Mumbai Pune Mumbai

Many aspects build up to make an enjoyable movie. Fantastic plot, technical brilliance, good actors are just some of many such. While Mumbai Pune Mumbai has a little bit of each of these for different viewers, it succeeds most as a movie which you can relate to; more so, if you happen to be from Pune. Admittedly, it does go over the top on some occasions, but thankfully such moments don't ruin the experience.

The premise of the movie is quite simple. It warms up the audience to an arranged marriage situation where a guy and girl are about to meet each other and goes on with their interaction through the day. They first meet when the girl arrives from Mumbai and interrupts a game of gully cricket to ask directions to the house where the guy lives. With some luck, she manages to find the right house but is disappointed to see no one home. With not much to do by herself in a new city and time to kill until the evening train takes her back, she agrees to spend time with gully cricket batsman guy. They spend the day together roaming all over town, connect, click and it's a happy ending.

Watching this movie with 3 other Punekars set up a lot of interesting discussions about .. what else - food! It is anyone's guess from an average desi's waistline that we love to indulge in gastronomic delights and Punekars are no exception. The movie starts off (food wise) in Cafe Coffee Day. How CCD manages to serve expensive swill, call it coffee and stay in business is still a mystery to me. From there on they visit more places like Saras Baug, Tulshibaug, Sinhagad, etc and every location shown brought back memories of favorite foods from the neighborhood. Bhel from the Saras Baug chowpatty, the old Jayshree pav bhaji; misal from Shri Krishna and lassi from Laxmi near Tulshibaug; dahi, kanda bhaji, gavraan chicken, jhunka bhakri on Sinhgad, the list just kept going.

I don't know if I enjoyed the movie because it evoked so many memories or whether it was watchable overall. In the end though, we added a few more places to eat at when we visit Pune this year ;)

Tashan - Movie Review

They have the ishtyle, the goodluck, the pharmoola. What they don't have, is audience in the movie-hall. This, my dear phellows, ijh the sad ishtory of Tashan.

Tashan is the story of ... well, that doesn't really matter. It is a rehash and replay of classic cliche riddled Bollywood movies. The movie starts off with a Mercedes crashing off the roads into water and makes you wish this was where it all ended. Unfortunately, for the luckless few like me, who have actually paid to watch the movie, it is just the beginning. There on, Jimmy Cliff (Saif Ali Khan) goes on to explain the journey hitherto (downhill).

As the story goes, Jeetender Singh Makhwana aka Jimmy Cliff is a call center employee who trains people for their accents. Jimmy tells us that he has had his fair share of hot chicks so far and is beginning to look for 'the one' girl now. To quote him 'roj roj burger pizza khaake pet kharaab ho jaata hai .. akhir ghar ke khaane ki yaad ati hi hai'. Enter salwar kameez wearing, dripping wet Pooja Singh (Kareena Kapoor) in a cliched 'it was raining when we first met and I didn't have an umbrella' scene. Pooja is out looking for an English tutor and when she mentions private tutions Jimmy eagerly agrees. Jimmy, to much dismay, realises the tutions are not for Pooja, but for her boss, Lakhan Singh, otherwise known as Bhaiyyaji (Anil Kapoor).

Bhaiyyaji is expecting a foreign delegation in few weeks time and wants to be able to talk fluent English (like George Bush, nonetheless) to seal the deal. Against the backdrop of a larger than life replica of the Mona Lisa, Bhaiyyaji, wearing the most hideously designed suits ever, starts his English training. If you forget to park your brains outside the movie hall, you might wonder why he starts to practice nursery rhymes, but that's beside the point. Not that the movie has any point .. but anyways. While Jimmy trains Bhaiyyaji on English, a romance blossoms on the sidelines between Pooja and him. Rightfully cliched, Pooja is working for Bhaiyyaji to repay debt, but is also plotting for revenge. When Pooja hatches a plan to repay Bhaiyyaji with his own money, Saif joins in. We all know Pooja will run away with the money and that's exactly what happens.

Bhaiyyaji summons ganga kinaare wala help in the form of Bachchan Pande (Akshay Kumar). Bachchan, the recovery specialist, and Jimmy set off in search of Pooja and the money. Right before going to Haridwar to perform the last rites of her long dead father (murdered by Bhaiyyaji, ofcourse), Pooja manages to slip into a bikini and sing a song. Soon enough, the duo find her, and they set off on a cross country tour to recover the money that Pooja has hidden all over. While doing so, more inane romance blossoms, this time between Bachchan and Pooja. Just when you thought you've had enough cliches already, you find that this is a long lost couple, who were in love when teenagers.

Right around this time, you begin to wonder when the movie would end and start making plans for dinner. You are awoken from your reverie when you see a familiar setting which is claimed to be Bhaiyyaji ki duniya and you realize that this is the climax of the movie. Oh that familiar setting is from Tezaab, remember Pasha Khan and his den ... pretty much the same one. The movie inches close to an end after a long lasting, near comical fight and finally ends for real with the death of the villain, Bhaiyyaji.

And then, happy toh I lots being yesterday. Ok, tata, bye-bye.

Good guys always win ...

.. or atleast that's what they'd like us to believe. Jab We Met is the story of Aditya (Shahid Kapur) and Geet (Kareena Kapoor). Of how Aditya loves Geet while Geet loves Anshuman (Tarun 'whatsup with his hair' Arora). Of how Aditya comes to terms facing the challenges in his life while also winning over Geet with his selfless love. And that's when you realise such syrupy, sugary, diabetes invoking froth only looks fit for the screens.

As the story goes, Aditya succeeds his father and is at a point in life where nothing seems to be working out for him. His girlfriend dumps him, business isn't going too well. In dejection, he sets off on a train to nowhere. Enter Geet, a sikhni from Bhatinda, who is on her way home from Mumbai. Geet's only mission in life seems to be never missing trains, getting married, running away from home, living life by her own terms. She is as chattery as they come and starts to chat up Aditya. Aditya gets fed up of the constant perky chatter and gets off at one of the stations midway. Realising this, Geet gets off too to get him back on the train while the train is about to leave. No prizes for guessing both of them are left stranded. Geet blames Aditya for this and tells him she won't get off his back until she gets home safely with all her luggage.

On the Bhatinda bound journey Geet and Aditya get to know each other and Aditya unknowingly falls for Geet. Geet, however, is planning a runaway wedding with Anshuman. So Aditya leads her home and also runs away with her later on to get her to meet Anshuman in Manali. Leaving her with Anshuman, he returns to Mumbai and transforms his dipping fortune. Some time later, Geet's family comes hunting for Aditya in Mumbai and are shocked to know the truth about Geet running away. Aditya promises to bring Geet back. Somehow he manages to find her, a million miles away from her former self. Gone is the bubbly, chattery Geet. Instead we now have Geet, au naturale, dumped by Anshuman, working her way through life, taking it hard on herself for all her follies all along. When Aditya persuades Geet to go back home, Anshuman shows up and confesses that he still loves Geet and would do what it takes to marry her. Then the three set off to Bhatinda, more confusion follows and Geet realises that she too loves Aditya as much as he loves her. And thus the triumph of selfless love.

The movie rolls brilliantly in the first half and there are quite a lot of comic moments and not the stretched, slapstick kind. Of particular mention are Kareena's scenes with the TC, the station master and the motel owner and then there's one in the 2nd half where Tarun Arora goes nahi dekhni yaar mujhe ganne ki kheti =)) Kareena has done a laudable job in playing Geet. Shahid P Kapur, however, still looks like he is trying hard to be the next SRK. He is mostly convincing for his role but has the only single constipated expression that he has mastered while doing emotional scenes. It would certainly do him a world of good to fix that quick. Rest of the cast is passable, music - no clue.

To sum up, a movie with a done-to-death hackneyed plot, pulled up by decent acting, backed up with unassuming dialogues. Worth spending 2.5 hrs of time on.

Dhaai kilo ka haath is back!

Sunny paaji plays the role of Brad Pitt's Mickey the Pikey as Munna in this liftoff of Snatch. Well, I just gave away the whole story for Fool n Final didnt I?? Now let me tell you what the rest of the characters match up to:

Turkish - Vivek Oberoi as Lucky
Tommy - Suresh Menon as (doesn't matter)
Boris the Blade - Arbaaz Khan as Moscow Chikna
Bricktop - Zakir Hussain as JD
Doug the Head - Asrani as Lalwani
Cousin Avi - Gulshan Grover as Chowksey
Franky Four Fingers - Chunky Pandey as Rocky
Bullet Tooth Tony - Jackie Shroff as GunMaster G9 (with apologies to the original Gun Master, Prabhuji Mithun Chakraborty)
Vinny - Shahid Kapoor as Raja
Tyrone - Johnny Lever as Malbari (sab ke uupar bhari)
Sol - Paresh Rawal as Chatur Chobey

There is no Sausage Charlie, no 2 gorgeous daughters of Doug the Head and JD does not have a pig farm like Bricktop. Instead we have Om Puri and Sharmila Tagore playing inconsequential roles (in retrospect, Sharmila actually portrays Mickey's periwinkle-blue-caravan-loving Ma). Doug the head is Sindhi and cousin Avi is Gujrati. Doug is in Dubai and Avi in London. The whole story takes place in Dubai. I almost forgot to mention Sameera Reddy and Ayesha Takia who make up the eye-candy female presence. Ayesha Takia also gives Shahid Kapoor a reason to bust some moves in song and dance routines.

Bullet tooth tony is Jackie Shroff as GunMaster G9. Gunmaster comes with excess baggage (under his eyes). Chowksey does not get a chance to return to London and is killed. While dying he utters his favorite line 'Bahu Saras' which reminds of Gulshan's similar act in Diljale where he dies wondering 'Uupar gol-gappe kaise khaoo?' Sunny Deol is back with his trademark line 'Ye Dhaai kilo ka haath jab kisipe padta hai na, to aadmi uthta nahi hai .. uth jaata hai'. One might have expected that 14 years from Damini, paaji must have pumped more iron and gone on to 3.5 kilos. Paaji disappoints. Atleast with the dialogues.

The storyline moves on similar to Snatch. Diamond heist, lots of people trying to lay their hands on the diamond, illegal fighting matches, etc etc. Nothing much to write home about this movie. Watch it if you want to experience how Bollywood can smash an original film to pulp.

Later!

For kicks and giggles, I checked out movie reviews for this movie on some other websites. Surprisingly, no one seems to mention its likeness to Snatch. Admittedly this movie is very confusing to understand with so many parallel stories going around but that wasnt the case with Snatch. Either that or I can digest really horrible cinema quite comfortably =))

Times like these

It's times like these, you learn to live again. Word.

Whoever thought of casting Tanushree Dutta in a lead role should be made to spend some time as a cell mate of inmate # 9818783. While 9818783 mulls over her past life, tries to stop acting dumb because its not cute anymore and thinks hard over what she can do to make the world a better place, she could possibly suggest Mr Sinha that limiting Tanushree's visage to brief appearances a la Hithcki or Signaal would be one step closer to a happier place we live in. No seriously. Watching Tanushree for over 2 hours couldnt be worse than spending time in the joint (with Paris, nonetheless).

Raqeeb is a movie where the leading lady manipulates the men in her life to get what she wants. The plot opens with Remo Mathews (Rahul Khanna) as an asthmatic who runs a large software company (what else) with Siddharth (Sharman Joshi) as his legal advisor and friend. Siddharth is quite the outgoing kind and is always pestering Remo to socialize and make the most of his life. In this quest, he sets Remo up on a date with Sophie (Tanushree Dutta). Few melodramatic filmy moments later, Sophie and Remo are married.

Marital bliss doesnt last too long for Sophie who runs into her ex-lover Sunny (Jimmy Shergill), a struggling actor. Sophie spurs Sunny on to killing Remo assuring him that they would lead a comfortable life ever after. Sophie has plans though. She double crosses Sunny and he lands up in jail. Then on we learn that it is not quite the lady who is manipulative, a greater devil lurks with a bigger plan and a verry filmy motive behind it all. In the battle of good against evil, evil loses once again and you are much too happy to see the closing credits.

To give credit to debutante director Anurag Sinha, the movie manages to hold your interest for the most part, though at times especially in the first half, it gets painfully slow. There are a lot of twists and turns all the way to a much expected ending. Rahul Khanna still needs some effort in the facial expressions department and a lot more in dialogue delivery. Jimmy Shergill looks horrendous in his long locks and doesnt do any justice to his role. Sharman Joshi delivers another stellar performance. Ms Dutta sure could use a stylist; a facemask would be a better alternative in the meantime. Support cast is passable with Vivek Shauq providing some titbits of comic relief.

Overall, not much of a recommendation, but worth watching if you have nothing better to do.

Post Title : Foo Fighters - Times Like These

Sex, Relationships and Urban Public Transport

Life in a Metro - Movie Review

The first few minutes of this movie you could be easily fooled into believing that extra-marital promiscuity for the sake of career advancement is the order of the day in suburban India and thats what the movie could be all about. But dont let the comedic phone conversations between Rahul (Sharman Joshi) and some of his senior co-workers fool you into this verdict so soon. The plot weaves intricately in and out of the lives of a handful of inter-connected couples bringing forth shades of reality that is Life in a Metro.

Rahul is a call centre employee who in his own words '15 hajaar kamaane ke liye 15 hajaar Americans ki gaaliya sunta hoo'. He is set on making it big in life and is willing to go all lengths to win the favor of his managers to rise through the ranks. One approach he uses to do this is to allow his seniors access to his apartment to make merry with their colleagues while he roams the streets in the middle of the night waiting for them to 'come out' (pun intended). His neighbors, in the meanwhile, are in awe of his sexual prowess, screamers keeping them awake late in the night. Rahul secretly admires his colleague Neha (Kangana Ranaut) who is sleeping with her boss Ranjeet (Kay Kay Menon). Ranjeet is married to Shikha (Shilpa Shetty) and they are at complete loggerheads, living a life of compromise for the sake of their 6 yr old daughter. Familial ties do not however stop Ranjeet from having a no strings attached, physical only relation with Neha in turn for granting her out of turn promotions and perks.

Shikha's sister Shruti (Konkona Sen) is a 30 yr old virgin, waiting desperately for the right one. She manages to meet a few off marriage portals but rejects each one for not being her type. Debu (Irrfan Khan) is one such reject whom she ends up working with and falling in love towards the end of the movie. Neha and Shruti are roommates and somewhere down the line Shruti finds out that Ranjeet is cheating on her sister. In the ensuing scene, Ranjeet asks to be forgiven for his liasons with Neha but turns the other way round when Shikha asks to be forgiven for her short fling with Akash (Shiney Ahuja), a struggling theatre actor whom she meets once a week while on her way to visiting her dance teacher Shivani (Nafisa Ali).

Along parallel tracks there is a love story between Amol (Dharmendra) and Shivani, Amol back to spend the last few years of his life with his true love. In all filmy glory, Shivani dies before Amol and you are left wondering why the hell this part of the story was roped in in the first place. There is also an unnecessary gay association in the movie where Shruti is fooled to believe that the man whom she swoons for also likes her but in reality the whole relation is an act to cover his gayness in front of his parents. Shruti later goes on to realise (I dont know how) that she is in love with Debu and Debu has to chase her on a horse all the way to the train station right out of his baraat to mend her broken heart. Neha realises that sleeping with Ranjeet can only get her so far and that is not what she wants in life right now. She jumps out of the car while traveling with Ranjeet and heads straight to find Rahul. Rahul is about to leave the city dejected for no love when he is runout just short of the crease train station by Kangana Run-out. In the end, all (alive) find what they want in life.

Kay Kay Menon's portrayal of the remorseless MCP is first rate while Shilpa not latching onto the lust train sounds a little too sati-savitri. Shiney Ahuja plays the loser once again. Irrfan Khan has been given some good dialogues and he makes a competent performance as a lecherous 38 year old. Konkona Sen dilly dallies between the man of her dreams and the man unknowingly present in her life. Kangana Ranaut manages to look beautiful but lacks 'dimensions' and one can only pity Kay Kay's character to cheat on the bodacious Shilpa for a fling with Kangana. Sharman Joshi plays the ambitious lad quite convincingly and has clearly come a long way since his Style and Excuse Me days. The rest are trivial additions to the lineup.

The most irritating part of the movie is when 3 unkempt, dishevelled singers break into a song. While the songs are appropriately placed, have meaningful lyrics and carry the movie forward, looking at the same 3 people over and over again kinda makes you wish you had a squiggly line in your eye. All said and done, the movie is definitely worth a watch, although you come out hoping this is not what life in a metro is truly becoming in the motherland.

Post Title : Sex, Lies and Videotape

Just Buried .. err .. Married

As I write this I cannot believe 4 things:

1. A movie as soporific as Just Married can ever be produced
2. A movie can be so slow and boring that I have to watch a 2.5hr movie split up over 3 evenings
3. I have actually survived watching the mess that the movie was
4. I have so much time on my hands that I decide to write a review for the movie!

Just Married is a movie about a scary situation which I will find myself in sooner than later. Its about arranged marriage. About how couples struggle to cope coming to terms committing to spend the rest of their lives living with an absolute stranger. Well not an absolute stranger, maybe they've met once or twice before, as is the case of the protagonists of this film Abhay (Fardeen Khan) and Ritika (Esha Deol).

So it happens that these two meet at a common friends wedding and before they know it their parents have set them up to get married. They have a brief meeting once again before they marry. During that time Ritika is accompanied by her aunt who wags her mouth endlessly, like a kid high on halloween candy, and makes sure that Abhay and Ritika barely go through somewhat of a muuh-dikhai rasam. One thing leads to another and the newly wed couple is off on their honeymoon.

There-on the story starts to resemble the recently released snore 'Honeymoon Travels Pvt Ltd'. Our couple jumps onto a honeymoon bus and meet more similar couples during the journey and while at the hotel. Ofcourse every couple has its own quirks. One is an oldies couple who've been married for 30 years and constantly keep nagging each other, one is a bachpan se jaan pehchaan vala couple, one is a NRI couple; the girl with a la-dee-dah phoren accent, and one is a very happy couple who cant seem to keep their hands off each other (literally!).

As the film progresses it focuses on how Ritika, the homebred desi girl, finds it hard to get intimate with Abhay while Abhay tries to play sensitive and gives Ritika her own space and time to adjust. Abhay is eager to consummate the marriage and Ritika's comfort level with Abhay keeps on falling each day. Abhay loses cool and the already uncomfortable couple have a tiff. Then, no prizes for guessing, the rest of the story goes on to show the couple get back together and (probably) live happily ever after.

Stories of the other couples crawl along parallel lines to this story and none are really interesting. There is a slight twist where we find out why the perfect couple seemed so perfect. Mercifully no one is a superhero as was the case in Honeymoon Travels and you can only thank the script writer for that flash of brilliance (of avoiding the superhero trick I mean LOL) The climax is inflicted quite slowly and painfully on the hapless viewer and I can think of atleast one movie where a similar climax was executed in a much much better fashion.

Most performances in the movie are quite credible. Fardeen portrays the earnest, trying-to-adjust husband well and Esha plays the behenji types girl to perfection. Perizaad Zorabian struts her stuff gracefully throughout the movie; her hoarse voice serving the perfect anti-thesis to her gorgeous looks. Bikram Saluja mirrors a block of wood. Kirron Kher and Satish Shah end up taking too much footage. The rest of the cast is pretty much forgettable.

Some dialogues in the movie are extremely cheesy sugary rosogulla types and do not fail to give you the creeps. (I could've thrown in a sample line or two but I'll spare myself the agony of even skimming through that movie again). Too much cheese is never good, neither in food nor in a movie and the cheesiness becomes almost stroke inducing when the movie ends with a 'The Beginning'. I can never bother to write about the music for a Bollywood flick.

In a nutshell, a must-avoid-at-any-cost movie.

Goodbye Country (Hello Nightclub)

While this is the name of one of Groove Armada's albums, it also happens to be the theme of Mr Hot & Mr Kool.

Yes, my unfortunate tryst with B grade Bollywood movies continues. Now B grade might conjure up mental images of a skin flick with Payal Rohatgi (who else?!) in the lead role, but dont raise your eyebrows just yet. This one is B grade stricly for the quality of the movie and is devoid of sleaze. Ofcourse, when I 'picked' this movie up I was mostly aware of what lay in store. Like all other times, my sole objective for watching this movie was getting through 2 hours.

The movie stars all newcomers in lead roles and some familiar support cast. And so the story goes that two good for nothing losers from some dehaat in India land up in London overnight listening to advice from a local quack. They land up a job in some company called LeLe undergarments (why am I writing this?) whose owner, Shahbaaz Khan, is always hitting on one of the employees Pooja De. Time for Corny joke 1 -> Mr LeLe: Pooja De De .. Pooja: Kya du? While you go 'Jeez!' listening to this you can tell that there are more of such corny jokes coming along and thats the only aspect where the movie does not disappoint =))

Back to the story, Zulfi Sayed (who?) aka Lakshmanprasad something becomes Lucky and Yash Pandit (again, who??) aka Prem Amar Tripathi becomes Pat after they land in London. Now that they have a job they start looking for the 2nd most important thing that they'd set out in search for - a woman in their lives. Lucky thinks he is geting lucky with a girl but suddenly loses interest in her after Pat cons him into believing that she is indeed seeing Pat and not Lucky. Along the while, Pat actually falls for Pooja (yes Pooja De De) and then the movie winds up after sorting out all the confusion.

Khalid Mohammed, my favorite movie critic and columnist, once wrote reviewing for Anupama Verma, 'Anupama should stick to modeling; clay, that is'. I'd say the same for Zulfi Sayed. He carries a deadpan face throughout the movie and delivers all dialogues without bothering to emote once. Yash Pandit on the other hand emotes like he's filling in for Zulfi too and ends up hamming most of his scenes. The ladies are extremely forgettable, both in the looks and acting departments.

To sum it up, I got what I was looking for from the movie, something to kill 2 hours with. Watch it if you have absolutely nothing to do;)

Thus ends my first attempt at reviewing a movie. Ripping it apart to shreds feels good!

(What's the Story) Morning Glory

Last night a forgettable Friday was capped up by an even more forgettable movie. For some reason, I decided to watch the new desi movie, Hattrick. Now most desi movies are forgettable but this one had that little extra special element. I dont know what irritated me more about this movie - the fact that I stayed up late to watch a crappy movie, that it was really a bad movie or that it had such a bad print that I felt like cracking the screen on my laptop.

Honestly, I cant even remember the last time I watched a rip which was so terrible in quality. And not that it was one of those low size rips, it was a full 700MB, yet it failed the bar. Dont get me wrong, there's been so many good rips out there with low size, like Anthony Kaun Hai, 350 MB yet really good but this was just an utter piece of sh!te. After crawling through the movie, I checked back on DT, and there were loads of comments echoing the same. Which reminded me to always look through some of the comments before greedily snatching any new movie that is on offer!

The movie itself was nothing great. The theme was quite boring, more so after India's dismal exit, and though the cast was great they could only do so much to hold together a paper thin storyline। Rimi Sen was all about the hotness as expected and she did a fine job - at looking good ;)

Rewind to a couple of hours back this morning when I woke up to James Blunt's You're Beautiful (more about this tragedy in a later post) After going through the usual strings of emails and news and hanging around a while on orkut, here I am blogging listening to BF & N in the background. Now I have to decide what I want to get done this weekend (which usually amounts to nothing much). One thing I definitely want to do though is get to Walmart and get that dart board I've been wanting ever since! After last week's fiasco, when the set did not contain any darts at all, I hope I get a better one this time and spend some time honing my skill at darts :D

Later!

PS: 12:30pm on a weekend IS morning. It's morning according to the MDT timezone, the MY Daylight Time timezone LOL