Desi Ud

Its been a long time since I wrote about a movie. But Udaan is something which certainly deserves a "writing".

Udaan reminded me of a zillion things, although I am always nostalgic about one thing or another, Udaan certainly brought a lot of those memories in picture. Few striking memories were of Banu and Jubhash's adventures at Mohan talkies with Bhishra sir (names changed to hide identities); me and my friends visiting chattan (we could view chimneys from there, sitting in peace, and that was a place few friends actually tried out chimney smoking too :)); just roaming around the township with its beautiful gardens, well manicured lawns, nice big houses with garden and jhoola; doing stupid kaands in school; a self-destructed diary with good amount of writings and many more. Lot of things which stay in my conscious but I generally don't talk about also came up. But every thing in a good sense.

Like Rohan even I am confused, and so are most of us, but the age is different. At Rohan's age one had the chance to take a decision, we are past that, its mostly too late for anything radical now.

About the movie, I just loved it from scene to scene, Rohan's performance, his kid bro and that of chacha Ram Kapoor. But what I really liked was Ronit Roy's anger puffed stern looks, I always thought of him as a successful businessman with a hit romantic (Jaan Tere Naam, awesome songs) and then a big TV star (Mihir 2, I am cutoff with TV post Mihir 1, so didn't really know about his acting that much), but never knew he could come up with such a brilliant one.
The setting of the movie is pretty authentic, take apart my nostalgia, it really is real, and then there is the end which was good again. My favorite song from the movie is Azaadiyan, but I really love all the songs and they just keep playing on my playlist all day long.

Another development with the movie is that few of my friends came to know about me watching this movie alone. Alone and You they said. Few inquired about my tabiyat, few about my mental state, few asked that am I happy with work or not, I just said maybe I have grown older :). Well I should say that it isn't that boring to watch a movie alone, just that you cant finish the PopCorn alone (I certainly can't). Too much of a shock for my new shauk of watching movies alone!

Its late at night now, and I am working, felt sleepy so thought would write this down in the break. That day when I ran off for this movie I was stuck, mind wasn't working the right way, the movie helped me be fresh, feel positive and super happy sorts after a long time. I felt a connect with Rohan and the settings, quite simply I felt there was just too much of me in the movie.

About writing, have lost a few, have thrown away a few, now considering should I be more serious about them? Lets see, quite a simple trigger I received during the movie.

And I think its time to get back to work again, too much of sitting and working nowadays and too much eating too, I think I will become MotuMaster soon :).

But I should be lighter, otherwise people won't raise their fingers when someone says "Desi Ud" in the cult-game "Chidiya-Ud", surely time for me to fly.

Right now, it would be back to work and then some sleep.

Yellow

All characters in this story are fictional and bear no resemblance to anyone dead or living

2005

After the great Mumbai floods engineers were repairing the sewer system of the city, an engineer mistakenly planted dynamite on one of the lines, the blast was big, and it released crores of tonnes of pure Golden shit on one of the suburbs of mumbai. To check the devestation all the shit was diverted to a large 25000 acre area designated for a SEZ soon. Area sinked, and it definitely stinked.

In that plot was hidden long back, a treasure of immense value, all of it pure gold.

Present Day

Bhairav is the coolest rag picker in the town of Mumbai, has two of everything, but misses the essential thing which should exist in pair. Apprently his boxing buddy, Langdu Sethji with manly boobs and a raunchy paunch kicked him in his gehnas once. From that day, Bhairav yearns for everything in pairs.

Langdu and Bhairav are the best rag pickers in town, but Langdu can swim saala, and that too in shit. Bhairav wants to go for treasure in the shit laden area, but Langdu says no.

Langdu's wife munni is an expert in picking rag underpants, which she even tries on herself at times. she is hot though and even Bhairav has the hots for her ;). Munni says she is poor (thats why lesser clothes) & wants to be rich & start a Safai Vidyalaya on the lines of one by Baapu at Ahmedadbad.

Cut Scene- Andheri

Langdu's brother is the top begger in Andheri, popularly known as Spam he also rides in a haathgaadi (Shaan movie's Mazhar Khan style). At night he takes part in an underground haathgaadi drifitng race. Haathgaadi race expert Don Karnash challenges him in front of his hot eucuch friend chikki. Chikki drops her pallu for the race to begin, and Spam wins it. Don Karnash asks spam to deliver a box for him which he misplaces. In between he falls in love with Chikki. Don Karnash him for life and even burns is haathgaadi. Spam hitchhikes and reaches the boundaries of Shithole where Munni, Bhairav & Langdu are waiting...

(I am cutting on the hit song, Haggi Waggi, by Chilly Min-Hug and few other songs...)

These guys hang out near the shit pond, singing Balluuuu, yeh saans pukaare, Baluuu...

and all of a sudden appears Balu, along with Madam Ritika Mahalingam and Kid Cloud waala. Punter and Dolly are not seen though.

It seems Balu is a dushman of Don Karnash & wants him badly. In the mean time Langdu developes a liking for Madam Mahalingam, much to the distaste of munni, who starts wearing even dirtier and smaller rags to catch his attention.

Climax

Don Karnash wants money from spam for loosing his box of whatever, 50 Mn Zimbabwean Dollars. As Spam and others are unaware about the latest currency rates they get scared and plan to go for the treasure. Balu has a seaplane which can carry them to shitpond and Langdu knows the location. It seems his dad almost reached the treasure. When he tells the story Kid Cloudwaala realises that he is Langdu & spam's brother who got lost on the day of floods.

But Langdu has a secret to share.

It seems their dad was off to find some treasure and he found it somewhere in the mid of shit pond, but Langdu was having loosemotions that day, and he used to the pond to do you know what. The level started rising and his dad lost control and sunk and died. Langdu is scared of that place.

But he is convinced and Balu drops him using his seaplane to the location. Here they put the anchor, Madam Mahalingam & Munni cook food and the guys go for treasure hunting.

Shit main tairne ke teen golden rule,

- Never breath
- Hamesha Saath main raho
- Never shit...otherwise, you know what can happen

They find the treasure, but Don Karnash comes and as usual grabs the heroines. Then they come out of rooms and the dress area of their arms is removed (remember the old movies, what this signified, confused me ). Anyways heros have found the treasure now (100 20 KG toilets made of solid gold), but Balu starts breathing and dies of the smell, being heavy he sinks too. The others float back, fight and rescue heriones. Bhairav is found missing.

Don Karnash tells everyone that he and Bhairav planned this and now he would kill everyone. Bhairav comes up and tells that he fooled everyone because Langdu being color blind too was the only one who could have spotted Yellow in Yellow. so he picked him and made a fool of him. He runs away and kills Don Karnash on the way by flushing him in the pond.

Madam Mahalingam uses the seaplane to go away and other live happily, but one day Bhairav calls and tells them that he has progressed from being a rag picker to India's largest toilet manufacturer, all Yellow in color. And Chikki is his wife or something.

**The End**

Request: Dont watch Blue, please

Bahut kuch ho raha hai...

Its been a while since I have blogged at length, I mean they haven't been one -liners as posted on the quark, but not much of self-generated data (don't take it literally as people do tend to assume in my case) these days.

Recently its been lots of work <===> Putting my legs in too many boats

Still Billi rules the priority list. Had an amazing weekend with sleep, LOTR, good food and finally no Bangalore outing (though still had a short one to newly opened McD). I am quite sick of moving around Bangalore now, especially the buses are hopeless and the autowaalas looking like looteras (no offense meant).

Friday as usual was movie day, Jhoom Barabar Jhoom (rhyming with Shakalaka Boom Boom, both in name and content) was quite simple horrendous. Actually its the worst movie I have ever seen. Maybe not as I only saw half of it, don't know what stopped me till interval. I simply hate my namesake (not because he took ash, but chumma[1] I hate him).

Anyway last week I met Puneet Rajkumar on the sets of Milana. Amazing guy and so down to earth being quite a big star in Kannada Cinema. We talked a bit about places we come from and Kannada Cinema. Mast person!

Along with him was the actress Parvathi, and as I heard its her first Kannada flick after a small stint in Mallu cinema. Amazing Girl :) !!! And the handshake was really amazing ;).

(Parvathi on the sets of Milana)

This pic posted just to jalofy the male readers (me not sharing my pic with her though ;)). In the movie Puneet plays a Radio Jockey. Oh by Radio last week something else also happened,

12th June, 2007 will be remembered as a day when Desi or Daisy achieved media moksha, finally. In the words of Kapil who broke the news,

Desi popular ho gaya, sahi hai

Desi(National)se ab InDesi (International) ho gaya :)

Today morning after a long wait and persistent efforts desi was able to talk to RJ Vasanti (Radio City). He has given correct answer of a movie question and won some prize too. Desi was on radio city around 8'O'clock whole Bangalore was listening to him. (ab tak ham hi sunte the)

Anyway it was not Vasanthi but Aviva who I met. I was just out of bath and listening to Radio as Aviva asked this on Radio,

Whats common in the movies Cheeni Kum, RDB, Delhi Heights and Khosla ka Ghosla?

Fir ekdum se dimmag ki ghanti baji and I SMSed 4646 as I have done for so many times this past year in Bangalore. Answer was that all the movies either fully or partly have been shot in Delhi. While ironing my shirt I got a call from Aviva, here is how the conversation went thereafter,

Aviva- Hello!
Me- Hello!!!!!!!!!!!! (a girl calling me at 7:40 AM :O)
Aviva- This is Aviva from Radio City and blah blah blah...

and it went on...I won't bore you with the rest of it. But just two things,

• I forgot most of what I was supposed to speak, I was Live on air yaar.
• It was Aviva and not Vasanthi, I would have loved to talk with Vasanthi but it was fun talking too Aviva too.

Ok the post is getting too long maybe and turning a bit baasi now. So closing it off.

[1] chumma doesnt mean a Kiss, it means just like that in Tamil, some say its written as summa but who cares, its pronounced as chumma.

p.s.- hamesha hi bahut kuch hota hai, nothing new about it. And I am desperate to watch Sivaji, someone please get me tickets.

p.p.s- Also met Naresh this Friday, it was great meeting him after a long time.

Technorati Tags: Abhishek Bachchan, Puneet Rajkumar, Milana, Jhoom Barabar Jhoom, Parvathi, Vasanthi, Radio City, Bangalore

Shakalaka boom boom: Aaaa Thhuuu

Its better if this thing falls on your head,



Rather than you watching this,


But one should take a note that even shit has some purpose, but movies like Shakalaka Boom Boom are just made without purpose.

Some bug got into my head yesterday that I went for the movie, actually was getting quite bored so went, but the 30 bucks spent on this movie quite tooooooo much.

If you are expecting a review don't expect one, because there is nothing to talk about. The one good thing, the title track was nowhere in the movie and came at the end. the movie is complete Dragon Dung or even can be called Dinosaur Dung, because such kind off dung is extinct.

Bobby Deol is completely out of match pratice, no movies for him nowadays. Upen Patel is yuk. his voice has been done by it seems the same guy who dubs for every English movie's Hindi version. Celina Jaitely, OMG!!! when she speaks it feels like her school teacher had given her such a beating that she will never come out of it, and will someone please tell her the importance of wearing clothes.

The real disappointment was Kangana Ranaut because I had really heard good things about her. Most of the movie she had a face like Geisha (White with Red) and was wearing stupid clothes. God help her with better movie selection next time. Anyway me too a culprit to have missed her earlier movies like Gangster and Woh Lamhe but maybe she is good.

And my sympathies for Anupam Kher, a great actor who had to appear in such a dud. God knows why he agreed?

Suneel Darshan sir why did you make this movie. I mean don't you know even after making so many movies what a movie is like. But I pity him, because he must have watched it like 4-5 times during editing and all, me quite lucky then in some sense.

The High Point of the movie was Bobby Deol going Deaf in the end and demons or some alien like creatures coming and eating him up from somewhere. Also the Guruji of Bobby Deol, Govind Namdeo was a nice character because he never taught anything but only heard to what Bobby said. I had a headache after watching the movie for real. One more thing to add we were about 20 odd people in the theater.

The only thing you realize after watching Shakalaka Boom Boom is that what a good movie can never be. Never watch it even if someone offers it to you for free. Even my spit will get dirty if I spit at this movie.

Technorati Tags: Shakalaka boom boom, Kangana Ranaut, Movie Review, Bobby Deol, Bollywood

Mungaru Male- Rains were never so good…

A girl, a boy, great songs, amazing locations, a pet rabbit tuning up the climax, all this creates an image of a typical-regular-common sorta movie. But if a typical movie creates an image, Mungaru Male for sure is a painting.

Set on the beautiful canvas of Madekeri (some say its something else, I don’t know though, bit of Shimoga too with Jog falls featuring) the painting is completed by monsoon which gives it the foreground. Story is quite simple and quite bourgeois when it must have been written on paper, but Director’s enterprising zeal makes this one a heart-warming experience. Ganesh as the semi-spoilt kinda to loverboy to a pyara individual is amazing. The transient nature of the character is something to take note of. Especially the drunk sequence and his breakdown in Climax are simply I have got no words.

Sanjana….aaaaaaahhhh(she is so cute). A half-wet somewhat chirpy, bubbly kind of Sanjana reminds me of Neetu Singh of 70’s. Everything from her mole which is approximately 2.3 cm from her eyes to her…, Ok will stop, I am going too crazy maybe. But maybe I will start looking for her in Bangalore now. She running near Eva Mall made me feel like going there now on Brigade and look for her. Ok will stop now.

Supporting cast (Both the mothers, Villain and Anant Nag as the girl’s Father) is awesome. Rabbit as Devdas, Hero’s Pal cum a Symbolic Pointer in the movie, is a beautiful animal well used.

Climax of the movie is something which really touched my heart. It was something which happens very rarely while seeing a movie nowadays. Raindrops surely traveled from the Screen onto lots of cheeks.

Songs are something which is a value–add to the whole experience. Anistude is a Hit but my personal favourite was Konidu Konidu.

The crew of the movie should be really praised for creating such an experience. The greenry, the wetness, the smell of coffee, everything so real and still so surreal.

By the way for someone who read all this review some more information. I don’t know more than two-three words of Kannada. Still it was not difficult to understand at all. My friend clarified a few lengthy dialogues but honestly, got the most of it without any effort. My first Kannada movie. This one truly will be one of the memorable one for few months atleast.( I saw 3 movies last weekend, at this rate a persistence of few months are signs of a classic)

Technorati Tags: Mungaru Male, Sanjana Gandhi, Ganesh, Movie Review, Kannada Movie

Salaam-e-Ishq, Guru, Me and my blog...

When I logged in today and saw last post on Jan 12 I said OMG, what has happened? Sure I kept a hell lotta busy in the month of January’07. It was too much, Convocation and the trip to Ahmedabad, hell lot of work, staying in office till 3AM at night, falling sick (again), no liquor for the whole month of January (an achievement), few new restaurants, one of the Bangalore based School pals leaving the city (sob sob…) and my trip to Pune( that will be another huge story). Everything, no blogging though. I thought its time to put something up now.

In between all this I caught up with two movies. Given the history of my movie reviews which stretch a lot this one has to be short.

Salaam-e-Ishq I didn’t like it that much except Govinda-Firangi Ladki, Salman-Priyanka and Ayesha-Akshaye stories in it. It was stretching a lot but my friends told me I was lucky enough to watch just tyhree hours of it at others saw three hours fourty minutes…J. And something more to add John and Vidya Balan were simply horrible in the movie. I saw it in second week and the movie was chopped off. One thing good were the songs though. Music was GREAT.

Guru in typical Mani Ratnam tradition is not an entertainer and not even a great blockbuster kinda movie. A movie driven on performance and Abhiwariya affair has got a so called “original” story line of a Businessman who becomes the leading businessman of the country after a journey from Gujarat to Mid-East to Bombay. For me who studied in Dhirubhai’s college it was no big deal though to guess the story. An aviator inspired climax and lot of songs were a let down. Also Mithunda and Maddy were not used that much. With this movie its proven that AR Rehmaan maybe the best music director in the country, but one can’t say that about understanding the lyrics involved. Reshmiyaa sings by nose but you can gauge the lyrics, not the same for Rehmaan songs. Abhishek si good but loads of Amitabh in there and Ash was surprisingly very good in the role. Good movie but NOT GREAT.

And that’s it. Quite short by my standards but that’s it for a post after long time.

Dhoom 2oo Good

Half way into the movie my friend suggests best GUI ever, I agree. Movie ends, a sneezing coughing already choked for air me, comes out of the theatre into the crappy Bangalore street traffic, I thought I will suffer an Asthma attack. This movie should carry a warning that it can leave you breathless. My obvious expression after every scene, “yaar saans hi nahi lene de rahe”, referring to the alternate switching scenes between icantseehercontinouslyotherwisemewillgoblind(a new adjective soon to be compiled by Webstar) Bipasha and a dunnawhattosaygaspingmouthbreathlesslungs( a new adjective soon to be compiled by Oksford) Aishwarya.

Dhoom-2 marks the return of the Great Masala Movie to Bollywood, though this time round it’s packed in Silver-foil rather than green shabby polythene covers. Infact Masala entertainers are what everyone wants after years of crappy NRI pleasing glycerine overdosed K-JO genre movies.

Hide Uday Chopra’s face and you get the most beautiful starcast assembled in modern times. Though Uday Chopra was one the biggest surprises for me in the movie as he walked away with the best lines and was the perfect thing a sidekick could ever dream of becoming. Doesn’t matter.

Abhishek Bachchan known to add the cool factor in movies like Bluffmaster etc is perfectly in compliance with the norms. He was the perfect thanda in the movie which had not much for him anyway. Doesn’t matter.

Bipasha hmm, throughout my life I have stuck to the fact that Bengali gals are the most beautiful in the country, the moment when Bipasha appears in the orange colored costume for the Touch Me number , that made orange my favourite fruit, orange my favourite colour and Holland my favourite football team for life. Second half's much talked about bikni sequence is a gracefully executed sequence which would otherwise have been turned crappy by other filmmakers. She looks athletically sexy, oozing and oomphing all kind of gasps possible. But she was close to crap in the second half. Doesn’t matter.

People say that she isn’t that great as she is talked about, agree. People say she can be dumb as an actress agree. But what you want to see you get it. Agree? Aish as Sunahari is a tribute to the beautiful Aishwarya as we have never seen before. Awesomely toned body, great dances, nicely executed graceful ishtyle. Acting, role. Doesn’t matter.

In my highly biased opinion Hrithik is the next best thingy after Amitabh and Shahrukh. I think though many flow along
this bias positively. After years we have got a Hero who does all with a soothing halo of sincerity around him, and with such panache which will put the best thinking and puzzled. Even I am puzzled how to create sentences as of now but Hrithik is sometimes too graceful to be a Bollywood hero, maybe that’s what puts him apart from the rest. Maybe he can’t act, he overacts or whatever crap people come up with, but there is hardly anyone at the moment who can challenge his screen presence. And that’s what matters maybe.

And the Hrithik-Ash pair is something to look out for, they click like anything together, leave the kissh out but the scenes together even Hrithik and Ash coming together gives you that feeling that someone has put smoldering embers under you on the seat. Looking forward to much more from the pair, it's definitely better than she gets along with the Baccha Bachchan.

Anyway nice watch, it’s time we realize that those critics cribbing about good stories are mostly wrong, one can create great entertainers even without a story.

Technorati tags: Dhoom 2,Movie Review,Bollywood, Hrithik Roshan,Aishwarya Rai,Abhishek Bachchan

DDLJ...revisited

Next week Kabhi alvida ... is coming out. For a change me planning to go to PVR this time rather than my favourite hall in Bangalore ( Kamkhya @Rs 35). One thing I need to do is take one of my buddies to the movie. Last shahrukh movie he saw was DDLJ. Anyway DDLJ; I wrote this thing few months back, thought I would push it here. A review for DDLJ...

Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge aka DDLJ....landmark would be too petty a word to use for it. In first look it looked a follow up to the previous year 1994 Super Duper hit Hum Aapkein Hain Kaun. But its predecessor could at best be titled an extended shaadi video this remains a classic. Well 1995 remains a landmark year also another trendsetter and one of my all time favourites Rangeela took to screen. But so strong were the winds of change that DDLJ brought that swept all.
Economically DDLJ is right up there but what it did was the opening up of now prevalent (and sometimes the only existing) NRI markets for movie. This movie tapped a market the second third generation Indian in foreign countries. They hungry for DeshPrem(not loving me:P) and our movies getting the much needed globalization push.

Now coming to the movie. In true sense story remains the same old one...the boy girl affair with the girl’s dad as the tingling factor. But what was different was the packaging. Girl loves boy but not in the age old silly gardens of Mumbai but those of Europe. Love on travel was a concept which was new to Indian cinema and so was the coming back to India and all the melodrama associated with it.

The director sure did milk Punjab the most showing the great and shining India (please some one remind the Chopra’s that this is the state with the most skewed sex ratio in India) and thus evoking the melodramatic intensity necessary for such a big movie.

More than anything the movie belonged to Shahrukh Khan and Kajol. This was one of the best from the pairings whom we loved in Baazigar and after DDLJ in KKHH,KKK...blah blah blah....Supporting casts was great especially Amrish Puri, Anupam Kher(as the father of RAJ) and Mandira Bedi(without her noodle straps ;))...hehe

Raj and Simran are unforgettable and so is the music of the movie. Though I should mention that out of the 13 which DDLJ won (filmfares) they didn't win the one for best music which went to Rangeela instead. But music remains as good as it can get with each song a super hit.

Also this began the start of marketing skills being put into the movie. I mean this was the first one of which we saw "the making of"...never before we did hear of anything similar.

Boss none can argue its presence among the best in Indian Cinema. I have watched it 40 odd times....still not bored of it...still very much DDLJ...And a change that DDLJ brought that every time a get onto a train I stand on the door and wait so that a nice girl comes running up to me and I extend my arm and.......obviously nothing would happen. If I am lucky enough she would rather miss me and don’t misunderstand me for a beggar or something :)

Technorati Tags: Shahrukh Khan, DDLJ, Kajol, Movie Review