POPULAR BOLLYWOOD
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ANKAHI KAHANIYA : 4.5 STARS. MA.
Directed by - Abhishek Chaubey, Saket Chaudhary, Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari
Starring - Abhishek Banerjee, Rinku Rajguru, Delzad Hiwale, Kunal Kapoor, Zoya Hussain, Nikhil Dwivedi, Palomi Ghosh
Great talent creating poetry. The 3 top directors picking some good actors and going off into making 'ankahi kahaniya', I wonder do they always come up with a title first and then go about making movies? Do writers write thinking, ok let me write a 'ankahi kahani'? A story not told yet! How difficult is that! I feel too little to even take a stab at critiquing these great people doing this great work. But hey! that's what I do in this blog. Good thing is they don't know they are being reviewed by me.
3 stories, unique in their own way and vastly different are presented to you. Each is a marvel and makes you enthralled and pause; make you Happy and Sad. All 3 are wholesome entertainers, beautifully done. Immigrant workers working day in day out in shops in mumbai, the loneliness of the job makes him look for a partner. In a billion people it is not easy to find someone when you had no training or time to figure how to deal with this problem. Then someone shows up in your life, does it matter if the person is alive? You need someone ... who cares who it is. Second story is about cheating husband, and how to punish him. Do you want to follow the trail and get to the bottom of it? Is it possible you may find your own story while travelling that path? Third story is probably the saddest and more heart wrenching than the rest, young love blooms in 80s single cinema theaters, in the crowded world, glances and few actions are all that can convey love and acceptance. The love story is all about just a few movements, but how do you go beyond that?
BHOOT POLICE : 2.5 STARS. Comedy.
Directed by - Pavan Kirpalani
Starring - Saif Ali Khan, Arjun Kapoor, Jacqueline Fernandez, Yami Gautam Dhar, Javed Jaffrey
Loosely inspired by Ghost Busters, the movie is about 2 brothers who are keeping their dad's business alive. They don't know how to get rid of ghosts but one of them is giving it a try and the other just wants to make some easy money. They go to a tea estate owned by 2 sisters (how convenient) to get rid of ghosts that their father helped capture.
A movie that pushes the belief that ghosts are real may not be a great thing but I don't think movies move the needle on such topics when heavy majority already believes it. Setting that aside, the movie is pretty ok in every way you dissect it. Saif, generally a reliable comedian tries hard but can't get his timing right, Arjun Kapoor well... he tries. Yami Gautam and Jacqueline are pretty good at what they are doing and surprisingly Jacqueline's annoying acting saves the movie from being a drab. She has a spunk and stupidity about her that sometimes is funny.
BELL BOTTOM : 1.5 STARS. Thriller
Bell Bottom - trailer
Directed by - Ranjit M Tewari
Starring - Akshay Kumar, Lara Dutta, Vaani Kapoor, Huma Qureshi
Akshay Kumar the new age 'Mr Bharat' Manoj Kumar reincarnation, he has become repetitive and his acts are tiring and exhausting. The Bollywood factory has been producing these BJP style "Desh Bhakti" movies that take a historic character or incident and make a fantasy out of it. It kind of takes away everything from that incident and make it look fake. Either you go hollywood style US saves the world from Aliens OR you make a believable historical anecdote. Current darling of bollywood is to make Indian Intelligence and their spies into some James Bond character. The movie is strictly for those who put an 'agarbati' in front of TV as soon as they hear Indian Soldier.
14 PHERE: 3.5 STARS. Comedy.
Directed by - Devanshu Singh
Starring - Vikrant Massey, Kriti Kharbanda
It's a good typical modern Bollywood movie. The template has been set for sometime now. I think it has been a good decade since we started seeing this fresh wave of middle class family low key love stories and now they have flooded the market and taken over. Definitely a good change from over the top Karan Johar Love Story decade which in itself was a good one, which had taken over from more action based Love stories ... which in turn had taken over from rebellion of an angry young man coming from oppressed sections of society... it's been a good journey. But now we can say this genre of middle class love stories is no more a new one. You know the recipe, you throw in all the ingredients and you create a good movie, but it no more carries the 'Wow factor'.
Movie is about a couple who work in city but have roots in traditional India. Needless to say there is no bridge in between, they hatch a plan to trick both sides and instead get stuck in a big mess. As is the want of the template, things never get ugly or bloody though in real life these situations will become bad, ugly and bloody. In our protected movie atmosphere things remain stressful but funny, that's the entire genre niche and the movie plays that perfectly.
SHERSHAAH : 4.0 STARS. Action / Drama
Shershaah - trailer
Directed by - Vishnuvardhan
Starring - Sidharth Malhotra, Kiara Advani
One of the rare nationalism filled 'martyr' movie that actually does not go over the top and works well. This topic of Kargil war has now been covered quite a lot of times, but this one has a different angle to it. It is purely on the life and times of Captain Vikram Batra played by Sidharth Malhotra.
The movie revolves around captain's life and his love story and then it ties it to the war and his martyrdom. It makes an impact as it makes you happy and then brings tears. Sidharth is very cute, and now he also acts well, he is so likeable that half the battle is won anyway. There are not lot of cliches but it's a 'desh bhakti' type of movie so you gotta have some. The actual hero of the movie, the person who steals the show is an actor who is turning out to be one of the greats in long list of great female actors of current generation - Ms Kiara Advani. She can with one look make you tear up, she can make you glued on her changing emotions and take you wherever she wants you to go. Beautiful rendition of a love angle that has ever been done. Watch it.
MIMI: 3.5 STARS. Drama
Mimi - trailer
Directed by - Laxman Utekar
Starring - Kriti Sanon, Pankaj Tripathi
India has been a market for 'tourist surrogacy' and their has been movies on this but I think this is the only major Bollywood movie that has attempted this. They got the cast right when you get another great female lead Kriti Sanon. Now she is a little glam to fit into her surroundings and sticks out more than we would want her to. Otherwise she is great at everything she does, and she immerses herself in this role as we know she can. She is supported by Pankaj Tripathi, who has become modern Kader Khan who just drops into every movie. Result is he is over exposed and does not have time to immerse himself in any role. Good thing is he is doing his natural fit of a comedian and hence that works pretty good.
A white couple want a baby through surrogacy and Pankaj is their conduit to Mimi (Kriti), will they be able to convince her? what happens next? Did she calculate what could go wrong? Obviously after a lot of comedy and drama you need to end it well, and they manage to find a perfect ending! Please don't watch 'Trailers' if you are convinced you want to watch a movie. That goes for all movies, the trailer (that I watch after I have seen the movie) ruins everything and just gives away the entire plot. Just a friendly warning.
BHUJ: THE PRIDE OF INDIA : 0 STARS. Action.
Directed by - Abhishek Dudhaiya
Starring - Ajay Devgn, Sanjay Dutt, Sharad Kelkar, Sonakshi Sinha, Ammy Virk, Pranitha Subhash, Nora Fatehi, Ihana Dhillon
Whatever Ajay Devgan does is some half hearted thing where he is hoping to strike gold by jumping on to a bandwagon that is popular. Right now he is firmly on becoming a great maratha, or a great soldier but the problem is he can't figure how to do this without being a super hero. We understand it is difficult to make Indian heroes look like real humans but still we can always try. The movie has been completely made in a low scale computer simulation with elaborate action sequences that cut corners and look patchy, dumb and hilarious. The characters are even more caricatured than any comedy can try. The story itself is a pretty good taut thriller but it was just not given the right treatment. When you get Ajay Devgan and Sanjay Dutt in this insipid movie, it does deserve a zero.
Movie is about an imminent attack from Pakistan on Indian base when all communication has been cut off and there are handful of soldiers left to guard the last bastion. The soldiers are helped by local villagers to patch up the air fields that will make sure help can come in. Nothing in the movie makes a lot of sense forget any realism and seriousness.
SKATER GIRL : 5 Stars. Drama.
Directed by - Manjari Makijany
Starring - Rachel Sanchita Gupta, Shafin Patel, Amrit Maghera, Jonathan Readwin, Waheeda Rehman
This is one of those emotional decisions I make because it is my blog. I give a movie 5 Stars and people come back and say what was so special! I have to be true to my senses, when a movie makes me choke up and I can't talk for hours and then I sleep thinking about the movie I got to give it a 5. It makes me think of my Mom's efforts to bring freedom and confidence to people who don't have food on the table. The movie has many cringes, like typical foreigners coming to a village to find themselves and fix the village. But if you keep clear of those things and focus on the Brother and sister relationship and the skate board in their lives, you will cry out of happiness. If you look at the life of a girl and her small steps to do what she wants, her cute little love story and to top it all, great acting from all the characters involved, you will see what I saw.
FAMILY MAN : Season 2 : 4.0 STARS. Comedy / Thriller
Created by - Raj & D.K.
Starring - Manoj Bajpayee, Samantha Ruth Prabhu, Priyamani, Sharib Hashmi, Neeraj Madhav, Pawan Chopra, Kishore Kumar G., Sharad Kelkar, Devadarshini, Gul Panag
People already love this show and I actually did not like the first season, though it was a fresh experiment in spy thrillers showing ordinary penny pinching life of an agent who is guarding national security in dark comedy / satire / thriller. The second one is definitely way better as they develop the family struggles a little more and more importantly they develop the villains a little more.
Let me straight come to the point. I love Samantha Ruth Prabhu, what an actor!! I don't even care about the show this actor just blew my mind away. I could not look away, what a power packed role. I don't know if I have ever seen a better villain in my life. She seems to be an acclaimed actor and a pretty glamorous one too. I just can't believe how she can play such a perfect role. 'Raji' the character was awesome too, the pain of a failed Tamil Eelam, the struggles of daily living after the high of a war, it all is clearly seen in her body language and her hardened face. Then she starts taking a super human persona to her and you secretly root for her just because you are so consumed with her pain and betrayal and struggles that only Samantha could have brought out so admirably.
