Archive for beld o beld

By Taran Adarsh, April 25, 2008 - 16:08 IST

Hindi movies have undergone a sea-change in terms of content. From crude, been there seen that, done to death kind of movies, to films with substance, the audience tastes have changed over the years. Even though we’ve have grown up on the staple diet of desi food, we’ve cultivated a taste for Italian, Chinese, Thai and Mexican cuisine.

The experience with TASHAN is like, you enter a posh restaurant, waiting for a sumptuous meal to be served, but what’s served on your plate is vada-pau. TASHAN takes you back to the 1970s Bollywood, when illogical situations, blood and gore, for no rhyme of reason, were the main ingredients that made the junta break into taalis. Sorry, the formula doesn’t work anymore!

Write your own movie review of Tashan
Seriously, what was debutante director Vijay Krishna Acharya thinking when he wrote this apology of a script? It’s perfectly okay to revisit the classics and pay homage to the masala films of yore, but the new interpretation has to be contemporary, you need to change with the times.

The one thing that you realize after watching TASHAN is, no amount of gloss, glam and top notch stars can ever substitute for a riveting script. Great stars, great styling, great songs and great visuals work as long as the script is great.

Knight Riders attracts investors galore

April 20, 2008

The Indian Premier League (IPL) is not just all about cricket and entertainment, but business too. Corporate houses are bending over double to sponsor Shah Rukh Khan’s Kolkata Knight Riders.

It is the favourite team of investors - and one look at the team’s jersey will tell you why. Brand Nokia shines larger than the team’s name on it and this at the cost of millions.

Nokia spokesperson D Shivkumar told IANS: “Shah Rukh Khan and cricket - they team up the passion of India. This is the right time to hit the Kolkata market. We have sponsored Rs.400 million for the jersey of the Knight Riders.”

Let’s clear a misconception before we get down to reviewing SHAURYA. It’s not a war film. It’s not jingoistic. It doesn’t spew venom on the neighboring country. It doesn’t show mutilated bodies or blood-soaked faces and limbs.

Sure, SHAURYA has the backdrop of the armed forces. But it’s about a court martial. It’s about two friends, who’re pitched against each other in a courtroom. The ‘culprit’, in turn, doesn’t want to defend himself and remains a mute spectator for reasons best known to him.

SHAURYA is a serious film and raises a serious issue in the penultimate 20 minutes. And that’s where it scores. Director Samar Khan gradually builds up the tension and when it explodes in the finale, it leaves you stunned and speechless. Most importantly, it makes you uncomfortable… perhaps, that’s one of the reasons why it succeeds.

An SRK film is keenly awaited. And if the super-star teams up with a celebrated director whose previous film was nominated for the Academy Awards, the expectations are gargantuan, enormous, colossal.

So when a dynamic combo - SRK and Ashutosh Gowariker - join hands, you expect the film to be, if not better, at least at par with LAGAAN. After all, comparisons with LAGAAN are inevitable!

Unfortunately, SWADES disappoints big time. The story of SWADES would’ve been ideal for a documentary, but for a feature film with a running time of 3 hour plus and starring the country’s biggest star, it just doesn’t work.

Yes, SWADES has a few interesting moments. But a handful of deftly executed sequences aren’t enough. It had to be one exciting joyride, with the 3 hour plus narrative grabbing your attention from the word ‘Go’.

I can understand that they want to be different but this is a little hilarious

SUPERSTAR OF TOMMOROW - MALE
Himesh Reshammiya (Aap Ka Suroor)
Neil Nitin Mukesh (Johnny Gaddaar)
Kunal Khemu (Traffic Signal)
Ruslan Mumtaz (Mera Pehla Pehla Pyaar)
Ranbir Kapoor (Saawariya)
Muzzamil Ibrahim (Dhokha)

SUPERSTAR OF TOMMOROW - FEMALE
Sagarika Ghatge (Chak De India)
Hansikaa Motwani (Aap Ka Suroor)
Jiah Khan (Nishabd)
Deepika Padukone (Om Shanti Om)
Sonam Kapoor (Saawariya)

BREAKTHROUGH PERFORMANCE – MALE
Shreyas Talpade (Om Shanti Om)
Imaaduddin Shah (Dil Dosti Etc)
Kal Penn (The Namesake)
Vikram Chatwal (Honeymoon Travels Pvt. Ltd)

BREAKTHROUGH PERFORMANCE – FEMALE
Chitrashi Rawat (Chak De India)
Anjana Sukhani (Salaam–E-Ishq)
Kangana Ranaut (Life… In a Metro)
Shreya Saran (Awaarapan)
Swini Khera (Cheeni Kum)
Ashwini Kalsekar (Johnny Gaddaar)
Sunita Rajwar (Ek Chalis Ki Last Local)

Roja

Bombay

Rangeela

Kandukonden Kandukonden

Taal

Dil Se

Lagaan

RDB

Zubeidaa

Guru

>>> pretty good choices. so let me disagree with the maestro himself

would replace 2 of them, taal with alai payuthe, guru with sangamam. really want to find a place for swades and kanathil muthamittal here - but cant replace any of the others.

This is a very well written piece - even though i disagree with some of the content.

Link

Saisuresh Sivaswamy | November 12, 2007 | 16:24 IST

The true sign of a successful director is not his or her first film, but the second.

On the eve of her film’s release, Farah Khan is her usual witty self as she talks about her editor husband, Om Shanti Om and Saawariya

Though director Farah Khan has spoken a lot about her film Om Shanti Om and Shah Rukh Khan, there’s still more to her and OSO as we ask her…

Let’s start with the first copy. What were the reactions of the people who saw it?
Are all questions this boring?