Saturday, August 6, 2011

Bollywood Movie Releases August 2011




Aarakshan
Director: Prakash Jha
Producers: Prakash Jha, Firoz A. Nadiadwala
Screenplay: Anjum Rajabali, Prakash Jha
Starring: Amitabh Bachchan, Saif Ali Khan,Manoj Bajpayee,Deepika Padukone,Prateik Babbar Music by Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy
Running time 175 minutes
Language: Hindi
Genre: Socio-Politico drama
Release date:  August 12, 2011

 Trailer : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWyAOhOoSqE


Chatur Singh -Two Star
Director: Ajay Chandhok
Producer: Mohammad Aslam
Screenplay:  Rumi Jaffery
Story: Rumi Jaffery , Sai Kabir
Starring : Sanjay Dutt, Ameesha Patel, Suresh Menon,  Anupam kher
Music by Sajid-Wajid
Genre: Comedy
Language: Hindi
Inspiration : Pink Panther

Release date:  August 19, 2011





BodyGaurd
Director: Siddique
Producer: Atul Agnihotri, Alvira Agnihotri
Screenplay/story: Siddique
 Starring Salman Khan, Kareena Kapoor, Mahesh Manjrekar, Raj Babbar
Music by Himesh Reshammiya, Pritam
Genre: romance; comedy
Language- Hindi
Remake of :  Malyalam movie: Bodygaurd/ Telegu movie: Ganga;
                   Tamil movie: Kaavalan.
Release date:  August 31, 2011




Bol
Directed by Shoaib Mansoor
Produced by Shoman Productions
Written by Shoaib Mansoor
Starring Atif Aslamm, Humaima Malik, Mahira Khan,Iman Ali, Shafqat Cheema
Manzar Sehbai, Zaib Rehman, Amr Kashmiri
Music by Atif Aslam, Shoaib Mansoor, Sajjad Ali, Ahmed Jahanzeb

Language- Urdu/ English
Genre: Social, Drama

Earlier Pakistan Release: June 24, 2011
World Wide Release Date: August 31, 2011


Saturday, July 23, 2011

Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara……..Carpe diem -Seize the day!



Cast: Hrithik Roshan , Farhan Akhtar , Abhay Deol, Katrina Kaif,  Kalki Koechlin
Producer: Ritesh Sidhwani, Farhan Akhtar
Director: Zoya Akhtar
Story/screenplay : Reema Kagti, Zoya Akhtar
Dialogues: Farhan Akhtar
Music Director: Shankar Mahadevan , Ehsaan Noorani , Loy Mendonca
Lyrics: Javed Akhtar
Genre:  Adventure, Comedy, Romance
Rating: ***.5 ( 3.5/5)
Website: http://www.znmdthemovie.com/
Review: Birjis Adeni Rashed


The aim and intention of my reviews is to critique and recommend while not revealing the whole story to enjoy the movie when seen. Minor details may have been divulged for proper review!


Zindagi  Na Milegi Dobara is about  ‘Carpe Diem’, ‘Seize the day’, ‘you only live once’, ‘do what you want to do’,’ face your fears’, ‘fight insecurities’,  have adventures,  ‘appease your soul’, ‘live out of the box’, make life worth living for………

 Its philosophy  rings a bell of Robin Williams philosophizing of carpe diem seize the day- make your life extra ordinary in Dead Poets Society; …… Its inspiration seems to be from Hangover where the groom and his friends  go on a  bachelors party trip and have many misadventures; …… And  it brings memories of a  movie about 3 friends with  a philosophy of ‘do what your heart wants’  ' Dil Chahta Hai'

Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara   buddies are copy writer Imraan (Farhan Akhtar), stock broker Arjun (Hrithik Roshan) and construction businessman Kabir (Abhay Doel). The adventurous road trip they have is in  picturesque Spain. Their  dare devil adventures to challenge their fears and do the extraordinary are Scuba Diving, Sky Diving and Running of the Bulls (Encierro).

 Besides adventure and thrills it’s about  emotions, fears,  indulgence, relationships, friends,  tender sensitive moments, spontaneous incidents, bonding moments, lively banter, romance, camaraderie, juvenile pranks,  and of course carpe diem and realization that zindagi na milegi dobara.

The movie was worth seeing in theatre today with friends and kids. It was a pleasure to the eye seeing beautiful and picturesque Spain in travelogue form on big screen with handsome studs and  beautiful babes.  There is eloquent poetry and flamenco music for the ear too. The movie on the whole is entertaining and well made but not spectacular as it was rumored to be!

Bagwati ;)
My favorite scenes were Farhan Aktars personification of the inanimate designer Hermes hand bag as ‘Bagwati’

Cast of this movie was excellent with good acting by all. Imran/Farhan Akhtar comes out as the sweet, likable, deep creative writer. His stumbling words and emotions meeting his birth father/Naseeruddin Shah  was  well emoted.

Arjun/Hrithikh’s character grows from a workaholic focused financial guy to a sensitive, spontaneous person under the influence of a beautiful, free-spirited and spontaneous personality of Laila/ Katrina Kaif.  The emotions of accomplishment/contentment depicted by Hrithikh after scuba diving for a non swimmer were excellent. Katrina quite appropriate for the role enacts both the sparkling and tender moments pretty well. Her philosophies of life delivered very subtly and  matter of factly was realistic. Her lines of thinking and living out of the box and the box being only for the dead were excellent, of course credit goes to the dialog writer ;)

 The stable yet juvenile prankster who has emotional conflicts regarding his wedding is depicted well by Kabir/Abhay Doel.  And finally if I didn’t like anyone, it was Natasha/ kalki /'chudail/witch alert', the character was as painful as the actor.
@ Tomatina festival

  While the Akhtar’s - Zoya, Farhan and Javed excelled in their contributive parts of direction, production, acting, story and lyrics,  the movie could have done better with better editing and avoiding the dragging parts!

 There were some flaws and technical gliches too: An obvious one was when Hrithikh Roshan gets a call on his cell  in Spain, its on vodaphone service, an exclusive  Indian telephone service!!





Saturday, June 18, 2011

Bollywood Movie Releases June -July 2011


Ready
Directed by Anees Bazmee
Produced by Rajat Rawail, Bhushan Kumar, Nitin Manmohan, Kishan Kumar, Sohail Khan
Screenplay by Rajiv Kaul, Rajan Agarwal, Ikram Akhtar
Story by  Gopimohan, Nisar Akhtar
Starring : Salman Khan, Asin Thottumkal,  Arya Babbar, Paresh Rawal, Puneet Issar, Mahesh Manjrekar, Akhilendra Mishra
Music by Pritam
Remake of Telegu movie : Ready ( 2008)
Genre: comedy
http://www.readythemovie.com/



Double Dhamal

Directed by Indra Kumar
Produced by Ashok Thakeria, Indra Kumar
Screenplay by Tushar Hiranandani
Story by Tushar Hiranandani
 Starring Sanjay Dutt, Arshad Warsi, Riteish Deshmukh, Jaaved Jaaferi, Aashish Chaudhary
Music by Anand Raj Anand
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j743nTV-5WE
Genre: Comedy
website : http://www.doubledhamaalmovie.com/

 




Delhi Belly
Directed by Abhinay Deo
 Produced by Aamir Khan, Kiran Rao, Ronnie Screwvala, Jim Furgele
Story by Akshat Verma
Starring Imran Khan, Vir Das, Poorna Jagannathan, Kunal Roy Kapoor,Shenaz Treasurywala
Music by Ram Sampath
Genre: Comedy








Bbuddah hoga tera baap

Director: Poori Jagannath
Cast: Amitabh Bachchan, Hema Malini, Raveena Tandon, Sonu Sood, Prakash Raj, Makrand Deshpande, Shahwar Ali,  Rajeev Mehta, Rajeev Varma, Vishwajeet Pradhan, Atul Parchure
Music Director: Vishal – Shekhar
Lyricist: Vishal Dadlani, Swanand Kirkire, Anvita Dutt Guptan
Singer(s): Amitabh Bachchan
Genre: Action
website: http://www.bigbisback.com/
 video trailer :  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7g_0naxTjI&feature=player_embedded

 



Zindagi Na Milege Dobara

Hrithik Roshan, Farhan Akhtar, Abhay Deol, Katrina Kaif, Kalki Koechlin
Directed by Zoya Akhtar
Produced by Farhan Akhtar,Ritesh Sidhwani
 Screenplay by Zoya Akhtar, Reema Kagti
Story by Zoya Akhtar,Reema Kagti
Starring Hrithik Roshan,Abhay Deol, Farhan Akhtar, Katrina Kaif, Kalki Koechlin,Ariadna Cabrol, Naseeruddin Shah
Music by Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy
Genre: romance
http://www.znmdthemovie.com/



Chillar party

Producer: Ronnie Screwvala, Salman Khan
Director: Vikas Bahl, Nitesh Tiwari
Cast:
Irrfan Khan ,Sanath Menon, Rohan Grover, Naman Jain, Aarav Khanna, Vishesh Tiwari, Chinmai Chandranshuh, Vedant Desai, Divji Handa, Sherya Sharma, Ranbir Kapoor...... Item Number
Music Director: Amit Trivedi
Genre: Childrens movie
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ls7hxjVnHNQ


http://www.chillarparty.net/




Singham
Directed by Rohit Shetty
Screenplay by Yunus Sajawal
Starring Ajay Devgn, Kajal Aggarwal,Prakash Raj
 Music by Ajay-Atul
 Remake of  Tamil movie Singam(2010)
Genre: Action
http://www.singhamthefilm.com/

Saturday, June 4, 2011

Lady Gaga too remixes with Bollywood Music.


Lady Gaga  teamed up with ‘Desi Hits’ and famous Bollywood music composers Salim-Sulaiman and released a Bollywood-inspired remix of her hit single "Born This Way,".


 Salim- Sulaiman are known for their successful music direction in movies- Fashion and ‘Rab ne Bane di Jodi’.  Sulaiman says of this remix, "When we started working on "Born This Way" there was a feeling of excitement and a bit of nervousness. This was the no. 1 track in 23 countries and to remix it and give it an Indian touch was something that we were very conscious about. The sitar was the instrument of choice for us when it came to creating a melodic riff. Of course there was the dholak and the dhol that always create the atmosphere of party and euphoria, but what really rocked it all was Salim's voice to add that Indian flavor."

This is the first step Lady Gaga has taken to break into the Indian market, while may other pop stars before her have been seeking the Indian audiences in various ways.

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

No one killed Jessica - A Review


Cast: Rani Mukherjee, Vidya Balan, Myra Karn, Neil Bhopalam, Rajesh Sharma, Bubbles Sabhrewal, Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub, Yogendra Tikku, Geeta Sudan, Shireesh Sharma, Samara Chopra
Producer:  Ronnie Screwwala
Director:  Raj Kumar Gupta
Screenplay & Dialogues: Raj Kumar Gupta
Background Score and Music Director: Amit Trivedi
Duration: 2 hrs 20 mins
Website: http://www.noonekilledjessica.com/
Genres:  True Story, Social
Rating: ***





Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/utvmotionpictures#p/u/32/IzGZ9oL9Lv0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glo7MAa6htQ

The aim and intention of my reviews is to critique and recommend while not revealing the whole story to enjoy the movie when seen. Minor details may have been divulged for proper review!

The story of this movie is based on the real life story of Jessica Lal murder  and the ensuing display of corruption in judiciary and  political systems, contrasting with the defenselessness of the common man struggling for justice, and highlighted with the crusade of a journalist  to expose the system and help justice prevail.

The story showcases how a frustrated Vidya Balan (Sabrina/ Jessica’s sister) struggles for seven years to seek justice for her sisters death while power, money, politics, and corruption change the face of the case.
 It shows how giddy power and political clout of one  (Zeeshan Ayub  as Manish ) equates a price of  life to a drink! 

The obvious and inescapable existence of bribery and corruption in the system is also displayed in the dialogs of the police cop in charge of the case: “Sab koi Khaata hai, Kis liye mein fark hai”  a reasoning that he gives that  he too  accepted a bribe but only to be gentle to the accused in custody not for dishonest reasons like the forensics did of changing the evidence or defence did of buying off or influencing the witnesses.

The  movie  highlights the strength of ‘media’ and  news media magazines and channels like Tehelka which are taking up causes and exposing the loopholes and sleazy duplicity of many power hogging people and corruption in the system. Here the feisty reporter Rani Mukerjee as Meera Gaity takes up the cause to help justice prevail in the Jessica Lal murder by reopening the proceedings of the case with the help of television exposés,  igniting public’s righteous anger  and concern using social networks, text messages and candlelight vigils.

The movie inspite of being inspired from  a true story, the handling of the story doesn’t make it ‘documentrish’ but incidents of fiction, back stories  in narrative and  interesting dialogs { “Everybody is Somebody  in Delhi ......Nobody is Nobody” -  Meera/ Rani mukerjee } and excellent music and songs makes it an interesting watch.

The cast of the movie is excellent. Vidya Balan plays the ordinary frustrated sister seeking justice very well. Rani Mukerjee in a feisty and   brash role of a journalist carries herself well.  The new actors Zeeshan Ayub as the accused and Myra as Jessica/victim and Neil Bhopalam as the coward witness play their parts well too, not to forget excellent acting by Rajesh Sharma as the cop.

The songs ‘Dili Dili’ , ‘’Aitbar and other music score  are racy and meaningful. The writer and director Raj Kumar Gupta keeps the movie crisp and heart rendering, reaching out to the people with positive reinforcement of possibilities of changing the system if one unifies for a cause!



Friday, February 4, 2011

Should 'Bollywood' be 'Bollywood' or not?


                                   "The above image is the 'photoshoped' image of  the Hollywood banner!!"

In a recent argument instigated by Salman Khan on Twitter, many in the Hindi film Industry  have come to discuss the credibility of the name Bollywood for the Hindi Film Industry. Many years ago the name Bollywood was coined for the Hindi Film Industry  inspired by 'Hollywood' which is the location of American Film Industry. The name "Bollywood” was derived from Bombay (the former name for Mumbai) . But unlike Hollywood, Bollywood does not exist as a physical place.

 Some  agree  with Salman  Khan and are not comfortable to have an aped name of ‘Bollywood’ like Hollywood;  while some do not want to change the name  having  lived  with it since so many years,  and also because  now its globally popular and recognized name for the Hindi Film Industry!!

This argument was earlier instigated few years ago by Amitabh Bachchan, the biggest star of the Hindi film industry but no change or discussion happened in this context. This time too it may just pass since creating a name change of the film industry is going to be a much bigger campaign than changing names of cities as is the trend in India these days!


Check out details on
http://www.hindustantimes.com/Bollywood-mat-kaho-na/Article1-658568.aspx
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bollywood

Twitter:
BeingSalmanKhan Salman Khan
Hate this bloody name , bollywood , koi naam hai kya ? Disgusting .

What is your opinion, should Bollywood  change its name?  Do write your  point of view or at least vote in the  Bollywood poll below.