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Movie Preview : What’s your Rashee ?

Posted on September 15, 2009 by amodini

Update : Movie review here.

Ashutosh Gowariker does romantic comedy. With trusted producer Ronnie Screwvala backing him up. Note that Screwwalla started his producing career with TV, producing popular Hindi serials but has now progressed to some of the best Hindi films. Swades, Jodha-Akbar, Rang de basanti are some of his productions. So naturally I am enthused (aren’t you ?) – a great director, a good producer, some very good music, AND Priyanka Chopra in 12 different roles – all the (Rashee ?) signs tell me that this film’s going to be fun.

Based on a Gujarati novel “Kimball Ravenswood” (not available on Amazon) by playwright Madhu Rye, “What’s Your Rashee” is the story of Yogesh Patel, a romantic lad, who must forego the love marriage route, when he is told to find a bride in 10 days to save his family from “utter ruin”. Lest you worry for him, note that he’s got it all planned : he’ll meet 12 girls of each Rashi (Zodiac sign), 2 every day – that’s 6 days. Then he’ll give himself 3 days to think it over, and the 10th day will be D-day.

My instincts want to give Yogesh a swift kick in the back-side, and natural cynicism raises it’s head here – what if the girl doesn’t want to marry him ? I’m betting that Yogesh bhai didn’t think of that, hmm ? And 2 girls every day – all assembly-line-ish, what ? This being Bollywood – they’ll probably all line up neatly for him, waiting to be viewed by their future Lord and Master. And for the same reason, the girl (a former Miss Universe) will probably be falling all over the guy; candidly I’d describe him as the poor man’s Hrithik Roshan.

Anyway, rant out of the way, here’s a teaser :

Priyanka Chopra plays all the 12 girls – bet she’s smirking at all the double roles now, huhn ? There’s Anjali , Vishakha , Kajal , Hansa , Mallika , Pooja , Rajni , Nandini , Bhavna , Jhankhana , Sanjna , Chandrika, and what with her new found potential (Kaminey, Fashion etc.) I’m looking forward to see her play them all. I’m also looking forward to see Hurman Baweja come into his own this time, instead of trying to ape Hrithik Roshan. Gowariker also directs a pretty talented cast – there’s Manju Singh, Anjan Srivastav (also spelled Anjjan Shrivastav), Darshan Jariwala, Visswa Badola, Rajesh Vivek and Dayashankar Pandey.

For your perusing pleasure here’s the Official Website.

Posted in bollywood, Previews | 2 Comments

Review : Chintuji

Posted on September 8, 2009 by amodini

Rating : Above average (3.7/5)
Genre : Comedy / Drama
Year : 2009
Running time : 1 hour 56 minutes
Director : Ranjit Kapoor
Cast : Rishi Kapoor, Grusha Kapoor, Priyanshu Chatterjee, Kulraj Randhawa, Annu Kapoor, Saurabh Shukla
Kid rating : PG

CHINTUJI : ALL HEART THIS ONE !

Chintuji is not the type of movie I’d associate with Rishi Kapoor (Chintu is his nickname in real life). It’s a rural drama – sort of, with more emphasis on the story and screenplay than “outward polish” – and by that I mean, songs, costumes, and general big-budget bonhomie. Not to say that it isn’t a good film – it is, it just seems a tad low-key to have Rishi Kapoor playing the lead. In look and feel, it reminded me of “Welcome to Sajjanpur“, although that was superior.

The film is about a small town Hadbahedi and it’s efforts to put itself on the map with the help of son-of-soil film-star Rishi Kapoor – who was supposedly born there. Pristine Hadbehdi is always in competition with it’s neighboring town of Tripala. While Triphala has 2 famous/notorious residents , Hadbehdi seems to have none. So when it is discovered that Rishi Kapoor was actually born there, the residents hasten to invite him over.

Kapoor plays himself in the film, albeit an exaggerated version. The Rishi Kapoor of “Chintuji” is a politically inclined spoilt, ill-mannered film-star, who deigns to come to a backwater like Hadbehdi only to gain political mileage. He comes via chartered plane, with PR specialist Devika(Kulraj Randhawa) and secretary Kutty, and is very keen to leave Hadbehdi when he encounters the inconveniences of small-town life, such as cow-dung strewn pathways, and the lack of electricity (and air-conditioning).

The residents treat him with reverential respect, calling him Chintuji, and try their best to placate him. But can they stop Chintuji from leaving his birth-place, and leaving them in the lurch ?

This film has a comedic air about it. The residents of Hadbahedi are a funny, good-natured lot, if a little archly drawn. Grusha Kapoor is quite wonderful as the small-town marm-on-a-mission. Rishi Kapoor, even as a whiny, rude film star exerts his not inconsiderate charm – yes, he was likeable even in this kind of a role ! Priyanshu Chatterjee as the town’s newspaper editor didn’t impress, I thought; but then he’s always seemed to me to not have much screen presence.

Ranjit Kapoor, writer and director (he also wrote dialogues for Jaane bhi do yaaron), does a pretty good job for a small-budget film – it was interesting, clean and had genuine humor. While it does get a little moralistic and preachy – Hadbehdi has no alcohol shops and it’s residents seem to be incorruptible and immune to modern-day attractions – it’s still nicely told and with much affection. I am quite surprised that it didn’t get much publicity – there were no promos, trailers or teasers around.

This is a pleasant, family film (rating : PG) – recommended.

Posted in 2009, bollywood, drama, family-friendly, humor, rating-G, recommended | Comments Off

Upcoming Films : September 2009

Posted on September 6, 2009 by amodini

A whole bunch of “sidey” films hitting the big screen this month. Here are some which I’m hoping won’t fall flat on their faces :

Release Date	Film Title	Genre	Director	Actors
Sep 11	Baabarr	Crime/thriller	Ashu Trikha	Soham, Mithun Chakraborty, Urvashi Sharma, Om Puri, Sushant Singh
Sep 11	Pankh	Drama	Sudipto Chattopadhyay	Bipasha Basu, Mahesh Manjrekar, Lilette Dubey
Sep 18	Wanted	Drama	Prabhu Deva	Salman Khan, Ayesha Takia, Om Puri
Sep 18	Dil Bole Hadippa	All-in-one	Anurag Singh	Rani Mukherjee, Shahid Kapoor, Rakhi Sawant, Dalip Tahil
Sep 25	What’s Your Rashee ?	Romance	Ashutosh Gowarikar	Priyanka Chopra, Harman Baweja, Anjan Srivastav

Posted in bollywood, Previews | Tagged upcoming | 3 Comments

Preview : Dil Bole Hadippa

Posted on September 3, 2009 by amodini

Update : Here’s the review.

Aditya Chopra produces again, this time taking bankable stars Shahid Kapoor and Rani Mukherjee. “Dil bole hadippa” is another spin-off off of the (reliable ?) oft-repeated formula : rebellious girl dresses up as boy to attain goal in patriarchal society, and everyone else, it turns out has buttons instead of eyes, because they can’t see through that very thin disguise.

So, yup, Veera Kaur (Rani’s character), puts on a turban and a beard and becomes “Veer Pratap Singh” so that she can play cricket. Now, you might wonder about the need to turn manly to play this sport, because from what I can recall, India does have it’s own women’s Cricket Team. But, aha, and betcha never thought of this, she hails from a village where girls don’t play cricket ! So, yeah, OK – that explains it, everything falls into place now, the logic, the storyline, the sudden demand for beards as girls all around the country in old-fashioned villages such as this one, rush to turn themselves into scrawny Sardars.

“Veer Pratap Singh” because of his skill on the field earns himself a place on Rohan’s (Shahid Kapoor) team. Thus you have the lead pair, on the same team, and in close proximity. I know it’s kind of hard to guess where the story goes from there, but I’ll get soppy and give you a hint : Love is in the air (quite like the Swine flu).

This film stars Shahid who’s been having quite a good run this year, what with “Kaminey” being the fantastic film it is. And more power to him – a star who can act, dance, oozes affability and that “good boy” charm, he quite deserves it. Rani who appears on the silver screen after quite a while, and after many gruelling Yoga sessions we are told, looks thinner and fitter. There is also Rakhi Sawant, Anupam Kher, Dalip Tahil and Sherlyn Chopra.

Now because it is a Yash Raj production I expect this film to be at the very least a family entertainer, which means relatively clean, colorful and full of energetic songs. The official website is here but be wary, because although nicely done, it uses Flash, takes a humongous time to load and makes my PC’s CPU buzz like a swarm of bees.

“Dil bole hadippa” is directed by Anurag Singh. Singh was associate director on films like Dhoom 2, Koyla and “Karan Arjun”. As full-fledged director, he director “Raqeeb” before this. DBH has music by Pritam. It releases 18 Sep 2009.

Posted in 2009, bollywood, dance, drama, Previews, rating-PG, watchable | 3 Comments

Feed Reader Update

Posted on September 1, 2009 by amodini

To all those Readers who subscribe to my Feed : First of all, a big Thank You – I know that there is a lot of content on the Web, and am grateful that you find the content here worthy of subscription. Please note that I am changing the Feed of this blog to “summary” style rather than “full” post style, to deter sploggers from stealing/copying my feed without attributing it back to me. Sploggers are low-lifes/the scum of the internet who’ll steal your original posts and try and pass them off as their own. All the work on my blogs is Copyrighted, which means that you cannot use this content on any other media without giving me a linkback, and attributing it to it’s original author – which would be me : Amodini Sharma. Also, this work cannot be modified and you cannot “derive” from it – which means that if you take content from here, and change a couple of words and think it yours – it’s NOT – you are still stealing. If you see this content on any other site, other than this blog, or Planet Bollywood, it is stolen content, and the website and it’s author are committing Copyright Infringement.

Posted in 2009 | Tagged status | 2 Comments

Review : Sikandar

Posted on August 28, 2009 by amodini

Rating : Poor (2/5)
Genre : Drama
Year : 2009
Running time : 1 hour 50 minutes
Director : Piyush Jha
Cast : Parzan Dastur, Ayesha Kapur, Madhavan, Sanjay Suri, Arunoday Singh
Kid rating : PG-13

SIKANDAR : A waste of time and money

You know, if you are ever in a philosophical mood on Fridays (not that I recommend it), you could always wonder about the worrisome fates of child stars who seem to do so well as young, cute kids, but lose luster as they grow up, and reappear on-screen as boring, weak caricatures who can’t act. And I would be sympathetic, if only a bad film, starring afore mentioned child stars hadn’t quite blighted my evening.

Sikandar features (I can’t quite bring myself to say stars) Dastur as young, twittery orphan Sikandar, and Ayesha Kapoor as his classmate Nasreen. Parzan was last seen as the very cute little Sardar boy in Karan Johar’s “Kuch kuch hota hai” and I must say his cuteness is quite diminished. Kapur, we saw as the wild-haired blind and deaf child in Black. The film is set in Kashmir, against a back-drop of terrorism . Sikandar plays a school-going kid bullied by classmates, and befriended by the relatively smarter and stronger Nasreen. One day, walking to school, Sikandar comes across a gun, and picks it up, possibly thinking of it as a deterrent to his bullies. However a gun has many other uses, as well-meaning Sikandar soon finds out . . .

OK – first things first, this film has great locales – it’s shot in Kashmir, so it’s beautiful scenery, and green glades, and narrow, not-so-trodden paths where you would, you think, if you ever ventured there in real life, be over-awed with the Lord’s Great Work. However, it fails on almost every other count. Weak story, poor screenplay, dodgy direction, cryptic and very false-sounding dialogue-baazi, and atrocious acting.

This film’s story has loopholes the size of Texas. And then there is weak-kneed little boy, and his fathomless female friend ; really Nasreen drove me up the wall with all the speaking with her eyes. Only her eyes were on a maun vrat. And Sikandar, good boy and all, yeah ? But brains – not so much. And I’m not asking for Mensa quality IQs here, but common-sense just enough for a teenager ? I ask not for too much, do I Lord ?

The other actors weren’t that great when it comes to acting either, but that’s not all their fault. Madhavan, who I though had potential to make it big in Hindi filmdom, is bogged down by Stupid, Enigmatic dialogues which sound awkward for his character. He is an Army Colonel, but if you didn’t know that from his fatigues, you’d probably think he was a man of leisure out for an after-dinner stroll; so sauntering was his gait. The colonel while being enigmatic and cryptic, also manages to taunt Mukhtar Mattoo (played by Sanjay Suri) a political peacemaker. Now Suri is many things (and almost all of them good), but a man of peace, however border-line and fence-sitting, he is not.

I know that this is not your usual song-dance-melodrama piece of crap, so will agree with other reviewers who say that this film has good intentions. But are good intentions enough to channel someone’s crappy vision on screen and market it, and actually inflict it on poor, unsuspecting viewers ? I think not. This film did nothing for me, and nothing I suspect for the film-maker’s careers either.

You have been warned. And since you have read this review, you are no longer in the “poor, unsuspecting film-viewer” category. How’s that for a lifter-upper ? Have a good weekend everyone !

Tags : Sikandar movie review, Sikandar movie reviews, Sikandar film reviews

Posted in 2009, bollywood, drama, rating-PG13 | Comments Off

Indian Film Festival Houston 2009

Posted on August 26, 2009 by amodini

The Indian Film Festival will for the very first time be held in Houston, from Sept 21-25 2009. Local papers like the Voice of Asia have been covering this first-time-ever event, and in yesterday’s paper there was a full page ad for it. Their website has a schedule of the films being shown, with links to the various introductory shindigs, and the yet-to-happen post-event gala. In the shindig category comes the party at the Consul General Sanjiv Arora’s home and the photo on the main page prominently features folks like director Sutapa Ghosh, who is Houston based, and actually President of a company called CinemaWalla (I clicked on the link at the bottom and found that CinemaWalla actually has ventures in film, wine and steel – yeah steel !)

The film selection is a little desultory – I had hoped to see films like “Little Zizhoo” and “Sita sings the blues” here, but the only one I recognize from the festival circuit is “Smile Pinki”. Premiering here is Deepti Naval’s “Do Paise Ki Dhoop, Chaar Aane Ki Baarish”, and Sushil Rajpal’s Antardwand. “Do paise ki dhoop, chaar aane ki baarish” premiered in Cannes, so it isn’t exactly the World Premiere (as stated on the Website), unless the US is the world 🙂 . It stars Rajit Kapur and Manisha Koirala, and if Naval is as good behind the camera as she was in front of it, this will be a film to wait for.

And Antardwand actually released in 2007, and hasn’t seen the light of day in the US until now – it will subsequently also be screened at the South Asian International Film Festival in New York this October . It is about the practice of bridegroom abduction, (common I’m told in parts of Bihar) and stars among the known faces, Vinay Pathak and Raja Chaudhary.

Supriyo Sen’s 10 minute documentary titled “Wagah” will also be screened. Wagah won the 6th Berlin Today Award at the Berlin Film Festival, 2009. Wagah , which is about the change of guard ritual at the Wagah border, is Sen’s third film.

Posted in 2009, film festival, recommended | 4 Comments

Bollywood dance as genre

Posted on August 23, 2009 by amodini

The series “Bollywood Hero” starring Chris Kattan and Neha Dhupia started on TV sometime back. I posted about a Flash Dance Mob which happened in Times Square, here. Fellow blogger Shelby, who blogs at BelbCorinne posted a comment on the blog with various video links of “Bollywood” dances outside of India, some done as a genre in TV programmes like “So you think you can dance !”.

I do watch “So you think you can dance” sometimes but must admit have never seen these dance performances. These technically are quite superb. The dancers themselves are so physically fit, that they seem to have no trouble in difficult squatting motions, or those requiring some athletic ability. I don’t think there are many Bollywood stars in India that are this fit. Bollywood dances are a lot of gyrations – and they are a lot. The dance steps change every 10 seconds, and you do not actually realize this until you try and copy the exact movements and discover that they are a lot harder than they look.

However, what didn’t work for me in these technically great performances, was the lack of emotion or “bhava”. Besides that, in most of the typical Bollywood-ian dances, it’s 30% dance and 70% attitude. And if it seems that the dancers are dancing without understanding what they are dancing to, or not in touch with the “meaning” of the song, then it does lose some beauty.

So while these guys (Caitlin and Jason) are technically good, they are for one, a bit too ballet-ish, and appear to not understand the song (which they probably don’t). Plus I’m cringing at her split skirt, and some of her out-there dance movements.

In terms of athletic and dancing ability, I do think there is none better than Hrithik Roshan in Bollywood. His “Main aisa kyun hai” routine in Lakshya is superb. I watched this on a program on TV first being done by the choreographer, Prabhu Deva (who is also a very good dancer) and then Hrithik in the film, and it looked better on Hrithik than on his teacher !

And while am not a big fan of Govinda (that Supreme Pelvis Grinder), he really is a very good dancer – dances like he’s having loads of fun and feeling it. Here’s a fun vintage Govinda-Raveena number :

Posted in 2009, bollywood, dance | 2 Comments

Blogging update

Posted on August 21, 2009 by amodini

Currently this blog contains movie review, previews, film recommendation lists (Top 10 by genre, Top 10 by year etc.), while my other blog “Review Room” contains general Bollywood related articles, Hollywood movie reviews, book reviews, opinion pieces and posts of a general nature. I have been contemplating bringing all the movie related stuff under one roof, or one blog (so to speak), so I will be moving all the filmi stuff (Bollywood and Hollywood) from “Review Room” to this one, and making that a purely “general-stuff” blog, and this one focussed on films and filmy news. What that means for you as reader is additional :

– Hollywood reviews, such as this and this
– “Newsy” articles/opinion pieces relating to the film industry such as this and this
– Frequent and fresh blog posts !

Onwards and upwords, sayeth the Blogger !

Posted in 2009 | Tagged status | Comments Off

Review : A Wednesday

Posted on August 20, 2009 by amodini

Rating : Above average (3.85/5)
Genre : Drama
Year : 2008
Running time : 2 hours 15 minutes
Director : Neeraj Pandey
Cast : Anupam Kher, Naseeruddin Shah, Jimmy Shergill, Aamir Baashir, Deepal Shaw
Kid rating : PG13

A WEDNESDAY : SMART, SUSPENSE-FILLED DRAMA

“A Wednesday” is a small budget movie. Yes, it does star Anupam Kher and Naseeruddin Shah, but is a plain, rather stark drama, without the usual song-dance-melodrama routines. So it didn’t get released in the theater here in my city; it probably didn’t make commercial sense, and I, for lack of a better alternative, saw it on DVD.

This film hinges on 4 main characters, 3 of them policemen. Anupam Kher plays Police Superintendent Prakash Rathod, while Aamir Bashir plays Inspector Jai Singh, and Jimmy shergill Inspector Arif Khan. The three are honest, able police officers, doing their duty diligently. One fine day, they receive a call from an unknown person who threatens to place bombs around the city and kill innocents if certain terrorists, currently in police custody, are not handed over to him. The cops are in a fix, because letting the terrorists go back to their compatriots is an untenable option, but so is allowing the bombing of citizenry. Their only hope of preventing disaster is finding this mystery man before he can do damage . . .

This is an unusual drama for a Bollywood film, because it totally lacks masala – no romantic angle, no dances/item numbers, or the sheen of expensive cinematography. It is a straight-up drama focusing on the characters and the story. While the story is an attention-grabber, and the pace of the film brisk, the direction is just about adequate, and the editing, at times, a bit abrupt. There are also moments in the film, where the director/script-writer went over-board trying to be edgy, and then the dialogues seemed a little unreal/clichéd.

However the film cannot be faulted on its cast. Anupam Kher and Naseeruddin Shah need no introductions. They carry the weight of the film, and quite rightly so – their performances are flawless. Shergill suits his character – that of a young, angry, violence-prone officer, while Bashir brings credibility to his calm, composed character. Deepal Shaw (remember her from the music videos ?) has too small a role, as a journalist, to be of any consequence.

On the whole, an interesting, smart, suspense-filled drama which keeps one guessing, this one is very much worth your time. If I could fault it, I’d fault it on the technical aspects (like editing, and a screenplay which seemed amateurish at times), and on trying too hard to “get with it”. However, considering the fact that we have not very many movies of this genre, and these are generally not commercial successes, the director and producer must be lauded on bringing such a worthy product to screen.

Kidwise : This one is relatively clean film, but gets a PG13 rating for it’s adult theme, and violence.