Few Hindi Movies

In Paris, as I am stuck up only with Star Gold, Z Cinema, B4U and Zing, I got no options except to watch Hindi movies and Hindi songs. I must admit that I was not in touch with much of Hindi cinema except for a few smash hits like Rang De Basanti, Black, Devdas etc.

I think it is time to catch up. J

Over the past 2 week ends I was watching loads of Hindi movies and to my surprise each one of them were of different genre. The actors are matured. There is no over acting – except in very few cases. There are no punch lines. There are no car-wind-shield-smashing fights. No ordinary-hero-fight-like-superhero stuff. No stupid romance songs backed up by angels-of-love chorus raga. No unwanted item number songs. At least I didn’t see all of these in the 10 some movies I got to watch.

Mein Meri Pati Aur woh – is a nice feel good movie. This is the first movie that made me switch over to Star Gold from National Geographic and very much boring BBC news. This movie is about a short guy who gets to marry a beautiful woman. This guy has huge inferiority complex and he doubts that his wife may leave him or to put it differently he fears that some hand some guy might take his wife away from him. But people around him are quite nice and are just minding their business. He creates lots of tricks to solve the problems those actually don’t exist. He doubts his wife but he loves her a lot and just don’t know that she too loves him very much. I began to like Rajpal Yadav.

Shoot out at Lokhandwala – is a great movie about a real life shoot out. It is based up on the 1991 Lokahndwala complex shoot out. What a star cast it was! Amitab bachan, Sunil Shetty, Vivek, Sanjay Dutt and Abhisek. This kind of mulit-starer movie is really very hard to find in Tamil movies.And if at all anything is ventured then it would be dropped later or the actors would get in to a cold war after the end of the movie and they vow to press that they would never act together again! I must say that I was shocked to see Abhishek in a very small role and he had done a perfect job. Sanjay Dutt and Sunil Shetty were excellent too.

Baghban – is again a good movie. This movie is about relationship between parents and their grown up children. Amitabh and Hemamalini acted as parents.The love between the parents – even in their old age is shown in a great way. It is emotional to see Amitabh got separated from his wife and got to stay in one of his son’s house longing for his wife’s love. There are loads of movies of this kind in Tamil –mostly done by Siavji, but this kind of movie is very hard to see these days. Anyway Salman really was over acting. It is almost laughable to see Salman sing prayers to Amitabh’s photo.I think the director had run out of ideas.


- originally appeared in my other blog readnshare.wordpress.com

Karthik Calling Karthik

Again B4U this time I fell for this song: Uff Teri Ada. I loved this song from day 1. I wanted to see this movie just for this song. I am not a big fan of bollywood songs but this one knocked me out. Watch this, once more for the beats.

 

When I bought this DVD today I was thinking that this is going to be a usual bollywood love story but with technical excellence as I have seen and heard the songs. But man, believe me this movie is such a rock n roll ride that if you are watching this lying down flat on the couch then you are will get up and sit more than once.

Karthik calling Karthik, the title says everything. One of my friends here just saw the cover and did a wild guess that it is a double act movie.  Man, come out of MGR movies and seriously have you ever watched Anniyan?! Oh please, apply the lessons learnt. J

 

I don’t want to say the story here; you can always see the Wikipedia for the plot. But please don’t do that; you will miss loads of fun. It is not only the story that is gripping but it is everything else; the romance between Farhan and Deepika, mild humour that runs together with the serious dialogues; you  will miss them if you don’t listen properly, music, cinematography and the characters themselves.

 

So how exactly can Karthik call Karthik, if this event is witnessed by someone else other than Karthik himself? Actually 2 characters witness this strange event one the Psychiatrist and the other  being Deepika. How can it happen? 

 

And can you believe that this movie is Vijay Lalwani’s directorial debut?

 

I highly recommend this movie.

 

*Originally appeared in my other blog

Rann

I picked up this movie after seeing its trailer in B4U. I like Ram Gopal Varma right from his very first movie Shiva. I saw this movie in Tamil as Udhayam (Rise). I was studying sixth or seventh or even a lower grade, I don’t exactly remember. But at that time, my dream was to become a guy like Nagarjuna (the hero in the movie) and wanted to throw hot tea on ones face in case he meddles with my life. Funny but lots of Indian kids dream of becoming a hero. 

 

I read in a magazine that this movie is a flop. So what? Surely,this movie is a standing example –among lot of other movies –for the fact that a movie can be great even though it bombed at the box office. I accept that the movie is predictable and the characters are not very much interesting. But the movie carries a strong message –never believe what you see in the TV channels, particularly news.

 

Quite a few fellas of my state have got this message long before and have stopped watching prominent news channels. The channels are biased to their political parties. People know this and channels know that people know and they really don’t care, both of them. The channels continue to show biased news and people continue to watch. It is so complicated.

 

What happens if a powerful TV channel conspires with a bad politician and a rich and equally bad industrialist? Money+Power+Media? That is what this movie speaks of.

 

Amitabh did well as usual but it is Sudeep and Paresh Rawal who steal the show. I have begun to like Sudheep. He has got a style. Amit Roy’s cinematography is very stylish and the narration by RGV is excellent. I think he is back on track.

On the whole it is a perfect film for those who want to see something different from an usual masala.

On Kamal’s 50 year service

*Originally appeared in my other blog.

Vijay TV is sporting a new program on Kamal’s 50 years of service in Tamil (Can I say Indian?) film industry. Service? How else can I put it?

(What I don’t like with Vijay TV Singapore is their continuous irritable repeated telecast of the advertisements of their own program. One can not count the number of times “Anbe Va” serial’s advertisement is telecasted with in one hour with his own fingers.)

Ok now to the point. I have been seeing this Kamalum-Thamizhum (Kamal and Tamil), Kamalum kadhalum (Kamal and Love) et., all kind of programs coming up in Vijay TV.

One cannot deny that he is one of the best available actors in Indian cinema and particularly Tamil cinema industry. I fell in love with Kamal’s acting after I saw his movie Sathya. For other than Tamil readers: If you have never seen this movie, now go rent it or buy it or download it or do what ever and make sure you see that movie. That is one of the master piece performance by Kamalhassan. One might say that his crying in Mahanathi or his crying in Punnagai Mannan is his best performance. But I doubt it.

Ok I accept that I cried in the theater when I was watching this movie Mahanathi. But that is an emotion. An emotion that was being built up right from the starting of the movie and it waited for its time to burst out. If you watch just that scene alone I bet you will not have that kind of emotion.

An acting must be natural that when you see the performance you must never see the actor in it, but you must see the character. But in most of his movies once in a while appearing characters will be totally wiped out by the strong wiper Kamalhassan. Guna, Thevar Magan, Hey Ram are to name a few; not to forget Sandiyar.
Even though I am a fan of Rajini, I liked and loved very few performances of Kamal. Here is the list:

1. Varumaiyin Niram Sigapu
2. Aboorva Sagotharargal (For Appu’s innocent smile)
3. Sathya
4. Indiran Chandran (for the Mayor)
5. Micahel Madana Kamarajan (for showing 4 different characters)
6. Salangai Oli (only young performance)
7. Oru Kaithiyin Dairy (only old performance)
8. Vettaiyadu Vialayadu
9. Dasavatharam (Vincent Pooavaragavan)
10. Vikaram (For his style and charm)

I liked and loved Velu Nayakar before I saw Don Corleone. I still don’t know why Kamal had to imitate Marlan Brando and Al Pacino.

Even now when I see Al Pacino in some movies I cannot help but relate his mannerisms with Kamal. If you have doubts watch Insomnia and God Father part 2. Did Al Pacino follow the styles of Kamal Hassan?

Also why in the world Kamal has to remake the movie A Wednesday? My friends say that he has done it to pass the message to all including C section. Bullshit.  And the message in the movie A Wednesday is utterly stupid, that you can eliminate (or reduce) the violence by killing the terrorists. One of the cheap commercial tactic to attract already confused youngsters.

If Kamal ever wish to do a remake of a Hindi movie and yet want to pass a good message to the so called B and C section then he must act in the remake of Lage Raho Munnabhai and Taare Zameen Par. After I watched Taare Zameen Par, I repeatedly asked this question to myself: why our so called legends in Tamil cinema didn’t ever think of a movie in this theme? Can they ever? I share Charu’s view on this regard.

Kamal is there in the industry for 50 years. But why can’t he change the Tamil cinema in these 50 years? He was constantly criticizing Tamil people for not supporting his movies which he and his few die hard fans considered classic like Guna et., all. He (and his fans too) has utterly under estimated the Tamil audience.

Now there is a visible change happening here in Tamil industry. Loads of good movies from good directors had been made. Mozhi, Kaadhal, Veyil, Subramaniyapuram, Pasanga to name a few. Did the Tamil audience not support these movies? The architects of this change are apparently Shankar (as a producer) and Prakash Raj. They identified and introduced good directors. They produced and experimented movies. That was very bold. One fine example is “Imsai Arasan 23aam Pulikesi”.

Now, why can’t (or didn’t) Kamal do this? Don’t mistake me. I cannot put this question to Vijayakanth or Rajnikanth for simple reason: they are not Ulaga nayagarkal (Heroes of the world!).

Babel

Again a boring day, not much things to do. Got loads of forwards from my dear friend in KL, that almost flooded my mail box. And in turn I flooded my colleagues mail boxes too. Forwards are Fun, aint it? I usually send forwards to my colleagues in my floor, and it became a habit, to watch them if they really enjoy my forwards. Sometimes they frown.
Went to the movie Babel, Brad Pitt starrer. Actually this movie is one of the nominees for this years oscar. A fantastic movie with lots of obsorbing characters. Soon I will post a detailed review in my tamil blog kuralvalai. Enjoyed the movie very much with my friends Saravanan, Raj and Ashwin, forgot to take a snap.
Still reading Harry Potter and the order of pheonix.

Nothin' to say

Pretty much wiered, huh?
God, save Rajinikanth, and, of course, AVM too.

Pirates of Silicon Valley

Today saw this movie, Pirates of Silicon Valley, to have a full detail of the movie see here. This movie is about Apple Computers and Microsoft, trying to say how Apple Computers grew as a giant from nothin' actually. Also touches some personal life of Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple Computers. Bill Gates was shown as an excellent business man, who creates everything from nothing, for example, the talks with IBM guys about selling DOS OS when actually they had nothing. And explaining Steve that they were not copying their Mac User Interface and convincing him, to show his OS in Apple's demo. At last when Steve Jobs says Bill is a thief stealing things from MAC user interface, Bill explains by saying, all cars have steating wheels, that does not mean they are copying from others, and he goes to the extent that, if Bill is a thief then Steve is the first theif stealing things from Xerox, which actually found the mouse user interface.

There are also interesting dialogues between Bill and Steve like,
Steve: We're better than you are! We have better stuff.
Bill: You don't get it, Steve. That doesn't matter!

The one another interesting character you would see in the movie is that of Steve Ballmer, the current CEO of Microsoft. Actually, he is my favourite in this movie. This movie also throws some interesting characters of both Steve and Bill like Bill would literally fall asleep at any place and have a very weak memmory.
But the movie is incomplete, it is just an introduction to Steve and Bill or to Apple and Microsoft. Not actually explaining How they are Pirates? But worth a watch.

Rajini & The Kid

Superstar whistling for Vaiko's rhythemic tamil speech in Illayaraja's Thiruvasaham CD realease function. Thalaivar also shared a story.A family from US came to india with their small boy.And the boy accepted to come to india only if they show Rajinikanth['coz he has seen chandramuki'].Rajini after hearing this asked them to come to his home.Rajini had a good time with the family and the kid.When they are about to leave the kid asked 'where is rajnikanth?'.Dumbstruk rajini said 'I am Rajinikanth'.But the kid didnt believe and cried that they are cheating him.Then rajini asked them to come in the evening.But this time he had a full makeup and the Kid accepted now.

Moral:Its hard to cheat kids.


Pciture: Thanks to Vikatan.com