Tintin: The Movie (2011)

Tintin - All aboard the KARABOUDJAN !!

The long long wait was finally over! I heard the news , maybe an year back about a possibility of a series of Tintin movies, based on the comic and i got goosebumps reading about it.
Ususally such news follows a disappointment.(The movie probably wont do any justice to the book).
Such an incredibly huge legacy, maybe a boring hype to go along with it, but wait, what?
Steven Speilberg and Peter Jackson are going to be directing this together?
Ok, this should be the bomb!

I have probably read each and every Tintin a gazillion times back in the day
and know the characters,text, illustrations, humor, plots, minute details like the
fact that every Tintin has exactly 62 pages, except Tintin and the Lake of Sharks
(because it was the only one made for a animation movie, and not for the book)
and all sorts of trivia , in and out, so my excitement was rocketing through the
highest utopia in space that could be possible.

The movie is an adaptation of two of Herge's books:
The Secret Of The Unicorn and The Crab With The Golden Claws

I am not going to talk about the story here , simply because this is a movie
review of an age old comic. The blend between these two books was unusual because they do not have a link between them. Steven Speilberg did a mindblowing job at
connecting these two stories and since this was the first movie out, it was
great to bring out the introduction of Tintin and Captain Haddock. There were some
outstanding features which i am going to point out:

Opening Credits Animation: You know you are in for a thrill, if the 1st few minutes
set you in an awe.
All the fight sequences were incredible and you can clearly see Peter Jackson's touch
in them.
The actors were just phenomenal, right from Daniel Craig who played Sacharine to
the blundering Thomson and Thompsons (Simon Pegg and Nick Frost).
Snowy looks as cute as he does in the book. Captain Haddock, played by Andy Serkis was spot on!
The sets created for the fictional city of Bagghar were a drool for the eye.


Above all, a big THANK YOU to Herge (Georges Remi)



Rating : 4/5

Aarakshan - A Review

This is a post by the guest blogger Hardik Mootneja

A personal indignant casual review from an audience member.

I liked the movie. It certainly is a bad movie. But its a good bad movie.

Why bad movie? By standards of movie making, of which I understand very little, it clearly seemed to be poorly made. But since I do not understand anything about film making and I comment purely on the basis of other films that I have seen and have been astounded by, I am not the best judge of that. Quite frankly I can let that go and forgive a movie because I am lay viewer who does not understand or care much about film art or technique.

Why a good bad movie? This is because I agreed with, what I found to be, one of the central messages of the movie. It was a propaganda movie and part of the message was to my liking. This is because it was pro-reservation/pro-

affirmative action, as I am. So it was a propaganda movie that agreed with my socio-political view point. I also thought it made very few apologies for it. At least I did not see them if they were.

They made some (and only some) cogent arguments for reservations and against the typical anti-reservation rhetoric. I liked them, because they coincided with arguments made by few of the most articulate and bright dalit writers and intellectuals (eg. Anoop Kumar)

I did not see why dalit activists were offended by it. But honestly, I don't think I have any right or moral standing to wonder, ask or question dalit activists why and when to be offended. They surely have a good reason that I can't see. I would however like to know why the NCSC thought it was Anti-Dalit.

But all that of course is the first half. As with most Bollywood movies the two halves of the movies were, perhaps deliberately, disjoint (w.r.t central theme).

The next half - post intermission - is mostly laughable nonsense with a silly condescending theme revolving around the cult of Amitabh Bachhan (or his character, you can never tell the difference) - who Elizabeth thinks is "the only person who can act", to which I added, "if he chooses to"

Come to think of it - What you see in the trailer is mostly the good part of the movie. If you agree with what they show in the trailer, you need not watch the movie. If you do not agree with it, you should not watch the movie.

There is much more to say about it - like how almost the entire cast is full of brilliant actors severely under-utilized, as is always the case in our movies (and in Hollywood).

There are some naked product placements - for ex. "The wood for your Tabela School was donated entirely by Century Plywood" Amitabh bachhan thanks the (probably real owners) Century Ply guys who say "Yeh toh humara farz tha". Apropos out of nothing. This was hilarious. There is a lot of such stuff.

Seems like someone from the UPA government got Jha to make a movie for them. Much like Swades and Akbar seemed to be. That explains why BSP banned it, besides the part where they showed how electoral representatives of Dalits are corrupt and untrustworthy - which is Standard Operating Principle in Indian media/films.

Hema Malini's character is also unjustifiably and hilariously apropos of nothing. She just turns up in the last scene.

There is this one character called Pandit, predictably Brahmin, who speaks in ludicrously chaste Hindi - 'like all Brahmins do'. Something that would get you beaten up in school and teach you a good enough reason never to speak in. No one, irrespective of caste, creed, race, gender or history of mental disability in family, speaks like that. No body. Of course - Pandit is a truly talented boy who misses out because of reservations 'like all Brahmins do'. The Yadav character is a cowherd 'like all Yadavs are' and speaks in Bhojpuri 'like all Yadavs do'. Amitabh Bachhan's character ....ah forget it....

All in all, no need to watch the movie.

This is a post by the guest blogger Hardik Mootneja. Thank you for your contribution

Ladies Vs. Ricky Bahl - A (P)review [4]

This is a post by our guest bloggers Baby Vaijayanti and Puppy Manohar.

Girl meets boy. Boy falls in love with her mother. Girl cries. Boy agrees to marry her with an ulterior motive that the overprotective father of the bride knows but does not mind since he knows it is the best way he can keep his beloved daughter close to him even if it means he has to bear the ass (punintended) We have all seen this story again and again in Hindi films [1] and yet once in a while a movie uses the same tale but spins it and presents it with such a fresh twist that the audience relishes it like it would a finely aged European wine or South Indian yogurt, if only it were discerning enough [7]

The documentary, 'Ladies Vs Ricky Bahl' is not that type of a fictional tale. 'Ladies Vs Ricky Bahl' is a social critique. It showcases the insecurities, fears and - what model, film-star and eminent sociologist Gul Panag calls "the indignities that women face in the North"[2] Although, abundant with dramatization of real life events, in some cases while covering the event live, "Ladies Vs Ricky Bahl" is an epoch making documentary which certainly hastriggered a new era in Indian Neo-Realistic Documentary Film-making. For all the detractors of Bollywood who have criticized Indian documentaries like "Didi Tera Devar Diwana" (or whatever the name of that movie was where the conspicuously Maharashtrian looking actress dies and Mohnish Bahl her on-screen and real life husband - Ricky Bahl's uncle - has to marry his sister lest he should be forced to die on his ex-wife's funeral pyre owing to the horrendous Indian practice of Nar-Sati widely practiced in the 90s but now abolished by law) or "Dildo Pagal Hai" (the abuse of sexual paraphernalia prevalent in the NRI community i.e its use for extra-sexual activities like beating eggs - pun unintended - for omlettes) for being unrealistic, "Ladies Vs. Ricky Bahl" will silence their annoyingly holier-than-thou tone.

Anushka Singh plays Rinki, the unusually light skinned Punjabi girl who seeks an upper- caste North Indian man from a business family with a modern outlook yet who is deeply rooted in Traditional Indian Values (c) (or what the cool kids are now calling - TIV!), meets the disappointingly middle-class looking but characteristically' US-Return' Ricky Bahl (played by Ricky Bahl) at the US Embassy at Mumbai. "[Ricky] has the looks and he's got the charm and is tall and has a beard. He could have the pick of the ladies. But love isn't Ricky's priority - money is!" [8]He orders the Rs 150 latte and Rs 300 Chicken Sandwich which Anushka Singh sees and rolls her eyes. The embassy is mostly populated by ugly people (by standards of young people of age less than thirty) and hence the two good looking youngsters, who have no patience to read a book - "even if the arrogant ghati security guards would let them take one in the waiting room" [5][6], have nothing better to do but to engage in a gratuitous game of sexual tension. Soon they start talking about shopping, designer labels, latest technology, cool apps and all the other things that you people like these days. This is when Anushka Singh introduces herself as Anushka Singh to Ricky. This makes Ricky very suspicious because the name of her character is Rinki. From this point onwards the movie stops being a regular boy-meets-girl tale with shameless product placement and starts engaging the audience in to a two hour riveting crime thriller with shameless product placements.

Ricky observes that Anushka Singh has a Louis Vuitton Bag. Ordinarily this bag costs a fortune. Ricky knows Anushka can not afford that kind of money so he decides to take down her number and stalks her in America. He soon finds out that Anushka buys most of her expensive looking apparel and accessories from SoHo (or is it West Village. Where do you get the smuggled and fake products in NYC?) Ricky Bahl decides to follow the tradition of Upton Sinclair and other great muckrakers and dedicates the next two years of his life investigating the trade, the clientele, the statistics, the demographics of this illegal market. He writes a two page editorial for the New York Times and wins a Pulitzer Prize for the role of Best Actor in an Indian Film, incidentally the first Indian and first Non-American to ever win a Pulitzer. After this high profile expose which ends up indicting Women of the World, in general and Indian Women in particular, the Feminist Left criticizes Ricky for being a "corporate whore" and for being, and rightly so, anti-woman. To which Ricky Bahl responds in a front page editorial in the Washington Post with only the following words, "Yap Yap Yap" and a picture of his hand in a formation alluding to the infamous hand gesture meant to represent a garrulous woman. This article also receives great praise and accolades from the liberal establishment.

After this event, the Ladies decide to ex[tr]act revenge. The post-interval hour is about how the Ladies teach Ricky Bahl a lesson.

Editing by Sam "Final Cut" Subramanium is superb and the cinematography by Rkved Parulekar is brilliant. After a long time has a Hindi Film depicted Indian women in such a good light. Most women look as fair, both in complexion and sensibility, with the random blondes that dance around Ricky Bahl in the songs. This is in part due to the good light. The music by A. R Rahman is brilliant as usual. It has the perfect blend of Indian melodies and Western music much like a perfect blend of Chai Tea Latte and Lemon Juice, that is to say that the perfect blend in this context of course entails almost no Indian melody.

Do not the miss the beginning if you are a fan of literary criticism. The duel between Ricky Bahl and literary critic Terry Eagleton has been brilliantly choreographed by Vijayan "Hong Kong" Shetty . Ricky Bahl delivers a Howard Roark [9] style monologue, that has been dubbed the, "Welcome to the Hotline. I am the Sub-Altern, how can I help you today?"[10] speech by Bahlites - as fans of Ricky Bahl around the world call themselves. This lays the foundation of the movie and unless and every word of Ricky's Rant is assimilated, it will be hard to contextualize the rest of the movie.

Ladies Vs. Ricky Bahl doesn't just have the intellectual quotient for the college going audience member but also entertainment quotient for the college going audience member. That is to say, it just does not have Ricky Bahl, it also has them Ladies - if you know-i-sayin'. The eight rocking "Item Numbers" have rocked the charts [3] Item Number - C3456821789 has especially been very popular. This number will surely set the groove at every bar [11] around the world. Contrary to the prevailing trend of presenting an item flanked by European women in skimpy outfits who lip-sync to the chorus lines like "That's the way to Rock the party" or "Loooooove". For example typically when the Indian person center stage says, "Mere dil ka tudka hai tu", the conservatively clad White Women (c) go, "That's the way to rocky my party". Instead, all the eight Item Numbers in this fascinating movie involve the screen completely still with the Item Number presented in a bold large font with the name of the Item, the Vendor Name, the website and other such vital info. The Item Numbers screens will presumably be programmable and have gift card /discount coupon entries on the DVD/Blu-ray release. This is a path breaking innovation.

To sum up, Ladies get set to experience "Ricky Bahl Ka Tashan". The chest-shaven, long haired, sexy phenomenon will rob your hearts and not to mention, rock your party - unless of course its a Feminist Party.

[1] snarkily once called 'Bollywood' by the West, a title now proudly accepted by the shining India
[2] paraphrased from her monologue on 'We The People' where she argues that women feel safe in Mumbai because in general the South of India is less patriarchal.This, of course, she does on a panel discussing the gruesome murders of two young men in Mumbai after they tried to protect their female friends from agroup of men who were sexual harassing them. The reader is advised to evaluate the characterization of Ms. Panag's words which admittedly could be quitemisrepresented due to laziness, lack of intellectual rigor and sheer sensationalism on the part of this writer. If Ms. Panag is reading this, and let's face it, she is not, my apologies.
[3] Does Indian Music Industry actually have charts? This idiom doesn't apply to our movie. Why do we use it?
[4] The views described here are not of the author or of anybody really. The movie was not really and will not really be viewed, though perhaps you should. It might be alright.
[5] Most high-profile enemies of the Indian state charged or suspected of seditious activities have been readers or writers of Books. Therefore Books are considered to be a security risk in India.
[6] Quotes mine. The scornful word "ghati" is a term of derision applied to Marathi speakers in Mumbai. It is a legitimate non-pejorative demonym for people who hail from or reside on the Western Ghats region of Maharashtra. However, it is considered pejorative by the 'Kokanis'/'Konkanis' of the Coastal region of Maharashtra, presumably because they consider it insulting to be associated with their neighbours(?) Hence now it is considered to be pejorative by most Marathi speakers. English Educated Maharashtrians (yes, you fucKars from Bombay Scottish) sanitize the word of its 'vernacular' last vowel and self-describe as "Ghaats". This sounds cooler and very 21st century. Amateur Social Historian and Bigot Rahul Venkatraman refers to them as "Upperclass Ghatis" with a supposed sense of discernment from the working class scum that he hates and wants to exterminate. That might be false, but what is true is what it tells us about Rahul.
[7] - the audience that is, not the yogurt. Yogurt might be a living culture but is not sentient, marketing campaigns not withstanding.
[8]Premise, Wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladies_vs_Ricky_Bahl
[9] Influential psychopathic hero of the shit book - Fountain Head, Ayn Rand.
[10] A critical rebuttal to Gayatri Spivak's "Can the sub-altern speak?"
[11] Couldn't get a a good pun going on item number/ bar code. Please comment/contact me if you can construct something. Citation 11 will be yours if you come up with something interesting.

This is a post by our guest bloggers Baby Vaijayanti and Puppy Manohar. Thank you for your contribution. Here is the link to their super awesome blog:- http://puppymanohar.blogspot.com/

Road, Movie

Road, Movie

I have seen many a road trip movie , but none like this one. There is some great story telling characteristics in this one.
It boasts a strong script, flawless acting (the whole cast), cinematography that serves as eye candy, witty humor and just simply feel good at the end of it all.

It follows the story of Vishnu, who is probably in his late 20's, frustrated with helping out with his dad's more than boring hair oil business, and is simply looking to get out in search of something fresh and new. He gets a lucky break when he gets a chance to deliver a client's truck all the way across the desert to the "City by the Sea".

Along the way, he meets an ensemble of eccentric wanderers, including a kid who works at the local Chai ki dukkan and is also looking for a new job, an old man wandering through, looking to eventually make his bed at the "City by the Sea" and also believes that somewhere in the middle of the desert, there is going to be a huge Fair with loads of festivities and finally a beautiful widow desperate in search of water.

They make their journey across the barren desert, shot incredibly well, running into corrupt cops, the water mafia and all the fun and frolic at the Fair in the middle of the desert.
They win their freedom from the cops by showing them a bunch of classic bollywood and hollywood movies, which were surprisingly found in the trunk of the truck. Humorously enough, they win their freedom and a life time supply of water from the water mafia
by selling them Hair oil.

This is one of the finest "Coming Of Age" movies i have seen in recent times. Its a very simple movie, but it spoke pretty loud to me.

Satish Kaushik and Abhay Deol have always done a great job at the roles they have played. A big shout out to the kid actor, Mohammed Faizal Usmani,Tannishtha Chatterjee, who plays the beautiful widow and the rest of the cast.

Sparked with a brilliant cinematography, this is a must watch !

Rating : 4/5

Uttarayan (2005) - A tribute to love for all season and ages

Uttarayan is a unique gem that succeeds in questioning social mores of our times while continuing to keep viewers entertained. Bipin Nadkarni positions himself as a thinking man’s director with his bold choice of unconventional subject and further solidifies his multi-disciplinary excellence with a screenplay that would make Jaywant Dalwi proud (based on play by Jaywant Dalwi)

Although the film primarily tackles the romance between two long lost friends in their 50s (Durgi played by Nina Kulkarni and Raghu played by Shivaji Satam, two performers at the prime of their art), it also wrestles issues of patriarchy, nostalgia, generation gap and unfulfilled aspirations in a subtle manner.

Nostalgia is captured through Raghu’s interactions with his friend (Baburao played by Viju Khote) and his daily routines in the lower middle class surroundings that he has returned to after a gap of several years. The backdrop of housing societies, wooden benches in little parks and quaint temple will fondly remind viewers of several Maharashtrian localities in Dadar or Pune (That India of the past is getting fast dismantled is another matter).

Cinematography is exceptional especially in one moment when camera takes a long, low angle sweep at the vast mansion lost by Durgi and her mother (Uttara Baokar in scintillating performance) as it moves toward the servant’s quarters where the two now reside.

The unforgettable quality of the film lies in its depiction of old age romance as primarily a profoundly simple and simply uncomplicated affection between the two protagonist. Romance in the modern parlance has taken such physical connotations that this disarming, platonic love story begs to be called something else. Whatever we brand it, the daily exchanges accompanying their burgeoning relationship are essentially beautiful and that alone is a reason enough to warrant a look at this soulful film.

Rating – 7.5 out of 10
Nitin Sonawane

The Dev Anand I knew

This is a post by our guest bloggers Baby Vaijayanti and Puppy Manohar.

Today, my friends, let me share with you an anecdote. This happened to me. It tells us a lot about the person that was Dev Anand.

"What are you doing here, son?", he asked in a trembling voice characteristic of his personality. I looked back at him and there he was, with squinted eyes looking at me with the dorsal plane of his person at around 30 degrees to the object of his curiosity, me. That was him. He spoke like that, he walked like that, he led his life like that - with the dorsal plane at 30 degrees to the object of his curiosity - a simile that is [as] hard to grasp as it is absurdly under-thought. His forearms were at 45 degrees to his arms (formal usage) and his hand were hanging loose, careless, nonchalant much like his demeanor. He walked in a slant manner - a bit like John Wayne, a bit like Gregory Peck - but it was his original inimitable (hyperbole) style.
No, it was not Dev Anand. It was my father. My father was one of the millions of young Indians of the 'swinging' sixties and - well, 'the' seventies whom, according to the Minister of Science and Technology, Minister of Earth Sciences and amateur Dev Anand Scholar, Vilasrao Deshmukh, "Dev Anand taught how to love"

My father is not a Dev Anand impersonator, nor is he a big fan of Dev Anand. Never the less, the influence of Dev Anand on his generation was so immense that if you closely look at the men and women of the generation they all look like programmed automatons coded to act exactly like Dev Anand.

"What are you doing here, son? Don't you want to go to Dev Uncle's house?", my father asked me. I was startled. ADD and heavy coursework of the 2nd grade had made me forget about the audition. The yea was 1987. Dev Anand was at the peak of his career, shooting his latest film, the Jackie Shrof starrer expected block buster, Sachche Ka Bol Bala. Dev Saab had seen me at the party of some random Gujarati person - Patel, Mehta, Shah or something (irony) - in Juhu and told me in RP accent, "Why don't you come for an audition at Navketan, Santa Cruz, I will see what we can do..." Now, from the - "I will see what we can do", it was clear to me that my parents had put in a word. Ambitious parents was, even in those pre-economic liberalization days, a typical feature of parenting in India.

I hurriedly put on my new clothes - short pants, a bow tie and suspenders. Typical of children's clothing at the time. We hurried to Santa Cruz. In those days, there were hardly any cars in Bombay. In those days, it was still Bombay - none of this Mumbai nonsense. We reached an hour late. Dev Saab was sitting on his high backed chair smoking pipe with a fake moustache on. He stared at me in anger and asked me, "Do you know how Napolean lost his war?"
I asked him, the precocious pre-wikipedian brat that I was, "Disambiguate Napolean please and which war?"

He said, "But of course the one at Barras in 1765. He lost it because he was late by 3 minutes"

I said, "Well, we are late by an hour - which is twenty times worse. If Loss in War for Napolean is analogous to me losing out on this audition, by that token - you need to invite me twenty times for the same audition and reject me twenty times, for this analogy to work"

Dev saab said, "The little rascal has spirit. Reminds me of 'Gap', an old friend of mine from Lahore. Well, he wasn't old then. The friendship was old. I wasn't in to old people or anything. Nothing funny was going on, just in case. Anyway he wasn't old. We were both young. I don't mean like - we were both young and something happened. Nothing happened. I am only saying, we were both young - factually - numerically, age wise.

"Any how, my friend Gap - his name was Ganpatrao but we called him Gap. Gap and I, studied in Lahore. O the beautiful city of Lahore. The Paris of the East. The Pearl of Punjab. We used to play badminton at the YMCAA, meet girls at National College of Arts, go to races at the Lahore Race Club and attend Congress Party Meetings. Those were the days."

"What's the relevance of the pre-partition glory of urban Lahore to the narrow discussion of the simile employed by you to convey the gravity of punctuality and more broadly and importantly to my audition?", asked the six year old me, in English.

"I am sorry son, its 1987 and that means I must be 64. That's not that old but I lose track of my conversations. Anyway, Oh yeah, I was telling you about Gap - my friend. He moved to Bombay and started a Typewriter Shop. He was a Typewriter Salesman. He used to tell me Indian Film Industry has no future. I should get a job with a future. Ironic how that turned out"

I said, "Hang on! That's my grand father. We called him Pat. Its funny that you would abbreviate Ganpatrao to Gap. Its so British of you. How typical of you colonial subjects to go with British idioms. We chose the more American way. Its just so modern and cool. We called him Pat! Its funny that you are friends with him. What a small world! What a coincidence. What's more funny is that in spite of you being a major film star, in spite living in the same city, in spite of being such close friends you never 'touched base' in the last forty years. One would expect people who have endured the trauma of partition to huddle together as only they know their sorrows."

Dev saab lamented albeit dismissively, "Yeah, I mean - I should have called. These days I just don't find time to call man. Its just so busy. Capitalism and all that. No time for friends"

I said, "I hear you. We have so much studying to do. We hardly find time to talk to our parents."

Dev saab said, "That's why I called you here. The moment I saw you, I knew you were Gap's grandson. I have called you here to give you this chocolate. To tell you, I remember"

He remembered. Dev saab remembered us. He remembered my grandpa, he remembered our family and he had enough compassion and consideration for a six year old boy. He was a people person. He brought people together.

Now, this entire story about Dev Saab is false. But whats more important is what it tells us about him.

This is a post by our guest bloggers Baby Vaijayanti and Puppy Manohar. Thank you for your contribution. Here is the link to their super awesome blog:- http://puppymanohar.blogspot.com/

A New Beginning.

Another short. This idea was lingering in mind for a while. There seems to be a connection between my writing and traveling on a plane. Again, this was written while I was on my way back from Chicago this weekend. I would let you guys read without any introduction to the characters this time.

----

Exhausted and weary, he poured a good portion of bourbon in the glass and leaned back on the chair. Took a sip and loosened his tie.

"I might not need to wear this again!".

For the first time in his life, he felt truly relaxed. Sun was setting outside bringing golden rays through the window and spreading them across the room.

"Beautiful..why did I never notice this before?".

59 years, 24x7, all he did is work. Today, it was all over. Mark retired today.

Another sip. He glanced at photos on wall. Sons graduation, first job party. Daughters marriage, grandsons at thanksgiving dinner table. All looked happy and content. Michelle, his wife, smiling at him.

"Ohh, I miss you so much Michelle....".

Unknowingly, his fingers rolled over the ring in his hand and he felt her warm touch. Michelle left him 15 years before in an accident that Mark magically survived.

"You broke the promise. We were in it together. It was for both of us, why only you? I could not save you, I am sorry Michelle."

Tears rolled down as he closed his eyes. Suddenly, he felt empty, sad, aimless.

"I am useless now. Who needs me?, Nobody! What do I do now?".

"When you feel sad, don't know what to do, look around. You will find answers. They are around you, waiting to be found....", Michelle used to say, and he used look around and make fun of her.

"I don't see them Michelle..."

As he looked around again, he noticed something. Sun was falling on his old drawing book, pencils, brushes, dried out colors. It's been years he drew anything. A forgotten hobby. He locked his eyes on the board for few minutes, suddenly got up and cleaned the dust on the book. Flipped to new page and kept staring at it.

"A new page, a clean slate, just like me. No emptiness...but a blank canvas, I can draw anything I want....It's my turn to live for myself, for my hobbies. Not an end but a new beginning. Michelle was right!".

Rejuvenated, wiping his tears, laughing loudly, he picked up a pencil and started drawing. Retired, but not so much tired anymore, a new Mark, a great artist was born.

----

Rat vs. Cat

Up until last night, Ratatouille was the unbeatably the best animation movie in my mind.

But last night that changed. While I anxiously awaited for the movie to begin, excitedly chomping on my popcorn and trying to hold on the ever uncomfortable and big 3D glasses, it struck me I had absolutely no idea what I was expecting from Puss-In-Boots.

Animated movies is not my favorite genre. I hadn't even watched the trailer but I vividly remembered the cool, Spanish cat from Shrek made alive by the sexy voice of Antonio Banderas and there was no way I was missing a movie where he is the protagonist.


What a movie it was! I really don't remember the last time a movie with an animal protagonist that made me laugh, bite my nails in tense situations and made me want to give the hero a hug.

There were a couple of reasons why I thoroughly enjoyed this tale of a cat, all fancily dressed up and swaggering about.

1. Animals talking is one more leap of faith we take when we go to watch such movies. However, the movie has preserved some very essential traits of the cat. The Casanova, the outlaw, debonair cat, enters into a bar and calls for a drink of milk, leaps around like an ordinary cat when he sees a patch of light trying to catch it, knows how to be cute when needed to get work done from a human and many more moments like these which preserves his innocence and identity of being a cat.

2. The whole story is built around characters who we all know. I don't want to reveal who they are but the references and insinuations to incidents in the life of those characters, adds a whole new layer to the story. It is like going to watch a biographical movie of Amitabh Bachan and then seeing Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Manmohan Desai,Jaya Bahaduri and Rekha as characters!!

3. The dance sequences are incredible, making the audience at least tap their feet.

4. The story is fast paced, giving the audience no time to get bored. Plot is simple. The 3 main characters have a back story, which is introduced as the movie progresses. The part of the movie which leads to the climax has revelations which (at least to me) were not predictable and seemed to leave no loop holes.

5. There are nuances in the movie which stay with you forever. The widening of Puss' eyes whenever he wants to look cute, another random cat whose reaction to everything is "Ooohh", the internal struggle of one of the main characters between vendetta and being a good person, the bonding between the 2 main characters, are the ones that I recollect even now.


The only part of the movie that I probably did not like was the fast wrap up of the climax with not much depth to it. Also, it was very unclear what happens to the side characters involved.

But the rest of the movie had already won me over including the credits to come. Hence, it was easy for me to overlook the only bit that I did not like.

Age no bar, sex no bar, mood no bar - when one watches this movie, one would have been entertained and will leave with a smile!

Poll Results - Nov 2011

These are results of the polls appearing on this blog.

Which amongst these Aamir Khan Films did you like the most?

1. Sarfarosh -- 58%
2. Ghulam -- 25%

3. Taare Zameen Par -- 16%


I thought TZP will take this one, I guess people have not forgotten Sarfarosh :)

Which among these is Jaideep Sahini's Best script?

1. Rocket Singh -- 13%
2. Chak De India -- 13%
3. Khosla ka Ghosla -- 66%
4. Company -- 13%

Clear Winner! KKG really had some of the best moments in Hindi Cinema in the past decade. But Sahni has an amazing list here, I enjoyed all of them.

My first short!

Well, they say, there is first time for everything.

Me and my friend (another crazy movie fanatic.. his name starts with O, guess guess..) were on-board a flight to India and decided to write a short as fast as we can. Although, he wrote an amazing one, mine was mehh..well, I will let you decide.

Our story is set on busy Mumbai streets that we all miss. It is about two individuals, who have their own problems and have nothing to do with each other. What happens next? Do they meet? Well, read on....

Life changed for Ganesh last year.

He was a mill worker, with wife and two kids. Wife never complained about anything. But, he knew, his earnings were just not enough. Mill was on the verge of shutting down. Kids were sent back from school as he could not pay fees. All the avenues of borrowing money were closed and he had nowhere to go. If there was anything, it was his confidence that he will get through these though times and rise up again. It was nothing new to him, he has done it before.

This confidence in himself, with which he could face any challenge, was shattered recently.

Soaked in sweat, breathing heavily, he kept walking. He held the bag close to his chest. He was waiting for this day for the whole one year. Now, there was some hope to recover. Skin pale, sagging, he was weaker than ever before. Once a while, he stopped to breathe. Images of children were flashing before him. “kuch khatam nahi hua abhi. Muze mere bachchon ko padhana hai, bada banana hai..jo muze nahin mila who unko milna chahiye. Main dilaunga unhe!”, he kept telling himself.

---

Life wasn't too different for Babu.

The day used to start and end on footpath. He was born there, it was his home. A small-time pickpocket, he used to get 10-12 rupees a day. “Maangke kuch nahi milta, chinna padta hai. Logon ke pass paani jaisa paisa hai. Ek do boonde girgayi toh kya hooa. Kisika khoon toh nahi kar raha hoo..”, Babu believed. He just didn’t see anything wrong in it. Earning money the honest way was too long of process. He had seen his family die trying the honest ways for years. He didn't believe in it anymore.

His life revolved around bunch of so called Bhai’s who used to dream of high rolling cars and big houses. In his dreams, life was going to change when he catches a big fish one day.

“Aaj koi bada haath maarna padega. ” he thought. Through the smoke his Bidi, he spotted a man holding a briefcase to his chest and walking fast. “Milgaya..lagta hai bahot maal hai bag main.”. He chucked the Bidi and ran towards him.

---

Babu snatched the bag from Ganesh and ran for his life. He did not look back. He didn’t care to check if someone was following him. The best thing to do was get out of there as soon as possible. After a few minutes, his curiosity for the bag forced him to stop at a recluse corner. It felt like a safe place.

“Bahot paisa nahito jhewar, kya hoga ismain? ”, Babu thought. After struggling for a bit, he managed to break it open. It was the moment he was waiting for.

“Saala fatela naseeb!”, he cursed the god and threw the bag away. There was no money or jewelry in the bag. The stuff in the plastic bag spread on the floor. There were injections and medicines and some papers. Just out of curiosity, Babu skimmed through those papers. It was a letter from Government of India.

“Mr.Ganesh, aapki darkhast manjoor hui hai. Appko Healthy-India fund for Poor Programme (HIFPP). Ki tarafse yeh dawaiyaan bheji jaa rahi hai.”

“Nahi yaar, saala public pakadke maaregi. Paagal mat ban. Aur waisebhi kahan dhoondhenga usko?”, a quick thought of returning the bag to the old man ran through Babu’s mind. The guilt of stealing from a poor guy and that too his medicines, was something that he didn’t want to live with.

“Jo bhi hoga dekha jaayega”, he decided to himself and went back to the same footpath in the hopes that he might just find that old man there. What he found was a crowd surrounding somebody.

“Arey margaya lagta hai? Pata nahi kahan kahan se chale aate hai. Daaru pi hogi aur kya?” One of the crowd members said. Babu made his way through the crowd.

It was Ganesh, the old man!! Babu felt the pressure on his shoulders.

“Agar yeh mar gaya hai toh, jail, torture, life toh khatam Babu! Satakle yahan se.” That’s all Babu could think of. He was just about run away, and somebody yelled.

“Arey bhaisahab, haath do. Saanse chal rahi hai. Jaldise inhe hospital le chalet hai”.

Babu helped getting Ganesh in the taxi. He quietly put the briefcase next to Ganesh. “Thank you bhai-sahab…aapne bachaliya..”, somebody held his hand as he was about to walk away. It was Ganesh.

“Maine aapko nahi, aapne muze bachaya bhaisaab!”, Babu wanted to say. Emotionless, he just looked at Ganesh but couldn’t say a word. Tears rolled down his eyes as he walked away.........

'Red State' (2011)

'Red State', listed in the 'horror' genre of most websites is more of a thriller and a what a bad ass one it is.

I was really intrigued by its title and its poster and then more so by this trailer(link below). I thought its just another horror-teen-slasher flick, but because of my new born love for horror films and the political nature of its title I watched it. (Streaming on Netflix)

Trailer:- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lq9PyqX6HQ8

The pace of the movie is fast, the 120 minutes felt like 90 or so and its got some true "edge of the seat" sequences. Its by no means an Oscar winner (which is not always a bad thing) and does not particularly have a character arc but I do not think it ever tried to achieve those things. Its a thrill ride helped along with some great performances by Melissa Leo and Michael Parks. Look out for a beautifully shot monologue which goes on forever building intensity and establishing the sickness of the antagonists.

I do not want to give out any details of the story except that its about an extremist catholic family church which collides with the real world one night.

Don't read the story, don't read any reviews, just go watch it.

P.S.:- Its written & directed by Kevin Smith, yes the one who made 'Clerks' and all the other comedies. He calls it his first "grown up" film :)

P.P.S.:- "I fucking love this movie!!!" --Quentin Tarantino about 'Red State'

Take a stand

Why did movies like Andaz apna apna, muskurahat, main azaad hoon, dil se, pinjar .... not perform well on box office? Thats the question everyone has. Everyone rightfully blames the audience for it and forget that they are a part of it. When we like a movie, we wait for others to ask a review; and our review is generally defensive "Dekh bahi, buri nahi hai .... one time watch toh hai..... story badhiya hai ...... mixed reviews hai ...."
Why is it that if the audience decides our opinions?
Do we really think that people will make opinions about us based on the opinions we give about the movies?
I recently watched Rockstar in a multiplex .... The reaction of audience wasn't good. Many people posted their facebook status as "Tera haq, tu hi rakh, teri movie WTF" and it got many likes, many laughs, few courageous souls defended and got laughed at too ... And then the people who dared to like the movie, posted reviews like "Amazing camerawork .... great songs .... Mohit chauhan and Rahman , what a combo...."
Why is it so difficult for us to really take a stand against the crowd? Which director in the history of bollywood has given the summary of the movie in the 1st 5 mins .... laid the right expectations and successfully portrayed it in the best possible manner....

We make statements "Hollywood is so much better, bollywood can never reach that level"
Here's a director that tries to match that level with a movie of Walk the line genre and as audience, we pull him down. The least we could do is appreciate the efforts and encourage such movies.


As audience, we blame SRK .... he is so stereotyped ..... Ham actor ....
But what did we do after watching Swades, Dil se, Chak de India ..... Few popular critics killed these movie with a not so good review and we were scared to voice an opinion ..... If we didn't take a stand then, we don't really have the right to criticize SRK for his bad selection of roles.

Anupam Kher, I believe is a legend. I often compare him with Robin Williams. Nobody can argue about their versatility. But as audience, we appreciated them in their comic roles; we expect them to be funny in any role. Have we forgotten Saraansh, Daddy, or Dr. Dang in Karma? I was so glad to see him back in a serious role in Wednesday. But am still waiting to see him back in more such roles.
I at times think about these people (actors, directors) ....

A three times national award winner Mithun does mass movies, specialist character actors like Prakash Raj and Nassar are shown as comic actors in bollywood, Paresh rawal gets immediate recognition in comic roles but we ignore his presence in movies like Paa.
As multiplex audience, we have, in small way discouraged these people from giving us good movies.
Then i think about Anurag Kashyap, Kamal Haasan, RGV , Aamir..... These are the people who are not bothered by commercial success. They have, and will continue to give good movies for selective audience ... Thats what makes me respect such people.

Let us all as movie lovers take a stand, be it against the crowd, if we really like a movie.
Bollywood will grow, if we grow up.

"Be", And There Was...

Let me start my first "filmy" blog post with a sentence that I have, in the past, used to describe myself. ad nauseum.

I love stories. 

Stories of any form, in any medium, when told by a master storyteller hold the power to transform lives. The art of story telling is fascinating and yet, there are some brilliant minds that seem to make it all feel so effortless. The tales they weave for us are so mesmerizing that we're blind to all the hard work that went into creating that effect. And this is more true for the movies than any medium. It also probably explains why movies bring out such strong opinions in us, the audience. As the moving images on screen hold us captive in a dark room for anywhere from 2 to 4 hours, we soak in the imagination of a human mind, so far beyond our reach, yet seeping into our sub-conscious, using all our audio and visual senses. 

And when we walk away, we spend just as much time in wonder, discussing every character nuance, every blink-and-you-miss-it plot point. How did it happen? Why did he do that? What did she mean by that? Fictional characters, hitherto unbeknownst to us, are suddenly scrutinized in great detail and then either loved or hated.

All because someone, somewhere, thought of a story that wanted to be told.

"Be, and there was."

Kun Faayakun...

A few hours ago, I watched a movie that is right now keeping me up because I simply have to talk about it. Rockstar, by Imtiaz Ali, is not a movie that lets its audience off easily. There is so much pain and passion that it seems impossible to not be deeply invested in the protagonist, the immensely flawed yet extremely vulnerable artiste-musician, who is on a search for what it takes to make music.

It is not my intention to review the movie in this post. I'm sure there will be, and probably already are, a dozen reviews out there, each by a far more qualified reviewer. What I really want to talk about is my awe for the writer and the beauty of his writing. The movie, even at a story level, is not without its flaws. Indeed there were people I watched it with, who, quite simply put, just hated it entirely. Yet Ali's love and deep understanding for his Jordan is undeniable. In fact, I felt it was often to the detriment of the development of the other characters in the story. I cannot help but wonder - What does it take, as a writer, to be so involved with your character, in all his blatant faults, that every lapel pin added to his costume  in your mind has a back story for it? 

** Spoiler Alert! **

In my opinion (for what it's worth), Rockstar is a character study, trying to masquerade as a love story. If I were to break it down, to me, a love story needs an equal involvement from the writer in both his/her lead characters. Imtiaz Ali seemingly chose to ignore his Heer almost entirely. So much so, that almost from the very first line of dialogue she delivers you wonder why he didn't even care enough to cast someone, anyone else in place of Nargis Fakhri. For the next three hours she continues to make you cringe and wince every time she is on screen and you wonder why Jordan doesn't see her like you do. By the end of the movie you realize you know very little about her and what's worse, you don't really care. Not even when she dies. The Heer that Jordan sees remains unearthed by the writer, represented only by a shadow of the girl he must actually love, portrayed ineffectively by just another pretty face. Jordan goes through a spectrum of life changing experiences and as his audience you see every bit of his many layers. Yet the girl, instrumental in bringing about almost all of those experiences, is sadly neglected. 

From his past works, knowing Imtiaz Ali to be a consummate story teller, it's hard to believe he intended it to be a stilted one-sided story of one man and his love for a girl. So I wonder, as a writer, how wonderful it must be to find a character so strong in himself that his every other association feels incidental to the story. To know his every mood, every habit. To breathe life into him, almost as if you were his God and his entire world wouldn't exist if you, the writer, didn't conjure it up in your minds eye. 

Or is the writer, in reality, a slave to his characters and stories, unable to rest until they are told as the character wants them to be told? Maybe the philosophy of "Be, and there was.." is actually intended for the story teller and not the story. Maybe it is the story that gives birth to the writer and not the reverse. 

If that is in fact true, then this meandering post of incoherent thoughts is testament to the fact that the writer in me is still waiting to be born... waiting for that one character to fill my mind with his/her world and maybe, in doing so, captivate the minds of all who wander toward me, as my audience.

Imtiaz Ali, I envy you.

The Superheroes Phenomenon

If you thought this post was about the superhero movies then read on because its not. This post is about the reel and real, larger than life, 'Super' heroes in hindi cinema.

Heroes who achieve 'super stardom' are worshiped in India and I mean literally. Some even have their own temples and idols. While it does not take much for some of these actors (if you can call them that) to reach out to people in order to make their films work there are some who ought to be lecturers in business schools to demonstrate how to market a product, a job that they do day in and day out, market themselves.

These superstars have been around in every generation in the Indian cinema. The ones in the current generation, with phenomenal star power (as we call it in Bollywood), that come to mind instantly are Rajnikanth, the three khans, Salman, Shahrukh and Aamir, and until very recently Akshay Kumar. Of all the above, as per me, only Aamir is the one who has proved time and again that he has solid acting skills to back up his stardom. I am not saying the others cant act, but according to me their acting skills are not directly proportional to their popularity. Each one has their own fan base who might even fight among themselves to prove that one is greater than the other.

Once Aamir Khan so rightly said about Salman in a game show, "I am only an actor but Salman is a superstar". Salman Khan probably has the craziest loyalists around in the country. It does not matter that only some years back the guy was involved in a hit and run. But if you leave his non filmy life out, even then it does not explain his stardom. Sure, he has the looks. But what is it about him that makes his films, as shitty as they are, break BO records after BO records. One might answer in one word, promotions. But that can be counter argued with the example of his last release, Bodyguard, where he was not even able to promote his film due to illness.

These guys owe their fame to all the loyalists that they have around the country. They some how connect with the public which I have still not been able to decode. The following is a real life incident which I have experienced. I was out to watch a Sallu movie around 7-8 years back. People were queued up outside waiting for the gates to open. One smart ass guy said out loud, 'Salman Khan just cant act'. Moments later, he was slapped across his face by a fan. I should have been alarmed but it was hilarious that the fan took it so personally upon himself to redeem his hero.

Not surprisingly enough, these movies, which may be fun to watch sometimes, rake in hard core money. The loser in this case are the creative small time actors/ directors who make a gem of a movie but lose the Friday battle with a Salman or a Shahrukh who may have shelled out a mediocre film at best. In the recent past many such movies have lost out which is sad. People have not even heard about movies like I am Kalam or Shaitan or Soundtrack but every one knows about Ready or Bodyguard.

The one thing to learn from these guys is how to market yourself. Recently SRK spent money like water to promote his magnum opus Ra.One. To give him his due, it did have state of the art CGI and he did a great effort in bringing hollywood style technology to Indian cinema. Ra One was marketted heavily and that helped create enormous excitement to watch the movie. Although this can have an adverse effect, like raising expectations, but thats a risk for a normal actor/ producer, not for SRK. Aamir is another superstar who is brilliant at marketting his films. He has these ingenious different ways of marketting the movies which hit the right spot of creating awareness and excitement. This atleast kicks off the film strongly which might help even if it is a mediocre film. This is something which other filmmakers should definitely learn.

Finally, as spiderman's uncle used to say, "With great power comes greater responsibility", these superstars should use their powers responsibly. They should realize that they can generate massive mass hysteria among their fans. They should avoid misuse of people's trusts. Maybe even help small time film makers by promoting their films (something which Salman already does). But more than ever they should not promote their bad habits publicly which their fans will try to emulate. As far as I am concerned I am still trying to find answers to this mystery of mass popularity.

'Kaminey': Moments that stayed with me...

Cruising at 80 miles/hr on the 101 freeway at 1:47 am in Los Angeles on a Sunday morning listening to the Kaminey soundtrack after watching it just 24 hours back. Sigh, just beautiful, there is something so relaxing about driving, its like the whole world leaves me alone, my body goes into auto-pilot and I let my mind go...

Kaminey: as the music takes me back through the film...

The shot where Charlie stands between 2 local trains screaming in opposite directions, with his voice over "ye life badi kutti cheez hai"

The shot where Charlie innocently dances in heavy rain "Fider man, Fider man...!" near the rail tracks. Mumbai never looked so larger than life

I am a sucker for chase sequences; there is one very beautifully shot in a hotel. Action like it should be. Nobody was flying, hero was not all powerful, the bad guys weren't all stupid,even gravity & physics were not disregarded and it was still gritty; Loved the way the camera moves, drags the viewer into the action. Brilliant!

Priyanka Chopra, just loved her character, loved her dialogues, loved everything she did in the movie. Starting when she reveals to Guddu that shes pregnant, 15 minutes that follow is probably the best on screen romance I have seen in Hindi cinema recently. She screams at him in marathi "jzaa mug!!" (go to hell!) and then starts to storm off, and then turns around in 3 seconds and runs back. :) Lovely

Bhope's side-kick who has been sent to beat the couple up, says to Bhope on the phone "bhau, par bade pyaare lag rahe the dono..."; beautiful, the goon has a heart :)

Amol Gupte as 'Bhope Bhau', almost everything he says and does is memorable. He plays this racist, cold-hearted, selfish leader. Its so hard to believe that this is the same man who wrote the sensitive 'Taare Zameen par'. My favorite scene is when he breaks into Charlie's house. "Kya tum teen bhai hote toh mooch ukhad lete meri?" lol

Shahid Kapoor's Guddu character stammers uncontrollably in Police remand because he is so scared during interrogation. The cop asks him to sing his answers and it works. :)

Finally the heart-wrenching title track, shown with a very gloomy, cloudy Mumbai slum close to the railway track as the background. I have lived in Mumbai, and this is one of those sights that almost everyone who lives in the city has learned to ignore in their minds, because its too heart breaking to acknowledge. "Meri arzoo kamini, mere khwaab bhi kaminey, ek dil se dosti thi, yeh huzoor bhi kaminey"; Gulzar saab, take a bow...

There are many more as I will discover when I watch it again and again in the future. I have started a new journey with this Classic. Maqbool and Omkara are still going strong.... :)

--Onkar