Movies reviewes with mint!!

The Hangover

2009-07-20T21:54:00.001+01:00

Title : The Hangover
Director : Someone with a real keen sense of humour or Todd Phillips
Starring : Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis, Justin Bartha, Heather Graham, Ken Jeong, Mike Tyson
Length : about 100 minutes

Describe the movie in one word: ROTFLMAO!

New Feature! Thanks to my good friend William Addison I am introducing a new feature with this review. This feature is called "JRFRS or John's Realistic Film Rating System". Basically I will start giving practical ratings to every movie that I review in terms of its content so that you can get a realistic idea of whether to let your kids watch this movie or not. Of course they will somehow manage to watch it no matter what you do, but hey! at least you will be a bit deluded.

So JRFRS for The Hangover is - 18+. Lots of straight sexual references, some naked scenes and very strong language.

Plot: Four guys go to Las Vegas to organize a bachelor party for one of them who is to be married in a couple of days. They do the typical stuff that any four "bored to death of their lives" guys will do in Las Vegas i.e. all weird shite under the sun. When they wake up the next morning in their villa in the hotel they realize

1. The villa is truly focked up. It is worse than G.W. Bush's reputation in world politics. It is crappier than Tony Blair's public image and stinks just as bad.
2. There is an infant in the cupboard! Yup, no pranks here, there is an actual living infant in the cupboard!
3. There is a live breathing roaring tiger in the bathroom

and

4. The groom is missing!

Uh oh! Problems eh? Well never mind. Nothing that can not be sorted then. But hold on! What is this then! None of them remaining three can remember "anything" at all from the previous night. They are all completely blank. Don't know what happened and who did what. They must now retrace their steps somehow, figure out whose baby it is, just where the fock the tiger came from and where in the world is the groom!

My Psychobabble - Holy focking crap! LOL! The movie is good. A bit slow in its execution where sometimes things just stretch on and on forever but the movie IS brilliant! To my readers who are not into Bollywood movies let me tell you that there was a movie that was released last year titled "Sunday" which was kind of based on the same idea as this one. And that movie was quite brilliant as well! Let me know if you would like to know more about it and I shall do a review of that one too.

Anyways back to The Hangover. I must say that the "baby in the cupboard and the tiger in the bathroom" concept is seriously and I mean seriously interesting. I mean how the hell can you get a tiger in your bathroom in Las Vegas! A baby you can perhaps imagine. You got drunk, snatched a baby from a mother (you bastard!) and brought it to your room. But a tiger!? How the hell!?

Tangent: When I used to work for a hedge fund I had this colleague who was basically Australian but have been in UK for about 10 years now. He told us once of this night when in US him and his few friends got amazingly drunk and decided to bring back some crazy souvenirs back to their appt. They split into teams of twos and threes and decided to meet back at the appt. When his team turned back up, they had with them a freakin' traffic light pole which they ripped off! However they were asked to come into the bathroom by one of the guys from the other team. When they entered the bathroom they saw a focking penguin going splash splash splash in the bath tub! The other team had actually broken into a zoo to steal a freakin' penguin!

OK back to the review now - Right so yes the movie is a bit slow in its execution. Things take a little too long to sort of "happen". But once you know something is about to go crazy, you are perched up at the end of your seat holding your breath back to see just what does the magician will pull out of his hat this time. More often than not instead of rabbits and pigeons it is a whole elephant and a pink one at that and you don't know whether to laugh at it or just be purely amazed on how he managed to do that!

The characters in the movie are perfect. The groom guy is a bit of a waste as he only gets very limited amount of reel real estate (see what I did that with reel and real? I am a genius!) but the other three are perfect in their parts. Phil slides easily into the skin of his character who is a handsome middle aged man, bored of his life and ready to do whatever shite gives him a kick of thrill. Alan is the clichéd weirdo who when needed turns into this blackjack genius and Dr. Stu Price the perfect subdued gentleman whose wild side is just unimaginable!

Verdict: Quite a good movie which will definitely leave you tickling long after it has ended. I would suggest it is definitely worth a watch!

Transformers - Revenge of the Fallen

2009-07-14T19:37:00.001+01:00

Title: Transformers Revenge of The Fallen

Director: Michael Bay

Starring: Shia LaBeouf, Megan oomph Fox, Josh Duhamel

Length: around 150 minutes

Describe the movie in one word: ErrrrrrrrrrAhemmmmErrrrrrrrrYeahGood

Plot: Starscream returns to Cybertron and assumes the command of Decepticons. They start regrouping and soon return to earth and steal the body of Megatron from US millitary. They manage to bring him back to life (roll eyes here) and attack Autobots and our Earth(once again). Only this time they are stronger and bolder and have an ancient secret up their sleeves. If you are wondering what "The Fallen" refers to in the title then sorry I can not reveal it here as it would mean including spoilers.

My Psychobabble: Errr I really don't know what to say (yes its true, sometimes I can be shut up too!). On one hand I kind of enjoyed the movie. I mean come on now guys how can you dislike any movie that almost begins with a shot of Megan Fox hunched over a very hot bike in denim shorts and a tight top! Just that one scene was worth it! And then add to it the super cool CGI effects of cars and trucks turning into awesome robots who blow shit(e) up wherever they go, high intensity car chases, secret extra terrestrial code languages that are as old as mankind itself...how can I dislike all this stuff?

OK don't you dare point me to my review of ”Knowing”. It got no Megan Fox in it! Megan Fox is good. She is like KFC, finger lickin' good!

Jokes apart as I have already mentioned, I liked the movie. However I must say that the movie and the whole transformers series kind of lost its purpose and general direction of the storyline. Here we suddenly realize that transformers have been visiting earth since men was in stone age and that a "mighty epic battle" was fought back then with a "huge consequences for the mankind". Yawn! If I had a penny every time I heard that tripe.....But anyways to sum up the script - it is rubbish.

Warning spoiler alert in the next paragraph!!!

And just WTF was that bimbo in the college? Just WTF was that!? I mean suddenly we have robots that can have human bones and muscles and tissues? What is this, Terminator 4? Who came up with that stupid idea and what was the entire relevant of that sequence? If you understand it, please do come back and share your wisdom! And what was that stupditiy about that dob bot walking and running all over "extra secure" US millitary facility without focking triggering a single alarm or sensor! That dog bot is not sneaking in, no sir it is not! It is running, hopping, jumping, roaring and yet all the supposedly permiter securing sensors (including human visions) are absent? WTF?

Spoiler alert over!

Megan Fox is good. Yup I know I said it, and I know you read it, but I am saying it again and you just read it again!

I especially liked the looooooooong battle towards the end. The CGI was truly amazing. Again there were some stupid and insane moments there as well but then I think we can cut some slack here for a creative man can sometime go a bit over the top!

Verdict: For the last time Megan Fox is good. LOL! No OK seriously the movie is not brilliant in terms of story line or making sense. But it’s got some hot girls in it, lots of good CGI, no holds barred action scenes and so I would rank it as at least worth a watch once.

99

2009-06-10T19:22:00.001+01:00

Title: 99
Directors: Krishna D.K. , Raj Nidimoru
Starcast: Cyrus, Kunal Khemu, Boman Irani, Mahesh Manjrekar, Soha Ali Khan, Simone Singh, Vinod Khanna
Describe the movie in one word - WhattASurprise!

My Psychobabble: And finally it happens! One Bollywood movie which is seriously funny and surprisingly very well made. To be honest I wasn't aware of the existence of this movie. It so happened that I was chatting online with an old friend who is in India. He suggested that I get my hands on this movie and watch it. It was a lazy sunny Saturday afternoon I didn't have much to do so I thought to myself - what the hell! It surely can't be a bigger torture than Mama Mia or Bhootnath? So I hooked online, searched for this movie, found it, got it and started watching it.

Pretty soon I was rolling all over the floor laughing my humungus arse off! The movie is a gem! Forget crass humor or twisted carricatures bobbing up and down the screen trying to pretend funny. This movie has characters who are dead serious about what they are saying, mean what they are saying but are saying things so out of this world that you can not stop sniggering. Pretty soon you see them actually acting on the rubbish plans they were cooking in the previous scene and the snigger turns into a full grown laugh. Obviously in the scenes that will follow things are going to go wrong all around them which is going to put their sorry behinds in bigger troubles and you will be magically transformed into a big (well in my case "huge") floor cleaner cleaning up the dirt with your body as you roll yourself laughing!

That said, let us dissect the different aspects of this movie. I am going to divide my opinion about actors in two parts

1. Pre watching 99 - I used to think of Cyrus as extremely genius - for a chimpanzee that is who is disguised as a human. Kunal Khemu - ummm,errr is kinda allright. The Khan girl should really go back to doing adverts for that air hostess academy. Don't get me wrong, she was rubbish there as well but at least the torture used to last for only 20 odd seconds or so.

2. Post watching 99 - Cyrus I now think is uttely stupid and ridiculous - no matter what species. Kunal Khemu - ummmm, errr is kinda good. He really needs to work on his expressions and body language though. There is remarkable improvement in the boy but a lot and I mean a LOT of work still needs to be done. To Soha - sorry to have to say this love and I never thought I would ever say to this anyone but because of the extreme and sever lack of talent cosmetic surgery is your only option if you want to stick around in the industry. Just don't go to the same doc used by Rakhi Sawant, Koena Mitra etc. OK?

Of course Boman Irani is a master actor as is Vinod Khanna. Both of them with their unique signature style of acting were rock solid foundations of the movie. Mahesh Manjerakar was a suprise! Post "Kaante" I never really liked him as an actor. But the way he has played this particular character of "AMD" in the movie does deserve applause. A new discovery for the Hindi movie industry is Amit Mistry or Mr Kuber in the movie. Lol! Kya typical character thaa yaar. That scene where he gets slapped around by Kunal Khemu is absolutely brilliant! Amit's expressions were so brilliant that I rewinded the scene twice and watched it! LOL!

Direction is obviously quite good. Again this is not Sanjay Leela Bhansali movie with exemplary directorial skills on display. What this movie is like a "Tadka Daal" in a roadside Dhaaba. Unique in its composition, perfect in its taste and hits just the right spots at just the right time.

Verdict: So to wind up, this is one of those "must watch" movies I would say. If you haven't already done so do try and take out the time to catch this one. It is much better than some of the recent titles from the industry biggies featuring industry's mega stars.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

2009-06-04T19:09:00.000+01:00

Title: X-Men Origins: Wolverine
Director: Gavin Hood
Runtime: 107 minutes (approx)
Starcast: Hugh Jackman, Liev Schreiber, Danny Huston, Will i Am, Lynn Collins, Taylor Kitsch,Daniel Henney, Ryan Reynolds and others

Describe the movie in one word: HOLYFOCK!

My Psychobabble: HOLYFOCK! I dont know where to begin! Personally I aint a huge fan of the X-Men series. Yes I have seen them all and yes I enjoyed each one of them but I never had the urge to artifically glue on weird twisted clothes hangar crap on the back of my palm and make weird faces while baring my teeth in a mirror. But then along comes Wolverine and there I was second time in the cinema hall looking at the back of my palm in disgust and thinking "damn it! nothing ever comes out of here"!

I felt that the movie can be included in the coursebook of wanna be movie makers under the chapter titled "So this is what happens when everything goes right for a change". Every character and the actor who played that character have been simply superb. Be it a sword flinging Wade Wilson aka DeadPool (Ryan Reynolds) or tooth baring Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) or tank smashing bone crunching Fred (Kevin Durand) or metal rod twisting electric field spewing Remy LeBau (Taylor Kitsch) every one of them has actually lived their parts. Probably it is the miracle of something which is now becoming exceedingly rare - good direction. It is so rare to see a very cheesy action scene done in such tasteful way that it makes you want to take the plce of the actor. I am talking about the scene where DeadPool rages on into the room full of machine gun trotting mercenaries who open up fire on him while he rotatess his swords and simply cut the bullets off! My Indian friends would prbably start jumping up and down by now and yell "Rajnikant, Rajnikant" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rajinikanth) but trust me guys it wasn't the same.

That scene rocked hard and it rocked so freaking hard that I could feel the reverbations in my nerves long after the guns had been silenced. Man I was wishing for someone to fire at me so that I can do the same. Obviously after about 1 second I was very thankful that the way my life goes I didn't get what I had wished for!

The movie is full of these awesome sequences. Agreed they are far fetched, far from reality and all but to all those who bring up these concerns all I want to say is - WAKE UP YOU DODO! THIS IS A MOVIE ABOUT MEN WHO ARE UNREAL! OF COURSE THERE WILL BE UNREAL AND LARGER THAN LIFE SEQUENCES IN IT! WHAT DO YOU WANT TO SEE, WOLVERINE HELPING LOCAL TAILORS WITH HIS CLAWS STITCHING CLOTHES!?

Verdict: Long story short if you find yourself agreeing with my reviews then go and go now! I don't care what the critics say about this one. I liked it, hell I loved it! This is definitely worth the time and the money! I have been twice and most probably am going again very soon!

17 Again

2009-04-27T15:21:00.002+01:00

Title: 17 Again
Director: Burr Steers
Starring: Zac Efron, Matthew Perry, Thomas Lennon, Allison Miller, Sterling Knight, Brian Doyle Murray etc.
Runtime : about 100 minutes

Describe the movie in one word: WhatWasIThinking!

Plot: See the My Psychobabble section

My Psychobabble: What a load of crap. This is the most ridiculous plot for a movie that I have come across in recent years. So here I am (I = Matthew Perry) a sad loser who hates his life, has been moaning about it for past zillion years and who has just been kicked out of the house by his wife, driving down a real sad bridge in the middle of a sad night when apparently all the inhabitants of hell above decided to get drunk collectively and urinate all over the earth. I see this old man about to jump off from the bridge into the river below. I am stupid so I stop my car and approach him to try and stop him from jumping. As soon as I reach him, he turns his head gives me a flashy grin. Suddenly there is this bolt of lightening which illuminates the scary features of his face and makes his teeth shine like those weirdoes in a very famous chewing gum advert.

He then jumps into the water. I lunge after him (why?), a vortex of mud opens in the river, sucks me in, spews me out and voila! I am 17 again (now I = Zac Efron) while the world around me remains the same!! Later my absolutely crappy weirdo star wars gobbledegook speaking excuse of a human being kind of friend tells me that I just met my "spirit guide" who wants me to walk down my "path of spirit" and basically correct something that I messed up. So here I am, enrolled in the same school where my 17 year old children go to with my daughter now getting a crush on me while I try to save my son from being bullied and at the same time trying to make my ex realize how I love her and how she loves me still.

Oh boy!

As you can see from the plot, it is not a very well thought out movie really. I bet that the creators of the movie just wanted to take Zac Efron and throw him on the big screen. They might as well have made him dance for one and a half hour or just have him stand on the screen telling knock knock jokes rather than spend all this money trying to produce this movie.

That being said, I must admit that the movie does have its interesting points. There are sequences that I am ashamed to say I almost enjoyed and laughed at. I am sure that to a certain target audience group (girls 13-17 years) the movie will seem enjoyable but to anyone outside that particular age group - not worth it. But as I say often if you have the luxury of time and some money that you literally want to throw away without feeling a pang of guilt, this movie might just be what you are looking for.

Verdict: Unless you are a 13-17 year old girl who greets her girl friends in an almost ultra sonic shriek while throwing your hands in violent movements in the air all around you nearly blinding other people I wouldn't recommend you going to this movie. If you are girl who fits this description, I am surprised your attention span was big enough to reach till this part
and this part
and now this part
and wow this part?

Knowing

2009-04-14T15:00:00.001+01:00

Title: Knowing
Director: Alex Proyas
Starring: Nicolas Cage, Chandler Canterbury, Rose Byrne, D.G. Maloney, Danielle Carter
Length: about 2 hours 15 minutes.

Describe the movie in one word: Crap

Plot: In 1959 children of a real sad and lonely school in US of A come up with a brilliant idea. They all imagine how future is going to be and draw pictures of whatever they think the future will look like. These drawings are then put together in a "time capsule" (which is basically a metal case in the shape of either a malformed rocket or very sick condom) and bury that capsule in the school ground. While all students draw stuff like rockets and aliens and a museum dedicated to brains etc, one particular girl scribbles lots of random numbers on her sheet. No one understands why and the girl is portrayed as slightly mentally disturbed.
Fast forward 50 years, we have Nicolas Cage who is a professor at MIT. His son goes to the same school (God knows why) which had this wicked idea of burying that time capsule. Of course 50 years have passed and it is time to dig that capsule out and see what kids had drawn. The capsule is dug out in a ceremony and all the present school kids are handed a drawing each from the capsule. Of course Nicolas Cage's son gets the weird sheet with numbers.

Long story short, Nicolas Cage soon realizes that this seemingly random list is actually a list of dates and places (latitude and longitudes) predicting every major disaster in the world along with the death toll in that disaster. What's more there are three events which haven't happened yet and one of those events will be something major (No it’s nothing to do with G. W. Bush getting brains). He must now do all that he can to "save the world and the mankind".

My Psychobabble: Knowing is about crap. Where crap happens on top of more crap which all together leads to a crap mountain in which Nicolas Cage tries to ski. This triggers an avalanche of crap with Nicolas Cage trying to ride the avalanche like a horse rider but fails miserably and ends up buried in huge pile of crap which stinks so bad that the audience gets a headache.

OK I accept that the premise of the movie is good. Hell I was excited about going and watching this one. It’s got Nicolas Cage and an awesome future predicting list of numbers and cryptic codes and decryption involved. It is like high quality geek weed rolled up in a science fiction joint. What more could someone like me want!

Tangent: Booze, money, Kelly Brooks, freedom, lottery, beating my estate agent, hell beating all the estate agents, Shilpa Shetty, more booze, more money.....

The movie fails miserably. The execution of what was a brilliant idea is pathetic. The CGI (computer generated imagery) is awful, the direction is horrible, the script not worth the paper it was written on and the acting - rubbish. Let us digress for a minute from these normal parameters that usually can summarize a movie and let me ask you this - how many movies can you think of where you actually noticed the background music score? One? Two? Three?

This one has such awful background music that it will scream at you and make you notice it. It is like a whinning child in a supermarket aisle. It will throw itself on the ground, yell at you, jerk its limbs in the air until you are forced to sit up and give it attention. An of course the relevance of the music is only as much as that of a whinning child in the supermarket aisle. It goes completely out of synch with the situation on the screen. You might as well have an F M Radio on and play whatever track comes on it along with the movie. Just make sure that the program on the FM radio channel is about the worst songs in the history of music.

I am not even going to count the mistakes in the movie or the sheer acts of stupidity. But to list a few

1. It is perfectly normal to blow your lawn at 4 am
2. When you want to scare someone off whom you can not see, slam your baseball bat in a tree and yell "You want some of this!"
3. You are a genius and think better when you are drunk.
4. You have to act like a total jerk and a complete jacka$$ if you have above average analytical ability.

I can go on and butcher the movie more but I am afraid I will be including spoilers if I disclose anymore about the movie.

Verdict: Turn on your heels and run. You can do something much more worthwhile with these two hours and 15 minutes of your life (like count the grains of rice in a bag or count your own hair) than watch this movie.

Where am I!

2009-03-23T21:05:00.001+00:00

Hey People!

Apologies about my absence but I have been very busy recently with lots of things happening here in my life. For starters I got myself a new job, had to buy another car and am also moving house!

I haven't been able to watch any movie for a long time but I promise to be back very soon with more irritating reviews :)

Keep checking!

Billu Barber

2009-02-19T12:26:00.002+00:00

Title: Billu Barber
Director: Priyadarshan
Starring: Irfan Khan, Lara Dutta, Shahrukh Khan, Rajpal Yadav, Asrani, Om Puri
Length : about 138 minutes
Describe the movie in one word: SurprisinglyAmazing!

The Plot: Billu (Irfan Khan) is a very poor barber in a small village Budbudiya. He is absolutely bankrupt and has no money for food, clothes, to pay his children’s school fees. His business is ruined by a new up market “hair dresser” who has just opened up shop opposite his “barber shop”. He is married to Lara Dutta who is a devoted and loving wife. Together they are somehow managing to stay alive trying to scrape whatever they can and carry on living. Despite all the hardships though Billu has a canny sense of humor which is often sarcastic owing to his current predicaments. One fine day a shooting crew lands in Budbudiya along with the news that Bollywood mega star Sahir Khan (Shah Rukh Khan) is shooting his next movie there. The whole village goes crazy. Sahir is as big in the movie as Shah Rukh is in real life. Neighboring villages come in hordes to watch Sahir in action. Sahir is hot property and everyone wants a piece of him. Amidst this madness somehow a rumor circulates that Billu is Sahir Khan’s friend. Billu constantly denies the rumor but suddenly now Billu is as good as Sahir. He is a mega star. People who normally would laugh at him, make fun of him, mock him are worshipping him. Everyone is trying to get to Sahir via Billu and is ready to pay whatever price Billu wants for it. And Billu? He just wants out of this spotlight. He is uncomfortable. He keeps on denying people but people just won’t listen. Now does Billu really know Sahir? Is it possible that a nobody poor famished barber from an unknown village has a connection with the golden boy Sahir Khan or is it just a rumor? The movie is all about what all Billu’s life goes through when Sahir Khan comes to his town.

My Psychobabble: The movie opens up with a letter sent by Billu (Irfan Khan) to a government official who approves government loans for small businesses. The government official reads that letter out aloud and guys I was sold into the movie right at the instance! I knew this is going to be a freaking good movie and so it is! To be honest I had had enough of cheap rubbish comedies that were churned out of Priyadarshan factory one after the other. Same characters, same portrayals, similar situations, hell it had started feeling like watching a big screen version of those non sense Ekta Kapoor Sas Bahu serials!

But Billu Barber my dear friends is quite a remarkable movie. Direction is pretty good. Yes there are times when the movie seems to stretch and becomes a bit boring but considering the sum of parts as a whole the movie is very well directed. The situations and characters are not out of life or irritatingly stupid morons doing all sort of caricatures and indulging in cheap vulgarities to try and make you laugh. They all seem real and the comic factor comes from their simplicity. One particular aspect of this movie that deserves a mention is the perfect balancing act of emotions that the movie delivers. You cannot help but laugh at a particular situation while feeling sorry for the poor character on whom you are laughing.

The actors, oof! Where do I begin! All of them and I mean ALL of them (yes even SRK!) have been brilliant. Irfan Khan is outperforming. Matlab ye to banda aisa jama hai is role main jaise apne politicians kursi pe jam jaate hain. It is so hard to imagine anyone but Irfan Khan in this role. He has this amazing laid back quality of dialogue delivery where he seems to be lofting his dialogues in the vacant air around him for people to look at and not listen. Simply put, Irfan Khan gets a standing ovation from moi.

Tangent: I do need to come up with more witty metaphors and similes. I have used this politician one so many times now that ironically this satire has become a politician in my own reviews that will just not go away!

Another actor who really surprised me in this movie is Lara Dutta. It was so astonishingly different to see her as a really poor married village woman who is devoid of any glamour whatsoever. She has proved that she can act and is not just a glam doll or eye candy. Yes she has come out as a very good actress indeed.

SRK is good. He is quite good but I reckon that is because he was portraying his real life status of a self proclaimed demi god in the movie. The guy is very good of course but as an actor he does go overboard a lot and becomes a “jhel” at times. One advise Mr. SRK – please either ask the director to not zoom the camera too much on your face or get your teeth cleaned. During the entire speech, your nicotine stained teeth were as clearly visible as the yellow grime on my bathroom floor.

Tangent: There I go again! I have given another excuse for the SRK fan brigade to diss me…darn!

One thing that is worth mentioning here is that this is one movie after a long time which has actually utilized Rajpal Yadav and Asrani. They were both making appearances now and then in other movies but were more like mosquitoes buzzing over your ears. Irritating and something that you just wanted to get rid of and you didn’t mind accidently slapping yourself while trying to buzz them away. Not in this one though. They have not only just performed well their characters were very well written. Om Puri is a laugh riot! The moment he comes on screen you brace yourself for a bout of giggles and laughs!

In the end a special mention for a character who had about 10 minutes in the movie. Of these 10 minutes he gave about 6 minutes where you will laugh so hard you might end up pissing your pants. The most hillarious sequence of the movie is down to this wonderful actor. I won't reveal beyond this but trust me when it happens, you will know its happening! Kudos my man kudos!

Verdict: Go and go now. Don’t miss this movie. Yes you might not agree with my opinion that the movie is a fine piece of acting and direction but that will not prevent you from enjoying it. You might not love it but I am quite sure you will not dislike it. The money and time is worth it.

Luck By Chance

2009-02-05T16:22:00.014+00:00

Title: Luck By Chance

Director: Zoya Akhtar

Starring: Rishi Kapoor, Juhi Chawla, Hrithik Roshan, Konkona Sen Sharma (Koko), Farhaan Akhtar, Dimple Kapadia, Isha Sharvani, Sanjay Kapoor

Describe the movie in one word - ZoyaWentGoaAndWroteTrashyScriptAndTriedMakingItLookGoodBYCastingGoodActorsHeHeHe!

Plot: A young actor Vikram Jai Singh (Farhan Akhtar) comes to Mumbai from Delhi to make it big in the movie industry. He has a couple of friends with whom he hangs around. Sona Mishra (Konkona Sen Sharma) is the neighbour of one of his friends. She is also a struggling actress who is waiting for her big break. They both bump into each other by chance and a friendship grows. On the other hand we have Romy Walia (Rishi Kapoor) who is a producer of some considerable repute in Bollywood and Zaffar Khan (Hrithik Roshan) who is a big Bollywood star who was launched by Romy. Romy is married to Minti (Juhi). Zaffar walks out of one of Romy's movies which was also a launchpad for Nikki Walia (Isha Sharvani) who is the daughter of Nina Walia (Dimple Kapadia) who was once a Bollywood super heroine herself. Due to a series of freak chances our Vikram Jai Singh lands in the role vacated by Zaffar. This obviously puts a strain on Vikram-Sona relationship (who still is a struggling actress by the way). Well Vikram plays Nina and Nikki both and ends up a superstar. The movie is all about these characters and their lives and how one shit leads to another shit and so on.

My Psychobabble: For a change let me start with the two good things in the movie. They are Juhi Chawla and Rishi Kapoor. Juhi is freaking awesome! She looked gorgeous, her body language perfect to the part she played and her accent and dialogue delivery was like watching a virtuoso at the peak of her performance. And Rishi Kapoor was amazing! Kya laga hai yaar banda wo producer get up main. His lose ill fitting shirt, his glamorous bling bling accesories, his often crooked eye brow, his pronounciation of "volcano" as "vulcano" and so on was just superb. These two together over shadowed the entire star cast of the movie.

Beyond them the movie is just another average mildly amusing run of the mill Bollywood movie. Matlab itni buri nahin hai but then again there is nothing spectacular or great about it. At times it appears to be dragging its feet like a completely pissed and bored child in his school assembly while at other times it looks only as alive as Inzamam-ul-haq on the running end of the wicket. Direction is OK as is the screenplay and editing. The movie often appears disjointed in its own story line if not completely broken. Best analogy would be to compare it to a handsome man who has just had a head on collision with a car. Mara nahin hai, zinda hai and you can make out that he probably looks good but his bones are dislocated and broken in places.

Tangent: Fock that was a new literary low even for me. This Xbox 360 is secretly draining out my literary powers I am sure. Grrrrr!

As for the actors. Farhan Akhtar is a write off. He looks marginally good, has a passible phsyique has voice that is permanently affected by a chronic cold and his dialogue delivery is only as exciting as watching paint dry. He has this drone of a voice which doesn't vary a fraction of an octave during his acting. No matter if he is excited, angry, pissed, sad, turned on (highly unlikely opposite Koko) he just spits out his words using the same continuous even pitch. For all I matter a ticking grandfather pendulum clock could be doing his voice over instead of him.

Konkona Sen Sharma (Koko) is a good actress. She has played good parts in her earlier movies but somehow her casting as this struggling actress in main stream commercial bollywood is not probably the best choice the casting director made.

Hrithik is but of course a marvellous actor but this time somehow wasn't on his best. But then he is Hrithik! As an actor he would out perform the best of the best on his bad day! As a hunk, well glance around and the honey eyed females in the hall speak loud enough through their lecherous stares about him ;)

Tangent: Don't freaking ask why I glance around or how can I see their expressions in the dark. Stick to the review for heaven's sake!

Isha Sharvani (Niki Walia) is a promising actress. Ab uski figure se nazar hata pata to shayad kucch review likhta but for you male members of this homo sapien species, she is a perfect eye candy (with clothes to match wink wink). And of course has acted well too (ahem). Dimple Kapadia is good. She is of course a matured actress who knows the tricks of the trade but somehow she hasn't come across as spectacularly as either Juhi or Rishi. This reminds me, there was a particular sequence where Rishi and Dimple are sitting on a couch discussing the movie they are about to make. The camera zooms into the shot from afar and you see only them together on the couch. A pounchy, curly hair Rishi Kapoor and a seemingly aged and slightly heavy Dimple Kapadia were a far cry from their raunchy and saucy performances in their youth. It was so amusing watching them together like this and thinking back on their "hum tum ek kamre main band ho" days. Sigh!

Verdict: Not a great movie but not a complete bore as well. Things could have been better but then again they could have been worse too. I would recommend watching it once but don't make any special arrangements or change your plans to fit this movie in your busy schedule. Not worth it.

Slumdog Millionaire

2009-01-26T11:52:00.001+00:00

Title: Slumdog Millionaire

Director: Danny Boyle

Starring: Dev Patel, Anil Kapoor, Saurabh Shukla, Irfan Khan, Freida Pinto, Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail, Ayush Mahesh, Khedekar, Mahesh Manjrekar

Length: 120 minutes

Describe the movie in one word - Interesting!

Plot: Jamal Malik (Dev Patel) is a "chai waala" or a low class peon/tea distributor working in a call center in Mumbai India. As luck would have it, he makes it to the TV show "Who wants to be a millionaire" hosted by Prem Kumar (Anil Kapoor). This uneducated, low class peon somehow answers all the questions correct and wins a cool 20 million rupees! Prem Kumar has him arrested by the police on suspicion of cheating in the show. Afterall how can this uneducated nobody from the slums of Mumbai know answers to these questions which lawyers, doctors, academics struggle to answer? The police uses third degree extreme torture on Jamal to get him to confess but he sticks to his story that he knew the answers. Inspector (Irfan Khan) begins a conversation with Jamal while playing the recorded show on the TV and Jamal begins to go through the story of his life. It is during this narration of his short life story that the inspector and the audience get to know how Jamal Malik this "slumdog" from Mumbai could answer all these questions.

My Psychobabble: Let me first begin by highlighting the book this movie is based on. This book is titled "Q & A" and the author is Vikas Swaroop. I read this book back in June 2008 and though this book is no literary masterpiece it definitely is a hell of a page turner! It is a shame the movie takes so little from the book and is only half as interesting.

Now to the movie. As I described in one word the movie definitely is interesting. It keeps you glued on your screen and there are times when the sheer excitement makes you clap your hands! But sadly this suspense is more because of the game "Who wants to be a millionaire" rather than the movie itself.

Which brings me to the direction.

I know this movie has bagged numerous awards and accolades all over the world but as an Indian watching this movie (which meant I could understand all the Hindi used) I have to say "Sorry world, you are seriously daft idiots if you think this movie is well directed." There are so many bloody obvious absolutely stupid directorial mistakes that I had my mouth shaped in the form of a big "O" while I watched the movie. Let me highlight the one that I think was the most prominent

Jamal and Salim (Jamal's elder brother) are about 6 years. They have run from Mumbai and talk to each other and the others using the typical slum dialect of Hindi. They sustain themselves by selling/stealing stuff on trains. During one such heist gone wrong both of them fall from the roof of a running train. Obviously they are enveloped in a cloud of dirt and smoke and as this cloud settles down suddenly they are about 10-11 year old and are now talking to each other in English! Remember those endless 1970s movie where the lead character used to mature 15 years while running on the road from police?

Now I am not going to go knitpicking here but the movie is riddled with such stupid directorial/editorial mistakes. It appears to me that Danny Boyle gulped a cocktail of B graded bollywood movies (possibly starring Mithun Da and Shatrughan Sinha) got high, read the book "Q&A" and came up with "Slumdog Millionaire" while still on a high!

If this movie truly deserves awards for something, it is its music. A.R. Rahman sir you truly are a maestro. I stand and applaud you sir. As an Indian you did us all proud. Hats off to you sir, hats off to you.

The actors are all good. Of course Irfan Khan, Saurabh Shukla and Anil Kapoor are some of our finest actors and they have all played their part brilliantly. Dev Patel has looked impressive as Jamal. Freida Pinto has only been passable in her portrayel of Latika. But then she has such a small part in the movie that it is insignificant anyways. I would however like to especially draw attention to Azharuddin (youngest Jamal) and Ayush (youngest Salim). These two young boys did an absolutely marvellous job. Good work boys! Hope we get to see more of you!

Verdict: Definitely a must watch if only due to its sheer plot. However as I mentioned, don't go expecting a flawless directorial masterpiece. The movie has its glaringly obvious mistakes and moments of sheer stupidity but those will not prevent you from enjoying it. I rate it as an interesting B grade Bollywood movie at best! The simple dance sequence at the end vindicates my observation. Also as a special mention to the entire controversy generated by Mr. Amitabh Bacchan's comments, I for the record truly agree with him.

Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi

2008-12-16T10:46:00.000+00:00

Title: Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi
Director: Aditya Choprah
Starring: Shah Rukh Khan, Vinay Pathak, Anushka Sharma
Length: about 2 hours and 45 minutes

Plot: The movie is essentially about an ordinary couple who get married in exceptional circumstances. Surinder Sahni (SRK) is a very ordinary, quiet, middle class man who goes to attend the marriage of his teacher's daughter - Taani (Anushka Sharma). The bus carrying the groom and his family meets with an accident which no one survives. Ye sunke bechaari abhaagan dulhan ke pitaji ko dil ka daura padta hai (sob sob) and on his deathbed he expresses his desire that his daughter should now marry SRK. They both agree, get married. When they return home Taani tells SRK that she will be a good wife and all but can never love him. Suri however wants the same old bubbly Taani back. To get her back he agrees when she asks him to enroll herself in a dancing competition. With the help of his best friend (Vinay Pathak) Suri changes his dressup and enters the same competition as Raj. By a freak coincidence he also ends up as her partner. Now Suri must win her heart as Raj and must also help her out of this perpetual sadness that stays in her heart.

My Psychobabble: You know it is very surprising to see a SRK movie that is so low key and so low budget. There are no big fancy sets, shining dresses or that starry eyed dreamy feel that accompany his almost every movie. RNBDJ is simple. Very simple. Its theme, execution, sets, props, locations are far from extravagant and I liked that bit. In this regard it is almost like Welcome To Sajjanpur. A story of few simple ordinary middle class Indian citizens living their ordinary life. The story is interesting if unrealistic. SRK's portrayal of Surinder Sahni (Suri) is quite good. His body language, facial expressions are all as you would expect of a normal middle class Indian man. The typical "SRK" arrogance is completely missing from the character or Suri which my dear readers is a first. I do not recall watching any SRK movie where his acting is not reeking with this particular brand of "SRK arrogance" which is one step short of him actually branding something like "I AM GOD" on his forehead. A surprisingly slimmer Vinay Pathak is amazing in his character. But then he is one of those actors from whom you will expect nothing less. Anushka Sharma (Tanni) is simply irritating. She looks awful, has the acting prowess of an orangutan and can move her body only as gracefully as an 18 wheeler truck trying to do a Salsa number. Paying to watch her contorted face at her horrendous attempt at acting was like shitting a cactus from my arse and then wiping it off with sandpaper - painful.

By the way didn't an orangutan act well in a Hollywood movie? Well strike that statement of mine then. Even monkeys can act better than she can.

While the movie is passable as good, there are loads of directorial mistakes the most prominent being the characters themselves. The switches between Suri and Raj are frankly put - stupid. It would have been OK if Raj was presented as Suri's alter ego and not just a face or a persona he "deliberately" puts on at times. As an audience you cannot help but think how in the world can Suri be so outgoing and witty with his words. Who taught him to say all that? Where is this confidence coming from? Director apparently didn't want to bother himself with too much attention to detail as far as the characters are concerned. The movie is rather long and after a certain point it just seems to drag on and on forever. The director loses his hold over the movie completely and you are left to wonder just "what the fock is going on now!". Songs are irritating and often just creep up on you when you aren't expecting them in the least.

Verdict: Again an interesting basic concept but a shoddy execution. The movie is passable as good but is not brilliant or a typical "SRK" movie in any sense. It would be helpful to go to the cinema expecting to sit on dog poo on your seat. That way you will have at least one thing to feel good about when you don’t find any on your seat! If you do...well you will have something worse to cry about than the movie!

Welcome To Sajjanpur

2008-12-02T18:54:00.000+00:00

Vital Stats:

Title: Welcome To Sajjanpur

Starring: Shreyas Talpade, Amrita Rao, Illa Arun, Divya Dutta, Ravi Jhankal, Kunal Kapoor, Rajeshwri Sachdev, Yashpal Sharma

Length: 133 minutes (approx)

Plot: The movie is about the lives of people living in a village called Sajjanpur. Mahadev (Shreyas) is a (and the only) graduate in the village who finds no use for his "knowledge" until he opens up a letter reading and writing shop (read a bench under neem ka ped). He charges anywhere from 50p to Rs2 for reading or writing letters, pamphlets etc. One fine day Kamla (Amrita Rao) comes to him to write a letter to her husband who moved to Mumbai soon after their marriage. Mahadev realizes that Kamla is in fact his child hood sweetheart who left school at a very early age. He tries his best to systematically daalo his taang in her already dwindling marriage by writing hillarious letters to her husband. There are a bunch of other characters in the movie who all have their own small interlinked stories and who interact with Mahadev during the course of the movie. Welcome To Sajjanpur is a story of all such characters and their simple lives.

My Psychobabble: It is very rare that a movie comes along that wins your heart by its sheer simplicity and brilliance. Welcome To Sajjanpur (WTS from now on) is a prime example of such a movie. This one ladies and gentlemen is directorial excellence at its crescendo. The movie is so well made, so well made that I am literally struggling to find words here. All the characters have not only been meticulously and perfectly scripted but have been equally well played by the actors. It appears as if Mr. Benegal made the actors realize the presence of a secret pool of talent within them that every human possesses and once the actors found it, they let themselves completely submerge into its depths. I know what you are thinking. Amrita Rao bhi?

Haan bhai haan Amrita Rao bhi! Gosh how stupid she really is and how well she has played her part in this one! Kamaal kar diya yaar bandi ne. Shreyas Talpade ko to I praise aise hi. Mere college se hai bhai wo apna to Junior hua na. So Kudos to Talpade as usual! All the other characters and I mean all of them have done very well.

The movie never loses its humor and its grasp over its audience. It just goes to prove that you don't have to spend millions and millions on ostentatious, pretentious, extravagant sets to have your audience awed. You don't need a star cast of A+++ actors to make a brilliant movie. If the director has the vision, the sight he can do wonders with whatever resources he might have. It is like turning a pumpkin into a chariot! Every small detail has been taken care of. Be it the set up of the village, the dispensary in the village or the language used by the characters.

The situations in the movie are simple. Very simple. They are what you can expect to find in a small village within India. What you don't expect to find is such classic, decent humor in them. The class of humor used within the entire length of movie is not crass or vulgar. You will not find any sexual innuendos or suggestions to the effect and yet you will laugh out loud. Funny eh? Try and think now of the last joke you heard in a movie that was not the least vulgar in its nature and you laughed. Socho socho, daalo dimaag pe jor!

I have been amazingly impressed by the movie and I salute Mr. Benegal on making this one.

Verdict: If it is not showing near you then find a cinema showing it somewhere else. Get a DVD from somewhere. If all fails, leave me a message here and I shall find a way to get the movie to you but don't, I repeat DON'T let this one go. I wish I had seen it on the big screen. I SO WISH!!

EMI Liya hai to Chukana Padega

2008-11-22T21:23:00.000+00:00

Vital Stats:

Title: EMI liya hai to chukana padega.

Starring: Malaika Arora, Arjun Rampal, Aashish Chaudhary, Sanjay Dutt, Manoj Joshi, Urmila Martondkar, Javed Rizvi, Neha Uberoi

Director: Saurav Kabra
Length: The bloody thing never ends!

Plot: This movie is based around the entire concept of people taking too much money on loan from banks which they cannot repay. The bank in this movie is called "All India Bank". Some dufus people take loan from this bank which they are unable to pay. The bank hires the services of a "recovery agency" run by Sattar Bhai (Sanju Baba) who is actually a "bhai" or a goon (yawn!). He is a rough guy with his motley collection of rough clowns who go about recovering money for the bank. One fine day Sattar bhai decides to enter politics and is advised by his mentor to start helping people so that they can repay their loan instead of strong arming them. Well he follows this advice and eventually becomes a MP. And then the movie ends and you yell yippee! I can escape!

My Psychobabble: O teri maan ki!

After getting up from "One Two Three" half an hour into the movie I was confident that I have finally suffered my share of bad movie karma until I went into this one. Hare Raam kya barbaad movie thee! Everything about the movie was bad, horrible and pathetic. Direction was abysmal. I would have thought that someone directed (misdirected?) this movie while sipping some single malt scotch but things were so bad that if there was any alcohol involved it would have to have been a "desi tharra" and nothing else. The actors were all symbolisms of "how not to act" including our very own Sanju Baba. Sanju bhai it is time that you get off this high horse of being a "bhai". Admitted you have played some classic and awe inspiring parts as Munnabhai lekin bhai har cheez ki hadd hoti hai yaar! I mean enough is enough!

Tangent: (Tangent is a point where I blabber something completely unrelated to the current topic in discussion. Something like a warning light if you will) - If you have already noticed my repeated use of Hindi (and its variations) I urge you get used to it. I have decided to increase the use of my mother tongue while discussing Bollywood movies. If you haven't, then stop reading my reviews while drunk!

Back to the review then. Urmila, hmmm Urmila, Urmi! Totally dragged to the earth, buried in and then stomped over to a make sure that even an ounce of her talent should not be able to breath. When the director made her wander the streets of Mumbai feeling all lost and helpless the audience cannot do anything but either laugh or band their hand against their forehead. Then there is this issue about the way her character has been scripted. One moment she is a recent widow with a 5 year old daughter fighting for a false insurance claim and in a blink of an eye she is a sultry diva dressed up in a fiery red sari dancing over a yacht to a live band on a moonlight night with a "bhai"? Ab yaa to main pagal hoon ya fir ye director kyonki mujhe to ye sequence and this "sudden change of character" samajh nahin aaya.

The other actors/characters are not even worth mentioning let alone discussing. It would be more interesting if I tell you about the various types of ants, their colonies, their unique civilizations etc. etc. than talking about those insignificant occupiers of some reel space. At least you can amuse yourself by placing some obstacles in the path of an ant army and watch them skirt around it!

Well all was not bad about the movie. To be honest I appreciate the idea behind the movie and the story line. It was actually quite good. I only wish the execution of the entire concept was even mediocre.

Verdict: If you want to really see how a brilliant idea can be slaughtered so mercilessly then please by all means jaiye aur jaake apna khoon jalaye. But if I were you, I would rather just read my review again (hey I am fun!) and then go and watch Dostana ;) Enjoy!

Dostana

2008-11-16T23:07:00.000+00:00

Vital Stats:

Starring; Abhishek Bacchan, Priyanka Chopra, John Abraham, Kiron Kher, Boman Irani, Bobby Deol, Sushmita Mukherjee.

Director: Tarun Mansukhani
Length: 142 minutes

Plot: Sameer (Abhishek) and Kunal (John) are two guys in Miami Florida who suddenly find themselves out on the road without a place. By chance they both go to see the same place where they are told that only girls can occupy the two available rooms as Priyanka Chopra (Neha) is a single girl living in the house. Not willing to let go of such a beautiful place Abhishek convinces John to act as if they are a gay couple. Soon they find that if they apply for their residence permit in the US as a same sex couple their application will get processed in one year as opposed to the usual 5 which makes John go on his knees to ask Abhishek to file in as a gay couple. Things start going crazy as soon they both fall for Priyanka Chopra who absolutely adores them as her best friends.

My Psychobabble: Look don't judge me here OK but I am kinda teeny weeny itsy bitsy slightly almost an minuscule amount of uncomfortable with the entire male gay concept. I am NOT against the thing I am just not comfortable with the notion. Yeah I know what you want to throw at my face now, the question about female gay-ism right? Go on then throw it, come on don't bottle it up inside its not good for health. Go on hit me with it!

The answer to that question will be that in all honesty I do not mind lesbian actions but I am not uncomfortable with the idea. Why you ask me? Well I am a guy! A real hot blooded straight guy and this is the way I am wired! Man on man stuff makes me uncomfortable but a little girl on girl action does not and that is the way I am end of discussion, finish, finale, finito.......period!

So for the first about half an hour into the movie I was like "Uh Oh! These are going to be some of toughest two hours of my life". The movie had an awesome start with the gorgeous finger licking good, too good to be real, an awesome Aphrodite re-incarnated herself Shilpa Shetty dancing on a peppy number and a surprisingly too well built John Abraham doing all sort of Baywatch stunts. But that was it. It was like watching Usain Bolt bolt get off to a staggering start only to stumble 10 seconds into the race evoking a gasp of horror from the audience expecting him to fall flat on his face....

But then if he did, he will not be Ussain Bolt would he now? And so if this movie were to fall flat on its face it will not be a freaking Karan Johar miracle! The movie soon picks up and turns into this amazing piece of work which you can not get enough off!

Everyone in the movie is just purely awesome! Abhishek Bacchan is a genius. Truly he is! This guy is finally carving his way out of the almost infinite shadow of Bacchan senior and is making his own mark on the industry. He has played his part with such perfection that it is almost impossible to think of any other actor in the industry taking his place in this role. John Abraham has done nothing more than to flash his gorgeously chiselled body but then hey! he never was much of an actor anyways! Priyanka Chopra is amazingly slim with a perfect 10 figure and when she swings that booty to the foot tapping Desi girl number you can not do anything but wolf whistle (at least I did!). I loved Kiron Kher. Some of her diaologs in the movie are priceless, simply absolutely priceless, a work of some creative maestro and in one of her scenes I am sure she actually really slaps Abhishek! Though she appears on the screen for about 20 minutes in all but those are probably the most awesome 20 minutes of the movie. Watching Boman Irani dance on the Omkara's Beedi number was seriously like being killed at the hands of someone whos is tickling you to death. You are laughing but you know this is not done, this is simply wrong! My memories of Bipasha have been ruined but oh how I liked that dance by Boman! This is another one of our industry's those actors who can do justice to any part no matter what. Bobby Deol has been overshadowed in the movie almost completely. But then I think by now in his career he must have gotten use to it anyways ;)

The direction is quite good. Barring some occassional mistakes the movie rarely gets boring and once you are over that initial "ewww" reaction to seeing Abhishek and John "manhandle" each other every 15 minutes you actually can not stop laughing. I can not remember in recent memory a movie where I laughed so hard and clapped so hard and I was not alone in doing so. Besides humor the movie has some really brilliant romantic situations that develop. Watch out for the one involving John and Priyanka when they spend her birthday alone. It is so damn cheesy but has been done in such an awesome fashion that it actually looks pretty classy. I swear I heard "Awwws" and "ooohhs" all around me (and no I wasn't joining in the noises).

Verdict: Definitely not to be missed. If you don't have time then find it. If you don't have money apply for a credit card or a loan and if you have no company to go with, well send me a ticket and I shall come with you! I am definitely going again to watch this one!

Golmaal Returns

2008-11-13T22:01:00.000+00:00

Title: Golmaal Returns

Vital Stats:

Length : Approx 146 minutes.
Starring: Ajay Devgan, Tusshar Kapoor, Kareena Kapoor, Arshad Warsi, Shreays Talpade, Amrita Arora
Director: Rohit Shetty.

Describe the movie in one word:

Plot: Kareena Kapoor is a highly and stupidly suspicious wife who is so influenced by the daily vomit of soap on TV that she continuously doubts her husband Ajay Devgan. Amrita Arora is Ajay's sister who lives with them and so does Tusshar Kapoor who is Kareena's brother. One fateful evening Ajay gets stuck on a yacht with Celina while trying to save her from some goons. When he returns the next day he is faced with the relentless fire of Kareena's AK 47 of typical "shakki biwi". Not willing to cause too much fuss he lies about spending the night with an imaginary friend of his. Kareena however doesn't let go so easily and actually writes to that imaginary friend on his imaginar address to confirm the story. Ajay gets to know of this and in panick brings in Shreyas Talpade (a new employee in his firm) as his imaginary friend home. Things turn nasty when a real person with that imaginary name turns up who lived at that imaginary address! To complicate things further a colleague of Ajay's who never got along with him ends up dead on the same night Ajay went missing. The muder investigation is headed by Arshad Warsi who is a police inspector and is in love with Amrita Arora and hates Ajay Devgan! Now Ajay must sort out this mess otherwise Arshad would happily pack him off to gaol!

My Psychobabble: A set of funny sequences thrown together to form a mildly amusing collage. This is as best as I can do to describe this movie. I hadn't gone in to this movie with great expectations which kinda helped as I was not at least disappointed. I am not sure if you know but the supposed "story" of this movie is almost a complete rip off of an excellent old movie titled "Aaj ki Taaza Khabar". That movie my dear readers was brilliant, a true laugh riot and an excellent comedy of errors. If you have not seen it yet I suggest you do try and get your hands on a copy of it. All the effort will be worth it.

Back to this one, there is just so much that is wrong with this movie starting from its premise. Why in the name of God do Ajay and Celina spend their night on the yacht is a freaking mystery. This is 2008, they have cell phones can they not call someone to their help? Assuming that their cell phones don't work, when they can walk "to" the yacht why can they not walk from it to get help? There is nothing stopping them is there? Oh I can go on and on and on with the mistakes in the movie and the shocking "the audience won't give shit(e) about the logic as long as they can laugh" attitude of the directors but then there is no point of it. However all being said the director has made sure that the occasional laughter does keep coming and the audience doesn't really get bored. One thing that is truly applaud able in the movie is the often subtlety of humor. Something even as small as the name of a character brings a smile to your face when the movie refers to the name in a certain context. Those parts of the movie are simply brilliant!

The characters in the movie are all completely unreal and are played so by the actors. Kareena has broken her previous records of the limits of disgust, Ajay Devgan is mediocre, Celina is insignificant and stupid, Amrita Arora is a waste of movie reel and Shreyas Talpade is just one of the pockmarks on the face of the movie infected with the chicken pox of stupidity. The two characters who shine throughout the movie and have been sadly underplayed are Arshad Warsi and surprisingly Tushar Kapoor! Not only have they acted well their characters are probably the most interesting in the movie. I especially like what Tushar does at the very end of the movie (which I shall not reveal here as I don't want to include spoilers). As for Arshad Warsi, this guy is truly a gem of an actor. Though the character he plays is slightly sadistic in nature but the way Arshad has played the character you cannot help but simply laugh your but* off! Sharman Joshi was seriously missed. His character in the first one was a great laugh.

Verdict: Definitely not a must watch but certainly not a boring one. If you have had one of those weeks where the stress and the pressure was just too much then you might want to go and catch this one as the movie will certainly give you some great laughs! Please just do not try and make any sense of the movie...you have been warned!

Quantum Of Solace

2008-11-02T11:42:00.002+00:00

Vital Stats:

Title: Quantum Of Solace
Length: 115 minutes(approx)
Starring: Daniel Craig, Olga Kurylenko, Mathieu Amalric, Judi Dench, Giancarlo Giannini, Gemma Arterton, Jeffrey Wright

Plot: Picking up from where Casino Royale left this movie sees Bond going after the mysterious shadowy organization that lead to Vesper's betrayal. However he and M. soon realizes that the organization that they are dealing with is far more complex, dangerous and mysterious than their worst nightmares. During the course of his pursuit he encounters Dominice Green (Mathieu) an environmentalist who is neck buried in some of the most destructive and dangerous deals liaising with the rich and powerful of the west and causing mayhem in third world countries like Bolivia etc. No country is sane or safe enough. Be it the CIA or the MI6 they are all dancing on Green's tunes. On a journey that takes Bond through Austria, South America and Italy Bond must uncover as much as he can about the shadowy organization he set out to uncover and stop Green in his dark plans.

My Psychobabble: This fellows is a real tough one. Overall I liked the movie. It was fast paced, the action is awesome and no matter how much I loathed Daniel Craig in Casino Royale, in this one the dude has really (and literally) punched his niche. His portrayal of a man who is so fuelled by such fierce rage that it doesn't let him prone to angry outbursts or screams but that silently burns within him, fuelling him beyond the limits of his human abilities is simply awesome. His demeanor is candid, he is totally devoid of emotions and he is what the rage has made him - a high octane stripped down to bare essentials killing machine with a rock solid sense of purpose. Gone are those witty one liners in the face of death, the awesome gadgets and the lovely ladies.

And that my dear readers is a problem - at least with some critics!

The legend of Bond is being changed as we see it. Have no doubts, Daniel Craig's character in the movie is totally awesome but he is not "Bond" as we are used to see him. This Bond doesn't indulge himself in vanity, has no patience for unnecessary banter and has absolutely no need of any gadget apart from a gun and a phone (with a camera of course!). This is more like Jason Bourne than Bond. One reason for this that I could think of was that Casino Royale and Quantum Of Solace started telling the tale of the real shaping of a MI6 agent as the "Bond" and thus maybe in the next few movies we shall see Bond returning to his better known antics. However how well that would go down with Daniel Craig will be interesting to watch.

Besides the action and Daniel Craig's portrayal of Bond the movie is quiet week. The plot and the script are haphazard and don’t answer a single question that the movie sets out to answer. In fact at times it became so confusing that I really had to ask myself, what the fock is going on and how the fock is this related to anything that was initially proposed!

Taken as a whole the movie is a sort of awkward, badly designed end product stumbling and tripping in a hell lot of places. Olga and Gemma have almost no character in the film. A very weak effort is still visible to give Olga's character some substance but it has failed completely. The characters that looked promising in Casino Royale as important to the overall story are quickly shot to death and dismissed in this one. The movie on the whole almost loses its sense of purpose by the climax. It could very well be titled "Daniel Craig's Action Antics" and be shown as a small part of a modern day circus instead of the more common bike racing in the Well of Death.

Verdict: I certainly do not regret watching this one. If you can manage to keep the Bond stigma away and not think too much you will actually enjoy the movie. The actions, cinematography, shooting locations are awesome so are most of the actors in the portrayal of their characters. The movie is certainly enjoyable and who knows I might as well go again!

Burn After Reading

2008-10-18T22:31:00.001+01:00

Title : Burn After Reading
Vital Stats:

Director: Joel Coen and Ethan Coen
Starring:

George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Frances Mc Dormand, John Malkovich, Tida Swinton, Richard Jenkins, Olek Krupa

Runtime: 95 minutes (eternity really)

Plot: Osbourne Cox (Malkovich) is an ex CIA employee who quits CIA and decides to write about his experiences as a memoir. His wife Katie (Tida Swinton) is screwing Harry (George Clooney) and is planning on divorcing him. On the advise of her lawyer she compiles a disk with the information about Cox's finanaces etc and ends up including his memoir in the disk. That disk is subseuqently lost and is found by Linda (Frances) and Chadd (Brad) who work together in a gym. They try to sell the disk to get some money out of the entire situation.

Well this is the plot as "advertised" however trust me this plot counts only for about one fourth of the movie. For the remainig, see My Psychobabble section.

My Psychobabble: An awesome movie headed straight in the category of Oscar nominations. Which means it is completely and utterly unsuitable for average, fun loving "Joe the plumber" kind of audience like yours truly (there you go, I brought Joe the plumber in my conversations too. Now I am in the US presidential race as well! he he he!).

Gosh I was so bored. It was a perfect cure for insomnia. Granted there were some funny moments in the movie but it was like watching an act performed by clowns who are desperately trying to entertain you but are failing so miserably that they put you off to sleep. Not to be discouraged they often come upto you and tickle you up to make you twitch slightly in the sleep but that is as far as they can go to entertain you. The moment they withdraw you promptly fall back into your sleep again.

That is all I can say about the "comic" factor of the movie.

There is no script whatsoever or should I say there is no one set or fixed script whatsoever. It is like a BIG BOSS or BIG BROTHER show with few characters thrown together for people to watch their antics and be amused by them. The movie kicks off as a story about Cox (Malkovich) but then like a quickly growing tumor it spawns too many tentacles too soon which starts killing the interest of the viewer. While these plots are introduced quiet quickly they eventually all unravel at a drastically slow pace which gives you enough time to wonder what the heck are you still doing sitting here in the cinema hall and then about your general life and its purpose etc. etc. As for the direction while some might argue about the unique style of Coen brothers most of the audience would struggle too much to make any sense from the movie to be bothered by the uniqueness if any in the style (if any).

Scripts and direction apart, all the actors have performed superb. I especially liked the way Brad Pitt has lived his character. He was simply brilliant and for a good length of the movie overshadowed everyone else.

Verdict: Treat this like the hot fire it is which means staying clear away from it. But then again if you are one of those blessed children of God who have a panache for "art" and "uniqueness" and the usual high tea gossip then you really don't want to miss this one! Go slurp it up!Technorati Tags: hollywood, burn after reading, bore, brad pitt, george clooney, coen, ethan coen, joel coen

Hello

2008-10-12T17:46:00.002+01:00

Title: Hello

Vital Stats:
Director: Atul Agnihotri

Starring: Salman Khan (Plays no part at all), Katina Kaif (same as Salman), Sharman Joshi, Sohail Khan, Arbaaz Khan, Amrita Arora, Gul Panag, Dalip Tahil, Isha Koppikhar (yup there is "h" in her name), Suresh Menon, Sharat Saxena.

Plot: Based on Chetan Bhagat's novel "A night @ the call center" this movie is about a night in the life of 6 people who work in the same call center. These are Shyam (Sharman), Varun (Sohail), Millitary Uncle (Sharat), Esha (Isha), Radhika (Amrita) and Priyanka (Gul). Their boss is Bakshi (Dalip Tahil) who runs the call center. Though it becomes a bit confusing towards the end whether he "owns" the center or is simply an employee himself. This is a story about these 7 characters and a special night in thei lives where nothing is going right. Shyam is in love with Priyanka who is now marrying a NRI because she wanted money in her life, Radhika has her own issues so does millitary uncle. Varun loves Esha who is mad after modelling and can not enter a commitment because of her passion. This one night brings a lot of chaos in their lives that leave them all changed people by the morning. Cant reveal too much about the changes else I would have to include spoilers!

My Psychobabble: This movie has so much to owe to Drona. Had I not seen Drona last weekend I would have probably brought out the big guns and would have shot this to pieces. But since my experience with Drona (that I survived, Oh yeah!) I am now more tolerant to the limits to which the directors can really lose their mind without being locked up in a mental asylum or shot by execution squad or boiled in hot oil for making us suffer the torture of the farce that they called movie etc. etc.

So then how is the movie really? Let us put it this way it is tolerable if you are suffering one of those evenings when everything is going wrong and basically you don’t give shite. The movie alternates between insanely boring to simply insane to mildly interesting. The characters are mediocre, the script week, direction poor, situations unreal and the whole appeal a big fat zero. My biggest problem is with the script and the direction both of which were horrible.

That being said, Sharman Joshi still comes out tops and very surprisingly I saw Sohail Khan act and I did not get the urge to slap him right across the face! Sohail Khan by his previous standards was amazing and actually managed to get some expressions on his face that didn’t include twisting his face into weird shapes. Sharman Joshi as I have already said was fantastic. I especially loved the way he played his alter ego, a small red devil that pops up during the movie and instigates him to tap the phone of the girl he loves. Man that character was awesome! If nothing else I would say that that small part by Sharman Joshi as his alter ego was worth watching the whole movie.

All the other characters are completely and absolutely wasted with special emphasis on Dalip Tahil. It is OK to portray a character that is madly in love with U.S. and would do anything to get there but to make him do all the idiotic things that Dalip’s character does is frankly disgusting. And seriously who ever came up with Amrita Arora’s character? Whoever that was, one small advise, dude get off the Star Parivar news channel and Ekta Kapoor stuff and get a life!

Verdict: I haven’t read the original novel but my experience tells me that novels usually aren’t anything like the movies are. If you loved the novel then by all means go and watch this one as the movie is not very bad. It is just not very well directed. If you miss this one though trust me you wouldn’t have missed anything minutely significant.

As always, if you need the soundtrack leave me a comment here!

Drona

2008-10-07T21:05:00.006+01:00

Title: Drona
Vital Stats:
Director: A real lousy one...lol! Actually Goldie Bahel
Starring: Abhishek Bacchan, Priyanka Chopra, Kay Kay Mennon, Jaya Bacchan

Plot: According to Indian mythology there was a time when Demigods (Devtas) and Devil's disciples (Asuras) combined their effort to churn the biggest ocean in the universe for they wanted to reap the myriad treasures and magical that were burried deep within the ocean. Amongst the many such magical things that came out there was one item that was the most coveted. This was "Amrut" or the elixir of immortality. Whosoever took one sip would become immortal and would never perish. Feared that if Asuras laid their hands on this elixir they would wreak havoc, the Devtas resorted to all kinds of trickery to hide this elixir. This movie claims that amongst such measures was appointing a human warrior to protect the elixir which was promptly hidden by Devtas. This warrior was given superhuman powers and physical strenght to be able to carry out his duties. This warrior was called "Drona". Throughout ages and generations this warrior and his offsprings (all of them became "Dronas") have played their part in keeping the location of this elixir secret and hidden from pursuing Asuras. One such Asura by the name of Riz Riazada has been after this elixir ever since it was found and still is lurking on the earth in human form to obtain this elixir. Long story short, Abhishek Bacchan is Drona (though he doesnt know it himself) and Riz Riazada can only reach Amruta if he can get its secret location from Abhishek (who again doesnt know it himself). Priyanka Chopra is basically a waste of movie reel space.

My Psychobabble: I don’t really know where to start. Lately none of the movies that I saw seem interesting. They all almost bored me to death. And so after watching Taken I thought to myself that maybe I ought to bring the bar down. So for Drona I did. I brought the bar down before I went in the cinema. Half hour in the movie, I placed the bar on the ground. Another half hour and I jumped on the bar, buried it in the ground six feet deep. Another 15 minutes, the bar penetrated the core of the earth came out the other side and floated gloriously away into the unknown depths of the universe.

Behold the contribution of Goldie Bahel to Indian cinema. Ladies and gents he has given Bollywood a new standard of “low”!

There are so many serious judgmental errors that I would be writing a complete series of Brittannicca encyclopedias were I to go into details. But to bring home my point that the movie is completely, uttely, absolutely, totally and truly “rubbish”, here are a few

1. The movie is set in a Hindu mythology setting of Devils (Asuras), Demigods (Devtas), holy men (rishi muni) and ancient secrets written in Sanskrit. But here we have an old as time Asura (devil reincarnate) living on this planet who speaks nothing but Urdu!

2. Dialogues make no sense at all. Totally and utterly. For all you care the characters might recite ABCD, 01234, do re….rather than talk to each other.

3. Abhishek Bacchan’s attire was again as old as time and was supposedly given to the first Drona by Devtas themselves. Yet the dress includes stylish leather boots that have zippers on them to put them on.

4. The first fight scene featuring Priyanka Chopra..what the fock was that contraption she used, who the fock designed it and how the fock can that do anything else other than serve as a stupid trinket to compel monkeys to dance.

5. At this point the bar was out into the Universe

The movie is totally horribly wrong. The director himself was confused whether scenes were supposed to introduce thrill or humor so he basically tried to put both in and left it upon the audience to either be amused or get thrilled. The movie steals the best sequences from Hollywood hits like the Mummy, Scorpion King, Harry Potter etc and gives them a distinctively visible “Bollywood movie for the kid” feel thus rendering them horribly wrong for the majority of the audience. Abhishek's supposedly fierce warrior stances look more like positions in Bhangra dance while Priyank Chopra is as graceful with her action sequences as my 70 year old granny doing Thriller dance on top of a moving train.

Verdict: If you do go to watch this movie make sure you are not carrying any such thing that you can use to harm yourself for trust me you would feel like killing yourself during the course of the movie. Kids would love it though and if you are one of them parents whose sorry posterior would be dragged by their kids anyways then basically all I can say is cheer up! at least your kids didnt force you to suffer RGV's Aag!

If you need the sound track of the movie, drop me a comment here!

Taken

2008-10-03T21:40:00.002+01:00

After a long interval which was mostly unavoidable I am back!

Presenting without any unecessary ramblings, the review of the new
movie titled Taken. As always, the star below the post are for the movie and not the content of the post!

Title: Taken

Director: Pierre Morel

Cast: Liam Neeson ... Bryan
Maggie Grace ... Kim
Leland Orser ... Sam
Jon Gries ... Casey
David Warshofsky ... Bernie
Holly Valance ... Diva
Katie Cassidy ... Amanda

Plot: Bryan(Neeson) is a retired undercover agent/spy (they never make clear who he really was) who has given up the shadowy dark world of covert operations to spend time with his daughter who is turning 17. His wife left him for a billionaire and took the daughter with her. Neeson is left with nothing really other than a bunch of old work colleagues, beer and you know general misery.
His daughter Kim (Grace) goes out to Paris with one of her friends from where they plan to go around Europe following a rock band tour. Both these girls are underaged and alone in the friend's cousin's upmarket residence in Paris. They befriend a guy at the Airport who leads to them getting kidnapped by a gang who specialize in kidnapping young girls. This gang kidnaps the girls, put them on drugs and then sells the girls to the highest bidder in the underworld.

Kim manages to get a message to her father who immediately dashes to Paris to find and take his daughter back. He now must penetrate this dark world of drugs, rapes, killings and other evils of the world while managing to keep himself alive and find his daughter. And he must do it within 96 hours else he would never be able to see his daughter ever again.

Fun! My Psychobabble: Here is a scene from the movie. So I am this super cool, ultra deadly, trained to kill in my sleep with my bare hands (or loud snores) kinda ass kicking expert in hand to hand combat who is calling upon his years of experience doing dark, dirty, hush hush stuff for the US of A government (who else!). I am hunting for my daughter who has been kidnapped from Paris and I have a lead on a guy who is usually found at Charles de Gaulle airport (the busiest airport in France and possibly the most secure). Great! So what do I do then? I wait keeping my trained eyes on the dude whom I have spotted at the air port. I lurk in the shadows relying on my experience to keep me invisible from security cameras, police and any backup the dude might have. I then follow the dude out till I can corner him in an isolated place (smiling secretly and rather perversely to myself that even disturbs my twisted sense of self realization) and torture him like Daniel Craig was tortured in the last Bond movie (kick those balls baby! Oh yeah!) until he screams the whereabouts of my daughter.

Good plan!

But hold on it is not I whose executing this hold up is it? It is Mr Neeson under the expert guidance of Morel. So what Mr Neeson’s trained, deadly, invisible character does is he pounces on the bad dude in front of the airport, police, cameras, security, dude’s backup and then starts beating the shit out of him! Right in front of the entire Paris and in broad day light! The result!? The dude's backup jumps into the fight, the dude manages to escape, falls from a flyover and is dispatched to the netherworld by a loving hug from an 18 wheeler.

Hmmm nice plan. Neeson might not have the whereabouts of his daughter but hey this was more fun than just lurking in the shadows! And lets face it, nothing interests the sickos in the audience than to see a nice man on man action.

This probably summarizes my review of the movie. The movie is an absolute bore with almost every second sequence torturing your waking conscience making you ask yourself things like “what the heck is this guy doing? My grand mother can do this better than him. Oh weight my grand mother would have never lost my mother like this to begin with. Boy this guy truly sucks.”

The combats fail to impress, the chases are boring, and the plot is overdrawn and poorly conceived.
A lot of dialogues in the movie are spoken in French. Sometimes when you are lucky you do get to see sub titles while the other time you are expected to make educated guesses as to what the characters are trying to say to each other. I am quiet sure in one such situation Neeson says to his friend in the French police something on the lines of "Ahh I am so constipated! All this bloody French food has gotten into my gut and made a bloody concrete bunker in there. Damn you! Damn all your food!"

I personally think that the script was actually written as a lullaby for mentally retarded but when they shunned it the director tried to feed it to us gullible people out on the streets who would sit tight during the course of the movie for nothing else but to recover some cost from that hard earned money we spent on the ticket.

Verdict: If you really want to kill time then please rather go and see paint dry than watch this movie. Give me Bourne series any day!

Bachna Ae Haseeno

2008-08-17T23:57:00.003+01:00

What a weekend! I saw two movies back to back this Saturday after a real long time. I honestly can not remember the last time I did something like this! The first one was Singh is King (review coming shortly) and the second one was this. In fact the Singh is King ended at 4:45 and this one started at 4:40. We jumped straight out of Singh is king and dashed straight into the auditorium showing Bachna Ae Haseeno(BAH from now on) and man was this movie worth it! But obviously my psychobabble would come in its relevant section. One small thing I would like to mention here - from this review onwards I am along with the review I shall also upload the music of the movie for you to download. I am working on a separate section on my blog which would let you download stuff easily but until that gets done I shall post the link for the music files right in the middle of the review. For this one however here is the link to download music. Click here

That said, let us roll...

Vital Stats:

Title: Bachna Ae Haseeno (BAH)

Director: Siddharth Raj Anand

Length: 162 minutes
Starring: Me (LOL! my lady love swears that Ranbir Kapoor's character is completely me :D)

Seriously

Ranbir Kapoor, Minnisha (Not Manisha) Lamba, Bipasha Yumm Basu, Dipika ConicalFeet (Padukone), Hiten Pental (Pental Jr).

Plot: The story revolves around Raj (Ranbir Kapoor). And yes they indeed called the character Raj and what's more, Raj is really thankful to his mother for giving him this name as it makes his task of getting girls to fall in love with him much easier courtsey Shah Rukh Khan and DDLJ(If you don't know what this means, die now). Raj is a perfect playboy, a max chilled out boy who is doing well in his career (employed by Microsoft he is in their gaming division), who looks fab and who knows how to get a girl to dance to his tunes in this utterly cute chocolate boy devilish kinda way. His best friend is Sachin (Pantel Jr.) who endorses Raj's philosophy about life and girls and career etc. Raj goes about breaking hearts in the first half of the movie from Switzerland (Minnisha Lamba as Mahi) to Mumbai (Bipasha Basu as Radhika) until fate takes him to Sydney where he chances upon Gayatri (Deepika). As fate would have it he falls heads over heels over Deepika who dishes his dish to himself. She leads him on but brutally turns him down when he proposes wedding to her. This makes our Hero realize how much pain and anguish he caused Mahi and Radhika when he broke their hearts. He is now a changed man. The protagonist must now travel from Sydney to Amritsar and to Mumbai to seek repentance and suffer any pertinence that he so deserves for his past actions.

My Psychobabble: Ranbir Kapoor ROCKS! Have no doubts my readers here is one young dashing ultimate killer boy who has not only recovered fantastically from the disaster that was Sanwariya but has left no bloody stone unturned in his quest for excellence. He looked amazingly handsome in a very young cute boy kind of a way and has delivered a character performance that is second only in comparison to the commercial industry maestros. He has completely gelled into his character and has played the part beautifully. What made me wonder however was what made him unbutton his shirt so much in the movie!? I mean throughout the first half, barely would be a sequence where Raj's torso was not on display.

The movie is quiet well done. For quiet some part it does look like a DDLJ rip off but then unlike some recent directors who would go to any length to claim their movie is not based on any Hollywood movie whatsoever (kudos on making such humans God, tussi sachchi great ho!) our Raj here actually thinks out aloud about DDLJ and makes sure he does all that the Raj in that movie did to get his girls. After all the character of that Raj was and still is a screen legend! What's even better is that all DDLJ rip offs are so amazingly done that they actually make you feel good about ripping off a movie! The movie maintains a decent pace in the first half and though it does seem to drag in the second half still it rarely ever gets boring. One piece of advise however I have for director - two songs back to back - Nada. Not good! Na nope never and no not even if one of them features Yumm Basu.

Nope.

Never.

Nada.

That was one big flaw in the movie, these two songs that almost come back to back. They hit you when the movie has just begun slowing down and when you are beginning to realize that uh oh Raj got screwed big time man, the funs gone! They together with about 10 more minutes until the third song really kill your interest for a while.

Bipasha Basu (Sigh!) has looked her usual Yumm self. Lets admit it, the lady aint no great actor but then when you look like that who gives two hoot about if your eye brow was arched one degree too little while you frowned or not. Trust me, I for once ain't looking at your eye brow babe ;). And I know I aint alone here. Whenever you see the movie, watch out for the scene where Raj meets her for the first time. Take Raj out and put any straight man in the scene. Nothing would change, nothing at all! That was perhaps my favorite sequence in the whole movie. She has played her part good. To be honest her character in the second half of the movie did seem like a rip off from Devil Wears Prada but then even if it was who cares! John you lucky dog!! Gym here I come.

To Deepika Padukone - Babe come out of Om Shanti Om now please. You aint no red carpet dominating diva or a super star or some princess of Timbaktu or something so please stop behaving like one. I am not sure if it is just me or do others can also sense this fake regal aura that she tries to put all around her even if she is playing a character that drives taxi and works in a super store. Her portrayal of Gayatri was way way off the mark. Besides I am not sure whose stupidity was it, the director or the designer but what girl can drive a taxi for a living the whole night long wearing 6 inch heels!

Hiten Pental has delivered a good performance. I wont call it extraordinary simply for the fact that his character was played a bit down in the movie in comparison to Ranbir's (which is of course obvious). But whatever little time he gets on the screen he makes his mark. I especially recommend one particualr scene when he is shown talking to Raj in men's toilet (what you want me to call it a rest room now? Seriously, do you go there to rest!? Gross!) advising him on a certain situation with Bips. His expressions as he delivers his dialogue were priceless! Kudos man good going.

Minnisha...urmmm what do I say. She has done good no doubt but not as amazingly good as the others. By the way whoever made her wear those salwar in the first half..dude sorry but that really was bad designer sense there.

Verdict: Not to be missed. I don't care what the critics are saying about this one (I ain't a critic if you are wondering by the way, I am an "apperciat-or") I would definitely recommend catching this one. In fact I am already planning to see this again very soon!

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor

2008-08-12T22:24:00.000+01:00

As always, please click one of the stars at the end of this post to rate the movie!

Where the fock have I been! What happened to my effing commitment to publish movie reviews and just what the heck do I think I am!

What else eh my bona fide, beloved reader ;)!? Yes I have been away for a real long time but trust me it was not by choice. I have been so utterly busy with my new job that it was nigh impossible for me to find out time for anything else at all. But I do apologize for this disappearance and without further ado let us get on to the review for this week.

Describe the movie in one word: Imoteph-Ownes-Dragon-King-Any-Day

Vital Stats;

Title: The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor

Director: Some real lonely dude…

Nahh..*grin*

Director: Rob Cohen

Starring: Psychos and some real ugly babes

True

LOL! Seriously

Starring: Brendan Fraser, Jet Li, Maria Bello, Michelle Yeoh, Isabella Long, Luke Ford, John Hannah

Runtime: 112 minutes

Plot: Nothing new or innovative really. Alex (Luke Ford) is Rick O’ Connell (Brendan)’s son who is really messed up by the tall shadow cast by his father. Portrayed as a bit of a rebel (a real ugly one by the way) he ends up digging an ancient Chinese Emperor (Jet Li). Now this emperor dude (Han) was cursed by a witch back in his time and was frozen in time along with his army of 10,000 strong terracotta warriors (is it just me or do these guys sound something that is made up of 60% cotton and 40% polyester or something?). Trailing Alex’s find is a rogue Chinese Army general who manages to break the curse on the emperor and bring him to life. The reason – this general wants “order” bestowed on this rogue chaotic world. Well this is it. Now it is upto the O’ Connell’s along with a mysterious Chinese girl who can summon the abominable snowmen etc to stop this mad emperor from resurrecting his army of cotton warriors and taking over the world.

My Psychobabble: I MISS RACHEL WEISZ! I am sorry to say but Brendan Fraser had no chemistry with his onscreen better half Maria Bello who was just awful. Accepted that every individual has his/her own special personality traits and while some have excellent looks (aka yours truly ;)) while some have exceptional talents (ahem!) but then there are people like Mario Bello who are truly exceptional (in the sense that they have neither!). Her portrayal of the character was week and left much desired. Somehow even Brendan Fraser looked quiet uncomfortable playing this part which he played amazingly in the first two movies. Luke Ford seriously could be Maria Bello’s real son for he had all the qualities of his on screen mother viz. nothing! He acted bad, looked bad and worst – had the longest role really.

Michelle Yeoh – oh well wont go into details on her as this would invariably lead to spoilers. But suffice this to say that Michelle Yeoh, Jet Li and John (Jonathan) are truly wasted in the movie.

Other than bad acting and badder (don’t you dare frown over my seemingly incorrect English) looking actors the movie has too many week points. The script is poor and does little to hold one’s interest during the length of the movie. The direction is week and the characters are poorly written. I don’t even want to start pointing mistakes made in the movie as many sites already have this information. However special effects of the movie are commendable. They are better than the first two indeed.

Technorati Tags: hollywood,one watch,bore,nice special effects,the mummy,tomb,dragon emperor,movie,reviews,movie reviews

Verdict: If you liked the mummy series then watch this simply for the reason that this is unfortunately one of them. This is like the ugly duckling of the family but then alas! It is family.

De Taali

2008-06-22T21:24:00.002+01:00

Please click one of the stars at the end of the review to rate the movie and not the review! If you have not seen the movie yet then please do come back once you have seen it and rate the movie then!

What a weekend! Had to clean and scrub the refrigerator and then had a nasty incident where a lot of hot wax was spilled on the bloody carpet! Oh man if I knew I could scrub and scratch so well I would have become a Bollywood director and direct movies like De Taali etc. But anyways my boring life aside lets get to the movie review

Describe the movie in one word : Rubbish

Vital Stats:

Title: De Taali
Director: E Nivas
Starring: Aftab Shivdasani, Ayesha Takia, Ritesh Deshmukh, Rimi Sen, Anupam Kher
Length: 156min

Plot: The movie is about three friends Amu (Ayesha), Abhi (Aftab) and Paglu (Ritesh). They have been the best of chums since childhood and have grown up together. Abhi is the son of business tycoon Anupam Kher and hence is loaded. Amu and Paglu we know nothing about. For all we are concerned they could have sprouted on the same mango tree that I mentioned in one of my earlier reviews. Abhi is a miserable loser in love and has had 31 prior girl friends (including a psychic Neha Dhupia who can talk to dead people and hence my using the word loser). He meets and falls for Kartika (Rim Sen) just as Amu and Paglu come to this "logical conclusion" that Amu actually loves Abhi. Well it turns out Rimi is a gold digger and now commences the eventual battle between the gold digger vamp and the "loyal broker loser miserable bacchpan ke langotiya yaar" to save the prince charming. The movie is all about this battle.

My Psychobabble: Rubbish, Bull's feces and crap! I mean when I walked into the cinema I wasn't expecting a masterpiece. In fact I was kind of looking forward to another cousin in the same family tree of movies like "Krazzy 4" and "One Two Three" etc. and I am glad I wasn't dissappointed on this front at least. Aftab Shivdesani has looked exactly like his character in the movie – absolutely filthy, stupid, ridiculous and idiotic. His is probably the most wasted part in the movie (unless you count the total 10 minute appearance by Neha Dhupia) and so are his looks. The only time he is tolerable is when he is not on the screen. Ritesh has been the saving grace of the movie. Yes he is not a terrific actor and his character in the movie is a bit off as well but at least the way he acts keeps you slightly amused and remotely interested in the movie. Ayesha Takia….oh well what do I say here! Her presence literally “fills up the screen” *wink wink* but other than that there is no substance to her acting, her looks or her character. Rim Sen has been the “Oh My Freakin God” of the movie. I don’t know if it is the camera angle or the seat I was sitting at but Rimi Sen my dear readers has appeared HUGE (and no, no winks this time I mean the whole of her). Her face looks gigantic, her shoulders could easily match those of Arny and the frame of her body made her look like the Goliath in the movie. At times I was expecting the movie to turn into the “Gulliver Travels” with Rimi Sen picking up Ayesha and Ritesh in her palm, bringing them close to her eyes and giving a nasty, evil, resounding boom of laughter!

The characters and their portrayal apart, the direction SUX! Many situations and scenes in the movie make no sense whatsoever. I mean even if you were Einstein you couldn’t have figured out what the director is trying to show you. By the way if you were Einstein you would have figured out the movie is trash and wouldn’t waste your time on it anyway. But sadly you are not and more sadly you are here suffering my psychobabble. But trust me once you have been to the movie (if you go that is) and have seen Neha Dhupia and her psychic stuff, you would happily come back to my blog!

The script could have been good but it was thoroughly messed up and I do mean thoroughly. Probably Mr. Nivas took charge of script editing of the movie as well. The cinematography was average however a couple of songs in the movie were good.

Verdict: If I were to chose between Indiana Jones and this one, I would chose this but given an option to either watch this or lazy around in my couch, I would chose the couch! Try and not waste your time on this one. Ain’t worth it.Technorati Tags: bollywood, movie reviews, movie

Mere Baap Pahle Aap

2008-06-16T22:43:00.004+01:00

Please click one of the stars below the post to give your rating to the movie.

Describe the movie in one word : SleazyYetFun

Vital Stats:

Title: MERE BAAP PEHLE AAP
Director: Priyadarshan

Starring: Akshay Khanna, Paresh Rawal, Genelia D’souza, Shobhana, Rajpal Yadav

Length: 165min

My Psychobabble: If you have been reading my reviews for a while (if you did nod your head then you so rock and I am so thankful to you and maybe I will include you in my will) you would know that I am the kind of person who would always find out something or the other to say about anything. I mean I am one of those criticizing jacka$$es whom just won’t shut up.

And I know that.

But this time I just don’t know what to say. This movie is so spot on its name. Cheap, crass, rude, borderline sleazy and yet funny. Some scenes and situations in the movie do pack a few good punches while most of the others are insanely stupid. Of course having seasoned actors like Paresh Rawal and Om Puri help big time but then they are neither the SRKs, Akshay Kumar’s of Bollywood who can pull a complete movie on their own nor are they the Mallika’s and Rakhi’s of our fraternity who can pull crowds. But then bundle them together in a pot, add some good looking garnishing to it, light a moderately sleazy fire underneath, give it a few stirs and you would have a mildly amusing concoction bubbling back and forth in the pot. Give it a ridiculously stupid name and you might be able to pass it around which is what this movie tries to do.

One thing however was not clear to me. Why in the name of God did all the actors just keep shouting!? Trust me the moment the movie begins to the very moment it ends, everyone (and especially Akshay Khanna) just keeps yelling at the bloody top of their voices. It seems the script writer of the movie wanted to get the perfect blockbuster formula and ended up mixing an “angry young man” typed character with a “Akshay Kumar brand” humorous character. The mix my dear readers is not good, not good at all. At times I felt like getting up and giving a tight one across AK’s face and yell myself “for the freaking love of some God, SHUT THE F**K UP YOU IMBICILE!!!”

There are so many obvious flaws in the movie. For instance AK keeps on getting calls from this mysterious girl who is driving him mad. He is desperate to seek her out. He keeps yelling and shouting on the phone and towards the middle of the movie he does get seriously constipated with tension and anger. Yet he makes no attempt to use features like Caller Line Identification of modern day phones. And finally when the girl does send him a letter (and there is a sender’s address on that letter) AK promptly beckons his minion (Rajpal Yadav), learns some real bad swear words from him, writes them down in a letter and gives the letter to Yadav to deliver. Now one would think that after all the weeks of misery and anticipation, AK would have dashed himself to the sender’s address but no sir, not for this young man. I have my doubts that probably as soon as he sends Yadav away maybe he dashes to the lavatory to you know release the pent up tensions of the past days (ahem!).

Om Puri’s character is completely useless and probably the cheapest in the movie. But then Om Puri has played it with such a flourish that you do actually laugh at some ridiculous moments of his character. One advise to the director of the movie though – please for heaven’s sake and the sake of all humans alive, please never ever ever again shoot a sequence where Puri is topless. It was gross! He is a brilliant actor but is a middle aged average Indian male with a perfect pot belly and ultra ugly sagging man boobs. It was a nightmare having to survive that scene that seemingly stretched into infinity!

Paresh Rawal is as always a genius. This is one actor who knows acting. Cast him as an evil villain in a movie or a confused pakka maraathi or a cowering father, he can play the role as if it is his first nature. Kudos Rawal sir, kudos! I am a big fan of your acting and shall always be!

I won’t go into the leading lady of the movie and her character because frankly I think it is not worth it. But for the sake of completeness here is my advise – either learn to act or to strip or get out of Bollywood. It ain’t a place for you lassie.

(Take my advise please!)

Verdict: Besides the obvious flaws like a weak script, poor direction, lose characters, situations and dialogues the movie still is watchable. It is a perfect for one of those lazy summer days when you have absolutely nothing to do, when you feel like a Royal King or Queen in the mood to wave your hand in the air and say “chalta hai yaar”, have just found a rolled up 100 note in your old trouser pocket and are wondering what do I do with it.

Sarkar Raj

2008-06-13T21:15:00.004+01:00

Please
click one of the stars at the end of the review to rate the movie and
not the review! If you have not seen the movie yet then please do come
back once you have seen it and rate the movie then!

Saw this the same day as I saw the Sex and The City but just couldn’t get around to writing a review of this. Yeah life sucks :(

Anyways getting on with the review then

Describe the movie in one word: WayTooPolitical

Vital Stats:

Title: SARKAR RAJ

Director: Ram Gopal Varma

Starring:Amitabh Bachchan, Abhishek Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Tanisha Mukherjee

Length: 145min

Plot: No matter what Ramu says this is a sequel to the first movie Sarkar. The characters are the same, the setting is same and the story actually picks up from where Sarkar ended. Shankar (Abhishek) is taking over from Amitabh Bacchan as the topmost leader of Mahrashtra and is soon becoming a pain for all his opponents. He is ruthless, sharp, courageous and doesn’t hesitate before taking a decisoin and then executing it. The movie revolves around a proposed installation of a multi billion power plant that a UK company wants to establish in Mahrashtra. However to be able to do so they need to evacuate some villages and displace locals who have been staying there forever. Anita (Aishwarya Rai Bacchan ) is the CEO of the company who with the help of certain mediators approach Abhishek to realize this project. The story revolves around the local politics that evolve around this project and how Abhishek deals with it.

My Psychobabble: Abhishek and Amitabh are both super duper fantastic in the movie. I mean goddamn it those Bacchans know how to act! Their acting is so natural, so natural that you can tell by Abhishek’s looks how constipated he has been throughout the filming of the movie. Why does he have to carry this ridiculously stupid “Oh I am so tough that I can shoot your ass off with my eyes” look all over his face? His acting is marvelous, his body language perfect and his dialogue delivery is superb. Why must then he carry that stupid expression plastered all over his face?

(Grr..I will push it out tomorrow for sure!)

Anyways despite his constipated facial expression throughout, the movie is almost enjoyable. It does turn too political towards the end (and a bit disturbing) but you cannot deny the reality of these dirty politics. However despite excellent acting by everyone and a good story line the direction of the movies isn’t that great. The movie seems to drag too slowly throughout its length. There are too many unnecessary close-up shots and too many shots in inadequate lighting. It’s almost as if Ramu is trying to cut back on the electricity costs after his certain “playing with the fire” debacle ;)

Amitabh’s transformation from a man in absolute control to a man overshadowed by his son to a seasoned player of the game who knows all the moves before they are even made is absolutely superb. Aishwarya did seem like struggling in her character at times and often kept slipping back to her “Paro in Devdaas” expressions but then it could simply be a case of her performance looking average when compared to the father and the son’s.

There are a few surprises along the way and to be honest I was pretty taken back by a few turn of events during the movie. I shall not get into details because that would mean including spoilers and I do not want to do that. I am not sure if Ramu has a third movie planned in the line but if he has I would be very interested to see how he turns the characters around this time. Do come back to my review please after you have seen the movie and you would know what I am talking about. It would be very interesting if you can share your views on this!

Verdict: If you don’t mind a very slow script you might like this movie. I did but as I said I was quiet disgusted towards the end. The politics portrayed is quiet worse than in Sarkar and towards the end it does get to you. If you are planning on watching this then make sure your nerves are totally in control!