Delhi 6

Today, I bought the CD for the soundtrack for Delhi-6.

You have got to give it to A R Rahman. The guy is on a roll. Since last year he has been composing for various movies, all of different genres. And all of his compositions have been awesome.

This soundtrack is no different. So far its just the three songs that I am grooving to. Will be catching up with the rest sooner or later.

1. Masakali.

2. Dilli-6.

3. Yeh Kaala Bandar.

The Dilli-6 song, though does have some gibberish in it in the form of a few french words. But that apart, its pretty good. Masakali, takes the cake though. Have already set my Blackberry Bold 9000 ringtone to Masakali!! :)

Dostana – Loads of hype…

Well well.. I watched Dostana y`day. To rate it, I would say maybe around 2.5/5.

And about how the movie is? Well, Shilpa and Priyanka look a million bucks… Apart from that.. its an overdose of stupid gay jokes. Towards the end of the movie, it gets tiring.. You are almost thinking, not again… not another one of these gay jokes. Sure, there are some original jokes; for example, the one where Kiron Kher asks John to make sure he keeps karwachauth. But otherwise most of the jokes seem to be lifted straight out of some of the english movies.

The movie clearly lacks a story line… Its worked only because of ambush marketing tactics… My say, not worth it…

The 3 Mistakes Of My Life

This is the name of the new Chetan Bhagat novel. I must say, its good!!!
Dont worry Mr. Chetan Bhagat, I am not about to spill the beans on your new book.
Well, coming back to the book, its about a story set in a Gujarat. It takes two significant events that have happened in Gujarat, the Bhuj earthquake and the Godhra massacre, and adds our favourite national sport cricket to make a good concoction....
The narrative is gripping and fast paced, which makes for a good reading.
Folks, please do pick a copy, its a good book.

Big Willy Weekend

This weekend was the Big Willy Weekend. With my family, I watched 3 Will Smith movies on the trot.

The movies being:

1. Hitch.
2. I Am Legend.
3. The Pursuit of Happyness. ( Yeah, Happiness with a 'y', that is how its spelt in the movie).

The three movies touch upon three different views of life and all three are different genres of movie.

Its wonderful to see Will Smith portray three different characters with such finesse.

The first I saw, Hitch, portrays him as a date doctor, helping people (mostly men) with their problems in approaching the opposite sex. And how some idiot thinks that Will Smiths character is there to help him with his "Wham Bham, Thank You M'am" approach to life. In the idiots own words, "Get In, Get Off, Get Out". But in fact Will Smiths character is out there to help people who are genuinely interested in the opposite sex. The Bollywood rip off, "Partner" is a cheap imitation.

The next one I saw, I Am Legend, shows him as Dr. Robert Neville. An acclaimed scientist working on a cure for the virus that has already killed a 90% of Earths population, and converted a large percent of the surviving populace into bloodthirsty mutants. Some of the moments in that movie, especially the ones that convey his loneliness in view of the death of his canine friend are depicted wonderfully.

And last but not the least, The Pursuit Of Happyness, that shows him as a loving father who succeeds in achieving his goals despite all odds. This is one hell of a movie. You almost want to go and help him looking at him struggling through his life.

All the movies so different and so entertaining, and yet I never felt heavy after watching them. Compare that to a usual SRK melodrama, boy oh boy, I am waiting to get myself admitted to hospital to check out on the status of my health. I am not a SRK baiter,  but I just cant seem to digest his last offering Om Shanti Om. If not for the songs, except Dard-E-Disco, the movie is a total sucker.

Never mind, It felt wonderful watching these three movies. Hope, Will Smith keeps acting in such wonderful movies.

TZP

I recently watched Taare Zameen Par, the directorial debut by Aamir Khan. I am at loss of words to speak about the movie. Brilliant would be an understatement. The way the story has been handled speaks volumes about Aamir's caliber as a director. The movie doesn't indulge in any over the top melodramatic display of emotions. The emotions are portrayed subtly, with every character well defined. All the actors have delivered terrific performances.

There are moments in the first half where I felt that Darsheel's character has something in common with Calvin from the Calvin and Hobbes cartoon series. Overall a wonderful movie. I completely enjoyed it. Compared to another movie I had seen, Om Shanti Om, this in my opinion is miles ahead in its execution, story and direction.

Om Shanti Om!!!

What a load of crap!!!

Farah Khan could have done better!!! The only promising part about the movie is "Deepika Padukone".

The movie is a useless rehash of the countless reincarnation movies available in Bollywood. Though it has a stark resemblance to the classic "Karz". 

I am not gonna waste my time and effort in writing about this movie. Agreed I njoyed some parts of the movie, the songs etc. But after half time the movie goes into a downward spiral. The nuisance value just increases!!!

An interesting aspect I want to share is this. The title song "Om Shanti Om" which has lots of stars coming in for a guest appearance was quite good. And in this song, I almost blacked out SRK. From my perspective He just dint exist in any frame of the song. I was just too busy looking at the other actors/actresses. Ditto for the song, Dard-e-Disco. Wasn't looking at SRK at all, was looking at the other dancers. Almost all the songs, that's precisely what I was doing!!!

Catch it on a DVD later sometime, when you have absolutely nothing to do....

Times rated it as 3.5/5 I say 2.5 would suffice!!!

300

Yes, I know, late for a review about this movie. But nevertheless, my opinions about the movie I just saw.
The movie, well not historically accurate, but yes some what close to it. An exaggeration to make it even more spectacular. Visually spectacular, a definite yes.

Visually I would say this movie is amazingly shot. But the violence is sometimes quite over the top. Haven't seen many movies before this which show the entire sequence of a person being beheaded. The action sequences are just awesome. I have seen the behind the scenes footage of this movie and I would say its definitely a lot of hard work. The movie has been made as close as possible to the comic strip its been derived from. The training that the warriors had to go through is so strenuous. Overall I would say its definitely worth watching. Though you might wanna avoid making accurate references to actual historical events. Just enjoy it as a visually spectacular and excessively violent movie.

Though, this does make me wonder, if this simple story of 300 warriors who stop the raging Persian army can be made so visually spectacular, the treatment of our own mythologies of Mahabharata and The Ramayana and many others could be made so much more wonderful.

Wish some major Hollywood studio decides on doing this.

Cleopatra - The Play

Cleopatra, this was the name of the play I saw yesterday. This is not some official review, but some thoughts I would like to write out.
The play was well directed. It seemed just right, though it could do better. The characters were well portrayed by the cast. Personally, I liked the character of Julius Caesar`s son ( I don't recall the name right now). This person was also the director of the play. The rest of the cast was good as well.

One line which would remain etched in memory would be the one said when one of Mark Antony`s key lieutenant switches loyalties to Caesar before the war.
It goes some thing like "Its easy for the wise to betray, for the wise can outsmart their conscience.!!!"

The play does not narrate the entire story of Cleopatra, I believe its expects its audience to be aware of Cleopatra and Julius Caesar`s love story. The play starts from the point where Julius Caesar is no more, and Mark Antony and Cleopatra are in love with each other. This is also about the same time when Rome is faced with external threats. It builds up on Caesars frustration at Mark Antony being lost in love with Cleopatra, ignoring Rome.

The story is built on these premises, and I dont wanna spoil the fun of watching it, by writing all its story!!!
You should be probably going and seeing it for yourselves.

Just one observation... I was hoping that people would know how to behave during a play. We had people who were rude enough to keep their cellphones on full blast during the duration of the play, absolutely rude and uncouth!!!