Review-

Cast-

Randeep Hooda

Rani Mukerji

Nawazuddin Siddiqui

Saqib Saleem

Vineet K. Singh

Naman Jain

Ranvir Shorey

When you say cinema; one thinks about superstars, one thinks about item songs, one thinks about the horror-ridden Vikram Bhatt, one thinks about high voltage South Ka Superpunch, one thinks about mindless comedies, the mindless RGV and this list is endless. Every cine-goer has a different mindset, opinion on films. One mustn’t forget that there is a genre that shows everyday life as well. This is the most difficult cinema to make, of all. Showing the common man his story and also making sure that he is entertained, is a master stroke.

Bombay Talkies is a film combined of four short films by different directors. The common feature of all short films is that each short film is connected to the Hindi film industry. Bombay Talkies is a tribute to cinema, on completing 100 years.

There are four short films-

Ajeeb Dastan Hai Yeh (Karan Johar) – A young couple’s life is disturbed by the wife’s new colleague who is gay.

Star (Dibakar Banerjee)- A struggling actor finally gets to prove himself. Years of practice and dedication come down to one single dialogue.

Sheila Ki Jawani (Zoya Akhtar)- A 12 year old’s pursuit of his dreams. Though he is ridiculed by his father, the story deals with how he copes up with the pressure and follows the path his dream takes him onto.

Murabba (Anurag Kashyap)- A light-heart film on a son’s mission to make Mr. Amitabh Bachchan eat Murabba as that is his father’s wish on his deathbed.

The Fantastic Four L-R Anurag Kashyap, Dibakar Banerjee, Zoya Akhtar and Karan Johar.

Ajeeb Dastan Hai Yeh by Karan Johar is not the best of the lot but still is a brilliant film. It was sad to see the audience laugh at Randeep Hooda’s realization of being gay. It was such an amazingly well shot scene, perfect background music of the Late Madan Mohan and superb acting by the youngster Saqib and Randeep Hooda. Rani Mukerji’s role could have been done by anyone and you wouldn’t have noticed. A serious film that carries tonnes of emotions. Sadly, the audiences don’t understand how the film was drama and not comedy. When did two guys kissing become funny anyway?

Star by Dibakar Banerjee is probably the best film out of the four. Again, there were people shouting ‘Yeh kya hai yaar‘ and all those things in the theater, maybe it’s a Chandigarh thing. But Star is one of the best short films I have ever seen. Nawazuddin Siddiqui plays a failed actor who is looking for a job and ends up standing in the crowd watching Ranbir Kapoor shoot for a film. He is randomly picked from the crowd for a short scene. The next scene, where he talks to his dead father (his conscience basically) is one of the best scenes, shot this year. So many emotions run through the character and he finally goes to perform. The remainder of the short film is filled with warmth and the final scene is something even our superstars would find difficult to rack up. (Guest Voice- Farah Khan)

Sheila Ki Jawani by Zoya Akhtar deals with a young kid who doesn’t like football, studying etc. What he wants is, to become Katrina Kaif. He wants to dance like Katrina in the movie Tees Maar Khan (Sheila Ki Jawani). Naman Jain was brilliant as the outspoken kid in Chillar Party and he does a fantastic job in Sheila Ki Jawani. Though, this short film doesn’t match up to the sheer brilliance of the others but it’s still a good watch. (Special Appearance- Katrina Kaif)

Murabba by Anurag Kashyap is a funny little story from Allahabad, of how a father lying on his deathbed tells his son Vijay, to ask Mr. Amitabh Bachchan to eat half of the ‘murabba’ in the jar and bring the other half back. The father had done the same when Vijay’s grandfather had taken ill. Vijay’s father had taken honey to Dilip Kumar and asked him to eat some and return the rest. The grandfather survived 6 years after that. So, to save his father, Vijay comes to Mumbai. What happens next, is funny yet can happen to any one of us. Anurag Kashyap is definitely a story-teller. Primo! (Special Appearance- Amitabh Bachchan)

Bombay Talkies does have its negatives. It is slow. The film definitely runs at its own pace while narrating really small incidents but then, that’s the time given to the audience to absorb the emotional tsunami that they’ve just witnessed. What can I say? Some people just don’t have enough time or intellect for the purpose.

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Review-

Cast-

Matru (Imran Khan)

Bijlee (Anushka Sharma)

Harry Mandola (Pankaj Kapur)

Badal (Arya Babbar)

Chaudhary Devi (Shabana Azmi)

As the credits roll up and you reflect back on the film, you realize, Matru Ki Bijlee Ka Mandola has everything that a superhit film needs- Drama, intelligent comedy as well as slapstick humor, action, good music, a chocolate hero and a hot heroine, a social message and a helicopter (hehe). The only people who can pull this one back are the audiences. Matru Ki Bijlee Ka Mandola is not everyday cinema, not the cinema where a guy beats up 17546 goons without a scratch. The film is a typical Vishal Bhardwaj product. Thumbs up!

The film deals with the super rich Harry Mandola and his drinking problem. He is said to be two different personalities- One sober and the other drunk. When sober, he is a vicious businessman out to steal land for his factories from the poor peasants of his village. When drunk, he becomes the saviour of the poor and says only what is right. Matru is Mandola’s driver, who is an English speaking LLM graduate but has to work for Mandola because of the loan his grandfather took from Mandola. Bijlee is Mandola’s daughter who is getting married to Chaudhary Devi’s son, Badal. Chaudhary Devi is a politician and is the signatory authority for Mandola’s dream project of factories all over his village fields. But she will only sign once Bijlee and Badal are married. Will Bijlee get married to Badal? Will Mandola ever complete his dream project? What the hell is Matru doing in the film? All set to watch Hockey India League from 14 January? Don’t miss it, Hockey India League, starts 14 January, on Star Sports (19:30).

This has to be Imran Khan’s best performance till date. It still isn’t top notch acting but better than all the work he’s done till now. Anushka Sharma is a brilliant actress but she has sadly been stereotyped in these brat-type roles she’s been not wanting to turn down. Aarya Babbar is turning into a fine comic. Though he’s been getting similar roles for the longest time now (Tees Maar Khan, Ready Joker) but they’re working for him. The film is carried solely on the drunk shoulders of Pankaj Kapur. Kapur is flawless, fresh and believably drunk all the time. It was a treat to watch such brilliant acting from the senior actor.

The tattoo that has got heads turning

Vishal Bhardwaj has produced, directed, written and also given the music for the film. Vishal starts the film slowly and tends to gain speed as the film progresses. A lot of people had walked out of Kaminey, though it was a brilliant film but that made Vishal Bhardwaj realize that the Indian audience isn’t ready for such heavy stuff, even if a cult is still following his cinema, it isn’t good for him commercially. So you can see in the movies he made after Kaminey, which are Ishqiya and 7 Khoon Maaf  he keeps it simple and straightforward. With a little Bhardwaj trademark here and there.

You have to adjust to Vishal Bhardwaj’s style of film making. Sadly, his style of witty political humor, his use of irony, sarcasm and ridicule in satires is totally opposite to the slapstick toilet humor the Indian audiences have been prone to film after film after film.

Matru Ki Bijlee Ka Mandola isn’t Vishal Bhardwaj’s best work. It isn’t even close to Omkara or Kaminey or even Ishqiya. But it is far better than the films these huge banners are churning out these days and labeling them as ‘Cinema‘.

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Cast-

Major Samar Anand (Shahrukh Khan)

Meera Thapar (Katrina Kaif)

Akira Rai (Anushka Sharma)

Yash Chopra has given us countless memories of romance. People have been using dialogues from his films to stereotype love stories for over 45 years. A lot of people have said and written a lot about Yash Chopra and how great his film making was and we shall cherish these films all our lives. Our kids will watch them on DVDs and see how it’s done. I will not waste any further internet data on this and get to the point. Jab Tak Hai Jaan is a disappointment. A logic-less film to end an era, let’s keep it at that.

The film opens with Major Samar Anand diffusing a terrorist bomb in Kashmir. He is known as ‘The Man Who Cannot Die’ because of his daring attitude while diffusing a bomb. He has a record of diffusing 98 bombs. Enter Akira Rai. Samar saves Akira from drowning and she gets hold of his personal diary. Aaaaand…flashback begins. Samar is a poor, happy-go-lucky guy living in London who sings random songs and also sells meat/fish and also is a waiter and also (phew) clears snow at random places. Enter Meera Thapar. A rich London girl who eventually falls for Samar. One fine day, when it’s thankfully not raining in London, Samar bangs into a car and dies for a few minutes (I mean it). Meera has some direct connection with Jesus and tells him that if he saves Samar, then she’ll never see him again. Meera leaves Samar and he comes to India and joins the Army. Back to the future- Akira falls for Samar and Discovery Channel *randomly* picks Akira to make a documentary on a random person called, oh, Samar Anand. Life takes Samar back to London for an interview with Discovery where he hits another damn car and gets some weird brain condition where he thinks he’s been in an accident that happened 10 years ago. Meera is called upon because that’s all he remembers. Meera is called but like I told you, she’d sworn never to meet him again. Now what? Will Meera come and save Samar Anand? Will Akira get her dream man? Will random stuff keep happening in this film? Sidhu left the Bigg Boss house for Gujarat elections and he’s commentating in the India-England series, why? Life’s too busy and short to look for these answers.

I have loved Yash Chopra films and have the greatest respect for his film making abilities but Jab Tak Hai Jaan  was too much of over-the-top nonsense. It is a film, we all know that but this was too much to digest. Katrina’s character cannot be with Shahrukh’s character BECAUSE SHE PROMISED GOD! I mean, that’s The End for me, really.

The story has more holes than a Hobo’s pair of socks. Plus, it has too many accidents, unbelievable mental conditions, too many co-incidents and also a lot of God-fearing people who actually TALK to God.

The music is satisfactory. One more song and it could have been a disastrous musical. Anil Mehta, as usual, scores an ace in cinematography. Yash Chopra too, shows us what larger than life cinema is by capturing the scenes from the perfect angles and moving the Camera Crane up and down at the right time with the appropriate background score to give the perfect Yash Raj Effect.

Shahrukh Khan has outdone himself here. This would be one of his best performances ever. Anushka Sharma is again, brilliant. Though she needs to get serious about her clothes. She looks like a guy in the second half. Katrina Kaif looks great but does forget to act sometimes (and even to lip-sync in a scene).

Overall, the film definitely looks like it’s been directed by an 80 year old. No offence. Yash Chopra looked as if he was still stuck in the 90′s. But the film’s cinematography and direction is top class and makes it ‘beautiful’. Must watch if you’re a Shahrukh-Yash Chopra fan.

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Ze Interface

I am a big Facebook addict myself and there is no denying that. But lately, I have started to feel suffocated on this giant social platform. For starters, their interface keeps getting cluttered from time to time with new things piling on to each other. Talking strictly from a good user interface’s point of view: its a wreck. One can never really concentrate on any part of the screen for too long and it would be amazing to see how they ruin it further, not to mention the ever annoying and constantly moving, more recent introduction of the “Ticker” on the right. One would expect something better from the most used website in the world, to be a little innovative when it comes to their interface but so far, I don’t see many people complaining about it, the ones who do have applied for their dual citizenship with Google+. This is touching just the surface of what has been annoying me with Facebook lately!

KA-CHING!

Next I come to Facebook’s new focus- “Promoted posts, statuses, everything!” What kind of sorcery is this you might ask?  Well, if suggested pages for you and advertisements on the right were not enough for Facebook, they now want to milk you for being socially addicted to their own social web of updates laid down by them over the years! I got the shock of my life when I was asked to pay for updating a status of mine, well not directly, but they asked me to pay if I wanted it to appear more on other people’s timelines. Making this option available in pages for businesses makes sense as everybody wants to out-do the other brand when it comes to social media marketing. Remember that scene from the movie “The Social Network” when Jesse Eisenberg says that he doesn’t want advertisements on the site! Well maybe if the real Zuckerberg would take a note of that then I wouldn’t be writing this article here. Will the real Zuckerberg please stand up!

XYZ would like to add you to their ABC network on Facebook!

Give me a break! Third party applications were supposed to be just another thing which one could do on Facebook while social networking, but they seem to have taken the limelight. People would rather talk to others on a poker table than use the conventional chat and statuses on FB. Sure, go ahead and do that, but why on earth would you want an invite to be sent to your entire list, time after time after time until the point your “friend” has to either ban requests from that particular app or just YOU! But wait, that’s not all, it doesn’t just stop there: once you block 1 app there is already the next batch of requests awaiting action from you. It has become a separate market in itself, Facebook Apps. From professional networks to games, I’m sure you’ve gotten those “requests”! If I haven’t accepted your request the first 5 times, buddy, I’m not gonna do it the next 5 times either! The only reason I took so long to completely migrate from Orkut to fb was because whenever I logged in to Facebook back in the days, there was some zombie out there to eat me or a mafia person out there to shoot me! Enough of the app request menace. FB, devise a better method!

Alternatives?

There are many options out there on the virtual market nowadays wanting to mimic Facebook in many ways and failing. I shifted to Facebook because it was easier to find lost friends and to communicate with people without any hindrances, but now, my needs have evolved from just socially adding friends on my lists, to also communicating with them effectively, so I don’t care if I have less people on my Google+ circles, at least I am able to have unadulterated interactions with my peers. Also, G+ is a great place to explore new information and it automatically curates posts according to your interests which makes it such a pleasure to browse. With their new events and photo sharing features it’s such a breeze to perform tasks on it. Not to mention the completely awesome Google hangout. So I think you know what alternatives are out there Also, I don’t see G+ adding ads anytime soon and even if they do, they’re going to be as minimal as they can be.

What are your views on Facebook and its interface and do you plan to migrate to G+ ? Let me know in the comments below!

Now that is not even the best part! When she tried to explain it to Bouygues Telecom, they told her that it can not be wrong and that the amount would be automatically cut from her bank account! (Makes you think now doesn’t it? If this whole auto deduction thing is a bright idea to begin with!)

Finally after arguing with the telecom company, they attributed this to a printing error and decided to settle her bill at €117.21!

Well, this isn’t the first time someone has got their phone bill mixed up! But surely, this one hits the home run for sure.

What’s that we hear? did you say dirty? Then we have just the drink for you! Contrary to false belief you don’t need to be James Bond to enjoy this chiller drink and neither do you need to be an olive lover! (It is there in the drink for you to either eat it or just throw it at the weird chick dancing in front wearing the most hideous dress you’ve seen at the club! ) Although, it helps if you like them as it’s an integral part of the drink
For those with a well stalked bar at home, this drink is fairly easy to make!

What you need (Ingredients):

1 tsp Dash dry Vermouth
2 oz. Gin
1 Olive
2 tsp Olive juice

How to make it:

> Take some ice, add it to the martini glass to chill it. (pro-tip)
> Add the gin, olive juice and the dry vermouth to a shaker.
> Now its up to you if you want your martini shaken or stirred (Mr. Bond!)
> For now,  fill the shaker with ice and we’ll stir it for 20-25 seconds. And then for another 5 seconds!
> Remove the ice from the martini glass, strain the cocktail in the glass
> Add an olive. ( I prefer 2 olives, but that’s just me!)

This cocktail is fairly diluted and is perfect if you want to have it and talk business with someone. Dirty Martini is a mixture of sweet and savory flavors, so expect them!

This soundtrack is just what the doctor ordered for the Sam Mendes-directed film (any guesses for the name?) “Skyfall” that hits the majority of this world on Nov. 9 and its publicity right before its release!
There is no doubt that Adele is a brilliant singer but its safe to say that she stayed well within her comfort zone when it came to doing this song. The music is impeccable and takes you from a mysterious start to a much hard-hitting powerful ending which of course, Adele trumps with her  200bhp powered voice engine fitted inside her body which is hard to believe since she’s shed so much weight! (We are loving it!)

She has worked on this song by her trustee producer Paul Epworth to deliver this track. The both of them worked on her multi-Grammy winning album 21before they embarked upon this. Now why has Adele been so silent for such a long time? She probably was powering up her tear ducts which ran out after crying so much at all the award ceremonies! Well, who didn’t? But no, on a much more serious note! Give the woman a break! She’s pregnant with boyfriend Simon’s child!

Now, how does this track fair up against all its predecessors? It’s right there at the top! Our guess is that you’re going to remember this one for a long time.

Now each and every country on the planet earth has their reasons to celebrate this day.  From the French comes the theory that France changed its calendar new year from around April (Julian calendar) to January 1(Georgian Calendar) in 1500s or so, which was not accepted as smoothly as it was expected by the people. Those people who didn’t accept this became victims of some April fool’s jokes, hence the day. While Romans celebrated ‘Hilaria’ Latin: hilaris, “hilarious” to honor Cybele.

‘April fool’ was also the codename for the undercover agent who worked as an diplomat when America was trying to catch Saddam Hussein. According to General Tommy Franks, the commander of the U.S. military in the 2003 Iraq conflict, this agent sold false information to Iraqi intelligence agencies and mislead Iraqi military in deploying military forces in Northern and Western Iraq due to the fear of attacks from Turkey and Jordan. This led to weakening of defense capacity of Iraq thus rendering attacks from Kuwait and Southeast leading to American stronghold in Iraq. And this is not the reason why April fool’s day is celebrated.

In any case, the spirit of April fool’s day is fading. And it makes us sad, sadder than the movie “The Notebook” and “The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants”. As at emagzin it is our constant endeavor to save  what’s good on the planet, here is a list of some pranks you could pull off all day in order to save yourself from the predicament of not being able to fool anyone on the April fool’s day.

Happy April Fool’s Day.

Some links to practical jokes you can pull off:

April Fools’ Practical Jokes & Pranks

Practical Jokes

April Fools Pranks

oogle’s new and much talked about Privacy Policy came into effect on the 1^st of March, stirring up a lot of concern all over the web. Some of us are still in the dark about this new unified privacy policy, and how it is going to affect us. We’ve been hitting the ‘x’ on the message on Google and Gmail and every other Google product where the privacy policy announcement popped up. So what is this new privacy policy all about?

The redesigned privacy policy condenses more than 60 former privacy policies across Google products such as Gmail, Picasa, Google+ and YouTube and so on into one single privacy policy.

The crux of it is that Google will stop profiling users separately on each Google site like Gmail, YouTube, Google Maps, etc, and instead, will put all that information into one single profile specific to the user. This will be similar to what is found on Google’s dashboard page. Your YouTube search results can now affect everything from the advertisements you see to the results you get on a random search on Google.

1. From Gmail, click your name on the top-right of the page, then select “Privacy.”

2. Scroll to the bottom and click “Sign in to Dashboard.” Then, enter your username and password.

3. From your Dashboard, scroll to the bottom and select “Manage privacy settings” under the YouTube section.

4. Then, once again, click the link to your name in the top-right and find “History” from the scrolling menu on the lift. Click it.

5. Visit both the “History” and “Search History” tabs to either clear all viewing/search history or to pause it.

Google Play Store

Most of us are familiar with Apple’s iTunes store. It features a comprehensive list of music, movies, games, and applications. Google’s Android Market, however, till a few days ago, just featured applications and games. Google has now renamed it the Google Play Store, making it more of a so-called ecosystem, quite on the lines of the iTunes store. It now features music, books, movies, apps, and games, all in one place that’s accessible from the Web and any Android device. With over 450,000 applications, millions of songs and books, thousands of movies, everybody will find loads of stuff of their interest here.

What is more interesting about Google Play is the cloud and the sync features. The books, movies and music you buy on from your Android tablet can be accessed from your desktop right away, without you having to sync anything.  Nothing is lost and nothing needs to be moved from here to there. It’s all online. You can also pin your favorites to your mobile device for offline playback. And as it is with everything on the internet today, all it takes to share something with someone is one click.

Play anywhere!

his is going to be my shortest post ever!! That is because I am so engrossed in the subject of my article that, I don’t think I can write more than 500 words today. I found a world full of shoes and for those who know me, that’s my point of no return.

The Quote

Well here’s the deal, On 7th march 2012, the creator of popular fashion websites Yoox and The Corner, Federico Marchetti launched an exclusive shoe shopping destination online www.shoescribe.com.  There are more than enough reasons to fall in love with the man, besides the fact that he is the man responsible for getting good fashion at our fingertips. He says ,“I love to buy shoes for my girlfriend, To me, they are like sculptural objects.” (Side note: This man’s girlfriend is never going to leave him and they shall have a happy life till the time he keeps thinking this way, and even if they do break up she will only have happy memories to share with the world, about him.)

"The Man"

Coming back to the site, it stocks a mind-boggling number of luxury shoe brands, more than a 100 brands to be specific. This site aims to touch new levels in terms of personalised service. Users can browse shoes by designer,occasion, category, size and heel size. Then there are picks by guest curators like Arianne Phillips (Hollywood costume designer and stylist). The site has various interesting features like the shoe valet section that offers advice to take care of your precious buys and gives quick fix solutions to all your shoe disasters. They also recommend cobblers in major cities. Also  they curates some amazing inspiration boards, like this one, called “The Muses of Woody Allen.” You can turn to Ms. Suzie Scribe for all your shoe related dilemmas, followed by the best feature of them all, “Cinderella for a Day,” which gives subscribers, half off any pair on your birthday (can you believe that!?!! and that they launched a day after my birthday!)

The Fancy Features

I agree that it’s too high on the pocket and that the most you can do is ogle at those spectacular beauties. But for what it’s worth, it’s a brilliant world to get lost in. In comparison to Yoox.com, which sells past-season shoes at discounted prices, Shoescribe has current shoes mostly, being sold for full price. But instead of getting disappointed I will urge you to go check the site for  new shoe trends for the season and for the other exciting features the site has to offer.

And finally The Beauty

And there I hit 457, told ya its going to be shorter than ever. go-go-go shoe shopping! they have drool worthy stuff (my excitement is immeasurable)

Useful Resources:

The Bible

Glamour

Photo Credits:

Pinboard

Shoescribe