Chintadhara - a thought process

Slumdog Millionaire ... a truly entertaining fantasy. If you have not experienced it yet then that's the first thing you should do instead of reading further. With 8 Academy Awards , 4 Golden Globe Awards and 7 BAFTA Awards , the film itself has lived its reel-life story in real-life. I had seen this movie on its release in US and two things made a lasting impression on my mind that I am writing in retrospect. First is the unique story about how so many unrelated and tragic events can help Jamal, the protagonist, answer the tough quiz questions. Kudos to Simon Beaufoy . The second is the acting done by the child actors from the Mumbai slum, very effortless. And now there is a third, 3 Oscars coming to India! The movie had its share of noise when it was released in India. There was a debate on the way slums and harsh realities of the life in the underbelly of Mumbai were shown. Then there was discussion about whether this was a India film or a foreign film. But why these questions...

I hope Holi was colourful and exciting for everyone. Today I watched a movie which has its name related to the festival of Holi , though the storyline has nothing to do with the festival. Gulaal ... a slow but fascinating storyline. The story revolves around student politics while also touching many other issues including campus ragging, caste biases among others in an interesting way. Set in the backdrop of varied Rajasthan terrain storyline is bit slow but is watchable till the end for the characters and actors who play them. Kay Kay Menon as always gives a wonderful performance. Moving to another Kay Kay Menon movie ... The Stoneman Murders , which I had watched few weeks back. This one is based on the real-life serial murders of hapless footpath dwellers in Mumbai during early 80s. The Stoneman was a name given by the popular English language print media of Kolkata to an alleged serial killer who menaced the streets of that city in 1989. The Kolkata killings had a striking simil...

... and of course the sportsmen who made it so. Abhinav Bindra . Sushil Kumar . Vijender Kumar . My heartiest congratulations to them for their dream achievement! Also there are few more things to remember about India at Olympics 2008 . We had a contingent of 56 athletes, and they had a support-staff of 42 officials. The athletics contingent was the largest, with 16 athletes. Still in very few events only we came close enough to think about medals and finally won 3 precious. No, I am not blaming the sportsmen/sportswomen. They would have worked really hard to be there and compete. Its the support structure which is weak. If you looks at the 3 medal winners they had their own personal support structure which supported them till they got those medals. Another thing which we should not forget is that India was not able to qualify for the hockey, our national sports. We should also remember these while thinking for London 2012 Games . But now is a time to celebrate with Abhinav, Sushil and...

I am referring to the latest Bollywood releases - Aamir and Sarkar Raj . Frankly Aamir was not even on my to-watch list. I was eagerly waiting for Sarkar Raj though since I had enjoyed Sarkar a lot. But after reading through the reviews of Aamir and also I did like Rajeev Khandelwal in whatever few episodes of Left Right Left I watched; I decided to watch Aamir before Sarkar Raj. When you go for something without any expectation; if it turns out to be bad you do not mind because no expectation means to expect it to be bad but if its good you are overwhelmed. With Aamir it was the second! Splendid acting by Rajeev with a fresh and crisp storyline. The movie is equally thought provoking. Its surely a must watch. Sarkar Raj was bit less than what I expected. I felt it has the same storyline as Sarkar, I do not know how many of you will agree with me but I can draw parallel between the two in every sequence. I wont do that here as many of you are yet to watch it. For me, it was more ...

Wish you all a very happy 2008! May you and your loved ones have all the joy, success and good health! But I wrote 'Welcome' in the title with a dual reason. Today only I watched the recently released Hindi movie - Welcome . Laughed all the way through it. Akshay, Anil and of course Nana & Paresh rock!! Katrina and Mallika supported well :). Go and watch for yourself! Have an exciting 2008!

Ocean's series is getting better with each increment. With Ocean's Thirteen they came back to Las Vegas, where it all started. I saw the movie today only and its very much lives up to my high expectations. With a star cast like George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Al Pacino; what can possibly go wrong? This time Ocean (Clooney) and Rusty (Pitt) are robbing Bank (Pacino). And as usual they do it in style. Best thing like about the Ocean's series is the humor, its subtle but sharp. The actual plan is cleverly masked from the audience till the very end though the entire planning is shown in detail. And last but not the least the start cast, its the best lot, each one of the character is equally entertaining. Honestly I don't need to fill good adjectives here to convince you to go for it. I knew it would be a must watch even before I had seen it and now I am confident. If you have missed Eleven and Twelve , don't worry you can still watch Thirteen and catch those two on DVDs...

This is the only part which I saw it in the theater out of the three. I watched the earlier two editions on DVD in preparation to going for this one. First edition ( The Curse of the Black Pearl ) really caught my attention. Johny Depp as Capt. Jack Sparrow is awesome with his unique style. I think he is USP of all the three parts, without him the movies will loose half their charm. Second edition ( Dead Man's Chest ) was bit of average where the director mostly continues with the narration and holds the story. Also this part sees bit less action from Johny Depp, maybe thats why I kind of felt it a bit boring. Third edition ( At World's End ) is truly the best of all three. Its like a cherry on the cake. Special effects, locations, plot ... in fact in all ways its very good. Also, Capt. Jack Sparrow is back in his full action. The plot of the movie moves and changes so fast that you left guessing till the end whats going to happen at the world's end. I specially like the sc...

Cheeni Kum . Latest Amitabh Bachchan release and I guess the first one with Tabu. Both Amitabh and Tabu are splendid in their work. Though its a cliche but thats the only thing good about the movie. Only entertaining pieces in the movie are the scenes between Amitabh and Tabu. Amitabh's mother, child actor 'Sexy' and even Paresh Rawal are more of burdens on the movie. For me the movie ended with interval. After interval the hunger strike by Paresh Rawal and movie getting dragged around it was simply diabetic. I think its best to miss this movie unless you are big Amitabh or Tabu fan, because they are the only things to watch in the movie.

Its quite a while since I saw Bheja Fry . But didn't get the time to write about it. Movie for those who really love genuine comedy. Though the movie is average in many aspects but you will have a nice laugh start to end. All the credit goes to Vinay Pathak (aka Bharat Bhushan), who single handedly makes the movie a worth watching. Rajat Kapoor gives him a good support but director could have done better with him. Others like Sarika, Milind Soman and Ranvir Shorey are simply extra baggage. None of them add much value to the movie. On a whole its definitely a must watch. This is probably the first time the comic potential of Vinay Pathak has been utilized fully. You might not be expecting anything from the film and might come out highly satisfied. That is the best thing about the film.

If you read this post well in time stay away from Spider-Man 3 . It easily finds its way to the my most boring movies' list. It can way be called an action movie, the best it can be called a romantic movie but that too will be a crime to many beautiful romantic flicks. I frankly do not have anything to say about it. Don't what they tried to show in the movie. Spiderman is half-time confused and other-half fighting with his girlfriend. Takes lot of time to reach the scene of action, like the Bollywood cops even they have improved these days. Total incapable to match the bad guys. So many stories intermingled and almost nil action, whatever action is there Superman is trying to save himself, makes this edition a big time disaster. You can surely count me out even if they are optimistic to make 4th edition, cant risk it second time.

Thats the Tamil movie I saw this Friday. My 4th one after coming to Chennai. No, don't get an idea that I have learned Tamil. 2 years in the city I still hardly managed the language. Yes, I can communicate and understand but definitely not converse or follow Tamil. For the movie I went with my office colleagues so had lots translators to help me out. After movie we went to KFC. We had a nice time and lots of fun, including one of them banging in a glass wall not realizing there was glass wall. :) About Unnale Unnale ? The movie was boring, not because I understood only 60% but in fact in Hindi too it would have been equally boring. But songs were definitely cool.

Two movies - The Pursuit of Happyness and 300 , so different in the era and story yet so same in the underlying message. In both movies the protagonist is alone on the path to achieve something he believes in. Its very difficult to pursue a path on which you have no support but you know its the right one. Many of us will stop mid-way but few go till the end and become legends. Other go to see the movies of their tales, clapping and whistling, people like me. :) The Pursuit of Happyness , splendid piece of work by Will Smith . The real life story of Chris Gardener narrated in a beautiful movie. Smith, who plays Gardener himself, and his real-life son are simply awesome. Personally enjoyed every moment of the movie and would recommend not to miss it at any cost. 300 , on the other hand is more close to fantasy, Spartan King Leonidas and 300 Spartans fight to the last man against Persian King Xerxes and his army of over one million soldiers, yet very inspiring. Nothing new or amazing i...

Posting in retrospection, as the tale happened about a month back. Forgot the day but it was an interesting one. That day I saw three movies, each quite different. Movie names? Serendipity , Eklavya: The Royal Guard and T he Devil Wears Prada . Serendipity . Watched it over the internet. With unlimited broadband connection you do not mind the buffering time. I had first watched this movie about an year back and liked it very much. Unfortunately never got a chance to watch it again after that. Then luckily I stumbled on it in the internet. It's nice little romantic story. After watching it this time eagerly searching for the video CD/DVD to add to my collection. Eklavya: The Royal Guard . This one I watched in theater with my new roomie in evening. First Bollywood flick of 2007. An Amitabh Bachan film. Though the film boasted of many other heavy weights but story was weaved around Eklavya (Amitabh's character). The film was bit slow in it's pace but the plot holds you with...

Just back from a night show of The Departed at INOX, Chennai . Many firsts happened today. First time went to INOX , first time went to Chennai City Center mall in which INOX is located and first Hollywood movie in 2007 which I saw in theater. Chennai City Center mall . Newest kid on the block. It has been quite a while it opened but I never got a chance to visit it before today. All this days I visited only Spencer Plaza on Mount Road . City Center is impressive architecturally from both outside and inside but somehow I felt thats where its attraction ends. It is nowhere close to the size and the number of shops which Spencer Plaza has to offer. I guess it will be just an second option after Spencer , which will continue to be my first choice. INOX, Chennai . Newest multiplex in Chennai. INOX met my expectations with the quality of interiors, seating and overall experience. But unfortunately INOX will stay my second choice after Sathyam which was my only option before INOX cam...

Say it luck or anything, I was waiting to go for Dhoom-2 for a long time and finally this weekend the wait was over ... twice. Something like the double-premiere of Sahara One. About the movie? Nothing much to say. Girls, bikes, stunts and music that was the USP of the first edition and same is the case here. Though he second half predominantly is a love story which causes it to drag a bit. Stunts are really cooler in this one, especially those by Hrithik . Bollywood has surely matured quite a lot in terms of how the new and copied stunts are executed and used in the movie. If they are planning a series then I think all Bollywood actors will be wishing to get the thief’s role, because the entire movie is made with the thief in focus and rest others supporting him. Abhishek did a good job with whatever he got, but for some funny reason he forgot to go to gym for the movie or maybe when your wife is pregnant you should also put on weight just to give her company. One thing where this o...

Yesterday night my roomie and I reached home around 9pm; I was in bit early and was watching Shiva on TV. He came and asked shall we go for a movie. Two movies were pending - Casino Royale and Dhoom-2 , but I was not thinking as he was ill and just came in after a drive. I am always ready to go out, and since he brought up the topic, so get-set-go. The nearest theater, Ega , was showing Dhoom-2 . We decided to go for it. We knew getting tickets will not be a problem as you can definitely get tickets in 'not-to-be-mentioned-ways' . Just when we starting my roomie's friend called in and said that today's rate in Ega is Rs. 200/- (extremely costly!), but it would have been a bigger tragedy if we would have dropped our plan then. His friend was at Woodlands , another theater, trying to get tickets for Casino Royale . We told him to get two more for us. Luckily he got the tickets and we saved lot of bucks (Rs.140/- per head). I had got quite a varied feedback for Casino Roy...

Don - The Chase Begins Again , directed by Farhan Akhtar , is a remake of the 1978 film, Don . But I guess remake is not the exact term to explain it; 'adaptation' will go better. The two films are essential same in their storyline but are still different due to the tweaks in the plot by Farhan. I will not get into the story or the details of the tweaks, maybe some of you are still planning to catch the DON. But I would love give my take of the movie. The 1978 superhit boasted of legends in its star cast - Amitabh Bachchan, Zeenat Aman, Pran, Iftekhar, Helen. The storyline and the charm of such greats was enough for it to be an excellent movie. And when talk about remaking such a movie; its bound to evoke lot of high expectations. And I would say it was clever on Farhan's part to change the plot a bit. He made changes in two fulcrum points of the plot which does brings out a total different aspect. In some ways though I find the new plot similar to Face/Off , a 1997 film di...

Dont be surprised with the title I am not going to discuss my love story here. In fact I should first have one to discuss about it. Anyways thats a different tale; maybe I will write about it some other day. Today's post is to tell my experience with the movie titled "Pyaar ke Side/Effects". A small introduction to the movie. Lead protagonists are Rahul Bose and Mallika Sherawat. Movie is about there 'pyaar'. Rahul is shown analyzing the various 'side-effects' associated with different stages of love. And then you a small side stories of Rahul's roomie and his brother-in-law. Both of them are like two extremes. First guy is of the 'un-marriageable' lot and second one belongs to the married community. Rahul is somewhere in- between; he has a girlfriend who has proposed to marry him but he is not very sure what to do... for rest of the story watch the movie yourself :) My motive behind this post is not to tell the story, there is nothing in that....

After a long time I watched a really great movie. It’s loaded with lots of laughter and meaning. One good thing which the director/produced did was not to make a sequel. Sequels sometimes tend to be bit boring but a series a good thing as each time its something new. The best thing in both the older and latest edition is the Munna-Circuit antics. I somehow like Circuit more; Arshad Warsi is too good as Circuit. The kidnapping sequence is best kidnapping sequence I have seen ever. I think real life 'bhai log' will get some interesting ideas after seeing it. Apart from the fun and laughter in the Munnabhai movies, I like them for the social messages they deliver. Most of the points are very simple yet most of us do miss them in life. This time round it tried to show the Gandhian way of life in Munna-style. Usually a movie about Gandhian values can’t expect to be a hit in current times but when to show it as 'Gandhi-giri' it does catch your attention. Hats off to the whole...