Up in the Air Review (2010)

With the global situation of penury and folding up, it is surprising that more movies are not made on the human element of people getting laid off from their jobs. When you think of it, any director would eat up the idea of capturing the scenario of two people sitting at a table, one who has just lost everything and one who is about to inform him or her that they have lost everything. That twitching, those subtle nuances. Which dialogue writer would not want to give some powerful and thought provoking dialogue to the scene? 

Well, it may be that such movies were not made during that time as they'd be criticized to be milking the global scenario, but now that such a movie is made, we can only be too happy that the movie rests on the able charismatic shoulders of George Clooney. 

Cast:

• George Clooney as Ryan Bingham, a career transition counselor
• Vera Farmiga as Alex Goran⁼
• Anna Kendrick as Natalie Keener
• Jason Bateman as Craig Gregory, owner of Career Transition Counseling
• Amy Morton as Kara Bingham, Ryan Bingham's older sister
• Melanie Lynskey as Julie Bingham, Ryan Bingham's younger sister
• Danny R. McBride as Jim Miller, Julie's husband
• J. K. Simmons as Bob, a fired employee
• Sam Elliott as Maynard Finch, Chief Pilot
• Zach Galifianakis as Steve, a fired employee

Plot:

Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) is a so called career transition counselor who is the answer to every entrepreneur's, small business owner, or even the basic HR's question during turbulent times - who's gonna fire him/her?

The movie shows us that Ryan has someone closed himself up to the down right brutal job that he does, by concentrating more on the flying miles that he collects, which he can because his job has him traveling more than two hundred and fifty days in a year.  During his travels, Ryan meets someone who is quite similar to him, a frequent traveler who spends more time at the airport than at home. 

Things seem to be settled and even moving ahead when he is called back one day to the office and introduced to Natalie Keener, the newest employee/consultant in their company, who has come up with the revolutionary concept of firing people over the Internets, thereby saving a lot of revenue for the company and adding some padding to their already fat pockets.

Of course, Ryan does not take kindly to this, and like every other corporate scenario, the boss tries to keep both of his best resources by teaming them together - which creates an unlikely alliance of the veteran, hard as nails Ryan and the comparatively new Natalie, who has grown up in a generation which has understood that 'hiding behind the screen' is the best way to hide from unlikely and uncomfortable circumstances. 

As Ryan and Natalie go through the countryside firing people, they become friends and even confidantes, as both of them begin realizing that different people live different kinds of lives, and have to question some of their decisions which they have come to live with. 

Up in the Air Review:

Coming from the best in Hollywood, Up in the Air works on many fronts. First of all, it is a brutal, frank look at the very business of firing people, some who did not have any idea what hit them, to some who had a better idea of what was happening. Of course, the movie does show only one small percentage of the workforce as their main chunk, the people who were working really hard, in their middle age, and did not know what to do now. 

There are, of course, those youngsters who still considered their jobs a picnic, while then there are those who have definite plans with their jobs, with the low paying jobs just yardsticks that they have to cross in their 30 year old career, or even those people who were about to quit this evening because they had hit something good. Not that it takes anything away from the movie, but it would be more realistic and believable if all aspects of the corporate world were shown. 

The film basically rests on the acting caliber of George Clooney, Anna Kennick and Vera Farmiga, and the three take all of us on an endearing, emotional and contenting journey through this big, sarcastic beast that is called living. 

Almost every frame of the movie is a high point, and this review would have to give you the entire synposis of the movie if it were to tell you about the high points in the movie. Of course, the clips of people being sacked that come up during the journey are quite rattling. If you have seen horror movies, you would be surprised to feel that 'what happens now' gut feeling when the old man is fired using the video conferencing technology and he spends some time crying in the room. You are almost waiting for the poor guy to have an heart attack and put an end to this glaring madness that has been blown apart by this romantic comedy.

The film works on various aspects and is too many stories rolled in one. It's the story of a person who doesn't like to call home, home, to the story of a young turk who may look strong and gritty but is someone who has lime and soda with vodka as she cries over her boyfriend quitting on her. The film is also a story of a woman who delves into her job not because her husband is a wife beater or her kids are drug addicts, but simply because she is someone who likes adventure. 

And above all, it is the story of a dysfunctional, broken family that comes to terms with their values at a brief reunion of a younger sister's marriage. Watch this fare.

To Baat Pakki Review (2010)

  

 

 Cast and Crew:

Producer : Ramesh S. Taurani, Kumar S. Taurani
Executive Producer : Rahila Mirza, Jay Shewakramani
Co-Producer : Paul Reynolds, Jay Shewakramani
Director : Kedar Shinde

Cast : Sharman Joshi, Tabu, Yuvika Chaudary, Vatsal Seth, Ayub Khan
Music Director : Pritam Chakraborty
Lyricist : Sayeed Quadri, Mayur Puri, Shabbir Ahmed
Dialogue Writer : Vibha Singh
Screenplay Writer : Vibha Singh
Editor : V. N. Mayekar
Art Director : Shailesh Mahadik, Sheetal Kanvinde
Choreographer : Ahmed Khan

 

When one of India's and I presume Asia's most versatile actress makes a sort of comeback to the silverscreen, there is a category of filmdom that is abuzz with anticipation and activity. A few weeks ago, when the rushes of Toh Baat Pakki were released, it was understood that Tabu would be the star of the movie, with the rest of the cast being quite supporting, except for Sharman Joshi. So basically, this movie was a battleground for the acting chops of Sharman Joshi (Rang De Basanti) and Tabu (Chandni Bar, Hu Tu Tu) etc. 

Plot:

Tabu plays the role of the common housewife, whose husband has a government job and a old car that is almost a family heirloom.  She has an eligible sister, who she is looking to get married to 'the one who has the most money'. Now, like every Indian housewife, it is Tabu who has to look for the rightful groom for her sister. 

As luck would have it, Tabu meets not one, but two eligible bachelors, both of whom fall for her sister almost immediately.  While Tabu arranges the marriage with Rahul (Sharman Joshi,) she meets  Yuvraj Saxena (Vatsal Seth), another eligible bachelor whom she thinks will fit well for her sister, Nisha (Yuvita Chaudrary), simply because he has a permanent job at Godrej, will be getting a bungalow at the end of the year, and has a good salary. The rest of the movie works on how Tabu undoes what she has set with Sharman Joshi and his sister.

Of course, Sharman Joshi is not someone who would just let his bride to be go off with someone else, and he tries to sabotage the wedding in his unique ways. The antics that he carries out trying to sabotage the wedding are quite cute, and you remember (just remember) the antics of the old school movies like Priyadarshan or Hrishikesh Mukherjee.

To Baat Pakki Review:

The movie comes across as a fresh breath in the view of the movies that are becoming staple Bollywood fare. However, debutante director Kedar Shinde falls short of what a Priyadarshan or Hrishikesh Mukherjee movie would be. 

Sharman Joshi acts well, but he still does not have the screen presence of an Amol Palekar, Amitabh Bachchan or even Akshay Kumar. Of course, his enthusiasm is quite visible, but he still does not have the chops to become 'the protagonist'.

The movie itself has a fabulous flaw, which basically makes the movie difficult to digest, the very fact that no Indian family would allow a person who was actually supposed to marry the woman to be even in the part of the wedding, leave alone the wedding preparations, if there have been some problems that have brought about a change of plan. 

Also, something that  stands as a sore thumb is the dialogue, where people normally regard kids as 'balak' with the common 'Hum' and 'Tum' for 'you' and 'me'. The movie is saccharine sweet, but neither does it warm your heart, nor does it come across as a thought provoking fare - it's just a movie that does not touch you.

Karthik Calling Karthik Music Review

Bollywood music has always taken inspiration from Hollywood music, be it Bappi Lahiri or Anu Malik. In fact, we have been ridiculed for our music from the '80s and the '90s, which were basically rehashes of hits like Bangles, Thriller, etc. Even in the late '90s, we had movies that blatantly copied from the latest chartbusters. With A R Rahman winning plaudits for his movie, we hope that this will change. 

Also, it is a refreshing change when we actually see the latest music directors trying not to copy foreign music, but actually create something that is in tandem with the quality of global music. Karthik Calling Karthik music is a refreshing, zingy album that remains with you not because it is revolutionary or something, but just because it endeavors to do something different as compared to the other music albums.  The entire album has a retro feeling that piddles into modern music now and then, creating an awesome sync for those Mp3 players and iPods of today.

However, remember that the album does not have that one song that would take the nation by storm,with Jaane Yeh Kya Hua being just another diamond in this diamond studded album.

All the tracks have a discoish feeling to them, with some of them actually going into the realms of trance. The vocals are very different from what we see in our 'local' music, and this album will be playing in several car decks for a long time to come. Shankar Ehsaan Loy have again come up with a successful album that really peps you up before your work day. 

Terminator 2: The Reason I began loving Shotguns

Years of education and maturity have told us that movies are supposed to those aspects of the media that entertain, educate and add a specific value to our lives.Therefore, while watching movies, and especially while reviewing them, we look for that value that is added to our lives, or some thought provoking concept that is brought to the fore using the strength of audio video etc.

But when the movie delivers one of the most bone smashing, machinery breaking, car flying, blood letting experiences, these aspects can be put to rest and one can enjoy the movie for what it is.

When the Terminator was first released, it was a low budget, almost B Grade movie which worked largely due to Arnold Schwarzenegger's  unpronounceable surname and a kind of butt shot  in the first movie. Also,the movie was one of the first ones that gave a clearer, more brutal picture of the post apocalyptic world as compared to Planet of the Apes and other movies of those times. 

And the action... oh the action. This was one of the first movies that brought CGI action in a realistic way to the audience all over the world. Who doesn't remember the first time the Terminators meet, and Arnold basically blows up the evil Terminator with the shotgun? That's the reason I began loving shotguns and looked to use them in the FPS I played, but then I found out about the recoil of the shotguns and left them at that. 

Though many would say that the movie had a wafer thin plot and was gun blazing and car smashing balderdash, one cannot deny that the movie had some kind of intelligence to it. The dialogues and words that Arnold says as the Terminator would seem cliche if anyone else did, but they work simply because Arnold says it in his colorless manner. 

Buy this movie if you like blowups.

My Name is Khan Review (2010)

Friday Freak's Note.

My Name is Khan has generated quite some controversy and news ever since it was first announced. When the movie was first named, it seemed like Karan Johar was trying to create a comedy rifraff with Shah Rukh Khan in as the protagonist. Later, it was announced that it is a thriller that had to do something with an assassination attempt on the President.

As time progressed, the movie became the center of controversy because Shah Rukh Khan was arrested at an international airport, and was detained and maybe given the 'pat down' treatment. These aspects kept the movie in the media limelight, and the final blow, or incident came a week before the release of the movie, when Shah Rukh Khan was targeted by some groups for his comments about the inclusion of some cricketers in the IPL, a national cricket tournament in India.

Conspiracy Theorists will say that all this was done for the publicity of the movie, and that everyone had a fair share in whatever incidents came up while the world waited for the release of the movie. Does the movie live to it's hype, or is it another case of a Bollywood movie growing big because of a superstar being in there, and not because of the script or the storyline. here's the review.

My Name is Khan Review:

Cast:

Shah Rukh Khan: Rizwan Khan

Kajol Devgan: Mandira Rathore Khan.

And many more in Cameos

Plot:

Rizwan Khan is an average Muslim who meets Mandira, a divorcee with a child and falls in love with her. The both marry and have a very happy life, until September 9/11 strikes and their world changes. Like everyone else in the world, Rizwan Khan and his family face ostracism, humiliation and illogical attacks, which they take in their stride, until one attack changes their life forever. It is now upto Rizwan Khan to piece his personal and family life together.

Review:

The movie has a very strong storyline and that is supported by career best roles by both Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol. Come to think of it, except Dulha Mil Gaya, everytime we see Shah Rukh Khan in a role, we think that it is his career best role. The main thing is that this guy is so malleable into any role, that it is simply impossible to find flaws in his method of acting.  And with the kind of roles that he is taking on, it is evident that he no longer wants to take on light issues like patriarchal  families, or the underdog employee, and he has a star stature that can allow him to take on issues like global terrorism and women's emancipation.

The movie has a very strong plot, but is something that threatens to fall apart every now and then, and this is where the acting chops of almost every character in the movie come to play. Right from Shah Rukh Khan to Vinay Pathak, everyone seems to have decided to make their role memorable in this movie. 

While the plot is strong, it suffers from the same thing that movies like Rambo 4 suffered. In the '80s, we could believe that one man can save the whole of the world, and we had a innocent, distant information that things were not as bad as they were shown on the screen. But with the advent of the internet, globalization, user generated news and the penetration of media, we have see much, much worse scenarios than any movie can show us, and we know those guys have gone unpunished.  

When I read about Shah Rukh Khan as the guy who is undergoing injustice, I remember Aung San Suu Kyi, (If you do not know who Aung San Suu Kyi is, please get lost from my blog, I can do without the traffic) and I know that her life is not a movie thats' gonna be over in three hours. So, more or less, this is escapist fare for a well read, internet savvy individual living in 2010. 

There are several highpoints in the movie, in fact, every scene is a high point in the movie. The main reason for this is that the movie tackles many aspects, right from the government inaction over the floods, to racial bias, to even ragging, to a large extent. 

The canvas of the movie is so large that one wouldn't go into the details as to whether Shah Rukh Khan has acted the Asperger's right, or whether it is plausible enough for him to be able to run away from a room full of terrorists, or whether the racial attack was getting almost justifiable after the second attack.  This is a movie that works well if you agree to something that I read a long time back:

God Looks after Drunkards and the Mentally Incompetent, and you take the same track for a person with a medical ailment and bearing the brunt of  a racial attack to his own family.

Veer Review (2010)

Though India is known to have one of the greatest cultures and histories all over the world, it is sad to note that there is not a single movie in recent times that has even tried show a mirror to one of the greatest histories in mankind that have been written in blood. There have been some movies, yes, like Asoka, Jodha Akbar, and of course Razia Sultana and Mugal E Azam of yore, but its find to find that 'One' movie that tells us about India's heritage.

One of the main reasons that most period and historical pieces have fallen on their faces is that either the movie makers become too passionate about their subject, or that they begin to concentrate more on the love stories - any love story that would work with the storyline.

Veer, which was supposed to be one of the most anticipated movies of 2010, and the fact that the hunk of a hero Salman Khan was to play the titular role based on a legendary character, was a option to change all that. But sadly, it goes down the same garden path that the previous movies have gone to.

Cast:

• Salman Khan as Veer
• Mithun Chakraborty as Prithvi Singh, Veer's father
• Sohail Khan as Punya, Veer's brother
• Jackie Shroff as the king of Madhavgarh and father of Yashodhara
• Zarine Khan as Princess Yashodhara, Veer's love
• Lisa Lazarus as Angelina

Storyline:

This period piece is set during British ruled India, and is based in the world of the Pindharis, who were once betrayed by the Prince of Madhavgarh. The story tells us about Prithvi Singh, who basically hones his son to exact revenge to the 4500 people who had died due to the betrayal of the Prince. How the son exacts revenge, and ends up falling in love with the daughter of the enemy forms the rest of the story.

Review:

When you look at the possibilities that Veer could become, and you look at what the makers have come up with, you feel that the movie is a big let down. They story itself had everything, right from That One Sequence that sets up the story, the hunk of a hero who is perfect for franchises, an assortment of stony faced, masculine characters and faces enough to fill up the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai, and of course, a budget that surpassed most other movies in recent times.

While Veer starts off as a sort of revenge movie (which would be fine, if it were like that), it then meanders into a longish story arc about Veer falling in love with the daughter, killing her brother, teaching a teacher in London that India is great, etc. The middle of the movie is so boring that you might just walk off the theater without waiting for the climax.

And that does not mean that the climax is anything to write home about. After what seemed like hours of this guy courting the princess, all we have is the rag tag team barging into a castle and killing the main villain, the King of Madhavgarh, a scene which again does not deliver, because it just has the three guys crossing swords into the camera and the King withering and dying. Now, comparing it to the medieval movies would be quite ridiculous, and not because the makers did not have the resource - it was simply because they did not know what to do with the resource.

For a movie that was touted to be one of the greatest action entertainers in a while,. the action scenes seem soulless and directionless. The scenes seems like they have been added as an afterthought to the entire movie. Of course, the makers do try to put some 300 style sequences, but while they succeed in technically creating the scene, the scenes lack the soul that a medieval revenge movie would possess.

Striker Review (2010)

 Cast:

Siddharth, 

Aditya Pancholi,

Padmapriya,

Vidya Malvade, 

Ankur Vikal and Anupam Kher

Director:

Chandan Arora

Plot and Storyline:

Striker is a film that is made for the Indian audiences, or at least for the Indian who would want some resource material to make a foreigner understand what the urban culture of India is all about. The main protagonist of the movie is a board game called Carrom, which has never really been quite popular in the mainstream world. But, in India, Carrom was a game back in the seventies and eighties that could be compared to the Monopolys, and the first handheld video games. 

The film is set in Malvani, which is quite near Malad, again a little place in Mumbai. So small is this place that there are no trains directly going to Malvani  (If Mumbai is a City, there are various areas, known as 'Stations' which have trains travel to and fro) and it is normally referred to as 'Malad Malvani'. 

The movie tells the story of a young boy who lives in Malvani and as most individuals of that age and time, have dreams of going to Dubai. The boy pays some people who do not come true on their words, and it is this singular incident that makes him a pawn in the hands of fate. 

As time progresses, the boy has just one friend of his, who is a drug addict and has been dealing with some antisocial elements but only as a small fry. The movie is quite exhaustive and the scriptwriter has done a good thing by connecting this mass of a story into small bulleted points of the boy trying to reach home during the '92 riots. 

Review:

Very surprisingly, the movie is quite refreshing and even will have a retro aspect to the person who has been living in India in the 80s -90s. The makers have done a very good job of bringing to life the Malad Malvani area of the eighties and nineties, and one almost feels gawkish when they are transferred to a time when the biggest weapon a 'goonda' had was a chopper or a sword, and mobiles were still something that they would dream up of in a drug induced haze. 

The game of carrom is not well known and therefore the carrom centric scenes will not hold the interest of people who are not well versed with either carrom or the culture that they are being introduced to. But we can safely say that carrom was very much a part of the culture and as shown, was the place for the underworld to experiment with the greed of the common man. 

Another good aspect of the movie is that there are fresh faces for almost all the characters Aditya Panscholi has got a meaty role after a long long time and he has done a good job out of it. His characteristic as the younger 'Bhai' are quite realistic to a small time gangster in the '80s. 

However, one negative aspect of the movie is that it lags somewhere in between, and while you know what is happening, you wonder as to why it's happening and whether the protagonist will ever take any action to avenge this or not.  Also, the fact that a movie has been named after a phrase used to describe a  Carrom player gives us the viewer the idea that Carrom would play a  more integral and active role in the movie. However, there is no special plot track that is related to the actual game of Carrom,  just the activity of playing Carrom.

Watch this movie if you want to get a glimpse of urban India before the gory blasts changed everything.

1920 Review (2008)

Think of a Hollywood 'ghost and vengeance movie'. Well, most probably it will be about someone wronged who dies and then comes back to kill those who wronged him or her. 

Think of a Bollywood 'ghost and vengeance movie'. Well, this would be about two lovers who were not allowed to marry, or a woman who was assaulted and molested and finally committed suicide, and then comes back in the afterlife to avenge her death.

Both these concepts have one thing in common - the soul is always the tortured one, and the people are ones at fault. Well, if I tell you that there is a Bollywood movie that actually is different, what would you say? - I'd say 1920. 

 Cast:

• Rajneesh Duggal as Arjun Singh Rathod
• Adah Sharma as Lisa Singh Rathod
• Anjori Alagh as Gayatri Devi
• Raj Zutshi as the Priest
• Indraneil Sengupta as Mohan Kant, the British Indian armyman who betrayed his revolting pro-independence military regiment.
• Dilip Thadeshwar
• Amita Bishnoi
• Vipin Sharma as the caretaker of the haunted palace
• Sri Vallabh Vyas as the Doctor
• Amin Hajee as M.K., the head of the haunted palace
• Ashish Pradhan
• Rushitaa Pandya
• Smita Hai
• Rakhi Sawant in an item song Bichua

Plot:

1920 tells us the story of two lovers from different religions breaking the caste barrier and living in the Bombay of 1920. After some happy times together, the husband, who is an architect, is sent to a village in India, Palanpur for the reconstruction of a old castle into a grand hotel. Their life takes a turn for the worse in the castle, with the woman soon beginning to have weird experiences and is finally bed ridden one day, forcing the man to embark on a truth searching journey and winning his lady love back.

Review:

1920 cannot be considered to be a fresh concept from any angle, but it is interesting to see that the story writer has tried his level best to bring some spice to the common cut and dry 'good soul dies and has to take revenge' formula that has been prevalent in Bollywood since the times of Madhumati and Ramsay Brothers. 

Simply put, the movie is old wine in new bottle, but the new bottle is quite classy, as well as the companion food is very novel and exciting. The two actors have do not much to write home about, but both show promise and can become actors in their own right if they make the right choices.

Adah Sharma as Lisa Singh Rathod of course gets the meatier of the roles and she performs it with elan. She is positively spooky in the horror sequences, but of course, that also depends a lot on the direction.

As a viewer, the highpoints of the movie are that the movie makers actually take an effort to say that a person getting possessed is not completely impossible, and that even mainstream religion has experienced possessions and exorcisms. It was refreshing to see a Catholic priest coming to the aid and not some "Nirankari Baba'. 

Another interesting aspect was the inclusion of the Baphomet, which says that the film maker has actually done some research in the world of the occult. All in all, the movie did not look kiddish and made one actually think that something is amiss.

One another important scene is the one where the priest and the doctor argue and both come up with perfectly logical reasons for the behavior of the girl. It was very good that the director did not go overboard to oversimplify the fact that the protagonist stands between two choices - one of religion and the other of medical science.

The movie has one scene which you would find revolting, horrific or amusing, whichever trail your train takes - the scene where Lisa is eating a live animal, hunched like a cat. Of course, there is no explanation to this, but it'd be good if the story tellers had made an endeavor to tell us why a possessed soul would eat or eats dead animals. 

The movie still depends on creaky furniture and impossible camera angles to give you the freaks, but one advantage that the movie has above all is that the castle is so huge that it is indeed spooky even in broad daylight, let alone the night time.

All in all, 1920 has given Bollywood its first badass soul. Let's see where it goes from here.

Rocket Singh Review (2009)

Mark my words Ranbir Kapoor is going to be the next superstar in the next ten years. That said, we review Ranbir Kapoor's latest movie, 'Rocket Singh: Salesman of the Year'.

Cast:

    * Ranbir Kapoor as Harpreet Singh Bedi
    * Shazahn Padamsee as Sherena
    * D. Santosh as Girish Reddy
    * Gauhar Khan as Koena
    * Manish Chodhary as Puri
    * Prem Chopra as P.S. Bedi
    * Mukesh Bhatt as Chhotelal Mishra
    * Naveen Kaushik as Nitin Rathore
    * Mokshad Dodwani as Taxi ( Tanmay )
    * Amol Parashar as Sai

Crew:

    * Production Designer: T.P.Abid
    * Costume Designer: Niharika Khan
    * Chief Assistant Director: Vicky Vijay
    * Sound Designer: Manas Choudhury

All of us have small movies in our lives. Those movies may be a romantic movie, or a action movie, or even a thriller, and all of us feel very, very happy and enthralled when the type of adventure that we had in our real life comes onto the big screen. Profession movies are always interesting. People who are in that profile can take some time to laugh at themselves and the others get an insight into their lives. And when the profile that is being shown is the thankless, frustrating and very abused salesmanship, one should be ready for a interesting fare.

Plot:

The movie tells us about Harpeet Singh Bedi, who is basically a person who just scrapes past his examinations and finally lands a job in a computer selling agency.While the premise of the movie is a computer selling agency, it is more closer towards the atmosphere and environment in a DSA - A direct selling agency. Direct selling agencies can be considered to be mercenaries who are sent by the company to go where they don't want to caught dead, doing deeds that they do not want any liability for, and basically some fall guys who can go down and get dirty.

Well, to put it mildly, consciences and morals are lampooned away somewhere in the thirst for monthly budgets, monthly targets and other aspects that take more importance. Put a morally upright like Harpeet Singh Bedi in such a scenario and all you have to do is to wait for the volcano to explode.

The script and the storyline may seem a bit weak, and the incidents in the movie may feel to be completely implausible. But take it from a person who has worked in the sales line for two years and in a DSA for eight months, what is shown in the movie is just the tip of the iceberg.

Ranbir Kapoor continues his  romance with the camera for the benefit of the audience. Everything about this guy is star material, the way he emotes, the way he acts, the way he reacts, his timing, comic timing, everything. Ranir Kapoor is the full package. The highpoint of course is the reaction that Harpeet Singh gives when he comes across a situation that he is not comfortable with, or something that he did not believe would be happening to him. That expression is worth a thousand words.

The Yash Raj Camp has succeeded in introducing an array of new, excellent actors to the mainstream cinema, and that can he taken into consideration to forgive them for Dil Bole Hadippa.

The climax of the movie may seem a bit stale and tame for for the front seaters. But look at the movie in perspective and you will understand that you liked this climax better than any over the top climax that is so common in Bollywood movies. Get this movie for Ranbir Kapoor, if nobody else.

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The Friday Freak Review: The Dark Knight

 Cast:

Christian Bale
Michael Caine
Heath Ledger
Gary Oldman
Aaron Eckhart
Maggie Gyllenhaal
Morgan Freeman

Superhero movies have a habit of disappointing people when they are looking forward to it the most. Who would forget Ang Lee's Hulk, which made that ;'Smash-Em-Up' movie in a deep philosophical question? Or, who could forgive Superman Returns for wasting a chance for the most popular superhero ever to come back into the 2000s?

 Knowing what an disappointment Super Man returns one, I was wondering whether this would be the same case with the announced Dark Knight. Would they go into the family problems that Bruce Wayne had, maybe start a back story that his father had died a poor woman and this was the problem that caused a dysfunctional family or something.... I dreaded it.

I did have a glimmer of hope when I saw the first rushes, and I particularly wet my pants when I saw the Joker's first looks. However, I remembered how Superman Return's rushes showed us this awesome scene where a bullet hits Superman's eye and the bullet bounces away. Well, remember that was the only 'oooh' scene in the entire movie.

However, as the characters emerged I really thought that Dark Knight would bring back the fun in superhero movies, and it did. Right from the beginning of the movie, there is not a single moment when you do not dread what the Joker does. The screen literally lights up every time the Joker comes, or even his trademark music starts to ring. One thing that the movie got right was making the Joker the main character, with keeping Batman's pathos in mind, that was the same kind of jugglematch these both used to play in the comics, and the scriptwriter and screenwriter have kept that in mind.

What makes the Dark Knight such a intense viewing is that this s the first movie that actually tells us, informs us, what Batman is up against, and what a kind of weird, twisted world the Gotham world is. Who needs a GTA when they have a Gotham?

What makes this movie so much the more beautiful is the dark, skanky atmosphere that has been given to Gotham City, as well as the music of Hans Zimmer, which basically takes the movie to an entirely different level.

The performances of everyone as as stellar as performances of such groundbreaking movies go. What also pleases the fanboy in me is the kind of chase sequences and the action scenes  - something that no superhero movie cannot do without.  And thankfully, there are no diamond heists that Batman has to stop in this movie - the entire emotion of humanity is at stake - and there is no mincing words in that one.  Definitely get this one

Aladin Review (2009)

Everytime Hollywood comes up with a LOTR or a Harry Potter, there is a murmur amongst the Indian community as to why we, the country with one of the richest cultures cannot come up with a single fantasy concept. Some people say that we are not given the proper time, or some say that we do not have the resources to make CGI like the Harry Potter series or the LOTR series, and some say that we still are quite immature as a market for a producer to put so much money into a market that is basically catering to kids and young adults.

Well, we are wrong on all aspects, with the last reason given being the most stupid. Toy and school accessory manufacturers would give an arm and an leg to replace the 'grin and wink' and 'Similar' imagery they place on their school bags, their tiffin boxes, etc.

While the question of whether we have the resources or not to make such a movie is another pathetic excuse, which has been proven with some of India's finest studios giving support and resources to some of the major Hollywood movies.

The actual reason that we cannot make a movie like Harry Potter or LOTR is simple - we do not have the creativity to do so. Case in point - Drona, and of course the most recent movie Aladin.

Cast:

* Amitabh Bachchan as Genius

* Sanjay Dutt as Ringmaster

* Riteish Deshmukh as Aladin Chatterjee

* Jacqueline Fernandez as Jasmine

* Victor Banerjee as Grandfather

* Ratna Pathak Shah as Marjina

* Sahil Khan as Kasim

* Joy Sengupta as Arun Chatterjee

* Sohini Ghosh as Riya Chatterjee

* Arif Zakariya as Prof. Nazif

* William Ong as Xi Guang Lee

* Boman Irani as Narrator(voice)

Plot and Review:

Aladin Chatterjee's father is shown as a scientist/paleontologist/inventor or simple traveler, who takes his entire family up on a mountain to show them something. Something happens and the parents die, leaving young Aladin Chatterjee to fend to himself - there's your Harry Potter connect.

He grows up and is basically a idiot who is drubbed all the time by his colleagues and such - again, your Harry Potter connect. Well, finally Aladin grows up, but not before getting a lamp, that is supposed to be magical and guess what - it is magical!

Out comes Amitabh Bachchan as the genie, and he can become free of the magic lamp he the current owner, Aladin, takes three wishes, which Aladin does not want to, for God knows what reason. Heck, if some genie comes to me, I know I want The Friday Freak to be the most awesome site around, and that is just the beginning. 

However, what follows next is so insane that even Bollywood should be ashamed. They have Amitabh Bachchan, they have the greatest CGI guys to hit Indian cinema ever... and what does the director do? He makes the genie and Aladin go into two song and dance routines because he wants to get the girl!

This is exactly where the viewer understands that the director had no idea whatsoever and no script whatsoever, as he sees the two sing and dance in CGI!

Anyway, the movie moves around and  you really do not care what happens after this. What pains you more is that they had such nice CGI people and they cannot do anything about it. Pathetic.

The Friday Freak Classic: Shawshank Redemption

There are movies and then there are riveting, spellbinding and thought provoking movies. The Shawshank Redemption is one of the latter. The  Shawshank Redemption is one of Steven Speilberg's only non horror movie that actually saw the great arclights of Hollywood. It has won numerous accolades and routinely makes its way into the Top 10 movie lists all around. The Friday Speak speaks about it.

    * Tim Robbins as Andy Dufresne
    * Morgan Freeman as Ellis Boyd "Red" Redding
    * Bob Gunton as Warden Samuel Norton
    * William Sadler as Heywood
    * Clancy Brown as Capt. Byron Hadley
    * Gil Bellows as Tommy Williams
    * Mark Rolston as Bogs Diamond
    * James Whitmore as Brooks Hatlen

 It is 1947, when the prison system is almost medieval, and a person could rot in jail for entirely no reason. It is in these times that Andy Dufresne, a respected accountant is found guilty of killing his wife and her paramour, only on the strength of circumstantial evidence.

Why a seemingly harmless, even diminutive accountant is sent to one of the harshest prisons under some of the lowest scum of the universe is never explained, but then maybe that was the way it was in '47, some eggheads would sit in the evening and take out chits, sitting by the fireplace and deciding who goes where.

Anyway, Andy soon makes friends with some of the people in the prison, which is no mean feet because one thing remains same in the prisons of 2010 and 1947 - the complete lack of an ability to befriend or believe in the initial stages.  He is the biggest friends with Red, who has a knack of getting things from the outside.

The entire story is basically about Andy rises above the occasion, and brings out the best in everyone around him. Together, this team of people who have been brought about experience success, defeat, frustration, futility, satisfaction, and create such bonds that no men with the sky above their head would ever be able to.

Since the movie is based on a novel, the comparisons would always be there, but this is one of the better made 'Now a Major Motion Picture' stickers. The direction is top class, the dialogues are almost nature speaking to you, and I have rarely seen a more gritty performance by anyone.

One has to think which are the highpoints in the movie, whether its that moment when the entire prison listens to Opera because of Andy, or is it that sequence when the Warden finds out that Andy has actually escaped. Of course, we forget the scenarios where Redd talks about how he does not want a parole, or even the sequence where Andy finally finds out that he would never be released because he has become too profitable on the inside.

This is a movie that keeps you spellbound and in a rapture all through the scenes. Definitely stock it up.