Somebody Killed Jessica

Jessica must have been a lucky girl.She had good sister in Sabrina.Not because Sabrina would later fight for her sister's justice but for the support she got through all her abruptly ended life.
No One Killed Jessica starts with the voice over by The Bitch. Yeah, The Bitch.Watch the movie to know who and why. She sets the tone of the movie, of The city and of it's daredevil attitude.

No time is wasted in the narration on unnecessary Bollywood addendums. Right from the opening scene where Vidya gets a late night call on the fatal accident till the arrival of denied and delayed justice in the last scene, the movie is one serpentile ride with intermittent Jessica's flashbacks. Even though, Jessica's character sketch is almost caricature, but what the heck?!, the movie is not about Jessica but about the inability of a society reeling under the whims of a few corrupt people in power and the helplessness of the aam aadmi .

The fact-meets-fiction with an awesome dose of background score, sleek editing and quirky camera angles, movie succeeds in engaging the audience, especially the court proceedings and the police verification scenes.
 
The movie boasts of the best ensemble cast seen in years. All the characters are real and give credibility to a much publicised murder case.

Vidya Balan as an average 'behenji' is perfect. She brings out Sabrina's introvertness and vulnerability with such ease that you have to sympathize with her.

Rani Mukerji as the 'bitchy' journalist, Meera, is bang on. A nightmarishly opposite to Vidya's Sabrina and complement eachother amazingly well.

The movie has a thriller-genre feel to it much like the incredibly superb, The Social Network. Both involved court-room hearings, haphazardly throwing flashbacks, yet entertaining at the same time.

Rajkumar Gupta's handling of the subject through various newspaper articles and real court accounts and still keeping it engrossed is no mean feat. Too bad, there are many Jessicas still waiting for atleast one hearing.

How Do You Know

'How Do You Know' is the first movie I watched in a San Francisco movie hall.How did I know that's a cool seven and a half bucks I would be losing in the next 2 hours! I was totally flabbergasted by the movie and it's stars. Awesome actors all of them though they well let down by a weak and boring script. It neither engages the actors nor thrills the audience. By the way, what was Jack Nicholson doing in that movie?  

The Tourist

The Tourist was one of the most anticipated movies of the year 2010 considering the fact that the picture had Oscars winners and nominees associated with it. Well, it turned out to be a damp and dumb film after all. And no surprises in that.

When 'Sexiest Man Alive' and 'Wanted' 'Lethal Killer' starred for a thriller, the least expected is a charming chemistry.But here, charm repelled charm reminding me of the basic magnetic property.
Johnny was in 'depp' sleep and Jolie was 'brad'ly bored. And I was exhausted by a mere 90 min 'comedy'.
Too bad, Golden Globe thinks otherwise.

Tees Maar Khan

Akshay Kumar was absolutely right. For the first time, I completely agree with an actor about what he opined about his movie during its promotion.Tees Maar Khan aka TMK is one difficult movie to watch.

Right from the first reel till infinity, the movie takes you on one hell of a ride that's not only terrible but frustratingly annoying. Lifted from a 1960's flop, shamelessly discrediting the original writer and later buying the copy wrights, TMK's movie making history is as worse as the end product.

Akshay Kumar is Tabrez Mirza Khan aka TMK, an international con-artist with a reputation of opening any kind of lock on God darn Earth. Katrina Kaif is Anya Khan, a wannabe movie-artist in the making who at the drop of a single wink is ready for a filmy act (or over-act if you like).

TMK is entrusted, with an armed robbery of a moving train loaded with Rs.500 crore worth of antique goods, by the Johri Brothers (Raghu and Rajiv twins of MTV Roadies fame in their regrettable roles). Along with his 3 dumbos, he dupes Aatish Kapoor (Akshaye Khanna), an Oscar hungry 'poor-Indian' superstar, to act in a period drama along with an unsuspecting village mob so that the goods could be robbed off in broad daylight under 'full police protection'.

What should have followed next is pure fun. What follows after is pure torture.

Not that the movie doesn't have its pluses. It's just that they either don't last long or are few to even notice them. For example, Sheila and her infamous jawaani. Why the hell couldn't she have come post intermission? Atleast that would have stopped some from vacating the movie hall. Too bad.

Not one major character is worth mentioning in the so called 'acting' category. Only one was passable. Sudhir Mishra as Bunty to Akshaye' Aatish's PA. TMK had everything going for it, contrived plot, lifted story idea, big money,floral shirts, hamming actors and Sheila. A little bit of good old fashioned basic-to-story-telling writing would have worked wonders. One more thing, did I forget to mention about Salman Khan? Blimey, I think, I need a double espresso.

Watchable? Your money, you decide.
Rating? huh? come again?!

The Social Network

In the final scene of the film, we see Mark,sitting alone, sending a friend request to his ex-girlfriend who's the actual influence behind the idea of Facebook. And that's a befitting climax to this fantastic film.

There's a rather sarcastic yet funny saying which goes like this - a doctor's son would be a patient, a lawyer's son, a criminal, a politician's son, a corrupt, a police's son, a thief, etc. If I apply the same logic here, Mark created the Facebook,a social networking site and as per the film, there is nothing social about him!

It is said that if Facebook were to be a country, with its 500 million active users - friends in fact, then it would be the third largest country in the world after China and India! And Mark would be loneliest person in the Facebook Country! That's the story of Mark Zuckerberg.

The movie opens with a heated conversation between Mark and Erica. Mark's apparent disregard complemented by his arrogance invokes Erica to dump him and on top of that, what irks her the most is that there's not a single sign of sadness on his face. Instead, he runs to his dorm and out of anger and few drinks later, blogs about her and subsequently, develops a new rating site www.FaceMash.com for college girls based on who's hot and who's not! Pretty wicked I must say! :)

Unlike David Fincher's previous venture, 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button', a big budget, make-up marvel sci-fi drama, this has a thriller-genre feel to it.The dialogues are fast, crisp and sharp - all at the same time! That means, you need to concentrate better or come by again.

There's nothing different or off-beat about the story. It is just that the screenplay is more engaging and more lively. The other technicalities like, razor-sharp editing, awesome background score just make the movie's good points feel like the tip of an iceberg.

The over all cast of the movie is terrific where you remember even the tiniest of the characters.
I didn't know Justin Timberlake as Sean Parker (dead Napster's founder) could act. He was just natural.
Andrew Garfield as Eduardo Saverin - Facebook's co-founder is the bleeding  heart of the film and he was really good.
Jesse Eisenberg IS Mark Zuckerberg! I haven't seen Mark Zuckerberg talking or behaving like one. Now, I have a reference. Such is his performance. Superlative with a capital S.The last time I saw such a performance was by Russel Crowe as Prof. John Nash in 'A Beautiful Mind'.

Undoubtedly, one of the best films of 2010, I would definitely watch it again.
 Rating : Are you kidding me?!!!!

Pancharangi

Pancharangi (the one comprising of 5 colors) is the latest offering from the hottest in-demand Kannada director, Yograj Bhat. His earlier movies, Mungaaru Male, Gaalipata and Manasaare boast of great technical expertise and excellent direction. Pancharangi is no different.

The flick tells the story of a happy-go-lucky Bharat (Diganth) who's not only lazy but also pain-in-the-behind to his parents and everybody around him for his attitude towards everything but in a sarcastic way. In fact, sarcasm is the theme of this enterprise.

Bharat's family decides to marry off his dollar-earning (and parent's favourite) elder brother Lucky to the far away Mangalore lass Latha whose cousin happens to be Ambika (Nidhi Subbaiah), a tomboy studying engineering. Match made by the marriage broker, Panchakshari (Raju Taalikote). What follows is the situational comedy of all the characters involved.

The whole movie takes place in a span of 2 days and the pace actually picks up upon Bharat's family's arrival to the Bride's place. The movie feels like one big picnic with the kind of characters thrown  in including a dog named, Ramu! The movie tackles serious and often insipid topics like education, career, love, marriage and religion (hence the name, Pancharangi) in thankfully, non-preachy but yes, sarcastic way.

Diganth, as a postgraduate in Kannada literature Bharat provides ample dose of lectures on all the above serious issues which for most of the part are ignored by the all the characters except for, obviously, Nidhi. The problem, i think, with Diganth's Bharath is that, he lacks depth in character and at the end feels like a caricature. However, it's the writer's fault. But he has given an awesome performance and  provides enough entertainment which, may be termed, his finest!

Nidhi, in her finest role till date, gets to emote a wide range of emotions and acts quite well. In terms, of character sketch, her role is better than Diganth's.

Raju Taalikote and his, blind companion, Mylari are really awesome.
 
Anant Nag is Diganth's Bharath's mirror image but after 20 years as have the same view on life. He comes for exactly 2 scenes (one at interval and another at climax) plus the 'Life Istene' song. He is adequate.
The other supporting characters are good and engaging but the ones making impression are the house maid and her lover, Diganth's bus driver. Slightly reminiscent of  Mira Nair's Monsoon Wedding's housemaid and marriage broker characters.

The music by Mano Murthy is excellent along with an effective background score. Cinematography by Thyagaraju is very good. Screenplay, by Bhat,  is shoddy as the movie lacks meat. Dialogues are amazingly humorous and cleverly witty often with hidden meaning on the serious issues.

Bhat, on his part, has extracted great acting from the ensemble along with all the above mentioned good points. However, he has to accept the fact, with a pinch of salt, that, 'that-something' is missing!

Watchable? Go Now!
Rating: 3.5

Movies - Assorted

S.A.L.T
Angelina Jolie's Salt is fast paced thriller and highly engaging. Reminiscent of Tom Cruise' Mission Impossible Series. The movie is high on action and less on CGI graphics thankfully unlike Tom Cruise' recent disaster 'Knight and Day'.  Best part being movie's length - 90 mins.

Toy Story 3
Awesome culmination to one of the highly successful and critically acclaimed trilogy franchises ever from Pixar. Even though the movie was made after a good gap of 10 years, the movie never loses the freshness of its cast and more importantly, adds new ones and raises the bar high.

The Ghost Writer
Roman Polonski's latest may not be his best, but is a good political-drama-thriller nonetheless. Even though the characters and their dialogues are not so dramatic, the underlaying danger is evident and keeps engaging till the end. The acting is almost real and edgy and story has a high resemblance to former UK PM Tony Blair. Very Good.

Once Upon a Time in Mumbaai
Milan Luthria's best work till date. Poetic dialogues, nice music and good acting by the star cast especially   Ajay Devgan.

Inception

For me, Inception is the most original film of the decade. The film requires a hell lot of concentration to understand the theme of the movie, i.e The Lucid Dream Concept. Lucid Dreams are such that the person who is dreaming knows that he is dreaming and is able to influence it. Christopher Nolan takes this concept, improvises it to make the dreams to be shared among multiple people dreaming nearby on multiple levels (meaning dreams within dreams within dreams and so on...) whilst applying it to a heist story.

Leonardo De Caprio,the Extractor, is a master thief in stealing people's ideas while they are dreaming. He is superbly supported by Joseph Gordon-Levitt who supervises the theft while Leo is at work with the help of a Chemist who provides sedatives to remain 'active' at the subconscious level. As usual, while working on a billionaire businessman,Saito (Ken Watanabe), Leo is over-powered by him and strikes a deal to 'incept' one idea, this time unlike extraction, into the rival multi-billionaire, Cillian Murphy's mind. In return, Saito would make exactly one fone call and clear him of all charges against him so that he could go to his children in US.

Leo accepts the challenge and along with Joseph, assembles a best possible team in Tom Hardy, the forger, who could morph into any personality in dream state, in Dileep Rao, the Chemist to assist in sedatives for multiple dream levels, in Ellen Page, the architect, who could design paradoxes and mazes in the multi-layed round trips. One important thing which helps them in differenciating the dream from reality is a Totem (for Leo, it's the metal top).

The stage is set, the venue (airline) is booked and the target is hooked. Except for one aspect. Leo is unstable emotionally.Courtesy, his wife, Mal (Marion Cottilard), the Shade. Every time, Leo is working inside the shared dream of his client, Mal malfunctions the whole mission. He is not able to get rid of her coz she is in his deepest memories and to top it, she is DEAD. The movie needs to be watched to reason out her death.

Nolan follows a fairly linear and structural storyline so that viewer is not confused with the already twisted and esoteric concept. It really takes a great deal of imagination to implement the multi layed dream sequences (here, to give out the spoiler, 4 levels are attempted) adding a good dose of action sequences and Nolan succeeds in leaps and bounds.

Never boring, the movie keeps us engaged right from the first frame. Acting is first rate. I especially liked, Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Awesome background score, superb cinematography , clean cut editing, mind-bending (also, neck-bending, if you must) action pieces and cool special effects . However, the most important stand out factor is the writing by Nolan. The man deserves all the praises and accolades coming his way for realising such a concept in a fairly simple way!

However, in the end, when Leo finally meets his children (who appear constantly throughout the movie in his dreams without showing faces), in real world, they appear to be wearing same clothes as in his many dream escapades and  his Totem (metal top, his 'kick' to real world, kind of an alarm) doesn't wobble (wobbling means reality, constant spinning means in dream state) , which I am not sure if it is still a dream or reality. Need to watch again!

Best Dialogue: Who's subconscious are we in now?!

Rating: 5 stars

P.S: On a seriously lighter note, Bollywood has already attempted such a concept in the last decade itself. Ever heard of the 'Mere Khwaaboan Main Jo Aaye' song from DDLJ?!!! Shah Rukh Khan must be a happy man! hehehe...

Bee(Raa)van

Another epic.Another adaptation.This time with a twist.Mani Ratnam's tryst with epics
lands him, this time (earlier being Karna's story from Mahabharata for Dalapati), in the world of Ravana, the antogonist of Ramayana. The fun part of the movie is that the story is from Ravan's perspective which in theory is definitely exciting and enticing.

Before writing any further on the movie, let me be clear that the post mortem report of the movie is hightly negative to say the least. This is actually a good sign as it eases the burden of expectations on the audience and can,therefore, enjoy the movie. And Enjoy i sure did!.

The film opens with the burning of the police van, police men and the most heinous being the abduction of Ragini, local SP Dev Pratap Sharma's Bharatnatyam dancer-cum-beautiful wife. Dev, with the help of Sanjeevini Kumar, the forest guard who also happens to be a softy for Beera's ideals, begins the search.

Clearly from the first reel, one thing we notice is that Raavan is not a leave-your-brains-behind movie. Though the epic is fairly linear in narration, the adaptation is entirely non-linear. Most of the actions carried out in the first half are justified post interval. One such example being the wound on Abhi's neck. So, it takes a bit of time to understand the events.

The best part of this whole enterprise is that Mani has followed two types of story telling. The first half is mainly visual and second half is mostly verbose although the cinematography of whole movie is just pure magic.

Symbolic references to Ramayana are spread across the movie; many are easy to notice and some requires a hard look like the tattoo of Lord Shiva's trishul on Beera's left hand (referring his devotion to the Lord). Honestly teasers like these make the viewing interesting where it is left to the viewer to join the bit and pieces of the puzzle and see the whole picture in a new perspective.

Again i must add that the movie is undoubtedly an epic painting by Santosh Sivan and Manikandan. A R Rahman's pulsating background score accentuates the scenes further. Samir Chanda lites up the set pieces brilliantly according to the film's mood. But the movie has insipid and dull dialogues throughout which lacks a punch. Technically the overall movie is simply terrific

The film boasts of great star cast but the ones with impact are as below.
Govinda as Hanuman is really good.
Ravi Kishan as Kumbakarna performs well.
Nikhil Dwivedi as Laxman is okay.
Priyamani as Soorpanakha, get to reprise her 'Paruthi Veeran' role in a different language.
Vikram as Ram is effective though his Ray-Ban gets more scope and focus.
Aishwarya, the damsel-in-distress, is Sita-personified. She has never looked this beautiful earlier, ever!.
Abhishek's Beera, in an attempt to portray Raavan's ten heads and their thinking,all at the same time, is most of the times confusing and ineffective. And there in lies Raavan's biggest flaw.

Ultimately, it is Mani Ratnam's vision and interpretation of the epic which makes the movie watchable. Unlike history, which is always the triumphant's version, it is dauntingly challenging re-tell the age old story from the loser's perspective. And that's where, Ratnam and Raavan score.

Watchable? Go...Now!!.
Rating : 4.5 stars

The Politics of Raajneeti

Prakash Jha's Raajneeti based on World's longest and most complex Indian epic, Mahabharata, tells the story  of a rather one big family and their internal politics, most often ruthless, to attain maximum power come what may. The movie is as much based on epic as it does make mild references to mother of all power-centric movies, The GodFather.

The Prataps are a very influential political family in a fictitious state of India. When the eldest of the Prataps, who also happens to be the CM and state party president, falls for paralytic stroke, fate favours his younger brother and his sons (Arjun Rampal and  Ranbir Kapoor) insanely irritating his own son (Manoj Bajpai). Now begins the story.

Soon, Manoj is joined by Ajay Devgn as Dalit Leader in family feud for power along with other minor but interesting characters played by Shruti Seth, Katrina Kaif,etc.
Amidst all these chess pawns, is one more central but often behind-the-scenes character played by Nana Patekar who happens to know all the tricks and tips of the power trade.

Please don't expect any story here as I honestly found none. All the events  in the movie occurring either as part of revenge or to get upper hand against the rival group are most of the times interesting and glues us into the psyche of the movie which is really a good thing as movies these days are either bore-to-the-core or utterly insipid.

Katrina  comes into prominence only in the second half and justifies her Indu character. Unlike the promos, her role is just supportive or rather a pawn in the big game.
With so many stars and characters along with their ego clashes, Prakash Jha has really done a great job in providing enough screen spaces to everybody as per their character needs.

Here are the ones who have maximum impact although the entire cast is deliciously terrific.

Arjun (as both Sonny Carleone and Yudhistir into one) plays his hot headed impulsive character Prithvi rather well but could have been better.

Ajay (Karna) as Dalit leader, Sooraj is okay. Great character but toothless role.

Shruti Seth as some manipulative women group leader is pure lust and juicy.

Naseeruddin Shah in a guest role in the beginning in the film is good who also indirectly happens to turn the events in the movie for good or for worse.

Sarah Thomson as Ranbir's Samar's girlfriend is the only positive character. Her outburst whilst Shruti's kidnapping incident and later on Samar is effective as is her death scene!

Katrina (Draupadi) as Indu is adequate with her chaste and difficult (to her) Hindi lines.

Ranbir (as Arjun) is one conniving but shrewd Samar who is the actual plotter to all the happenings in the movie. His is the most underrated acting in this Raajneeti enterprise.

Nana Patekar (as Krishna) is the main force behind Ranbir's Samar plots and handles all the other characters with absolute finesse. But i feel, Nana as an actor is utterly wasted. The role had great potential but no meat in his characterisation. Blame the director for this.

Finally, Manoj Bajpai(as Duryodhan) or the main antogonist, Veerendra of this huge canvas is, atleast for me, is the hero of the film. With Telugu star, Chiranjeevi's 90's moustache looks, he gets to showcase all kinds of negative emotions in an excellent way.  He gets maximum 'productive'screen space, stylish costumes with cool sun glasses  and best of chast Hindi uttered in a very powerful manner. Coz, may be, on his side, only Ajay and him are the main leads but on other side, there's Arjun, Ranbir and Nana fighting for screen time.

Last but not the least, the director, Prakash Jha, suffering from Bollywood's most common disease, 'Injustifiable and Improper Ending' syndrome, is fairly efficient. Adapting a mammoth epic with so many varied characters and limiting them to screen is not an easy job although GodFather references are hard to ignore in important scenes. One important character from the epic which i missed is Shakuni. But i think, he is present in all the other portrayed characters in one way or another with most visibility in Ranbir's Samar. One major minus point of the film is that most of the characters are, in the end, are plain caricatures.

Hidden Story? It has resemblances the current Indian politics especially the you-know-who family! :)
My pick? Manoj and Shruti.
Watchable? Definitely.

Rating: 3.5 stars

My Name is Khan

SRK's latest flick My Name is Khan makes a very piognant point. That all Muslims are not terrorists. That all Asians who wear turban on their heads don't necessarily carry hate in their hearts.

The film begins in a flashback mode with a voice-over by Asperger's Syndrome inflicted Rizwan Khan (you-know-who) in his much mellowed voice. Good that Mr. Johar doesn't drift much in terms of the plot. This time, his 4th attempt, is straight to the point, rather curved if i must add.

Mr.Khan, as he is redundantly referred to (w.r.t film's tite), is by birth autistic with able and stable support from his mom (of course) and so-so brother, Zakir Khan (who grows up to be always-angry Jimmy Shergill). Autism, here, just happens to be a condition rather than one of the main plots, which by the way, is a good thing, by  Bollywood standards.

Khan learns from him mother (Zarina Wahab) that only two types of people exist, the Good and the Bad and the rest if there are any, are not in this movie! :).

Khan emigrats to US of A after his mom's death to stay with his little brother and his beautiful wife and college professor, Hasina (Soniya Jehan). Meets hair stylist and single mom, Mandira (Kajol) whilst on his salesman's job to his bro's herbal business.

The film chronicles the topsy-turvy journey of Khan thru his childhood, cycle-peddling teenage, marriage with its turbulences and finally his rendevous with First African American President! Quite literally... :)

Khan in his new 'look' and attitude does well while his Mandira is a bit shrill both in her kushis and gums (meaning joys and sorrows!).

The BGS and OST by S-E-L is good while cinematography is a bit cheesy..meaning didn't observe much experimentation.

Sponsorers have been accomodated cleverly with Reebok and Samsonite appearing very vividly...

The biggest flaw is its length...though is 2 and half hours feels never-ending...and a bit more senti-very-mental.

Rating: Same as film's length!

Aal Izz Well

Saw 3 Idiots couple of hours ago and absolutely loved it. This is one of the few Indian movies which has been successfully and properly adapted to Big Screen from an already successful novel, 'Five Point Someone' written by Chetan Bhagat.


The movie has some improbable and impractical scenes which, by the way, don't insult our intelligence (like baby delivery scene with a vacuum cleaner! ) and easily 'gels' with the movie.


The cast is just perfect in Aamir, Sharman, Madhavan, Kareena, Boman and especially Omi (in that order and in pic in James Bond style).

Director Rajkumar Hirani takes on Indian (meaning Victorian) Education Sytem in his socio-relevant series of films following the successful Munnabhai Series. The moral of the story is neither preachy nor impertinent.

The background score and the songs are good though u don't remember any of them once you are outside the theatre other than the impressively catchy 'All Izz Well'!

All i want to tell is that it is a must watch movie and Most Importantly, 'All Izz Well' with this one and hopefully with us as well!.

By the way, 'Happy New Year'.

P.S: The tug of war between actual story creator Chetan Bhagat and movie makers is really a shame. No matter whatever the reason is, Mr. Bhagat should have been properly credited in movie's opening titles. It is like robbing Thomas Alva Edison off his of electric bulb invention by someone with LEDs, tubes and flash lights. If we want to be a global industry, we should first grow and own up for what we stand for!

Love...Then..& Now..

Didn't realise it had been a really long time i wrote something other than Java code...like, kind of, i was in a techie reality show ' I am a developer, get me out of here'!...

anyways, the point of writing this piece is my recent viewing of 'Love Aaj Kal'.

A new drama-romantic-comedy by 'Socha Na Cha' - Imtiaz - 'Jab We Met' - Ali.

An above average movie which is on its way to be the first true blockbuster (in my opinion) of 2009.

The movie starts with a breakup followed by a party to celebrate the breakup (both in london) followed by a link up (their meet in delhi) followed by a party (new year party near Qutub Minar) immediately followed by a break up at the same party followed again by a linkup at her marriage in Delhi followed again by the breakup (for an year, he's in San Francisco and she in Delhi) and FINALLY to be linked up at DELHI....bloody hell!

Rest of the things like Rishi Kapoor's 70's flashback story (good) and songs (Pritam's best) happen in between the above sentence.

Now, don't come to the conclusion that the movie is bad just by judging my above statement. It's okay. Just that it missed the so-called 'The' factor from it's screenplay.

The cast and the crew are just fine. Only one thing captivated me. Brazil babe, Giselle Monteiro playing Rishi's 70's Harleen. Exactly 2 lines to deliver, not a rocket science to master. But, but her innocently beautiful eyes mouthed like a thousand words and you just have to do ONLY one thing. Shut up and Stare!

Kudos to Ali for the street-dialogues which actually helped the film thru this break up/link up marathon. The movie's heart lies at the right place...just that it's blood circulation (meaning screenplay) which intermittently breaks and links (meaning editing) really get on your nerves giving an ache.

Watchable.

Rating: 3/5

Blessing IN Disguise

Obama's recent announcement on slashing H1-B visas is truely a blessing in disguise for India. I know, there would be many people who would be disappointed by the news. You can't help it as America, in Obama's words, 'need to protect Americans'.

This is truely a great opportunity for India to shed her 'Back Office of the World' image and come on her own terms and emerge as a Great Innovation Country as she was once known for. 

Come on, We are the inventors of the fundamental Mathematical magic number, ZERO. And so many other miracles, like, Ayurveda, rockets, etc. Can't we, atleast realise our true potential in this hour of global crisis and bring the glorius epoch back?

Due to the announcement, more skilled professionals may comeback and help in India's growth. Instead of frowning over, we should grab this opportunity and make the full use of it. Ofcourse, without proper infrastructure and other facilities in place, we can't move ahead. This is where the government's role comes into  picture. It should provide adequate financial support for the upcoming Indian-Global companies which focus not only on IT but in all areas backed by sufficient R & D and help ensure, essential skilled man power is in place. The government should give equal impetus to all fields of Arts, Science and Commerce. And ofcourse Sports, the most neglected field.

With the recent news of more than 1000 Engg colleges being opened, it looks like, the govt. is focussing too much Engineering. I hope it gives equal importance to all other fields  as well. The country, with youth comprising of more than 60% of its population, this is the golden chance for a solid nation building activity in all areas.

 Even though the country is going thru a turbulent period including our neighbourhood in every direction we look, I truely believe that, this is our sure shot moment to emerge as a True SuperPower. And to add 'gulaal' to this, we have the elections in place. Thence, this is really really THE sure shotgun, bull's eye opportunity to tranform India. As they say, 'When the going gets tough, the tough gets going', THIS IS IT!

P.S: Thanks to Gulaal's inspiring soundtrack, for the 'gulaal' comment above in particular and missing-office-cab in general for the topic! And yes, most importantly to the load shedding, without which I would have invaribly spent my time in front of the idiot box. Now, this is really 'blessing in disguise' in true sense! :) 

Delhi Silly

Delhi seems to be flavour of this quarter. First, the distintive Oye Lucky, Lucky Oye (OLLO) then the best-adapted Dev D (DD) and now, Delhi - 6 (D6).

D6 and OLLO belong to 'no-story' genre. The narrative play the role of both the story and screenplay. Now, there are many such movies though, 'Alaipayuthe (Saathiya)' , if i may consider to belong to this genre, really worked for me.

It has one of the mammoth star casts where each one of them if streched like a K serial could have a story of its own.  And such is their performance, that you won't question if there's any story or not. Honestly, you shouldn't. 

What should really matter is the narrative or the going-ons. An ABCD, Bachchan Jr, 'accidentally' arrives India, D6 to be precise to 'drop off' the-one-waiting-to-return-to-soil, Waheeda Rehman.

The hero gets hooked to the chaos and confusion of the place and slowly and steadily starts to like the place. 

Now, I would neither be writing too much into the 'story' nor the supporting cast as they are just  two many. But, trust me, each one of them is just superb! My pick would be Vijay Raaz, Deepak Dobriyal and Divya Dutta.

And of course, Masakali - representing both the dove and the heroine, Sonam. She is just spontaneous and awesomely natural though i wished she have had a meaty role.

The hero, Abhishek, gives yet another understated performance (previous one being in Dostana, difference being, here he's liked). His 'accented' dialogue delivery gets a bit on ur nerves yet somewhat likeable is the fact that he provides the podium for the narration in the form of voice-over.   

Even, Big B's presence at the end doesn't add anything special to the already-preachy second half.

The Monkey Man and Ram Leela episodes are stretched a bit more than required. The mirror-holding concept (to symbolize to 'look within' and remove evil) works initially though after a certain point, people really start looking into the mirror to check if they actually dozed off or not!

D6 is as honest  as Rang De Basanti but tends to get a bit preachy and after some time, the whole thing looks silly.

That said, it really boasts of some brilliant technical work in terms of Cinematography, Background score and songs, editing, and art direction. Chandni Chowk really comes alive in Samir Chanda's art work. 

Rakeysh is let down by his own script this time though the film has a good soul and honest intentions. Watchable once.    

Rating: 2.5/5

   

 

V-A-C-A-B

After much deliberation and dereliction for months, our group decided to go on a trip.Finally!! Though the destination was undecided, I was happy that we, atleast made up our mind to visit some godamnit place! And what a place(s) it was!

Fantastic Four of us, Ajay, Sriharsha, Suresh and of course, myself hired a qualis on friday night to Athirampally Falls via Valparai. Left Bengaluru around 2300 hrs.

Without any more e-motions attached, lemme blog.

Pollachi: The first place we stopped for bath and breakfast. Found a decent hotel (Hotel Sakthi) in the town and finished all morning activities and let for Valparai. There are beautiful places around Pollachi but we had a tight schedule to follow which we don't often follow @ work! :)

Aliyar Dam/Reservoir: 20kms for Pollachi and on the foothills of Anamalai mountain range which leads all the way to Valparai. Beautiful one (pictured above), though while reading blogs on Valparai, i didn't know why so. Reason: It's a lovers' spot. I could find more no. of couples than the trees to shade them! Anyways, is still a good place! :)

Monkey Falls: The first place on the ghat is the Monkey Falls. Small and beautiful falls. Part of Roja's 'Dil Hai Chota sa' song was filmed here which we remembered when we saw the place! (pictured above..that's Suresh, Ajay and Harsha...hehehe)

The ghat houses 40 hair-pin bends which provides luxurious view of the Aliyar Dam (one at 9th bend is a good one, pictured above) and the lush green forest. Almost the entire strip has good asphalted road, another plus point.

Valparai - The town full of tea and coffee plantations is truely a traveller's delight. We reached the place around 2pm. You won't find a single hill/mountain range in and around the town without a tea or a coffee plantation. I loved the sight immensely though for somebody it might be a bane especially if green's not one of his/her fav colors! Anyways, all 4 of us liked and loved the place.

Although, it was a pain for the 3 others when i had to halt the vehicle every 500 mts to capture in the digicam. Like, taking a mental picture (Sitcom, Friends's one of the episodes featuring Alec Baldwin's famous lines) of this wonderful view. But when you are in such a great place and have an insatiable thirst for snapping every thing that's looks awesome who wouldn't go zany over it? (pictured)

Reached the hotel (Hotel Green Hill) which we had it booked from our Pollachi hotel. Room was good, priced at Rs.900/night for a couple.Refreshing ourselves, we set out for in and outs of the town.

We have had thought of visiting temples and churches amidst the estates, but had to shelve the plan excusing ourselves blatantly that since God's omnipotent and omnipresent. Actually, we were running out of time.

picture: Our evening tea.

Our hotel receptionist/owner gave us 3 routes to visit places. We selected one which had a dam (Nirar Dam), a falls (Chinnakallar Falls) and a river (sorry, forgot the name). Since it was already 4.45pm and dam would close by 5pm, we zeroed-in on the falls.

Nirar Dam: Nice route. 20 kms from the town. Nirar damn (pictured) is on the way. The dam is more of a reservoir than the damn dam! :) From the dam, the falls is 1 km further plus 200mts walk. Loud Tamil music greet you at the falls, a ploy to ward-off the wandering elephants. If you are a Tamil music fan, there's a nice podium to dance as well. The place has a school and a post office which actually amused and pleased me. Good that education is reaching far and wide.

Chinnakallar Falls:Now the falls (pictured), in technical terms, is not a falls at all. Its just a stream of water flowing from a slightly elevated rock. Nonetheless, it's good for some recreational activities like...u can fill in your choice! :).

We couldn't stay long enough to enjoy as it was getting dark and the water was getting cold. Moreover, it's frequented by neighbourhood elephants.

Came back to the town, strolled the streets, ate local delicacies, packed some tea,spices to take back home. Slept early.

Got up at 6.30 am next day to foto the tea gardens (pictured).

Now, being a hill station, here i was expecting a very cold morning. but to my surprise, it wasn't. Benguluru was much colder when I reached next day!

Anyways, snapped some pics, eat some freshly prepared and tasty masala vadas, got ready for our next and final destination. Athirampally Falls (AF).

My first thought while driving towards AF was 'Awesome route; Awful road'! It's a 60kms stretch to AF from Valparai via Sholayar dam. We could only see Tata board in all the tea/coffee gardens right till Kerala and this spans several hills! Really, it's a small wonder how they must have planted a whole mountain range with tea and coffee samplings!!!

One of the many Tea gardens. Or should i say, advertising Sony shot from a Canon! :)

Sholayar Dam: 30 Kms from Valparai. On the way to AF. Some sites claimed it to be Asia's 2nd longest and deepest dam (pictured). I could certainly not find if it's deepest or not but definitely not the longest. But, yes, a beautiful dam surrounded by forests and tea gardens.  As you can see, some work is going on at the place.

Picture: Dam Site.
Without much delay, we set out for AF.

The dense forest, monitored jointly by Kerala & TN, is home to a large amount of flora and fauna. Good that we didn't find much of fauna except for this snake (pictured) else i wouldn't be writing this blog. Would I?!

The best thing after crossing over to Kerala is the Mobile Network. I could get excellent reception near a picturesque Dam (pictured). Good roads are another plus point.So, an excuse to snap some more pics and irritate the group!

Finally, reached AF around 2pm. Had some 'parotta' and went to see our Final Destination: The Athirampally Falls.

The Final Falls: When I first saw this falls in Dil Se's 'Jiya Jale' song, i thought it to be some remote place in the middle of jungle which is largely inaccesible. And still it was the same thought.

But one glimpse of this place changed all these. We had to park our vehicle 200 mts away from the Entry gate (Timings: 8am-6pm) and when we went near the falls, we could see, hundreds already in action (pictured), only posing for camera though and nothing otherwise!. I have seen this falls in innumerable films ever since. Barricades are in place which act as a deterrent to go near the falls with a guard in place to avoid any illegal entry. However, i captured this pic below, in one of those activities. Couldn't resist the view!

Just trekked down to the bottom of the falls (200 mts) and clicked as many snaps as possible. As usual as it sounds, the falls is just awesome. Thanks to the dam authorities, as it was Sunday, they had open the gates for us to catch such an incredible view. The top of the falls (pictured) though crowded, wasn't much fun.

Spent some time, clicked Sunset snap and left for Bangalore via Palakkad (stopover @ Palghat for some lite dinner), Coimbatore.

And as far as our fun quotient goes, we had Suresh with logical and irrational questions and Harsha with more answers literally playing 'kaun banega bakwaspati'. Ajay and myself were intermittently listening to them! :)

P.S. : VACAB stands for the places listed above! :)

The 44th!

First things first. It is an awesome and inspiring inaugural speech! 'Is' because, it's still ringing in my ear! And my first viewing of an Oath administered to the ministers and presidents, ever. This National Event, both in US of A and Rest of the World, India included, as it's being shown Live on all prominent Indian news channels, the first for them as they haven't beamed any of Indian Oath taking ceremony (!), is truely one of its kind. Guess other 'popular' leaders would follow suit elsewhere!

If, for America and World's sake, Obama is as honest in his intentions and clear and truthful in his thoughts and deeds as his speech, i am sure, his name would be remembered for generations to come and his place reserved in the pages of World History!

Mr. Barrack Hussein Obama, the 44th President of United States of America, Best of Luck!

Delhi 6 - Music Review

Delhi 6 is Rakesh Omprakash Mehra's 3rd flick after Aks and RDB. Like his other two, this one's rocking too and how! Let's wait and see how the movie matches this colossal score!

Aarti (Tumre Bhavan Mein) and Arziyan

Great way to start the album with offerings to Almighty.Both are awesome numbers sung by (Rekha Bharadwaj and et. al) & (Javed Ali and Kailash Kher) respectively.

Bhor Bhaye

I think this is ARR's first full fledged Hindustani classical number. This should definitely be liked by old and new alike interested in Classical numbers. For ordinary ears, it's soothing though.

Genda Phool

Rekha Bharadwaj is one of my fav singers ever since i heard Omkara's Namak number. She has that kind of a voice which can ease a stressful mind instantly. This is one of my fav numbers from the soundtrack. I know ARR believes in the oxymoron 'less is more' phrase in turns of his music but now he's started with short numbers as well (This song is just 2.5 mins long). The last number in this 'genre' is Yuvvraaj's 'Manmohini'. Although other tracks in this pack are not that long except for Arziyan, this particular number kept wanting me for more! This is already my ring tone!! hehe..

Dil Gira Dafatan

Nice slow number.I love first 5 sec of this track which reminds me of the latin-american style of music. Ash King's voice has a soothing effect backed nicely by Chinmayee. The background orchestra is too good. This should take some hearings to be likened by one and all. And to know that he doesn't know a word in Hindi and has sung this, makes me like it more!

Delhi 6

Title track. A rap/hip-hop/lazy number with great vocals by Blaaze, Benny, Vivenne, et.al. A Uber cool one! Instantly likeable.

Noor

A less than a minute soothing philosophical phrasing by Amitabh Bachchan. Nice one.

Hey Kaala Bandar

A Fast and Fun song with some of course funny lyrics. Prasoon gets a chance to display his wild side in this one.

Rehna Tu

Old habits die hard. Yes, ARR has it. He always keeps some of the best tracks to himself. And does complete justice to them! You should like this. One of the trend setting numbers.

and My favourite Masakali

The First-Best song of 2009. Absolutely a show stopper number sung brilliantly by Mohit Chauhan. Perky lyrics in sync with music. ARR seems to make full utilization of the Accordion he bought in Hong Kong, right from Aye Hairate (guru) and then followed it up by Zindagi (Yuvvraaj). The way Mohit plays with the words, 'Tamanna', 'Manmaani' just shows his versatality and his ease with words. For me,this is Mohit's Best song.

This is a wholesome entertainment album with a song for everybody spanning almost all genres. Being it classical, hip hop, rap, instant-likeables, slow ones, you name it, you got it. It's all right here!

Go ahead and take yours! Great way to start 2009. An absolute must have!

Reviews

Happen to see quite a bit of movies recently. Their reviews, though in brief.
In Bruges
Most recently watched movie. It refreshed my Bruges memory. This 'Venice of North' is a small but lively city. And so is the movie. This Irish comedy-drama-thriller is a delight to watch especially Colin and Gleeson's awesome chemistry. Debut movie by a theatre writer (sorry, forgot his name!). Lots of F words. Infact, loads! ;)The best part about this movie is that, though the story is seen-before types, the screenplay keeps us guessing for the next moves of the characters.
Colin's win at Golden Globes'09 as Best Actor-Comic/Musical is well-deserved.

Burn After Reading
Completely eerie, out-of-the-box comic movie involving Brad Pitt, George Clooney, et.al written by awesome-duo Cohen Brothers. Fun to watch.

Ghajini
Only reason to watch this is the climax which was publicised to differ with the 'original-inspired' Tamil version.Good timepass though.

The Lives of Others
Superb German movie. Watch to understand something about privacy in East Germany.An Oscar winner. Rightly though!

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
One more great movie. Ben (Brad)'s born 80 year old (physically) and starts growing backwards and dies young. Brad Pitt's best act till date. And yes, great music. And rightly nominated everywhere.

Slumdog Millionaire
No words on this movie! Not coz i don't wanna say anything but coz so many things are already being praised for and criticised against this movie. Rightly won Golden Globe. Anxiously waiting for THE most awaited moment. The Oscars.

Dasvidaniya '08 ; YO '09

2008 has been a roller coaster ride for all of us. While writing this, i know 2009 has already arrived in Eastern parts. Japan, Australia.

Its been a year of mixed feelings and to some extent - failures both personally and in general.

Though i wouldn't be discussing about what happened, i just hope and wish 2009 to be a properous year for all of us.

Thence, Wishing you all a very Happy and fun filled New Year!

After Thought: If you have some plans for today, here's the link to its aftermath: 

http://www.formbytimes.co.uk/formby-entertainment/2008/12/29/what-is-the-best-hangover-cure-101022-22567770/