Review: Movie - Delhi Belly

A word of caution – Please leave your kids and your parents behind if you are planning to go for ‘Delhi Belly’. Also don’t go if you are averse to language abundantly laced with expletives and choicest of slang words or if, in case, you like orange juice :). The movie though thoroughly enjoyable uses language that may not be suitable or acceptable to all. Delhi Belly is a tribute to both the underworld of the city as well as what might happen to you if you choose to try the street food without caring much for the hygiene.

Plot:

One of the virtues of this film is its simple plot. It’s a short, sweet, fun film that makes no attempt at imparting you a message or teaching you the virtues of being a hero etc. It’s a story of three average guys with their own little problems and what happens to them when they get entangled with a diamond smuggling ring.  There are other characters thrown in to add flavor and color to the happenings on screen but all of them gel quite well in the narrative and nothing seems to be out of place. Most characters would remind you of somebody you have met in real life.

Review: Movie - Ready

Ready is a celebration of Salman Khan. His diehard fans, I guess, don’t need to read beyond the first line and can simply go watch the movie and join the celebration :). For others - don’t expect it to be a ‘Dabbang’ although the makers do try to cash in on the legacy apologetically in a fight sequence where Salman takes off his glasses and then asks ‘kahan rakhun?’ and then hangs them behind his collar with Dabbang’s music playing in the background.

Plot:

Well there is a serious lack of plot. It’s more of a series of gags put together akin to recent Sajid Khan movies like ‘House full’ and ‘Heyy Babyy’ or more like one of those David Dhawan/Govinda movies. The motive is simple to extract laughter out of you somehow even if it low brow humour. Asin is on the run from her two gangster Uncles and takes refuge in Salman’s house where everybody adores her. Once our hero falls for the girl, he sets out to reunite both her uncles and settle the feud between them.

Review: Movie - Dharti (Punjabi)

Well I have been waiting for a good Punjabi movie for a long time so when the promising promos for Jimmy Sheirgill starrer came up, I was naturally excited. Last Jimmy movie in Punjabi that I remember was "Yaaran Naal Baharaan" which was thoroughly enjoyable and all the more the reason for me to go for 'Dharti'.

Plot:

Well honestly the promos were grossly misleading, the promos had projected that the movie had a lot to do with Air Force and little with Politics but the plot was the exact opposite. It's an attempt to make 'Rajneeti' in Punjabi although it has nothing in common with that film. But seriously a ‘Bad’ one. It looked more like an attempt to cash in on the recent success of that movie. It’s a Jimmy Sheirgill production. Most of the movie has been shot in Chandigarh and around – you can easily spot landmarks – PU campus, FunCity, Naada Sahib, Madhya Marg etc. Sadly, the production team has spent most of its money on the cars used by the Characters rather than on actual production quality. If you have a good story to tell viewers won’t mind not seeing any luxury cars on screen, they see them on the roads anyways.

Review: Movie - Dum Maaro Dum

 Honestly I didn’t have too high hopes from Dum Maaro Dum. After all how creative can the makers of a film get whose title track uses music from an old hit and churns out such gibberish lyrics as “Unche se uncha banda, potty pe baithe nanga” or “aaj chair khich raha hai, kal meri skirt khichega”. But still since my wife is an Abhishek fan and I did actually like Rohan Sippy’s earlier attempt - “Bluffmaster”, we went for the movie.

Plot/Cast: 

As the title and the promos suggest the movie is about drugs and the mafia and of course by this time you all know about Goa. Goa is a character by itself in the movie. And if you’ve been to Goa before you’ll feel an instant connect.  Abhishek plays a cop who’s determined to free Goa of the drugs.  Bips is an air hostess who is into smuggling. Rana is the man with guitar-laidback, susegad. Prateik Babbar is a teen who gets entangled in the drug business. Aditya Pancholi is the drug lord – pretty much the usual ensemble of characters of films of this genre.

Sita, Ramayan and the Blues

Was checking the reviews for Bollywood movies released this week which included an animation film: “Ramayana – the epic”. Some said it was good others said there was no story – there was no innovation or inventiveness in the film. I have not yet seen the movie but to be honest I believe reinventing a story that has been told atleast a billion times can be daunting.

Mahabharat and Ramayan has been told and retold countless times – in books, films, TV, folklore but still there is something that we never get enough of them. Anyways I am not writing about them today, we all know how great these scriptures are.

I just wanted to share with you a film on Ramayan. One of the reviewers had mentioned this film in his review so I just tried my luck on Youtube and guess what.. I was not disappointed :) Actually the film has been made under a creative commons license and cannot be released commercially so the best way for the maker to reach the audiences was to share it on Youtube (Also seems like the maker struggled long with the copyright holders of the 80-year-old songs recorded by Annette Hanshaw which made it difficult for them to release it commercially).

The name of the film is “Sita Sings the Blues”. The “Blues” in the title is a pun intended to reflect the music genre that is used to take the story forward and as well as the suffering she has to go through. The film is a modern take on the story from Sita’s perspective. The film apparently is based on the experiences of the maker Nina Paley whose husband had dumped her after moving to India. So when she was introduced to Ramayan, she couldn’t help but draw parallels between herself and Sita.

I think it is a nice third party.. I say third party as she is not an Indian.. so she will have an unbiased view. As Indians we consider these scriptures holy and sacred; hence don’t dare to question them. But the film is not at all offensive ( as per me) as I said it’s a neutral modern take on the story.. it just asks a few questions.. and it answers some while others are just left unanswered. The movie really impresses as it cuts all the distractions and focuses on the main plot involving Sita. There are flaws like for example Lakshman’s character is almost missing but the film overall gets the point across.

One more word of caution is that the film amply uses “Blues” (the music) . Nearly half of the film has songs so people who don’t like the genre will have to be more patient. But all in all if you are bored of hearing the same story again and again there is a good attempt at alternative story telling.

Let me know what you think of it……

Everything is good, everything is just right...

“Theek hai theek theek sab kuch theek hai

 Paas hai sab kuch rab nazdeek hai

Hey Rab ke hazur mein kasmein bhi kha li

Duniya ki auni pauni rasmein nibha li

Phir bhi na maane koi to dafa kar

Maane jo maane na maane to bhala kar

Duniya na maane khasma nu khaye

Khasma nu khaye marjaani”

These are the lyrics of a popular Bollywood number written by Gulzar. I tried to translate it as follows (I hope the translation is somewhat close):

“Everything is good, everything is just right

You’ve got everything if God’s in sight

We’ve kept promises to Him,

Followed the itsy-bitsy whims of this world

If people still don’t agree, shun them

They accept or not, it’s all well

If the world doesn't care, don’t dread

Let the damn thing go to hell”

I like this song a lot because although it has been comically filmed, has a loud score with exaggerated dances but it’s still philosophical and highlights a sad truth of life – How so ever hard you may try you cannot keep everyone happy. So the best thing is to do your best and forget everything else.

All that said and understood it pains me no end when people who have accomplished little in their own lives tend to question the greatness of people like Sachin Tendulkar and A R Rahman and criticize them. Just read the comments on the recent CWG song controversy or the chat logs of a cricket website when Sachin is playing, it will make you sick to the stomach for the way people tend to spew hatred, bile and total disregard for the accomplishments of these two. Not that Rahman and Sachin have been infallible, they have made their mistakes, but their greatness lies not in their mistakes, but how they have outgrown them and set new standards every time.

My concern is not just the criticism that these two have been receiving, their records and awards speak for themselves; but I am more concerned with the general cynicism and negativity that is engulfing our everyday lives. Just open any news website and go through the news headlines; even worse try reading the comments on the news items you will understand what I am saying. Is it that the common man suffers so much in his daily life – in his quest of getting the very basic things ( roti, kapda and makan) – that he is left with little choice but to vent his anger at public forums? Is that the only way he feels he will be heard?

For a nation that got it’s independence using Non-cooperation as a main weapon along with non-violence; probably the only way we know we’ll be heard is by not cooperating with the law and government – hence the pride in breaking the law in our everyday lives and a ‘band’ or a ‘hartal’ for every other non-issue (and of course, we forgot non-violence and discarded it as soon as we had milked it’s benefits). Sometimes I think Gandhi got us independence through ‘Asahyog’ or ‘Non-Cooperation’ which was great but in the event paralyzed the Indian mindset for ever. Now that is the only way we know of getting our demands met, add to that the general apathy that the administration has towards the issues/problems of the common man – you get what we have today- Chaos. In other countries they wear black arm-bands while working as a mark of protest or work over-time, in India we stop work, shout slogans burn buses and later brag about it.

So in a way it is good that we have so many News (Shout) Channels and the internet now, it gives common man a platform to vent out their angst and is way more preferable than burning public property. Public opinion is a strong force in any democracy and these are excellent tools that help us form, strengthen and propagate beliefs. And the media, as much as we hate it for sensationalism and cheap publicity, plays a very important role in the whole process as is evident from whatever little that has been achieved in the criminal cases against the rich and the powerful and of late in case of the urgency shown by the government to get the CWG preparations completed on time despite all the corruption and delays.

I understand the power of the medium and fully support and endorse it but still don’t understand when we act like thankless morons, when we try to bring down people who have achieved so much over the years, proved themselves time and again.

Let me know your thoughts on the topic?