This weekend opened to two Hollywood Big Budget movies 'Life of Pi' by Ang Lee and the last installment of the 'Twilight Series'. Having read Yann Martel's 'Life of Pi' I was looking forward to the cinematic version of the same by the great Ang Lee who has made some of the best movies in the past like 'Brokeback Mountain' and 'Sleeping Tiger and Hidden Dragon.' As expected the movie was a cinematic journey and at no point of time did I ever feel bored or felt that Ang has not done enough justice to Yann's book. The story is about a 16-year-old Indian boy named Pi who survives a shipwreck and crosses the Pacific in a lifeboat with a Tiger 'Richard Parker' for company. The movie shows how survival in such tough conditions can bring man closer to God. The performances by young Suraj Sharma, Irfan Khan, Tabu etc. are first rate. The movie looks wonderful, the animals look beautiful, the storms look dangerous, the setting is extremely praiseworthy. Ang has done full justice to the subject and in turn gives us a memorable movie. At box office the movie will do super business and it will also open more doors to Indian topics and actors a new doorway to Hollywood. The Hollywood-Bollywood gap is soon bridging and we can hope more such wonderful movies are made with our actors by Hollywood bigwigs. So here to hope and survival.
Dabangg was a turn around movie for Salman Khan not only the box office figurewise but also the music was something that was Chartbuster and the music director duo Sajid - Wajid bagged some of the best music director awards for 2010.
Dabangg-2 is one of the much awaited movies of 2012 and the audience was looking forward to another chartbuster from the same team but I would like to say it is just a 'HUGE DISAPPOINTMENT.'
The songs have a sense of dejavu as if they are poor cousins of the bigger hits churned out in Dabangg. The first song in the album 'Dagabaaz Re' reminds you of 'Tere Mast Mast Nain' while 'Saason Ne' is a very bad match to the beautiful 'Chori Kiya Re Jiya'.
If Dabangg had a chartbuster 'Munni' here you have a very average 'Fevicol Se'. For a 'Humka Peene Hai' you have a 'Pandeji Maare Seeti' which I must say is the only saving grace of this otherwise damp album.
The 'Dabangg Unloaded' is another bad song that will not grow the way 'Hudd Hudd Dabangg' did in the previous movie.
On the whole the album is just average, hope the movie is not as bad as the album. All the Best to Arbaaz Khan and his team... waiting for 21st Dec 2012 when Dabangg 2 releases.
Yash Chopra movies have inspired many a generations as it speaks about love and has some of the best songs ever created and shot on screens. So the last movie directed by Yash Chopra had a lot of expectations from the audience and yes I too had some wonderful expectations. However I felt that the movie went wrong in the scripting and the music was uninspiring.
Moreover like his character Samar Anand played by SRK who wakes up one day to forget his last 10 years memories after he meets with an accident the same way SRK has woken up after the huge debacle RA.One last Diwali to forget the last 12 years and imagine that he is still playing the conventional Raj and Rahul characters played for Dharma and YRF.
The movie tells the story of Mira played by Katrina who likes to make promises with God in return to get her prayers answered. Samar is a happy go lucky guy who happens to fall in love with Mira after he sees her in church when she comes to ask God to break her engagement and in return she will stop wearing fur. Soon Mira seems to see Samar everywhere singing on different locations in London. She strikes a deal with Samar that if he teaches her to learn a song in Punjabi she will teach him English.
Soon they fall in love with eachother in between music sessions and English classes. The day Mira goes to tell her father about her relationship with Samar, he meets with an accident and to save his life she tells God she will never meet him. Samar is saved and as promised to God she stops meeting him which in turn breaks his heart and he joins Army as a bomb diffusing specialist.
Ten years later he meets Akira played by Anushka who is a documentary maker for Discovery Channel. She falls in love with Samar and before anything could go further between them, Samar meets with another accident and he soon realises that he has lost his memory for the last 10 years. Then what happens is the entire crux of the story.
The screenplay by Devika Bhagat and Aditya Chopra lacks the punch. The predictability of the plot and the silly promises that Katrina's character likes to make to God for silly reasons makes the story quite kiddish and boring.
The music apart from 'Saans' is quite uninspiring, the cinematography is wonderful. Dialogues are okay, it makes you remember the movies made by Karan Johar and Yash Chopra in the 90's.
SRK has not done anything outstanding considering the fact that he was going back to what he does best. Katrina is a revelation maybe she was waiting for Yash Chopra to tap out the best performance from her. Anushka Sharma as usual is good. Anupam Kher has a 'blink and you miss' kind of a role. The cameo by Rishi Kapoor and Neetu Kapoor was okay.
On the whole due to the hype and controversy surrounding the movie will help it to get a Super Hit tag. However the movie on the whole is a complete let down if you compare it to the masterpieces churned out by Yash Chopra in the past. So my verdict an average movie for a one time watch.
Vikram Bhatt is synonymous with horror genre the way Karan Johar is to candy floss romance and Bhatt brothers with erotic thrillers and therefore 1920 - Evil Returns was always a much awaited movie as soon as the promos hit the tube.
However like RAAZ - 3, 1920-Evil Returns also disappoints highly. There is no novelty in the story and the movie is another heavily inspired version of THE EXORCIST.
Now coming to the story; Smruti [Tia Bajpai] is on her way to meet Jaidev [Aftab Shivdasani] who is her pen friend turned lover whom she has never met. On the way she meets with an accident caused by an evil spirit and in turn she loses her memory. Jaidev, a well-known poet, who lives with his sister Karuna [Vidya Malvade] finds Tia one morning, lying unconscious near the lake and gets her home. Karuna is against Jaidev's decision of bringing a stranger home. A few episodes later, Jaidev realizes that Smruti has lost her memory and doesn't remember anything except his poems.
Jaidev decides to get Smruti treated in Shimla. En route, while resting in the guest house, strange developments start taking place. Jaidev realizes that Smruti is possessed by a spirit. To save her it is necessary to unveil her past and how he goes in search of her past and what comes in front of him is the crux of the story.
Although the story is by Vikram Bhatt and Amin Hajee, Bhushan Patel has directed the movie who was the erstwhile assistant of Vikram. The music by Chirantan Bhatt was average and it hampers the narrative of the movie.
Performances by every actors including the main leads are strictly okay, however Tia Bajpai enacts her part well in all the possessed scenes. Aftab looks and acts quite average.
At the ticket window the movie might turn out to be a winner as it is made at a very low cost and has the advantage of Vikram Bhatt's name attached to it.
For the past few years every movie produced or directed by maverick film maker Karan Johar has been awaited by every cine goers. It is a fast rule you can like him or hate him but you cannot ignore his movies or him. This week KJo comes out with his first movie that introduces not only the three main leads but also a horde of newcomers in the supporting cast.
Student of the Year or SOTY is the only movie that doesn't cast his favorite King Khan and still has got all the ingredients to make it a full fledged BLOCKBUSTER. Coming to the story. SOTY is the story of Abhimanyu Singh [Sidharth Malhotra] and Rohan Nanda [Varun Dhawan], who traverse the path of competition, envy, triumph, failure, manipulation and heartbreak in their mini-universe of St. Teresa's High School, Dehradun.
Rohan a.k.a. Ro is the son of a business tycoon who has the hots for every girl in the town although he has a devoted girlfriend in Shanaya [Alia Bhatt]. He is a popular guy in the college and for him the twists and turns in his life makes it a goal to become the SOTY. While Abhimanyu a.k.a Abhi comes from a middle-class family and wants to achieve great heights of success and prosperity, the first step to which will be the 'Student Of The Year' trophy.
The two protagonists with distinct backgrounds and clear goals clash with each other in the locker room, football field and the canteen. Things are further knotted up when Shanaya Singhania [Alia Bhatt], falls in love with Abhi who also is attracted to her even though she is his best friend's girl. This causes a rift in their friendship and, Abhi and Rohan are ready for a face-off and battle lines are drawn through the length and breadth of the campus, with only one goal in everyone's eyes -- 'Student Of The Year' trophy.
The story is nothing great but the treatment by KJo is wonderful, every character gets a distinct role that is well defined. The supporting cast comprising of Sana Saeed, Sahil Anand, Kayoze Irani, Ram Kapoor, Rishi Kapoor, Ronit Roy etc are brilliant.
Among the main leads Varun Dhawan is a performer while Siddharth Malhotra is someone to look for in the coming years. Alia Bhat is beautiful and has done a decent job. The music compared to KJo's previous movies are not great shakes but still 'Ishqwala Love' 'Velle' 'Disco Deewane' and 'Radha' are quite good.
On the whole the movie is going to do very well at the Box Office and it will benefit everyone associated with the movie.
After watching a mind blowing 'English Vinglish' last week, comes a drab 'Aiyya' which infact even I am surprised how a director like Sachin Kundalkar (who won a National Award for the same story in Marathi) could make. I am wondering how Rani Mukherjee and Anurag Kashyap who are known for their brilliant script sense could actually go for a script like this?
To give you a backhand story, Sachin Kundalkar made a movie "Gandh - The Smell" in Marathi few years back that had three short stories woven together, revolving around 'smell'. One of the short stories titled 'Lagnacha Vayachi Mulgi' has been stretched and made into a 2hr 30 mins 'masala' potboiler in Hindi by him.
Like Rani's screen father says in the end of the movie, "That he could not understand what was happening all the while?" was the same thing I uttered to myself after the movie came to an end (actually I was waiting for it to end). The movie was neither a comedy nor a thought provoking drama or even a masala entertainer that it was being projected as, all through its promos and songs.
The story is about a middle class girl Meenaxi (Rani) who falls in love with a South Indian guy named Surya (Prithviraj) only because of his body smell. Her quirky or rather an over dramatic family fixes her marriage with a simpleton Madhav (Subodh Bhave) who loves Farooque Shaikh and Deepti Naval movies. Soon Meenaxi realizes that she can never be happy with Madhav as she is in love with Surya or rather his smell and what happens to Meenaxi and would she get the man of her dreams is what AIYYA is all about.
Performances by every actor including Rani is over the top, loud and dramatic. South Sensation Prithviraj has nothing much to do and has just a couple of dialogues in the entire movie. The songs are wonderful and they are choreographed well by Vaibhavi Merchant. Dialogues are too loud and at times too boring. Direction was average, I still want to believe that Sachin was either sleeping when he directed this movie or maybe he drank a bottle full of vodka from the water-bag named 'Jumbo' carried by Rani's colleague Maina in the movie.
On the whole this movie is not worth watching unless you want to hold your head and scream angrily "AIYYA". This movie will be a total loss at the Box Office, maybe a miracle can save it.
As for the other release of the week BHOOT RETURNS... I would rather say Mr. RGV can you please stop wasting your time and producers money by making such crass movies.... Please take a break and do some soul searching... We want to see RGV of Rangeela, Satya, Bhoot, Company and Sarkar series.... The worst movie I have ever seen so wouldn't waste my time and energy in reviewing it... At the box office this BHOOT will not make any RETURNS ;)
At last the prayers of all Sridevi fans including me have been answered with the release of Gauri Shinde directed 'English Vinglish'. A simply and cute story told in a very simple and emotional way. Nothing new if you want to give a straightaway judgement, but that is the beauty of this simple movie.
Sashi (Sridevi) is a housewife and a small time 'Entrepreneur' who sells home made 'laddoos' and takes care of her family. However her biggest problem in life is not knowing English language because of which she is not valued by her children and husband.
On her sister's insistence she goes to US to help with the marriage preparations of her niece. There she happens to enroll herself for a short term English learning class. She discovers, like her there are couple of characters who have come from different countries to US for work and are struggling with their lack of knowledge of English language.
Soon she is on a roll and she learns the language to earn respect and dignity among her family members.
The story is very simple, the direction is wonderful although there are few glitches in the screenplay but that can be ignored when you see the end result.
Sridevi as always is endearing and she is as natural as she can be. It seems the character was tailor-made for her. Even after 15 years she is still in great form and will beat every competition to win all the awards and maybe even the National Award for her potrayal of Sashi Godbole. The rest of the supporting cast is wonderful so is the cameo by Amitabh Bachchan. The music is very good especially the title song and 'Navrai'. After 'Cheeni Kum' and 'Paa', R. Balki comes back as a producer for 'English Vinglish' bringing back the feel good quality of his past ventures.
On the whole this is one movie which everyone should watch and maybe after that our views about our mothers and housewives in general will change. As it is said, being a housewife is a 24 hour duty and even though a woman does her chores with dedication, still she never gets to hear a 'Thank You' or a word of appreciation from her family members, because she is taken for granted. I am not saying that suddenly the views towards the housewives will change however one will definitely think about it.
My verdict please do go and watch this BRILLIANT movie... as for box office numbers, it will definitely bring in good numbers and ensure everyone associated with this movie gets benefited.
