Archive for the ‘Movie’ Category
Sarkar Raj - Taut, but does not rise to be a great movie
On August 19, 2008 in Drama, Crime, Politics, Bollywood, Movie
Sarkar Raj was a move that was awaited for quite some time; it came after a few clunkers for The Factory of Ram Gopal Verma such as ‘Aag’, ‘Darling’, etc. Memories of his earlier movies such as Satya, Company, Rangeela, and Sarkar (for which Sarkar Raj is the sequel) were fading out due to these recent disastrous movies that he made. All his admissions that the movies were bad, mistakes were made, etc, don’t really help in lifting his reputation. So, this movie was awaited for multiple reasons:
- This movie showcased the Bachchan clan; Amitabh, Abhishek, and Aishwarya (not Jaya though)
- It was supposed to have the same kind of suspense, the taut and slick making that was there in the original movie Sarkar (made in 2005)
Movie: Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic (2008) - Watchable
On August 09, 2008 in Magic, Child, Family, Romance, Bollywood, Comedy, Movie
Thoda Pyar Thoda Magic was a movie made under the banner of Yash Raj Films (produced by Aditya Chopra and Kunal Kohli) starring Saif Ali Khan, Rani Mukherji, and a smaller role by Amisha Patel and Rishi Kapoor. The movie is written and directed by Kunal Kohli (no doubt an attempt to try to re-create the success of his earlier movie Hum Tum (2004) starring Saif and Rani). The movie has some nice music by Shankar Ehsaan Loy (with the ‘Nihaal Ho Gaayi’ song being catchy and popular; the ‘Lazy Lamhe’ song did not become so popular even though it had a lot of eye candy). The movie had some great performances by the kids, by Rani Mukherji (given her closeness to the producer, this would have been expected though); the performance by Saif Ali Khan was marred by the fact that the movie script almost made him change his character in the space of 15 minutes.
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Jaane Tu .. Ya Jaane Na: A great movie
On August 01, 2008 in Song, Melody, Video, Romance, Comedy, Bollywood, Music, Movie
When me and the spouse were debating which movie to watch, I was thinking of Kismet Connection, and the spouse was thinking of ‘Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na’; of course we watched the movie that the spouse wanted to watch. Well, I don’t regret it one bit. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, and I was still laughing 10 minutes after the movie even though it was already 1 AM in the morning when I came out of the movie hall. I was very impressed after watching this movie, and will recommend it to anyone wanting to watch a nice movie, full of comedy, with some great acting.
The movie was made under the banner of Aamir Khan, produced by Aamir and Mansoor Khan, and directed by Abbas Tyrewala; lyrics were also by Abbas, and the great music was by A R Rehman. The film introduced Aamir’s nephew Imran Khan (Jai Singh Rathore) and also starred the pretty new Genelia D’Souza (Aditi Mahant) in lead roles. However, it was not only these, there were a host of other actors who played small and large roles, and were fairly significant in these roles: Karan Makhija (playing Rotlu), Nirav Mehta (Jiggy), Alishka Varde (Bombs), Pratik Babbar (brother of Genelia, Amit Mahant), Manjari Phadnis (Meghna, girlfriend of Imran for some time); and then you had the senior artists - Anuradha Patel, Jayant Kripalani (Aditi’s parents), Ratna Pathak Shah (playing Jai’s mother), Naseeruddin Shah (playing the deceased Amar Singh Rathore, Jai’s father), Kitu Gidwani, Rajat Kapoor (Meghna’s father), Arbaaz Khan (Bhaloo), Sohail Khan (Baghera), and Paresh Rawal as Inspector Waghmare.
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Hum Hain Rahi Pyaar Ke (1993) - Great movie
On July 17, 2008 in Melody, Video, Child, Song, Romance, Bollywood, Classic, Comedy, Movie
Hum Hain Rahi Pyaar Ke was a delightful movie, no doubts whatsoever. A story that combined a love story with the sensitive elements of trying to bring up kids who have lost their parents was superb. The movie had some excellent performances by the lead pair of Aamir Khan and Juhi Chawla; with other noteworthy performances by Dalip Tahil, and the 3 kids (Master Sharokh, Kunal Khemu and Baby Ashrafa) turned in some great performances. The movie was released in 1993, directed by Mahesh Bhat and produced by Tahir Hussain.
The movie was written by Robin Bhatt, Aamir Khan and Sujit Sen, and had music by Nadeem-Shravan; lyrics were by Sameer. It was a fairly successful hit (although the Best Actor award for the year went to Shahrukh Khan for Baazigar). What lent the story great appeal was the sensitive treatment of the behaviour of the kids, how the eldest moves towards maturity and wants to start getting treatment like an adult; how the kids understand through an example that they should treat others the same way they want to get treated, and how through love and understanding, it is possible to bond with children (even those who have had the emotional scarring of losing their parents).
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Patthar Ke Phool (1991)
On July 04, 2008 in Mafia, Song, Video, Police, Crime, Bollywood, Romance, Action, Movie
Patthar Ke Phool was a movie released in 1991. It was the debut movie of Raveena Tandon and one of the earlier movies of Salman Khan; and unlike some of Salman’s earlier movies, this was not exactly a hit. Some of the other characters in the movie were Vinod Mehra, Kiran Kumar, Reema Lagoo and Manohar Singh. Vinod Mehra passed away before the movie could be released, and the movie was dedicated to his memory. The movie was directed by Anant Balani and produced by GP Sippy. Music for the movie was by Ramlaxman, and the movie was written by Salim Khan.
The movie was about this young police officer fighting an underworld gang. He is also in love with Kiran (Raveena Tandon) who is actually the daughter of the leader of the gang, and about whose real activities she is unaware.
Raveena won the Filmfare Lux New Face Award for this movie.
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So what happens when the duty of Suraj (Salman Khan) leads him to fight against the activities of his beloved’s father ? Her father is also against this relationship, and the movie is about this conflict.
Bhootnath - a mis-mash of different emotions
On June 21, 2008 in Culture, Video, Child, Drama, Song, Movie, Values, Society
I watched Bhootnath just the day after having watched Jannat just the previous day, and given that my impression of Jannat was not good, any movie would have been good. But Bhootnath was a movie that impressed in parts. The Director, Vivek Sharma, tried to take many human emotions into the movie; thus taking the movie into 3 separate parts - the first part where the ghost appears to be evil and a danger to whoever tries to enter the property; the second part where the child makes friend with the ghost and turns him into a proper civilized person-like character with human emotions; and the third part where there is an attempt to throw in a lot of tear-jerkering emotional scene so that the ghost can disappear and everything can turn out normal. In the end, these attempts to make the movie cater to many interests put a lot of strain on the overall movie, and my feeling is that it did not turn out as well as could be. The movie takes on a heavy social issue of how children go abroad, and become of that land.
The movie is geared towards kids, and that was clear when I saw the songs. They were all songs designed to appeal to children, and it did seem a bit different to see songs that had a lot of kids in them; but most of the audience was adults, so was wondering whether there was a mismatch in terms of the advertising of the movie versus the intended effect of the advertising. The movie has a cast that is capable of some great things - Amitabh Bachchan, Aman Siddiqui, Juhi Chawla, Rajpal Yadav, Satish Shah, Priyanshu Chatterjee and Shahrukh Khan. Amitabh Bachchan gives a good role, but one feels that in the middle of the movie, he gets overshadowed by the kid, and then in the latter half of the movie, Shahrukh Khan seems to get most of the attention (Shahrukh Khan had a role that was more than a guest appearance, but less than a full role). Rajpal Yadav was very thoroughly under-used in the movie, getting 2 very brief scenes (almost like a cameo).
Jannat (2008) - Disappointing story of a match fixer
On June 08, 2008 in Drama, Video, Cricket, Values, Police, Bollywood, Despair, Crime, Movie
Mahesh Bhatt has been making movies for a long time, and they have been very good movies. So, for example, I really liked some of his older movies such as Arth, Saransh, Janam, Naam, Murder, Woh Lamhe, Daddy, Ashiqui, Hum Hain Rahi Pyar Ke, Dil Hain Ke Manta Nahin, Sadak, Sir, Tamana, etc. He has also turned out turkeys such as Duplicate. In recent time, Bhatt has moved out of the director post and is partner in the banner Vishesh films (along with his brother) that produces movies. It is expected that movies made in the banner retain the touch of Mahesh Bhatt to some degree, with a strong focus on human relations, relationships whether they be a marriage, or outside marriage. However, Jannat disappointed. The story of a person who wants to attain success, and a great deal of it (portrayed by Emran Hashemi); he does not seem to know the difference between right and wrong.
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Tum Bin (2001)
On June 08, 2008 in Song, Melody, Drama, Video, Values, Character, Bollywood, Classic, Romance, Crime, Movie
Tum Bin was a movie that was released in 2001, and was a pretty low budget and low profile movie. It turned out to be the sleeper movie, becoming a much loved movie by the audience and a big hit. The songs, as well as the storyline caught a lot of attention (this was after not a classical tale of romance against the odds or a similar such formula), instead a story of an anguished semi-guilty man trying to make amends for what he has done to another family by killing their chief hope; and then the guilt of what he has done preventing him from trying to fulfill his hopes and ambitions, and his love. In addition, the same sense of shock and distraught feeling causes the heroine to back away from love and more towards responsibility. This was a story of emotions, and truly a good story (even though there were some deficiencies in the story).
The movie was produced by Super Cassettes industries (Bhushan Kumar & Krishan Kumar), and directed by newbie director Anubhav Sinha, who also wrote the script and the dialogues. The movie also stars newcomers Sandali Sinha (Piya) and Priyanshu Chatterjee (Shekhar Malhotra), and these 2 gave a good portrayal in their roles that demanded a fair amount of emotion (they have not managed to do too well after this initial good start). They are supported ably by some good casting comprising of Rakesh Bapat, Himanshu Malik, Navneet Nishan, Rajendra Gupta, Dina Pathak and Vrijesh Hirjee.
Imtihan (1994) - Saif, Sunny and Raveena
On May 25, 2008 in Song, Drama, Revenge, Video, Mafia, Crime, Bollywood, Music, Romance, Action, Movie
Imtihaan was a movie released in 1995, starring Sunny Deol, Raveena Tandon, and Saif Ali Khan. Saif was relatively young in the movie industry at that point of time, and it showed on screen (he comes across as a gangly youth, moving with energy, but still to show his renowned acting abilities that he showed in later movies). The movie was directed by Harry Baweja, and had music by Anu Malik. The movie did average business, but the songs were a big hit.
The movie had one selling point, it had an element of suspense, something not always well executed. However, and maybe people who saw this movie for the first time would feel, the suspense is not always the type of suspense you see in American movies, since a lot of people in the audience were able to predict as to what would happen when the suspense breaks, and here too, the story was predictable.
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Andaaz Apna Apna (1994) - Great comedy
On May 17, 2008 in Song, Drama, Video, Nostalgia, Romance, Bollywood, Classic, Comedy, Movie
Salman Khan and Aamir Khan have hardly appeared together in many movies, and I think Andaz Apna Apna is the only movie in which they may have appeared together. When the movie came out, these 2 were the tallest stars in the Hindi film industry, and there was a lot of worry about how the egos of these 2 stars would be managed. So, when director Rajkumar Santoshi announced this project, there was a feeling of challenge about how this would turn out (Santoshi had a good reputation, having directed Ghayal and Damini before this movie). This movie, released in 1994, was eagerly anticipated; in the end, viewer reaction was very positive. Of course, no one would ever call this a serious movie - it was a very well done comedy.
The movie took a long time to get made, with anticipation that ego clashes between 2 main leading male stars would cause problems; ironically it were ego clashes between the 2 heroines (Karishma Kapoor and Raveena Tandon) that caused a lot of delay in the making of the movie. However, it was lucky that this infighting did not show up on screen, and a lot of people would walk away from the movie thinking that this was a fun shoot, and everybody was lovey-dovey with each other.
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