunal Ganjawala, but recently found that it was sung by Mohit Chauhan of the band Silk Route.

Wish they churn more songs as such instead of the remix crap :-)

Aashiqui

How many of you remember this song?

Jungle Book

There is no chance on earth that you must have missed listening to this song in your chaddi and banyan days. At one point of time, this song seemed more popular than the national anthem. I remember that once someone started singing the first line on stage and the whole school turned out to be a chorus as every kid knew the lyrics by-heart.



Even the kids down south could recite it, even though they could not make head or tail of what the hell "Chaddi pehen ke phool khila hai" made. I think the Jungle book was telecast on Sunday mornings at 10 AM and all we neighbourhood kids would start our morning cricket match after this cartoon. Some characters I remember were Bageera, Ka and Sher Khan.

I dont know how many of you know, but Sher Khan was voiced by the amazing Nana Patekar. This was in my humble opinion one of the best dubbed shows to ever appear on DoorDarshan.

Quite pessimistically, life seemed much content and better when we didnt have much choice to make and we were happy with whatever we had. :-)

May Maadham

I dont know if it is the haunting score of ARR or the meaningful and tearful lyrics of Vairamuthu or the heartfelt rendition by SPB, but for sure this is an amazing number. Close your eyes and listen to this song and you will understand what I mean.



Quite coincidentally, this is the month of may...and I am quite feeling the same. :(

Summer oh Summer!!!!! - 1

Almost the entire human fraternity hates summer. The gleaming hot sun above your head, the sweat that trickles every inch of your body, the lack of breeze everywhere...ah....you wish to stay home forever.

Unless.....you are a student or a film buff.

The summer is the period when big blockbusters release all over the world to cash in on the vacation crowd. The students are on vacation and what better idea than to milk their money on some movie. So Hollywood or Bollywood or kollywood, they love to release big budgeted block busters in summer and laugh all the way to bank. Hollywood in particular have their own plethora of Box office releases.

The previous summer was a dud with all 3s like Spiderman3, Pirates3, Shrek3 and Oceans 13 all turning out to be one worse than the other. If not for Bourne Ultimatum, the whole summer was a bloody waste of money. Let us have a look at some of the most anticipated releases this summer.

The Dark Knight

Move over all Super heroes. The Dark Knight is back.

This one is my personal favorite as I have always loved Batman even in the Cartoon versions. And after watching Nolan's serious take in Batman Begins, it makes you feel all the more better. God bless Clooney that he threw away the nipple Batman outfit to dogs. Christopher Nolan is one of the best Directors of the younger lot and definitely the man means no-nonsense. Be it Memento or Insomnia or Batman Begins or Prestige, the young man has showed a panache for serious cinema in commercial format.

The trailer looks all the more promising as it features the hysterical and famous Joker's sinister laughter. The last time Jack Nicholson played Joker, he immortalized it. But this time, it remains in the news for a reason altogether. Inspite of heavy weights as Robin Williams, Adrian Brody, Paul Bettany and Steve Carell expressing their desire to play the ultimate super villain on screen, Heath Ledger pipped them all to play the Joker. Although fans raised their own doubts on the actor's caliber, they seem to have been out to rest once the trailers arrived.

Ledger certainly seemed all business and I wonder if he might over shadow the talented Christian Bale who plays Batman. Unfortunately Ledger would not live to see his moment of glory on the big screen. May his soul rest in peace!!!

Release Date: July 18

Wall-E

The first time I saw the trailer of Wall-e, I certainly had no clue as to what this was about. But then the same logic applies to Ratatouille. The way the guys at Pixar wonderfully translate an idea on screen, makes you wonder if they all are men with two brains. It’s not just the amazing colors shown in animation, but also the emotions they show and evoke. You are made to feel sorry or triumphant for the characters in the films and by the time you remind yourself that you did this all for an animated character, you are out of the theatre. Heck, even live action films fail to do that.



Wall-e is about a Robot who is abandoned on earth by the humans who leave this planet to occupy another one. For almost 700 years Wall-e survives lonely yearning for a soul mate (Its ok. Atleast they emote better than Arnold, Vijay or Sam Anderson). A robot called Eve appears from other planet and Wall-e falls head over heels....ooops....top over tracks for her. What happens next forms the crux of the story.

Definitely being a pixar release, the film is bound to have a bumper opening considering the swarm of family audiences’ queuing up. Expect another Pixar super block buster.

Release Date: June 27

Halla bol - Aur zor se bolo

RajKumar Santoshi is one of the few filmmakers in India who has attempted every possible genre of films (except Horror). He is very versatile and his films in particular action and drama have been iconic.

Halla Bol is again Santoshi's attempt at issue based cinema where he digs the Jessica Lal Murder case on silver screen. So how does he fare here? Well....considering his expertise I should say that he doesnt rise much. The story is based on Superstar Samir Khan (Ajay Devgan who's name here seems to be an amalgamation of the Khans) who is head strong and career driven. He witnesses a murder of a young girl and refuses to co operate. But being the hero, his conscience hurts and what happens next forms the rest of story.

Santoshi takes pot-shots at all stars regarding endorsements, dancing in marraiges, stupid and cliche roles, cast couching and so on. This is not Ajay's best role but yeah better than the listless Cash type films. Vidya Balan is totally wasted. Darshan Jhaariwaala is good but hams at times as the evil politician. Pankaj Kapur shows why he is one the best actors in Indai who can speak with minimal dialoge with maximum impact.

The problem with the film is the hurried ending and lack on conviction. You dont feel much sorry for Ajay as he loses his stardom and status. Nor you feel much anger towards the evil politician. The film has some good scenes as Ajay's monologue during Awards ceremony and Pankaj kapur's outburst against media. But barring these handful points the film dissapoints.

As you watch the movie you realize that this is something that happens without any shame and remorse. People who raise voice against injustice like Amir Khan are called REBELS and every action to intimidate them happens without restraint. How much ever we talk, the end point is that the same useless jokers are voted back to power and do the same shit in the name of god and caste.

Then what is the bloody point calling ourselves a democratic country?

Deewar

I dont know how many more movies would be named as Deewaar, but there will be only one real DEEWAAR and that would be the one made by Yash Chopra. How many ever times I watch this movie and however by heart I know these dialogues, I still anticipate them in the rich baritone of Mr.Bachchan.

Probably this was the golden era of hindi movies when dialogues were powerful and garnered whistles and claps from audience. Salim-Javed will remain probably the best scriptwriting duo of Indian cinema. Till date these scenes and dialogues from Deewaar have been spoofed numerous times and it lingers into public memory as fresh as ever.

I hope no one dares to remake and kill this movie :(

Contradiction

"Probably Katradhu Tamizh is the most understood or most misunderstood movie of 2007" read a review somewhere. I cant summarize it more better.

Ask anyone who has seen this movie about their opinion and it would weigh on the 2 opposite spectrums of "too good" or "too boring". You may not find anyone remark that it is an average movie because of the subject and the treatment. Agreed that the film does have its share of controversies regarding the portrayal of s/w enggs, call center employees and characterization of Tamil literature read Prabhakar as Lunatic, but inspite of all this what stands out is that at the heart the movie remains a love story.

Jeeva was simply mind blowing in a role that no other young actor would even dare to touch. The new heroine was a refreshing change from the regular duet accompanying and running-around- the-trees chick. The camera and editing were in perfect sync. And yeah...the music. Yuvan is someone who can get really touchy if the director is able to extract work from him and here he does the same. Watch out for this song which is one of the rare melodies in recent times in a haunting Ilayaraja's voice.



Try to watch this movie if possible and you will know what I am talking about.

Incredibly good :-)

Check this trailor mix.
Someone surely has done one hell of a job.

Thumbs Up!!!!!

Whenever you interview any director of a movie, the sole point that they promise is that the film is "different" and "not seen before". It is such a done-to-death dialogue that the moment you exit the theatre after watching the movie, you wonder if the "different" thing was just another shameless dress less item number, or a few fights sequences in mid air, or some six pack abs that were never needed in first place, or some colorful locations which had nothing to do to the plot.

Taare Zameen par proves that it is indeed different right from the moment the credits roll out. Of course the title animation was indeed imaginative and perfectly in sync with the movie. But what I am referring to is the order of credits when you see Darsheel Safary's name pop up first followed by the Superstar Amir Khan. That is the first place when Mr. Khan makes it clear that this is a Darsheel's film right from the word go.

The film is totally from the point of Ishaan Awasthi (Darsheel Safary) who is a naughty kid who could live just in your neighborhood. His pranks, clumsiness, bindaasness reminds you of the glorious school days and the joy of being a kid. The laziness in the song "Subah ka naara" made me realize what a lazy kid I was in my school days :-)

The song where Ishaan roams around Mumbai is possibly one of the best ode to one of the busiest cities in the world. Small images and small shots like the one of the kid having a barfi leave you wondering when you can have your next Barfi. Ishaan is labelled lazy and sent to a private boarding school where things almost remain the same.

Just after almost an hour you realize that "Hey...Isnt Amir Khan supposed to appear by now?" and he pops up. And then it rings intermission. Hats off to the faith of Mr.Khan in the script that he makes an appearance only around interval when he could have chose to remain in the front seat throughout the movie and no one would have been complaining :-)

Ram Shankar Nikhumb (Amir Khan) is the Arts teacher who discovers that Ishaan is suffering from Dyslexia and decides to take matters into his hands. The dialogues where he asks his students to let their imagination run freely make you wonder and question the Indian education system which is becoming increasingly suited for Mug up parrots. The comparison made by Ishaan's parents made me realize of one of my old post :-)

We all love under dog stories. Right from Rambo, Lagaan to Chak De they make you empathize with the protagonists and the real victory lies in the end sequence when you cheer the protagonists' success as yours. Taare Zameen par goes one step ahead and makes you choke. Trust me when you will find yourself close to tears in certain scenes.

After some time (probably after "Rang De Basanti"), I found the music in this film amazing as the songs added value to the movie and went with the flow rather than making you wonder whether to go to the Loo or the canteen or wisely enough shoot the director. The supporting cast also does an amazing job.

Its a crime that just because of his age Darsheel Safary would be awarded every possible Award under the category of "Best Child Actor" when instead you will realize that he has made his elder bollywood counterparts wonder if what they perform on screen does indeed qualify under the tag of "Acting". Not for one moment you realize that the kid is acting on the screen.

Last but not the least we come to Mr. Khan. Its a huge risk for any actor to don the role of Director and it is doubly risky when you are a superstar with directors queuing up to get your call sheets. But Mr.Khan is perfectly judgmental throwing off his acting gloves and wielding the mega phone. His confidence in the script has beautifully translated on the screen and you ask yourself "When's your next Mr.Khan?"

Movies fall under these categories

1. Films you should never recommend (most of them fall under this category)

2. Films which you can recommend to your enemies to get some well earned revenge

3. Films which you can watch to kill time and money.

4. Films which are just worth your ticket price.

Taare Zameen Par falls in one rare category. It is so good (in my humble opinion) that you can buy a ticket for your friend at your own expense and throw them in the theatre....and let them enjoy it :-)