saxena_ashes

The movie begins with a situationally forced wedding between the blander than common-man Punjab-Power-lighting-up-your-life employee and his teacher's commoner than the girl-next-door daughter Anushka Sharma. Following which, they inhabit, but do not cohabit, in the mansion the small-town average man lived all alone. The moustached, oil-haired, bespectacled, white-full-sleeved-baggy-shirt-clad cartoon transforms into another spike-haired joker donning red/yellow/orange/peach/lavender/plum/violet tees and sporting large fashionable shades, in an attempt to win his wife's love. And the wife does not recognize the new guy as her husband, because she abhors him so much she never even saw him properly, and falls for the outspoken blabbermouth who emerges from the shy introvert every evening. There is another toon who provides all the paraphernalia required for this double life. And I still wonder what part did poor Rab play in all this.

Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi goes an as SRK shifts hamming from one character to the other, going through several emotions and changes of minds. The simple Simon character keeps smiling secretly and mischievously, as if he is the forged one, or is playing a prank. The good-for-nothing Anushka prepares lunch boxes for one (and asks them back in the evening without fail) and teaches choreographic steps to the other. She doesn't have any charm or appeal whatsoever, and an extra would have looked better. Vinay Pathak disappointed immensely. Sirji, you are not made for this kind of crappy shadowy roles when you can run an entire film on your own.

The only good part lays exactly at the end of the first hour, when Kajol/ Bipasha/ Lara/ Preity/ Rani appear on screen for less than a minute each, and SRK mimics Raj Kapoor/ Devanand/ Shammi Kapoor/ Rajesh Khanna/ Rishi Kapoor, to the tunes of an intelligently written and choreographed song even with stupid lyrics: Hum Hain Rahi Pyaar Ke, Fir Milenge Chalte Chalte. You can listen to Haule Haule too.

Shahrukh's last venture, the year-old Om Shanti Om is closely paralleled in Rab Ne.... SRK in two characters, one introvert, timid and sincere (an underdog there), the other flamboyant, smart and vivacious (a successful superstar there), one new girl in the lead role, one good actor screwing up his reputation being a sidekick to SRK, a star-studded light-hearted song, even the release timing at the end of year, coinciding with another actor's who allegedly has a dog named after him.

How much ever money RNBDJ would have made, SRK-Adi's third project together is nowhere compared to their first (DDLJ). The second one, Mohabbatein, was likable too, maybe because of AB and Aish. But I would nevertheless agree with Shahrukh, SRK and Adi ek saath hain, kuchh to hoga, dekh to lo ek baar, though I'd rate it only 5 on 10.

Having seen the first 20 minutes, I had adamantly argued with a friend that Ghajini was exactly Memento. Polaroid pictures with names on them, tattooed mirrored text on a well-built body, the same underlying revenge plot, all remind you of Memento. I was quite wrong though. Memento was a much intelligently made movie with an unknown actor (Guy Pearce) as the protagonist, still reaching #27 on IMDb's all time top 250. Ghajini, on the other hand, terribly depicts an Indian masala replete with action, romance, drama, dream song sequences, and stars the best Indian actor. There can be no comparison between Christopher Nolan's masterpiece and A R Murugadoss's Ghajini. Even Aamir Khan did not understand Memento as he mentions on his blog, and you might want to keep your brains at home while watching Ghajini.

A business tycoon (who rolls up already shorter-than-half sleeves of his shirts in his business meetings) cannot register fresh memories after an incident that killed his romantic partner. He manages his memory through tattoos, notes, pictures and reminders. Finding Ghajini out and killing him is the ultimate goal of his life. The story now follows two parallel plots, the present, and the flashback through an over-stretched diary- reading session, where AK introduces the reader to his associates and romantic adventures a la Tom Riddle from Harry Potter, and there ensues a normal romance-revenge drama. Once you survive through, the although predictable end is sort of likable.

Aamir Khan, no doubt, worked (out) a lot for the film. The concept of anterograde amnesia is very fresh and novel for Indian cinema. But alas, there it ends. Murugadoss forgot to pay attention to the other pieces. So while the movie is a blockbuster, looking at things other than AK's abs would reveal tons of plot loopholes, a dragging narrative, repetitive jokes, and pathetic acting by almost everybody else. Despite his new-found muscles, the short and stocky Aamir incredulously thrashes equally well-built men a foot taller than him.

Jiah Khan couldn't even act properly to drink water. Kalpana was satiatingly cheeky and moronically funny and a huge fan of Mother Teresa, but Asin did some justice to the role. Pradeep Rawat definitely did much better as Sultan in Sarfarosh and as Ashwatthama in B R Chopra's Mahabharata than as Ghajini where he looks a South Indian unsuccessfully faking a thick Haryanwi accent. The other nobodies looked acting schools aspirants. ARR's music too was a let down. I liked only Kaise Mujhe Tum Mil Gayin, the others have silly lyrics and catchy beats.

The clone has heavy undertones of the Tamil version. The extras, the accents, the ambiance. Anyone would have better watched the original instead. Another big blunder was the nomenclature. The Tamil movie is about a concept 'Ghajini' from Mahmud of Ghazni, who invaded India 17 times till he succeeded; but the history link has been screwed up by naming the villain so.

The length of the film is a full three hours. Had I edited it, I'd have retained the first half an hour, the last half hour, and extracted another half from the middle two hours. Ghajini, which could have been an seat-gripping psychological thriller, ended up being a predictable romantic revenge drama, which had to have a stupid epilogue. Aamir Khan is the only good thing; the movie failed to live up to my expectations, and would fetch only 6 out of my scale of 10.

The movie failed to rock me as much as the hype. Farhan Akhtar chose not to direct but do everything else. Produce, sing, act. With a lisp that becomes irritating at times. Wonder why did he trust one-film-old Abhishek Kapoor to direct a somber, serious, 'grown-up-DCH', and made Papa Akhtar write some Kaale-Neele-Peele rock songs which became nonsensical and had to be somehow fitted in the drums and guitar. The soft ones like 'Tum ho to gaata yeh dil' and 'Kabhi khud pe hansa' are very good though. I did not like the basic premises of the plot that four very good friends don't interact for 10 long years just because of a stupid altercation. The pony-tailed Arjun Rampal and beautiful Prachi Desai provided some saving grace to the otherwise boring cast.

A typical Madhur Bhandarkar flick with the lives of a small sect of professionals as the subject. The traffic signal includes a microcosm of people who derive their daily livelihoods from it. There are beggars, prostitutes, tricksters, eunuchs and others who sell clothes, flowers and trinkets who owe hafta to the Signal Manager, Silsila. Kunal Khemu, Ranveer Shourie and Konkana Sen perform as expected. Life goes on through ups and downs but the movie ends on a sad note, as expected from Bhandarkar. But the movie entertains you throughout, especially with the Bambaiyya lingo, at the same time makes you think about people you normally never do.

Rituparno Ghosh. Amitabh Bachchan. William Shakespeare. I had already started loving the movie when I knew these were the names involved. An intriguing movie in typical Ghosh style, where people quietly sit and talk and the narration is by means of flashbacks. The story is that of an ageing and ailing stage actor being persuaded to act in a movie, which happens to be his last, and has been left in a coma as the aftereffects of the shooting. Idiosyncratic, vain, impetuous he is, occasionally lashing out at the modern world, and using too much of Shakespearean verses in normal conversation. Though AB looks funny in the poster, he looks amazing in the movie, and has delivered an intense performance. Preity Zinta's role is her most un-bubbly one, and her English dialogues are only slightly better than the rest of the cast, in which case they sound like recitals. Out and out an AB film. Watch it for him.

A brilliant movie that showcases few days before and after the Mumbai serial blasts of 2006 in the lives of five different, unrelated characters: Software Engineer Madhavan, constable Paresh Rawal, roadside coffee vendor Irfan Khan, TV reporter Soha Ali Khan, and a Hindu fanatic Kay Kay Menon, and everyone has lived to expectations. Each parallel plot is a story in itself that becomes interesting as the movie progresses. The movie touches many issues: Soha being interviewed by colleagues about her fiancé's death, the loser constable reflecting on his idle police service at retirement, software engineer considering fleeing the country, Hindu extremist bridging the Hindu-Muslim divide. Light traces of humor can be found in Kay Kay's anger, Paresh Rawal's sadness, and Irfan's helplessness. The blast scene is a bit gory and painful to watch, but could be very close to reality. Amazing talent shown by director Nishikant Kamath in his first Hindi movie after just one Tamil and one Marathi movie. Though a bit heavy, a must watch. The end leaves you lighter with the evergreen song from CID that gave the movie its name.

An interesting title. A very interesting and well-made movie too. The plot is simple but provokes thought: a bomb threat and a demand to release four terrorists is made by an anonymous caller perched at the terrace of a high-rise in Bombay. The alert police tries to locate him and foil his attempts.

The climax has a totally unexpected twist that makes you go into the thought mode. Naseeruddin Shah was at his intimidating best and gave a power-packed performance, maintaining the thrill throughout. Overall a very good movie; the only out-of-place thing was the hacker's one-minute dialogue.

Small films are in. Shot completely inside an aircraft, the movie, as the name suggests, is about a plane hijacked by 6 terrorists demanding release of their boss.

Shiny Ahuja, the ground maintenance engineer, manages to sneak in when the airplane is forced to land at Chandigarh airport. Nothing other than the expected follows when he kills them one by one and frees the hostages, his daughter being one of them.

Oh yes, the star-cast has Esha Deol too, as an air-hostess who doesn't have to do anything anyway. The movie failed to create any interest, the age-old formula used, with no thrill whatsoever.

Another one-film old writer-director Kabeer Kaushik presented Chamku the same Friday. However, it failed to match his earlier venture Sehar. Chamku is the story of an eponymous character played by Bobby Deol, whose parents were brutally murdered by naxalites when he was a kid. He later gets picked up under a covert Govt intelligence program to carry out political assassinations. The character is almost unbreakable as he survives several gun shots and multiple murder attempts. Though a female character was not required, Priyanka Chopra looks good in a perpetual blue chiffon saree with a stringed blouse in her kindergarten teacher role. An outdated revenge drama, Chamku failed to shine at all.

The promos made me go wow over the action scenes and Angelina Jolie's new avatar with smoky eyes and tattoos visible. There was not much more in the movie than the trailer. The plot begins very well but ends up pathetically. A software engineer is kidnapped by Jolie and Morgan Freeman, who head a secret Fraternity, and is made believed of his 'elite' assassin lineage when he is able to shoot the wings off three houseflies when a gun is put to his head. The movie progresses with a boring and somewhat gory training in the Fraternity, and then he is ordered to kill people from the Loom of Fate, a loom that gives names of targets through binary code hidden in weaving errors of the fabric. A twist comes towards the end, and excellent Rajnikant-style bullets that can curve in mid air are used extensively. The end pisses you off and makes an otherwise good movie turn average. Watch it for the sexy Angelina and some good stunts in the first half, but keep your brains at home.

Balaji Telefilms hired débutante director Sachin Yerdi to write and publicize a long advertisement for their soaps and their stars. Targetted to be a comedy, the movie failed to humor me. The jokes are bad and acting poor. The plot revolves around three losers who are troubled with their lives, and threaten the son of one of them under a fictitious underworld company called C Kompany. The prank turns serious and people start getting afraid of them. Don't know what is Anupam Kher doing among a bunch of jokers here. Mithun the don irritates with his patronizing soap stars, and tear-shedding at soaps. Tusshar Kapoor is repulsive as usual. A total crap. Watch it only if you want a reason to pull your hair out.

RGV and producer Azam Khan had promised a reward of 5 lacs to anyone who sees the movie alone in the theater. I wonder how can someone live in such a big misconception. Did they not watch the movie themselves?

It is a below average movie where you feel like laughing in the first half at the strange camera angles and sounds and ear-piercing laughter Ramu used in a failed attempt to induce horror. And I had thought this is not from the factory, therefore RGV would have directed it well.

The clichéd demonic possession, exorcism, and black magic remind you of Bhoot and Exorcist. The only good part was the kid Ahsaas Chhanna's acting.

A comedy on the lines of the classic Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron, starring the hit Rahul Bose-Mallika Sherawat couple from Pyaar ke Side Effects.

The sexy, naughty actress bored from her married life with Paresh Rawal wants to have fun, and Bose is on a secret mission to save the world from a disaster. The entire drama company joins hands to save the country from a bomb blast. Performing multiple roles in disguise, they make you go crazy. Paresh Rawal is as usual the best, even Kay Kay Menon acted well in comedy. The movie would be a good watch to kill time with friends, if you want to enjoy some rubbish jokes that somehow make you laugh.

Another interesting title. I had half expected Saas-Bahus fighting over PE ratios but was wondering how would the saas-bahu clashes blend with the stock market. I am still wondering after watching the movie. The movie had too much--a multi-cultural neighbourhood, call center classes and frolic, share market excitements, women empowerment, and even a love triangle, without which most movies seem incomplete these days. The sensex part was very little, so was the saas-bahu part. It was good to see Farooq Sheikh after long, and a slimmer Tanushree Dutta, but then the movie did not have enough substance, and also that I had expected something else.

A typical horror movie composed of all the elements--eerie winds and big empty bungalows, darkness and candles, mirrors cracking and moaning sounds, possession and exorcism, love and lust, betrayal and revenge-- you name it and you get it.

Set in 1920, it has tremendous similarities to The Exorcist. Though it failed to scare me, it was an okay watch despite the rather funny ending, where both Christianity and Hinduism were used to exorcise the evil spirit. Adah Sharma acted well, though the completely non-glamorous white maxi gown she wore all the time actually became an eyesore.

Nice comedy set up completely in the rural India, with jokes that make good sense in the local dialect which should not be difficult to comprehend. Ace director Shyam Benegal has made a perfect movie, albeit quite different from the serious classics he has directed in the past. Shreyas Talpade as the aspiring novelist ends up being a scribe, and therefore has a peek into everyone's lives in the village. Ends up manipulating people's lives through letters, especially his love interest's. Quite a number of funny sub plots follow, and the humor doesn't let you feel they are getting too many to remember. A few melodious numbers add to the movie.

An assassination attempt is made on the US President who is holding an anti-terrorism summit in Spain. Secret Service Agents Thomas Barnes and Kent Taylor look for some clues on Howard Lewis's handy cam as there is a blast at the podium, leading to further pandemonium. The film loops over and over from different participants' perspectives and the plot convolutes as the storyline rewinds and restarts at the same point in time eight times over; the secret service agent and terrorists anticipating each other's moves and outdoing each other. Ultimately when the mystery unfolds you feel good about all pieces falling into place.

The best part is the car chase scene in the end, amidst the already chaotic city, that kept me on the edge of my seat. Fast and jittery camera work during the entire length of the chase keep adrenaline pumping in as you watch the Chevrolet Astra chasing the Police car. It is absolutely amazing and cool! The locales are spectacular, in the ancient Spanish city of Salamanca, although the golden sandstone buildings occupy only a few frames in the beginning of few perspectives.

Dennis Quaid has done complete justice to his job. He portrays the strong and convincing look of a person handling such an important position, and his sharp, aquiline eyes are on the vigil every instant. Forest Whitaker also played his part of the innocent, courteous, helpful tourist well, who had to go through so much. Israeli Ayelet Zurer looks good as the mastermind's sidekick.

The flip sides are an ending that could have been better, and a few goofs and some improbable uses of technology, and you'll have to keep guessing the terrorists' real motivations.

Overall, a fast-paced action thriller that keeps you engaged from beginning till the end, rapid-fire editing and cinematography topped up with a few good actors and an interesting narrative make Vantage Point a must watch.