Aar Ya Paar

This 1997 movie actually belongs to 2017, the adventure of a Playboy this film has thrill, and romance too in equal measures.
Fast paced and well told this story of Aar Ya Paar (All or nothing) has Jackie Shroff playing the role of a Playboy, it's a role where he just has to play himself and he does that excellently.

Leon-The Proffesional

This one a 1994 French thriller is one of my favorite films, and stars Jean Reno, Natalie Portman, and Gary Oldman as the corrupt DEA officer. Jean Reno gives a great performance in this film as the titular mob hitman, while Natalie Portman plays the role of an adolescent girl whose family is murdered and is out for revenge. The story revolves around these three main characters.

Jean Reno a hitman lives in the same building as Natalie and her family and the two are aquainted, Natalies father has connections with the drug Mafia who accuse him of pilfering the cocaine and ask him to pay, since he cant they come to kill the entire family, they miss Natalie only because she is out when they arrive she watches the gruesome scene when she returns but calmly walks to Jeans Apartment and is taken in by him. She then asks him to train her to be a hitman in return for being his english teacher and a maid. After a confrontation the corrupt officer is out to get her, but is up against the hitman, the only one protecting her. The rest is to be seen in the film. The action is great, and so are the interactions between Natalie and Jean Reno. The film is very endearing especially the character of Jean Reno, this is a film you want to watch again.

The movie was remade in Hindi as Bicchoo (Scorpion), some of the scenes are very similar, even the actor Bobby deol is similar to Jean reno, only that Jean Reno is lonely and mysterious, whilst our hindi hero has a biography made for him by the script detailing why eggzackly he became what he is. OK MR SCRIPT WRITER WE KNOW CRIMINALS ARE AN OUTCOME OF THEIR CIRCUMSTANCES, YOU DONT HAVE TO USE ONE FOURTH OF THE FILM TO JUSTIFY THAT ALONE!!!.
but then he is the indian hero who's history is to be inspected has to be declared morally correct by the prying audience. This a classic example of the difference in the western film making style, In the west an explanation isn't usually supplied, the acting and the actions of the character itself are enough for the audience to understand the character. In india the audience has to be satisfied that if they themselves were in the same circumstances they would act like that too.

The role of Natalie portman is played by Rani Mukherjee not an adolescent but a truant teenager, so that they can sing love songs together-all five of them, apparently the producer believes that, a girl and a man need to have some romance between them.
  

Silence of the lambs

This movie is a psychological thriller, and has some brilliant performances by Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins the two main characters. The story is classy, so is the screenplay, Hannibal Lecter the character played by Hopkins is a serial killer and a cannibal, and he appears so in his chilling manner of talking. Jodie Foster the young trainee FBI agent who interviews him to get help in finding another serial killer plays the part amazingly well. The serial killer that they are trying to find is secondary and is not attached much importance as a character, save that he is a maniac who is trying to fashion a woman suit made of human skin.

The Hindi version is about as scary as someone screaming in your face. Agreed that its indianized and all that but then they could have made up another story altogether with the same loud characters. Firstly my favorite character of Hannibal Lecter (a serial killer-cannibal) is changed to a an emotional man wrongly put in prison, who has the power of an underworld don and also happens to be of all things, A professor. Even cannibals cant digest this kind of a character.

The character of Jodie Foster is played by Preity Zinta who obviously most resembles Jodie Foster in Bollywood, otherwise any champa, chameli or tara could have played the role of acting terrified/appearing overactingly concerned. The loudest character and the most entertaining is the character of the serial killer they are trying to find - Lajja shankar Pandey, a psychopath who kidnaps little children for sacrifice(apparently this makes him more horrific), because he believes that this act will make him immortal(makes him seem more psycho), it is this character that holds the story together, and creates tension in the storyline, same as the horrible ghost/zombie in a horror flick.

Mr. Bhatt has failed to realise that serial killers aren't so obviously loud/street mad, most times they are sober and often charming and manipulative, and when they have a purpose (eg.human sacrifice), they will not kidnap a ministers daughter which will get the entire police department after them thus hampering their activities. A professional like Reet Oberoi is trained to cunningly manipulate an emotional man like Akshay Kumar's character, and Akshay Kumars character ... no don't get me started on that one ...

The film is as moderately entertaining as a horror movie, especially the part where Lajja Shankar Pandey disguises himself as a street eunuch to evade his pursuers. This movie was a hit and you can watch it if you are into Indian films. Avoid it if not, but don't miss the original. 

Bollywood - Russel Peters

This is Russel Peters take on Bollywood. Russel Peters is an international comedian of Indian origin with racist comedy and mimicry being his forte. In this video he tells his international audience about Bollywood films and jokes about the Indian film industry. Enjoy the video.

Taxi Driver

This movie has an endearing Robert De Niro playing the lonely taxi driver who has been in the vietnam war. He has insomnia and cant sleep, he drives all round town and has a few fellow drivers for company, you connect with him right at the beginning of the movie and enjoy his innocence and humility, then he falls awkwardly in love with cybil shepherd who works in a political campaign office, you are worried in the embarrassing scene where you realise the poor guy doesnt even understand that he shouldnt take her to a porn flick on their date, she ignores all his pleading not to desert him, and then he meets the young teenage prostitute Jodie Foster and finds some purpose... anyways this movie is not to be read it has to be watched and felt.

Our Indian version has Sanjay Dutt driving a taxi because he cant sleep because of the trauma he suffered when he saw his sister jumping out of a window, the entire street sympathizes with him, and this traumatized character leads the singing and dancing in the street together with intricate steps, hell! there is even a scene showing him returning a 100 rupee note that a passenger hands him by mistake proving that he is honest too. Then one night he almost runs over Pooja Bhatt who has decided to play with some caged birds in the very middle of a dark deserted road, (silly really but then she is the directors daughter) he offers to take care of the birds as she will be going away soon. Well she is then sold by her uncle to the eunuch villain maharani Sadashiv Amrapurkar. Then while dropping off his best friend Deepak Tijori at the local red light area he spots her again and then decides he will spend all his savings to rescue her accompanied by his friend and with additional help from a hardcore pimp who was reluctant until our hero reminded him he has to answer to god someday and advises him to do do one good deed for the purpose i.e to help him rescue the damsel. Our Taxi driver then rescues her not before a few songs, some close shaves with the villains, but they get recaptured, and the villain maharani leaves him tied to a wooden cross on a secluded beach before taking the heroine away. He then re rescues her but not before breaking the cross with his feet, single handedly wiping out the other armed villains twice his size, and physically lifting and hurling the villain maharani into a fire, and then catching the heroine when she jumps off the top storey of the brothel. That is our Taxi driver for you.      

Mackennas Gold

Firstly this legendary movie is of too big a stature to be reviewed by anyone now. I can only describe that it is a great treasure hunt adventure movie with fantastic cinematography and art direction, the story is set in the wild west, where Gregory Peck (Mackenna) a Marshall encounters an old Red Indian and finds his map to the gold, he memorizes the map and then burns it before getting captured by Omar Sharif and his confederates who force him to lead them to the Apache Indians gold, they have a lot of small skirmishes and difficulties on their way and are joined by more unwanted treasure hunters until they find the gold. This movie started a wave of similar Hindi movies in India, that is what this post is for.

The first remake was called Zalzala (Earthquake .... Earthquake???) and just like in the original has a narrator telling animatedly about an ancient Shiva temple of gold built by Raja Harshvardhana which is in a secret location in the mountains, and that if any sinner goes to the place there will be an earthquake. The scenes shown during this narration all look pretty ordinary.

Anyways from here the film rolls on its own track with a lot of western style bar scenes, lots of horses, and heroes and villains that are lookalikes or dressed up like characters from other westerns. Danny Danzongpa looks suspiciously like Angel Eyes from "The Good the Bad and the Ugly". Rajiv kapoor sleeping on a cot dragged along by his horse directly enacts Trinity from "They call me Trinity" but they have improvised and shown his horse to be a whiskey drinker!.

The 4 heroines are added for good measure, not counting the anonymous damsel who dances in front of the villains. The soundtrack is all American save for the emotional Indian moments, rest assured everyone seems to know horse riding very well, and can shoot accurately-without even using the sights. Heroines included. The U.S cavalry here is shown to be the Indian police.

The Shiva temple has one more great property that even the narrator fails to tell us. This golden temple gleams like crazy in the sun, but strangely upto 1988 no helicopter/plane or the forest Dept. has managed to spot it. Ever. The story of the original is set in the unexplored America of 1860 so cannot be accused of the same peculiarity.

After more than an hour of character/Plot building, the film gives up and rejoins the original starting with the scene of Shatrughan coming in waving a white kerchief like Eli Wallach in the original, from then on the story resembles the western blockbuster, with a few defiant changes, the huge rock that casts the direction giving shadow in the original, is a stone carved as a cobra here, and hilariously will cast a guiding shadow only if a conch shell is blown on the sunrise of Mahashivratri day.

Yet another pitiful comedy is that the idol of lord Shiva has to break out of the roof of the temple to get a straight line of sight to fire from the third eye. The director needs to have faith that the Almighty Shiva can punish sinners from his place, the film ends with the heroes worshipping the idol, and thus being protected by lord shiva from the villains and the subsequent earthquake that results from the blasphemy, although one hero and heroine is killed pointlessly by the script. In the end no one gets any gold.
 
Moral of the story: Stick to the original movie.
   

SUNDAY

There are certain rules that govern the writing of murder mysteries. One of them requires that the culprit should be introduced to the the reader during the course of the tale. Sunday just about manages to satisfy this requirement and skirts many others while it pretends hard to be a murder mystery.

The film is about a girl who goes out for a saturday night and wakes up on monday without remembering anything about the events that passed in between. The film is about the missing Sunday.

That is the reason for the title. Sunday, to lend importance to the missing day, by the same logic the film ought to have been called "Saturday night" because by the end of the film we learn that everything happens on saturday and not Sunday. Arshad Warsi plays circuit yet another tiring time. Irfan khan is the comedian, and yes he makes you laugh, especially his take on Himesh Reshamiya. Ajay Devgan plays a corrupt delhi cop. All the characters do justice to the witty dialogues. The screenplay is good, Its the concept that falters. The film is a fun paisa vasool entertainer, which is forcibly made up to look like a suspense thriller. Ayesha as usual is adorable. The title song is hummable. umm .... What else? yes try it.

DUS KAHANIYAAN:

The movie is a ten course dinner – At a roadside fast food joint. It starts with a story called Matrimony, a sarcastic title really, because the theme is adultery with a O. Henry ishtyle ending, complete with Guy de Maupassant - necklace. Each story takes about 15 minutes and that’s what it is about - Ten unrelated stories.
Five of them directed by Sanjay Gupta, the rest by Jasmeet Dhodi, Rohit Roy, Hansal Mehta, Meghna Gulzar, Apoorva Lakhia. Yes they give you Mandira Bedi, Arbaaz khan and Sudanshu Pandey for starters. The main course is about Mahesh Manjrekar, Jimmy Shergill, Suniel Shetty, and Anupam Kher. They serve rare wines like Shabana Azmi and Naseehruddin Shah. Dessert consists of Nana Patekar and out of season fruits like Sanjay Dutt and Amrita Singh. Tarina Patel, Neha Dhupia, Masumeh, Dia Mirza Mandira Bedi provide the spice. Sounds like a hell of a cast right? – No, Wrong. The actors are great but the stories and the screenplay cannot contain them. Shabana Azmi and Naseehruddin shah are known to give the kind of performances that leaves the director open mouthed and wide eyed, till somebody else says “cut”, they are acting in a hopelessly predictable story like “Rice Plate” which should have belonged to the National Integration era of the nineties. The scripts are lazy and predictable. “Kya tumne pyaar kiya?”, “(silence)”, “Aapne mere sawaal ka jawaab nahi diya”, “kuch sawaalon ke jawaab nahin hotey (stupid smile)” or something to that effect. The six chefs serve you famous delicacies and rare wines, in greasy cracked plates and dirty tea-glasses. The ten course dinner then turns into a gigantic, silver screen sized Misal Pao, wholesome but difficult to digest. Overall it is little more than a film festival of various directors; this raises the hopes of the audience, every time the name of the next director flashes on screen and every time the hopes are crushed. Kartar Singh Duggal's short story, “Pooranmashi” and “Gubbare” by Gulzar are outstanding stories with great endings. The two junior artistes in “Rise and Fall’ are good too.

Bombay To Goa

Yet another film that couldve done it but didnt. No, it isnt a sequel, prequel or remake and has no connection with the 1972 amitabh starrer. The film has no big names to boast of and wouldnt have made any difference if it did. The movie has most of the popular "Great Indian Laughter Challenge" Champions under one screen and they provide a pathetic replay of what they did in front of Shekhar Suman minus the Navjyot Sidhu laughter. It is more closer to the recent "Honeymoon Travels Pvt. Ltd"

Sunil Pal and Vijay Raza are the two main protagonists. Sunil wins a contest similar to GILC and with the prize money decides to start a bus service from Bombay To Goa. He is helped in his endeavour by Raza, and together they manage to whip up a bus "taarzan-The wonder car" ishtyle. The passengers are a range from Raju Shrivastav to Ehsaan Qureshi. A couple of ex-bar dancers, Deepak Shirke, Mac Mohan (samba) etc. contribute to the confusion. The laughter is staged and the story line is compromised against the scanty jokes. Most of the acts are premeditated and stick out horribly besides being uncomfortable to human logic.

The director Raj Pendurkar couldve have been more stern, Most times the actors get selfish to showcase their own talents with no respect to the story line. The comedy is old and feeble.

At best the film is just like one of the C-grade horror films only that it is comedy actor marketing that is being disguised as a comedy film.

AABRA KA DAABRA (3-D)

This is the kind of movie this blog is meant for. There is a contest in which the children have to collect wrappers or something like that and where the prize is admission to any school in the country. Now imagine, Harry potter wins this contest and thats how he gets admission to hogwarts! and guess who has organised the contest? PARLE-G the biscuit company in collaboration with camlin colours.


Yes. This is a copy of the Harry potter movie. Only that harry is called shanu. two hundred years ago the school aabra ka daabra has been founded by guru sachitanand, who gets killed by an evil magician who dies too aka voldemort. Thats the beginnig of this unbearable film, or rather copy of a film.

The indianness shows itself. Like when harry goes to the school for the first time, he lies that the principal is his aunty, so that the caretaker (anupam kher) should let him inside. The life of harry-shanu in hogwarts is same as the college life shown in most hindi movies.

The script as in most such films is confused. The movie tries to tell us about power of concentration, mixing yoga with tantra. The other part is the advertisements. imagine a bengali professor teaching power of concentration (prof. flitwick teaching levitation) while the blackboard plays camlin advertisements.

Malfoy is called changezi here, and is the headboy and the principals favorite.
In yet another scene, a hindi version of crab and goyle hold harry-shanus hands, when a girl hurls a parle g biscuit into his mouth and he gets shaktiman-like power.

There is a confrontation song too. where malfoys gang and harrys gang sing abuses at each other. The principal who has been played by a good looking c-grade model (who acts well though) dances a cabaret song while shanu and company look on. The story and screenplay are pathetic, like in one scene, the principal tells the students of the school that she knows some of them are into mischief, then she says that the ones who are guilty should stand up. the problem? well they are all already standing up!.

The script is tasteless too. quidditch is taught by archana puran singh and the winning captain here has the right to rusticate the losing captain from the school!

The movie like most such ventures in indian cinema, has too many computer special effects. The main parts of any fantasy film is intrigue, mystery, and a taut storyline. A childrens film should also carry a good moral message. Here the children are shown lying, and making fun of teachers. This film is at best a failed advertisement.

DON, A REVIEW

I saw the new Don today, sat through it for all the three hours and all i have to say is this:Mediocre. This current version exceeds Abhishek bachhan in spoiling our memories of the original Don and thats the worst sin a remake can commit. Especially the enormous slips.

Narcotic trade gets you death sentence in malaysia says one of the smaller villains in one scene. Then Sharukh drinks bhang in a public place in malaysia. The problem? Bhang my dear sirs come from the same plant as Marihuana.

Like someone said, clear writing comes from clear ideas and the script shows us very clearly, that nobody seems to have any idea as to what this film is about. The first half is a replica of the actual DON, and then the second half shows us that no it isnt.

So whats done in a remake? you see the older version and wonder how it could be made more better and then

Either you take the script and make the film your way with your treatment without changing the script. Like in a remake.

OR you make a parody like Ramgarh ke Sholay.

OR you make a full fledged new version, with a brand new story, without changing the core concept, ie the Titanic or the more recent Shiva.

OR you do what you want but don't call it a remake like Devdas.

YOU CANNOT DO ALL THE ABOVE.

In the first half this film is a replica of the original don, the dialogues and incidents are similar, Kareena Kapur does a Helen number etc. To make the viewer expect the second half to be the same. It then uses this expectation to spring all the surprises. Thats where it goes wrong. because right from the beginning it makes the audience compare shahrukh with amitabh, kareena with helen etc. By the the second half the audience has already rejected the film. Who wouldnt? when the story includes a plan to steal 50 crore worth of diamonds, assembling all the gadgets and technology, persuading a (wife kidnapped) computer engineer to execute it and then while climbing up the sides of the building he gets spotted by a housewife standing in a balcony?. what was the original version like? it was a Mumbai ishtyle Masala entertainer. Thats what the people search for in this film, but what they are given is something else. it is an exhibition of unreal gadgets. Discovery channel would be proud of this one.


Shahrukh khan redoes the double role of Duplicate with some Helping of Badshah. Kareena is good until she tries to imitate Helen. Boman Irani seems to know where he is going. Priyanka chopra cannot be the furious wildcat but connects with the audience as she too wears a bewildered look through most of the film. The cinematography and editing is in the tradition of the other Farhaan akhtar films. Especially the aerial shot of southern mumbai. The choreography is satisfactory. Costumes are great, especially the paunch revealing dress kareena wears in the Helen number (refer picture), Shahrukh khan wears a special jacket in the title track, the one he usually keeps for his Dandruff ads. Sets and Locations excellent. Overall i think the film should be a good lesson for other remake makers.

Guru dissapoints!!!

Was in pune the other day. cool place and i was enjoying it too until offcourse my friend dragged me to the local Inox. To see Dhirubhai Ambani, yes thats what i will call the film coz the real name reminds me of Mithun Chakraborty with shoulder length hair and white trousers driving a truck. Never mind. They could have well called him "Rajnikant Kasai" for all I care.

Ok. The Film.

Aishwarya Rai plays the role of a psychotic young woman who dances in the fields when alone. She also has chronic Hydrophilia as is evident by her masquerades in the heavy rain, and her fully clad baths in the usual village jharna which makes a special appearance in most village movies.
Abhikshek redoing the role of the paan chewing real estate agent in Bunty & Babli likes to tell everyone he meets how great he will become one day. When he isnt doing that he takes revenge on his teacher father by ringing the bell for recess.

Vidya Balan in the role of a multiple schlerosis victim and Mahadevan are both as usual.
The dialogues are good but the screenplay isnt. The story fails to explain the exact way in which the business wizard made his pile, and made it for others too. That hides the genius of the man and makes him look lucky. The film is about what he did but not how he did. The image thus conveyed is that of a gujrati robin hood fighting against a mighty parsi empire and the other enemies of the the indian economy, a robin hood who believes in alternatively, wriggling and fighting and paying his way out through tight situations. One who claims to help the economy while evading tax at the same time. That is where the confusion is created. The same man playing the role of a godfather as well as a common man. So where is Dhirubhai? God Only Knows.

Mani Ratnam usually makes refined films. This one is double filtered. filters have been used in excess, for visual demonstration refer to the Aishwarya Rai solo song. Its ok if the skies appear bluer, but fields dont look nice with a sky blue tinge do they?

The Art is excellent, and we are taken back to the old mumbai. the cast of characters is great.
Mithun Chakraborty joins Saurabh for in making a sensational comeback. Watch him. Abhishek could be in the race for best actor National award. Overall, everybody wins in this film, except Dhirubhai and Mallika Sherawat.