Movie review Padmavat

I really wanted to watch the movie in the theater but somehow missed the boat and finally caught up to it on Amazon Prime. If I can summarize the movie in one sentence “it is plain stupid” or as I told my relatives in Kannada “ಪೆದ್ದು  ಪೆದ್ದಾಗಿ  ಮಾಡಿದಾರೆ ”.

After watching the movie Sri Sri Ravishankar gave a green light, I would have told Mr. SLB to go back to the drawing board and make it a bit more realistic. Half way through the movie I lost interest, which I rarely do in a period drama.

Here are my top N things that I couldn’t comprehend in my logical brain

• The king of Chittor is in present day Lanka to get pearls and went for hunting, why was he alone where were his body guards? the same goes for the princess.
• When Ala-uddin lays siege on Chittor first time, why didn’t he come with siege equipment?, he had an insider to help and didn’t that insider give him tips on the kind of fortress he will be attacking?
• Fine he didn’t bring first time, but the siege was for frigging 6 long months and no one thought of getting them or building them?
• Rajputs knew in and out of Ala-uddin and Malik Kafur but they didn’t know who the traitor helping him and they all act surprised when they see him.
• When the Rajaguru was thrown out of kingdom why wasn’t there anyone following him, essentially where was the intelligence network
• The king goes to meet Aladdin in his almost burned out camp, so why were the body guards not surrounding the camp but were standing 200 feet away on one side?
• Besides why did the king go without his sword?, Ala-uddin didn’t put that condition to him.
• The last battle is beyond saving, the king no longer is the king but a lover fighting to save glory of his beloved.
• The contrast they have tried to show between Padmavati and the other wife of the king seems to be drawn from Ekta Kapoor’s serials.
• Escape from the prison in Delhi is totally laughable.

There are a few more but not worth my time. In the end, if you haven’t seen it, don’t waste your time. If you have, my sympathies for you.

Te3n – Hindi Movie

There are “thrillers” and real thrillers, Te3n movie belongs to the category of real thrillers, I would qualify it in the same league as Kahani or Drishya if not higher. Going by the title I had presumed the movie has got to do with game of cards and was pleasantly surprised when that was not true.

The movie kept me and Sandhya on the toes from the start to end.  Sandhya, who usually is good in guessing the plot half way through the movie was also thrilled by the movie.

The story line is simple, a desperate grand father wants a closure to the kidnap and eventual death of his beloved grand daughter. For everyone including the police department it is a closed case for despite their best efforts at the time of incident they couldn't solve it and there is no new intel that can throw some fresh light. To top it off, the kidnapping/death is one such unique case and such a case has never repeated again. For the police it is a case file and for the grand father it is his grand daughter. What happens next is the story. All the actors (Amitabh Bachan, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Vidya Balan and few others) have given very real controlled performances, no item songs or fight scenes. 

Grab a bucket of popcorn, find the movie and watch it without fail, you can thank me later for recommending it. 

ps: it is available on einthusan.com 

Rangi Tharanga

I had heard a great deal about this movie called Rangi Tharanga and when Sandhya told me that the director Anup Bhandari was her classmate once upon a time, I definitely wanted to see the movie. In general I would Google the movie before hand and would have had an idea about the plot but this time around I made an exception to the rule and went to the theater blank slate.

So, what is the movie about? 

• A horror, romantic, suspense thriller with slight amount of action
• A movie that throws curve ball after curve ball towards the audience
• A movie that keeps you on the edge of the seat from start to end (no, not like Bourne series) 
• A movie that re-defines suspense thrillers
• A movie with some wonderful songs
• A movie which doesn’t add songs for no reason
• A movie that has the fewest technical and logical flaws
• A movie that has the best cinematography along with best story and best direction
• A movie with the original story, last one with this level of intensity was Kahani in hindi
• A movie that for the first time ever in my life-time in Austin had 4 shows in a theater and almost all shows were packed
• A movie that had a good blend of old and new talents
• A movie that had brand new artists who performed like veterans
• A movie that is definitely not a family (I wouldn’t recommend for kids) entertainer
• A movie that in my ratings would be a PG-13    

Great job Anup Bhandari, hope to see more work like this in the future.

If you haven’t seen it and there is a chance to see in a theater do it, its worth the money and time. 

Lucia–Kannada movie

One more blog due to the India trip, the movie was discussed big time during my high school reunion and apparently one of my school friends had worked on the movie (don’t remember in what capacity he worked though), Incentive enough to watch isn’t it?, My fellow friends did offer me the pirated copies of the movie but due to lack of time and lack of initiative from my side it never happened.

Now back in USA and alone, I figured lets Google it. Learnt quite a few things about the movie, it is the first crowd funded movie in Kannada  and it has won some awards in the international level, some even call it Kannada’s answer to Inception the English movie. If you want the plot and all such things then there is the Wikipedia, but take my advice and just watch the movie by paying $5(not pirated).

Its not too long, just 2 hours and a few minutes and packs enough punch to keep you engrossed the whole time. Not as complex as Inception but in the bigger picture it is sort of inspired by Inception.

Its truly an edge of the seat thriller and one of the best Kannada movies ever made. The actors are not some hi-flying stereo types in Kannada movie but the ones who were famous for playing the side kicks and comedian roles in Kannada movie. The songs are just out of this world. The story line, direction, casting, acting and pretty much every aspect of the movie is done to perfection and one will be hard pressed to find fault in the movie. I would say almost a perfect movie (I am sure if looked hard enough one can find a fault here and there).

I definitely recommend it for my Kannada speaking friends and for those who can’t the movie has subtitles too. Still with me, you can find the rental here. Please don’t pirate its not just another run off the mill movie.  

D-Day Hindi Movie

Spoiler Alert: I may have disclosed part or parts of the plot of the movie. 

Last night me and Sandhya managed to catch the movie D-Day, an extremely well done Hindi fictional movie on nabbing Mr.D from Pakistan and bringing him to India. So far I have seen quite a few so called thriller movies in Hindi some original and some pirated either from Hollywood or from other languages in India itself, this sits almost at the top.

To be fair, In the past Bollywood has taken up good story lines and manage to goof it up pretty badly, few movies at top of my head are Zameen which was based on Indian airlines flight hijack to Afghanistan and the movie Qayamat which is supposedly a rip off of Rock and many more like that if I think hard. Both the movies made me twitch and turn in my seat, I couldn’t take them for more than 15 mins.   

Watching the movie it appeared that Rishi Kapoor has thoroughly enjoyed playing the role of the gangster. The roles of vulnerable Wali Khan played by Irfaan Khan is very well portrayed. Of course Arjun Rampal as the silent assassin is also well played. Sad that Huma Quareshi and Shruti Hassan does not have much role to play. I must appreciate the casting director for doing such an excellent job. Most movies will either have a good first half or good second half but this movie will keep you at the edge of the seat till the very end. 

The thing that stood out for me in the movie is its boldness in terms of its dialogues. I felt the story line stayed pretty close to reality, the cat and mouse game is very well shown. Of course there is a love angle also which is some what short and does not hamper the narration.

I am not saying it is a perfect movie as I was able to find quite a few loop holes that I failed to explain to myself. One will fail to understand how the character of Irfaan Khan sitting in Pakistan is openly communicating using an old Nokia phone with his handler who is the head of R&AW sitting in India. One would expect needs to be a highly secure line. 

But if you are in for a good thriller and a Hindi movie, then I would definitely recommend D-Day.

As I said before, it is a fiction and one of those things that we Indians keep thinking to ourselves “if only it can happen like this”.

Life of Pi – The movie

Long time ago, I remember reading the book “Life of Pi” and being thoroughly impressed by it. I don’t think I ever thought that some one would venture to make a movie out of it and that too it will turn out this good.  In my experience, there are only few movies that I could say the movies surpasses the books they are based on and I am more than willing to accept Life of Pi is one of them.

The book in case one has not read, is the story of a boy named Pi who for some reason  gets stuck on a boat with a Bengal tiger in the middle of the pacific ocean, how he managed to reach the land and the bonding he made with that tiger forms the rest of the story. I loved the book for it offered different perspective on life, on the life of animals at zoo and the funny narratives about how the boy was named Pi Patel while the rest of the family had normal Indian names.

The movie has gone a few steps beyond and I loved the way they have added Irfan Khan’s character (playing the adult Pi Patel) as a wrapper to the whole story. The narrative is amazing and the photography is mind blowing. I must admit parts of the movie were too real for my taste, but that’s the way the book is written. Every single actor is in their true elements. The ying and yang with father and mother playing the head and the heart roles is brought out really nice. In short it is a master piece and is worth the time.

To describe my own experience of watching the movie, after a hard day on Saturday. I was pretty tired and wanted to sleep off but on insistence of Sandhya (who had seen it before) I sat to watch the movie saying to myself that I would watch for just half hour and then sleep, but little did I know that I would be so engrossed and occupied with the movie that I sat through the whole movie of nearly 2 hrs and few mins. Keep in mind, I have read the book and I know the ending and there is no suspense element involved in the movie for me. 

ps: I should have caught this movie in an IMAX theater but as luck shall have it I saw it at the comfort of my home.

Oh my god - movie worth a watch

Last year (2012) there was a movie called Oh my god released with Paresh Rawal and Akshay Kumar as the lead and I had completely discarded it for I was skeptical of Akshay Kumar after his disaster of a movie called Joker and weird movie that became a hit Housefull-2. But some how this year a friend of mine mentioned that it is worth a watch and was available on Youtube, so I took a chance.

The story is different than any movie I have seen before, and it is something that is relevant to the present times. It is the story of an atheist  Guajarati businessman who loses his business to an earthquake and his claim is denied by insurance company for they do not cover damages that is considered “act of god”. So, the businessman files a case against god himself, since he cannot summon god himself he calls the heads of various religious organizations (watch the movie for I do not want to spoil and dilute the reasoning behind this call) and what happens next is the story.

The movie is some what a summation of all my adult life thoughts on god and his presence. The movie does make a ton of fun on blind faith and belief that we carry on specially in India. The logical arguments in the movie has the potential to make one think hard. It has a good and happy ending too and a very nice message in the end, not sure how practical it is though.

I recommend the movie and it is worth a watch.  

Naanu nanna kanasu

Naanu nanna kanasu (translated Me and my dream) a movie in Kannada by Prakash Rai. I had avoided the movie till last week when my wife forced me to watch the movie with her. I believed I had good reasons to avoid for I believed that the movie is a depressing and sad movie. Boy! was I totally wrong, and I am thankful to Sandhya for making me watch it.

The story is simple and I can positively say it is the story  of every parent. It is the life story of a girl from her birth till the day she gets married, told from the point of view of her loving, caring and devoted father. What captures the attention is the narration and the acting by the lead stars. One can relate to a lot of events described in the movie.  It has its tender moments and laughing scenes but doesn’t have much of forced comedy. Couple of scenes are worth mentioning, the scene of parents preparing for an interview to get their kid to the school and the way dad reacts when he finds out that mom knew about daughter’s love matter before him.

If I remember right, it has couple of songs which were ok, not worth mentioning, but at the same time weren’t bad enough that I couldn’t sit through. I was so sold on the depressing story line of the movie that through out the movie I was waiting for the mother to die, thankfully nobody died in the movie.  In the end it turned out to be a comedy than a depressing and sad movie. 

As with any movie, this has its sets of exaggerations, specially the story line of the son-in-law or the altruistic nature of the girl or the way that the family friends doesn’t age at all. Most of it can be ignored for the movie is really well done.

Definitely worth a watch once. If interested one can see it legally on YouTube. Sorry guys, no subtitles.

One word of caution, the movie as expected is dominated by Prakash Rai and there is not a single scene without him.

Bollywood movie piracy?

There is an Indian store in my neighborhood which is fairly famous and sells good quality stuff. They also sell DVDs of newly released Hindi movies. Mind you they have the DVDs within a few days of the movie release (not DVD but movie). The DVDs are not really actual official DVD of the movie but the quality is highly sufficient enough to watch the movie.

These DVDs are what we in India used to call camera prints, till day my understanding of camera print is that some person smuggles a video camera to a movie theater and records the movie. In the olden days these prints were so bad in quality that the audio would be out of sync with the video and if you are lucky you could see a few audience moving in and out of the theater along with the movie and if you are unlucky you would just see the audience itself and not the movie at all. Those days in India was the era of VHS and depending on which video store you visit you would get different quality of the movie. Fast forward to present, The DVDs are almost passable for a near official DVD release(barring the colors being off), you only see the movie and nothing else. The audio is well in sync with the video.

I am now wondering if there is a centralized underground company that uses some high tech equipments to record these DVDs. Here is my reasoning, the Indian store charges $3/dvd and he does not rent DVD but sells it to you. If the movie happens to be a decent hit like Ghajini or 3 Idiots, he would sell close to a thousand or more of each before the official movie DVD releases. To generate such an income, I am sure he has to pay dearly to get these quality DVDs.

On one side, if you are ok with watching a decent quality cinema print on your Hi-Def TV then you get the instant gratification of watching the movie that you missed watching in theater. On the other hand, I feel sorry for the Bollywood movie makers for their loss of income due to this.

I think the reason for existence of these things arise from the fact that we would compromise with the quality for almost instant gratification (almost because one has to go to the store to pick up the DVD).

No offence to the people selling the DVDs or to people buying them for I myself have gotten them some times but just thought it is a good idea to bring to attention the scale of this.          

Movie Guzaarish

Guzaarish, a high profile movie with heavy weights Aishwarya Rai and Hirtik Roshan, movie is directed by another heavy weight Sanjay Leela Bhansali (SLB). I watched this movie on Netflix streaming last week. Before the movie I thought I will have something to write about and after the movie I thought otherwise. But after a few days of cooling off, I figured there are a few things I can write about.

The movie is unique for it tries to address the issue of euthanasia, and does a bad job in doing it. I think SLB didn’t want to make an art movie out of Hirtik and Aishwarya so the movie became a “commercially blended art movie”. The movie had the potential to raise to the heights of movies like Philadelphia (I know we are dealing with completely different things here)  but it doesn’t even go anywhere near.

The story line is simple, one time great magician and now a quadriplegic radio host Ethan wants to end his life. Its been 14 years since he has been bed ridden and been an inspiration to lots of people like him. One fine day he decides to end his life, so he files a petition with the court for euthanasia, rest of he story you can find on Wikipedia.

In spite of being a commercial blend, the movie does show the struggles of Ethan’s life, his never say die spirit and his total dependency on some one to take care of him. My biggest complaint is of the government lawyer who does not do his job right. From my point of view, court room was a joke. The witnesses called were even bigger joke. 

The movie did raise the question in me, who owned Ethan’s life?, The guy can’t do anything in life and he has no visible responsibilities either towards the society or towards family. He cannot sustain his life style as he is deep in debt. The only part of the body he can move is his head. His kidneys are already shot and his lungs are also failing, the chances of him getting better are 1 in 10s of millions. With all these reasons I felt the court was wrong in saying he cannot opt for euthanasia. I would have at least referred the case to the higher court to decide.

SLB had a chance to create history by making court room drama more dramatic, more involved and giving a land mark judgment allowing the person for euthanasia or at the least referred to the higher courts but I feel he failed.