English Vinglish !

This film's title mistakenly makes the viewers feel that it is about english. It's not. It is about the self esteem of a women, who is stuck in rather uncelebrated job, doing relatively 'less highly ' thought of roles. English, was just a medium of bringing forth her hurt and subsequent defiance. It could as well have been say , computers. Above all , It was about Shridevi. The amazing , age defying shri, with eyes deeper than oceans. Umm.. a little nasty nose and teeth job, but every bit as beautiful as ever.

 So we had this unassuming homemaker, who is not good at english, and derided by her family rather callously for that . She accumulates this grief till the last straw , And given a break ,she takes on a journey to rid herself of her most riling deficiency, in process of ridding her family of what was their most riling one. And need I say it was done brilliantly ! A film with a modest story and such a puerile background as 'mind your language' could have sunk into mediocrity. But Gauri Shinde painted the film with such subtle and precise strokes that the viewer just wows. Nevermind rather shrill daughter, or a lame romance in the classroom. Or overly sweet sister or that lallu looking husband. The film just flows like Sri's lissome dance moves. I am glad i watched it with my mother. Its just the kind of film one should take one's mom to !

Tiger spotting !

      When you watch a Salman Khan film, you go to theater with different set of expectations. Lately, south style action repackaged in a bollywood box has been his forte. And for some reason .  salman's fan following and nature of affections that he gets borders on south style hero idolizing. Fans have got conditioned to 'like' him irrespective of anything. For instance, nothing can explain the success of 'ready'. 'Bhai' film has become a buzzword. And Even high brow production houses like YRF, could not ignore this phenomenon. And so we had this film, based on a ridiculously flimsy plot. I mean Roshan Seth as a scientist was like aloknath playing a terrorist. Fishes on trees only look fine in abstract painting. And we had these two spies trying to steal his data, but getting struck by cupid in between. And with a pathetic supporting cast consisting of largely unknown faces, we are told a labored tale of love .Too easy, too unidiementional. I mean for a film of 6o crores, you expect at least some twist and turns and double crossings.  You get none. The hero can indulge only in 'saccha pyar' the true love.  The comic quotient of the film is poor as well. The only place where the film scores is excellent locales and good action sequences. But then you dont  order burgers in an oriental restaurant. For that you have MacDonald. A bollywood masala film should deliver, well bollywood fare. Which was minimal in the film. Acting wise, salman khan plays himself in all his films. Call it acting or whatever you may. And ditto for kat. A beutiful mannequin. Dressed and placed hither tither. To her credit, she looked great and danced with aplomb.  Overall it was a not a 'bhai' film at all. Though its brisk and dosn't bore.  It was rather a typical modern day YRF film. Lot of gloss , color and investment. Little connect. Also it was a typical kabir khan film. Good locales , nice action. Nothing else.  Finally a song and dance sequence sums the film up. On a belly dancing tune rip, katreena does an intricate effort. Crowd barely takes note. Then Salman comes and does a hand wave and school boyish jig. And the house errupts.  Thats all he has to do in terms of quality and quantity to rake in 250 crores. Stardom and cults. Both live on fanaticism. Logic has place only in drabber milieus. 

Fati Patange

Watched kites . Would have liked to write a review, but it has left my mind in an incoherent state. Just as a ping pong spin serve, goes haywire on receiving unless given the right kind of counter spin , this spectacularly invented incoherent spin, is yet to be favorably returned by mankind. Most people, who are watching are either fan boys (rather girls) or those who had already made their mind to play ball thanks to the hype surrounding the film , or its their absolute deprivation of better things to do . No wonder they are having their balls go all over the place (figurative usage, for the naive, or those who's senses are numbed by something like , well kites). So, I would list some observations that come to my mind as sediments settle.

1) This film is magical. I remember as a young boy I used to see magic tricks in village fairs . There would be a magician, who would put lot of things like cards and flowers and pigeons in a magic hat. And still the hat remained empty. Vacuousness , despite having an assortment of contents, is still magic for me!

2) This film is high art.Its all Dadaism , and cubism with magic realism and existential agnst. To the lay eye that is. An expert eye can understand. Those things. Some things are pure surreal. Like how pushed to the wall, the hero suddenly pulls out a machinegun from his front pocket and shoots the entire goon clan. It was ethereal blend of Tarantino and Jim Carrey.

3) The starting lines give certain high funda's about kites flying in the sky and some gibberish that if two kites fly close by , then one has to get cut. Wonder what relevance all that had in the film. As if there was any relevance elsewhere ! Why was the film named Kites remains a mystery. may be there aren't many nouns in english which start with the letter K.

4) This film introduces 'saccha pyar' to the west. A disease more virulent than AIDS, and hitherto unknown to western world. AIDS would trouble only the afflicted person and his partner (we are not talking about broad minded people here ). A man is screwed when he gets this 'saccha' affliction. Everyone and his uncle, who is remotely close to such a person dies. So if you know someone with symptoms of this, please prefer some one with bird flue over him. Your chances will only improve.

5) In the starting scenes , our hero J chooses bboying and breakdance . In a couple dance competition! The female partner was reduced to mere prop , tossed all over the place! The same unfortunately is true about the film.

6) This film teaches us that the world , human beings etc are too vast to understand or predict. In so much , its a treatise on oriental philosophy. So all characters , turn more unpredictably than a noida cycle riksha. Only exception being the pure and unidimentional Tony . The message is that only evil is constant in the world. Rest all is ephemeral. Talking about time, this movie does deal with the illusory notion of time ! It moves back and forth, and back and forth, so much so that the viewers get an impression that time has stopped. You feel like you have spent ages, all in a matter of minutes. No wonder that in those particular frames the protagonist looks like a babaji.

7) The name 'Jamal' is perhaps the mascot for all crossover films or (botched) attempts thereof. Here too we have a poker faced Jamal who is in perpetual dilemma Johy Lever depicted in Dulhe Raja. Yar ye meri side hai ya uski !

8) In the final sequences, Kangna Ranaut shoots Jr Roshan. It was so natural acting ! She must have felt like shooting entire crew, for the royal neglect she got in the film. Every viewer in the theatre commiserated with the agony Hrithik had in those final frames. It was so their own !

9) The ending of this film was pretty much gangster like . Only difference, in gangster the two souls meet in sky. Here , they choose abyss. That alas, accentuated the difference between the two films. Atleast story/entertainment wise.

Final word. Despite criticism , the film might work. In fact work well. The huge release in india, will ensure that it would earn well just with openings. The west, will watch it with 'quaint' appeal. It perhaps is the first Indian film made for western audience and they may take note. It may also appeal to the hispanics, who dont know what to expect from a bollywood film. And it will serve as a good portfolio/dossier for Hrithik . Hollywood studios may ring him if they need a desi , arab or even hispanic in their side roles. To be fair to him, he tried hard, and looked great. Ekdum export class material.

Gangster , and more

Yesterday was one of those days which passed in such a hurry that it was difficult to figure out whether it went well or otherwise. Kind of hurried up meal where lot was eaten , but less was relished. Any way it invovled certain quality outings , so restrospectively I can say that i enjoyed it. Watched gangster, perhaps the best movie i have watched this year. Uncle Bhat surely knows a thing or two about film making. Gangster has a good story, is fast paced, and its duration is just what was required. Some really good performances and a very good musical score, what more to ask for. This Kangana girl has done an amazing job for a debutante, in fact she did better than anyone else on screen. Shiney gave a powerful performance during the climax, though I found his acting a tad insipid during the first half. And Emran, well I envy him, no not for the amount of kisses he does,(for that envy will be too mild a word), But the way he is getting success after success despite doing hardly anything worth taking note of.He's even getting away with his kishen kumar like smile .All his films had great music and fast pace, tight direction, and as a result he has perhaps the highest success ratio lately. The only issue with this film was melodrama towards the end, the 'sindoor' thing disgust me every time I see it. I have developed such a hatred for it, wonder how will I deal with it if I ever have to.Besides the shady films should end on a dark note, the last 'reunion' frames were not required.

Later in the day, I went to akshardham. I never visit crowdy places, but on the insistence of an old friend who was visiting me, I went there in the evening. And despite all the crowds and queues, I actually liked that place. Its a well build place with the gradeur medieval kings employed to build tombs for their muses.Lot of marble and sand stone gives it a 'old world' charm. Built to the scale of a giant mall and run no differently, it sure offers a nice outing, and people normally come here for that only.You can spot people eating pizza's and burgers and sippping colas all around the fountains.I must say i underestimated the pervasiveness of consumerism. A good dinner is what is required to seal off a day, and a good sher to end a post, hence this, by qateel shifai

kiyaa hai pyaar jise hamane zindagii kii tarah
vo aashanaa bhii milaa hamase ajanabii kii tarah
ba.Daa ke pyaas merii us ne haath chho.D diyaa
vo kar rahaa thaa muravvat bhii dillagii kii tarah

Cars the review

Watched cars on sunday. Though I have always been a great follower of Disney movies, I felt cars was not as good as their previous flicks like Lion king or A bugs life. It nevertheless was a very nice movie, one of the better ones I watched this year. An amazing creative effort to imagine a car's world,with Anthropomorphic cars, all around. So we had the protagonist(a male , ambitious car) ,his goofy friend, the leading lady(a caring considerate one), the villain, every character a car. In fact so complete is the director's imagination, that the moths surrounding a tube light are also cars(beetles, to be specific).During the races, the entire stadium is full of cars, be it 'Oh! my god' screaming red(female) cars, or the beer(rather mobil oil) guzzling stud pick ups. And so are the names of locations, say cadillac valley or radiator springs. The plot is relatively simple.The hero, wants to win the piston cup, a major car racing event. He is self centered and mean to start with, who wants to win the cup desperately, to get fame fortune and,well romance.On his way to race, he is stuck in a country side suburb.He meets nice people there, and his perspective about life changes. He realizes that there are other things to life than just winning and racing .So in the final race, he behaves differently, and wins hearts, apart from all what he wanted. But he refuses to live that charmed life, for now his ideas of a good life have changed. He returns to the simple and caring folks he befriended on his way, to live a purposeful life. The script is endearing to say the least. The dialogs are nice and sweet. The sound effects and animation are as good as you would expect from a pixar studio movie. Simply the best possible. However the film is a bit slow and boring during the middle part. Not as entertaining as some of the previous films from Disney. But still very watchable. These movies have often had some really moving dialogs, particularly worth mentioning here is Lion king. Sadly this film's punch line (the cup is empty ) misses the mark by a distance.