Tag Archives: Bollywood

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Wonder of wonders. I was actually able to watch a couple of movies recently – completely as opposed to tidbits. Unfortunately, both these movies were a bit of a mixed bag and neither fully lived up to either director’s previous efforts.

The first movie I saw was Rockstar starring Ranbir Kapoor and Nargis Fakhri and directed by Imtiaz Ali of Jab we met and Love Aaj Kal fame.

Rockstar

Rockstar is a movie about a wannabe rockstar called Janardhan. He is pretty much a loser until he falls in love and goes through a lot of emotional heartache, which inspires him to compose quality music and achieve his ambition to be a rock star.

The story isn’t much but the cinematography, both the actors’ good looks, music, and Ranbir’s charisma save the day and salvage a movie that moves in fits and starts. I found the movie rather boring in the beginning, and Nargis Fakhri’s acting pretty terrible. But as the movie progresses, she gets better and the movie overall looks more coherent. And whatever her acting defects, she makes up for it with her radiant beauty. She reminds me of another Katrina Kaif and if she works harder on her acting, she could make a big impression.

I like the music composed by A.R.Rehman. It suits the film but I don’t think I would have cared too much for it if I had heard it alone. My favorite songs are the seminal Sadda Haq and the cheery Katiyan Karoon. The rest of the music is not really standalone.

Overall, the movie is good, but not great. It does not match up to Jab we Met, but it is not as awful as Love aaj Kal either. But, please Imtiaz Ali, next time you make a romance, can you please try to make it romantic? Still, it is a good movie and worth a watch.

The second movie I watched is Players.

Players Movie Poster

Players is directed by Abbas Mustan (the kings of thrillers). I have watched and enjoyed most of their earlier movies starting from the excellent Baazigar to the recent Race. Players however is a real disappointment. It boasts a number of stars – Abhishek Bachchan, Bobby Deol, Neil Nitin Mukesh, Bipasha Basu, Sonam Kapoor, and a number of lesser known actors. I guess it’s just a question of too many cooks spoiling the broth.

What should have been a taut thriller turns into a rambling snorefest. Except for Neil Nitin Mukesh, all the actors sleepwalk through their roles. The music is wince-inducing, and the girls who are supposed to look glamorous merely look tacky. The plot is derived from the Hollywood movie – The Italian Job. However, the effort to make it palatable to Bollywood movie audiences falls flat on its face. The directors would have been better off sticking more closely to the Hollywood original. You know it’s a terrible thriller when you can guess every twist and turn of the story much earlier than the main players. A movie to avoid!

Movies I Watched Over the Weekend

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L.A Confidential Movie Poster

I saw L.A Confidential the first time when it released, and I enjoyed it very much, but really all memory for this movie was drowned when I saw Titanic a week or so later. If you asked me anything about this movie, the only thing I would have remembered is the call girl angle, nothing else…not even Russell Crowe.

I remedied that injustice when I saw the movie again last week, and I was totally blown away by the movie. I think I am now older enough to appreciate the technical skills behind the movie – the awesome dialogues, the tight script, the scene and character setting, everything…

To summarize the movie, I use the narrator’s voice-over that happens at the beginning of the movie:

Come to Los Angeles! The sun shines bright, the beaches are wide and inviting, … there are jobs aplenty, and land is cheap. Every working man can have his own house, and inside the house a happy, all American family. You can have all this, and who knows, you can even be discovered – become a movie star or at least, a singer. Life is good in Los Angeles: it’s paradise on earth. (Laughs sarcastically) That’s what they tell ya’, anyway, ’cause they’re selling an image. They’re selling it through movies, radio, and television.

What a line to draw in a viewer, and when narrated by Danny DeVito…it was simply awesome. The movie simply takes off from there. It’s a story of 3 totally different types of cops (played by Russell Crowe, Kevin Spacey, and Guy Pierce), and how they all investigate a mass killing that takes place in a diner. These 3 cops don’t like or trust each other; departmental politics also hinder the investigation, but they manage overcome all these issues and work together to find out the killer.

Officer Bud White (Russel Crowe) is the old-fashioned brutal police officer who hands out his own brand of rough justice, but he has a soft spot for women in distress. Ed Exley (Guy Pierce) is strait laced, a by the book kind of cop, and a bit of a political animal, and Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey) is the larger than life cop who is totally in it for the money and the kickbacks. I loved the way all the 3 characters were written and acted out. Brilliant under-stated acting!

Apart from these 3, there are sundry other characters – the most notable being Kim Basinger as a Veronica Lake lookalike call girl. Don’t be fooled by the movie poster, she is not the main character, but she does have a decent-sized role, and plays it well. She won an Academy Award for this role, though, and I don’t think she deserved it…her acting was not all thaaat great.

The story is based in LA in the 1950s and the setting and the language (they spoke in a different way back then) is perfect. Even the costumes are hot. In fact, this is one good-looking movie . And since, it’s got a lot of substance as well, I spent an enjoyable 2/2.5 hours just savouring all the gorgeousness, the awesome dialogues, and the kick-ass plot. A must-see.

Note: This movie is based on the book L.A Confidential by James Ellroy, and I have heard that the plot adheres to the book quite closely. This makes me really want to try out this novel, and other novels written by Ellroy. Has anyone read this book? How does it compare to the movie?

On the other hand, another movie I recently saw was such a disappointing wash-out. This was De Dana Dhan – a Bollywood comedy starring Akshay Kumar, Katrina Kaif, Sunil Shetty, Neha Dhupia, and tons of other supporting characters.

De Dana Dan

Here’s the synopsis from IMDB

Singapore-based Nitin Bankar’s education was paid for by his employer, Kuljeet Kaur, and he, after the passing of his father, works as an unpaid maid-chauffeur for her until such time he pays off whatever she had spent. He is in love with gorgeous Anjali Kakkad but her father refuses to give his consent for this alliance. Desperate to get out of this situation, Nitin attempts suicide, albeit in vain, and then cooks up a scheme to abduct Kuljeet’s pet dog, Mulchand, demand a hefty ransom, and then marry Anjali. He seeks help from his equally deadbeat friend-courier deliveryman, Ram Mishra, who wants to wed tall and pretty Manpreet Oberoi, and both book a room in Pan Pacific Hotel. However, Murphy’s Law and a host of assorted characters get involved – resulting in hilarious and uncontrollable chaos.

The movie was just terrible. It starts off very blah. The comedy improves somewhat after the introduction of the supporting characters and the comedy of error scenarios in the hotel were somewhat funny. I say somewhat because well, comedy of errors/mistaken identity is such a stale comedic plot-line. It’s been around from Shakespearean times, and it’s entertaining only if there is a fresh take on it, or extremely talented star cast. All these actors have played variations of this comedy in umpteen movies before, and the staleness kinda shows. Nothing new or unexpected in the plot-line at all, and the huge star-cast kind of takes away from the main story. Wait, maybe that was the intention….there was no story after all.

Still, it did help me kill a couple of lazy hours on the weekend. Recommended only if you are on the lookout for brainless comedy – and even then there are tons better options out there.

Two Upcoming Movies I Really Want to Watch

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This is the time of the year in India, when the most happening movies come out. Diwali, Eid, and Christmas movie releases follow each other in quick succession.

So many movies, but cinema hall tickets are so expensive…which ones to watch? After going through all the possible options, I have shortlisted just two (although Action Replayy also looks interesting, I am not too sure about the Aishwarya Rai +Akshay Kumar pairing).

What do you think of the Bollywood Christmas offering Tees Maar Khan?

Poster of Tees Maar Khan

The poster definitely looks stylish. The movie is directed by Farah Khan who makes immensely successful, and entertaining movies, and it stars the super-hit pair of Akshay Kumar and Katrina Kaif. Music by Vishal and Shekhar is merely the icing on the cake. I can’t wait to watch this one!

The next movie I do want to watch is a bit of a wild card. It may be hugely entertaining, or it may be abysmal. What do you think of the trailer for Endhiran (Robot) starring Tamil superstar Rajnikanth and Aishwarya Rai?

Either way, it is a must watch. If it is really terrible, at least I will get the satisfaction of ripping it apart on my blog afterwards

What movies are you planning to watch this holiday season?

My Half-baked Thoughts on a Half-baked Movie

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Movie Poster of Raavan

It’s very rare that a movie gets so bad for me that I end up switching off before the ending. I mean, I have sat through some real clunkers (Dil Bole Hadippa anyone?), but Raavan really takes the cake. In two words, my review would be practically unwatchable.

And yet, there really is no reason for this. The movie is directed by Mani Ratnam – one of the most famous, and talented directors. It stars good actors such as Abhishek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai, the story is based on the Ramayana – one of India’s most popular epics, the music is by A.R.Rahman (Oscar award winning music composer who composed the music for Slumdog Millionaire) the cinematography is by Santosh Sivan who always does amazing work. Then where did everything go wrong? How could so many great talents together manage to make such a clunker?

Of all these great folks involved in the movie, the only thing that was not a disappointment was the beautiful cinematography. Rahman’s music starting from the opening track Beera was loud and not at all melodious (at least not to my ears).

The story to put it mildly sucks. Loosely based on the Hindu epic Ramayana, it is the story of Beera – a Robin Hood like thug who lives in the jungle. He kidnaps the wife of a top policeman who then marshalls his resources to catch Beera and rescue his wife. So far, so good…but then Abhishek Bachchan who plays Beera starts his over-acting. Aishwarya Rai (the wife), who is supposed to be scared on the inside but brave on the outside, just looks blandly beautiful wearing designer salwar kameezes by the (again genius) fashion designer – Sabyasachi Mukherjee

Beautiful Aishwarya Rai in Raavan

At first, Aishwarya (Ragini in the movie) hates Beera with a passion, and resists him. However, once she hears his sob-story about a sister who was raped and murdered by the police, she starts to understand him and feel for him. In the meantime her husband Dev along with a forest ranger (Govinda playing Hanuman) are on the track.

This entire sequence meanders for more than half the movie. Add in a few, well-choreographed song and dance sequences, and almost 2 hours are over with no sign of an ending in sight. At this point, I gave up on the movie.

The next day, I came in to work and caught the rest of the story from a more patient colleague of mine who was able to sit through the entire movie. Apparently, I had watched almost 3/4 of the movie and had ended up missing the last action-filled part.

Dev eventually manages to corner Beera on a rickety bridge. Dev manages to get back Ragini but Beera escapes.

And now comes the twist in the tale…

While riding a train back to their hometown, Dev accuses Ragini of infidelity and informs her that it was Beera who told him so. Furious, Ragini leaves Dev to meet Beera through Mangal. When she does, she asks him what Beera had told Dev. Beera replies that he had said, he protected Ragini for all the fourteen days and not anything else. They quickly realize Dev lied, hoping Ragini would lead him to his hideout. Dev appears with a police team and confront the duo. Ragini tries to save Beera, but he pushes her out of the line of fire. He is shot multiple times. Raagini’s true feelings comes to surface when she tries to save Beera with all her might. Content that Raagini too has feelings for him, Beera falls off the cliff to his death with a smile.

– Extract taken from Wikipedia as I haven’t seen this portion to comment on it.

I am not sure that I like this twist in the tale at all. Why on earth would Ragini leave her husband and struggle through the jungle to confront Beera? What on earth was she hoping to achieve? What would Dev had done if she had just gone ahead and left him without going back to Beera? Why would anyone say/do something so traumatic just to catch the bad guy. He is practically sending her back to the villain? Wasn’t there any other way he could catch Beera? And all this action happens in the last 10-15 minutes of the movie!!!

I just thought that this ending was the perfect insipidity to end an already insipid movie.

Am so glad that I didn’t stay up to watch it

What about you folks? Anyone watch the movie? Liked it/disliked it? Did you like the ending? How would you have liked the movie to end?

Plenty of questions for you readers

The A-Team – A Movie Review

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Movie Poster

Watched The A-Team in the cinema yesterday, and totally amazed at the nonsense that is coming out of Hollywood these days. In our desi (Indian) slang, we all unanimously categorized it as “bundle” aka nonsense. But, it was fairly enjoyable nonsense nonetheless.

The movie is apparently based on a TV series of the same name and has a huge list of big-name stars. Think Liam Neeson, Bradley Cooper, Jessica Biel…they are all there. I haven’t seen the TV series, so I cannot compare them here, but the movie was enjoyable, if a bit forgettable.

The Story:

Directed by Joe Carnahan, the story follows a group of Army Rangers, Colonel John “Hannibal” Smith (Liam Neeson), Lt. Templeton “Faceman” Peck (Bradley Cooper), B.A. Baracus (Quinton “Rampage” Jackson) and Murdock (Sharlto Copley) who form the A-team. The movie opens in Mexico, where some of the Rangers are on a rescue mission with total fun action sequences.

Fast forward 8 years and 80 missions later, the same group is approached by CIA agent Lynch (Patrick Wilson) with a special mission to retrieve stolen U.S. currency plates and a huge amount of counterfeit currency from Baghdad. The mission goes haywire and the team is accused of war crimes and are stripped of their titles in an extremely over-the-top melodramatic style that had all of us rolling with laughter.

They are also imprisoned. After 6 months in prison, Agent Lynch again contacts them and offers to help them escape from prison if they are able to bring the actual culprits to book. The second round of adventures begin with absolutely mind-blowing action sequences (and also some mind-numbing dialogues).

So does the movie work?

Well, it does…sort of…in parts. The casting is a bit odd in my opinion. I am used to seeing Liam Neeson in more serious roles, and in this movie, he is not thaat convincing mouthing some really inane one-liners? Here’s an example of a supposedly smart-aleck line that he mouthes a number of times in the movie:

No matter how random things may appear, there’s still a plan…kid

Bradley Cooper is in his element here, probably the best thing in the movie. He performs well, and looks super-hot while doing so. I loved him in The Hangover and I love him here too. Btw, do you think he bears a faint resemblance to Hrithik Roshan (our Bollywood superhero)? I thought the two resemble quite a bit…

Bradley Cooper

Hrithik Roshan

Quinton Jackson is solid and has some funny scenes. Sharlto Copley is brilliant as the insane but genius pilot Murdock. Jessica Biel is Captain Charisa Sosa and Bradley Cooper’s ex-girlfriend. She’s incredibly hot with an amazing body, but her performance is beyond bland. Plus, she was incredibly insulting to Bradley Cooper, so all of us girls completely turned against her .

In my synopsis of the movie, I have emphasized the action scenes, and they are truly the strength of the movie. Don’t go looking for any serious war story, or drama…just sit back and enjoy the ride. The action is interspersed with a good dose of humor, and we all enjoyed a few laughs.

Some scenes were a bit far-fetched though especially the scene where the A-team attempts to “fly” a tank. Yes, I meant flying a tank! If you still don’t believe, take a look-see here:

Now, you understand why we called this movie a bundle

The May I Hebb Your Attention Pliss Contest

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Totally had fun doing this contest

I was tagged by Dhiman into doing this contest.

The Rules:
1. On your blog, provide a link to the Great Bong’s page, May I Hebb Your Attention Pliss. Embedding the picture in your blog would be nice but not needed.
The May I Hebb Your Attention Pliss contest
2. Then write down your top 10 Hindi movie lines or top 10 English movie lines (You can do both if you want. Only one set is required for the contest). If you cannot think of top 10, make it top 5. Cannot think of even 5? Make it top 3. No problem. Only restriction: no two lines from same movie. This is done to make it fair for other movies so that they don’t get swamped by Gunda or Loha or Sholay.
3. Tag five friends to do the same.
4. Come over to the comment-space of this post and post your blog’s link so I can go and read it.
Remember: Before starting the tag, paste points 1 and 4 on your blog so that the rules are available to anyone who wishes to pick the tag up from your blog.

Well, here’s my list accompanied by the corny English translation, which at times doesn’t really do justice to these dialogues:

Jo Mard hota hai, usse dard nahi hota hai
He, who is a man, does not feel pain.

- Amitabh Bachchan in Mard

I remember being totally impressed by this dialog when the movie first released
Kabhi Kabhi Kuch Jeetne Ke Liya Kuch Haar Na Parta Hai, Aur Haar Ke Jeetne Wale Ko Baazigar Kehte Hain
To win something, you have to lose something, a gambler is one who loses to win

- Shah Rukh Khan from Baazigar

This is the first of Shah Rukh’s numerous forgettable dialogues made unforgettable just by the way he delivered them.
Bade bade deshon mein aise choti choti bathein hothe hi rehte hain
Such small, small things keep happening in such big, big countries

- Shah Rukh Khan in Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge

Yet another pathetic dialog, but oh, his expressions when he uttered it. Admit it, we all girls fell in love a leetle bit
babuji ne kahaa gaon chhod do,
sabne kahaa paro ko chhod do,
paro ne kahaa sharaab chhod do,
aaj tumne kah dia, haweli chhod do,
ek din aayega jab wo kahenge, duniya hi chhod do

Dad asked me to leave the village
Everybody asked me to leave Paro
Paro asked me to leave alcohol
Today you ask me to leave the palace
one day will come when people will ask me to leave the world

- Shah Rukh Khan in Devdas

One of the many, melodramatic, and over the top dialogues mouthed by him in this movie.
There are two kinds of people
People who go screaming to their death
People who go silently to their death
Then I met the third kind …

Alice’s grandfather writes this in his diary in Rang de Basanti
Sapne bhi samundar ki lahron ki tarah haqeeqat ki chattanon se takrakar toot jaate hain.
Dreams are like waves, they also crash against reality and break.

Amitabh Bachchan in Deewar

Awesome dialogues like this make Deewar my all-time favorite movie ever. In fact, almost every line he uttered in that movie was sheer poetry, especially when delivered in that awesome baritone. Sigh! why did he ever have to grow old and rich, and cynical. I want the old AB back
Kuch log reth pe likhe hue naamon ke tarah hotein hain, hawa ka ek jhonka jinhe uda detha hain
Some people are like names written on sand, one gust of the wind blows them away

- Manisha Koirala in Dil Se

She writes this dialog in sand when she leaves him after spending a night in one of the most beautiful locales in Tibet, Ladakh? with him. The cinematography (has Manish Koirala ever looked more beautiful?), the understated acting, the dialogs, the music, all made this the perfect romantic, tragedy, terrorist movie all in one
Main fa ko fa bolta hoon

I pronounce fa as fa.

Shahid Kapoor in Kaminey

Struggling to explain his lisp problem to gangsters who think he is mocking them. This is another favorite movie of mine with some cracked dialogues

Yeh 70 minute, tumhare zindagi se koi nahin jeet sakta
Nobody can steal these 70 minutes from you.

- Shah Rukh Khan in Chak de India

This is part of a long inspirational speech he gives the hockey players before they go to play in the final.
And how could I complete this list, without mentioning this crazy dialog from Sholay, which is my all-time fave and probably for a lot of you as well
Gabbar: Tera kya hoga Kalia? So, what will happen to you, Kalia?

Kalia: Maine apka namak khaya hai sarkar I have eaten your salt (in India, there is a general belief that you should not betray someone with whom you have shared some salted food)

Gabbar: Ab goli kha. Now eat bullet

Lots of hysterical laughter, three shots, stunned silence, then:

Gabbar: Jo dar gaya, samjho mar gaya. He who is scared can consider themselves dead

Based on the above list, you would have guessed I am a great Shah Rukh fan. Well, you would have guessed right

I am a big fan of Amitabh Bachchan also. His dialog delivery was awesome, but I think he had the advantage of having Salim-Javed write out such powerful dialogs and scripts for him. Shah Rukh, I think has the ability to make average dialogs sound and feel powerful. Feel free to disagree

One realization after writing out this post – the boys of Bollywood always get the best lines. I could remember only one memorable line uttered by a woman. Not good at all!

I am not tagging anyone to complete this. If you think, this sounds like fun, go ahead, complete this meme and link up to me. I would love to read your all-time favorite Bollywood dialogs.

Phir Mile Sur is Really Disappointing!

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I spent yesterday chilling in front of the TV catching the new Phir Mile Sur remix of the vibrant 80′s national integration song. And I am pretty stunned at how bad it is. The original song was such a beautiful melody where people sang in different languages and different styles, and yet the melody weaved itself into one song.

The new one is unbelievably harsh on the ears, and the music change when the scene moves from one state to another is quite jarring. It made me feel I was listening to a series of different songs just strung together on a music mixer. I am hoping that repeated listening might make me warm more to the tune .

And what is with the Bollywood overdose? Argggh…the whole message of national integration is gone if the song is dominated by Bollywood alone.

The song is not all bad though. There were some lovely highlights:

Loved Salman’s section where he is signing with the deaf-mute kids
Loved Anoushka Shankar’s sitar playing, Zakir Hussain on the tabla, Sivamani on the drums, and AR Rahman on the continuum fingerboard. In fact, all the musicians in this video are excellent.
Nice to see Juhi Chawla with her sweet smile
I don’t know if I am biased here, but I thought all the South Indian sections were wonderful. They were so normal and down-to-earth; they were in the video representing the people of the region and not showing off like some of the Bollywood stars.

What could have been edited out:

The entire first family of Bollywood. Amitabh, Abhishek, and Aishwarya were an overdose -especially when they all act so fakey.
Wincing with pain at Sonu Nigam’s section. He is a good singer but what was he trying to pull off here?
Aamir Khan’s act with the children was not necessary when Salman has anyway done a more effective one. Especially horrible was Aamir doing the song in the Kya bolti tu / Bum bum bole (I actually could not make out which one it was!) tune!

Anyway, here are 2 clippings of the video for those who have not yet managed to catch it on TV or the net:

What did you love/hate about this new song?

Wishing you all a Very Happy New Year…

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My wishes are rather belated. This new year’s started off on a rather dull note when Mr. K’s father was hospitalized on New Year’s Eve when he had a slight scare with his heart. Thankfully, things are slowly getting back to normal now, and I am starting to get back to my normal routines.

For some time now, the snubnose like all other kids in India has been obsessed by Bollywood music. She knows the lyrics, songs, and most actors and actresses. Of course, me being the kill-joy mum has to try to divert her attention to more appropriate kind of music- something that does not always work.

One song that both me and the snubnose both enjoy to sing around the house is Aashayein – the song from the very inspiring movie Iqbal about a deaf and dumb boy who tries to get on board the Indian cricket team.

The reason I am posting about this, is because I think this song has a lot of meaning especially during the new year. It’s all about having hopes and dreams, and working towards achieving them.

This blog has the lyrics of the song along with the translation. The translation is a bit clunky. But, I hope you all get the message. I wish you all a very happy new year, where you will work hard and fulfill all the dreams that you have.

I have a feeling in my heart…this year is going to be unlike other years. I don’t know why, but for good or bad, I just know that this year is going to be an impactful one. Hopefully, for the good .