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Click the image to read furtherரக்தசரித்ரா - ராம் கோபால் வர்மாவின் படம் என்பதால் மட்டுமல்ல, ஆந்திராவின் பிரபல மந்திரி / ரவுடிகளின் உண்மைக்கதை என்பதாலும் பார்த்தேன். ஆனால் எனக்கு அதில் ஒன்றும் புதிதாக இருப்பது போல தெரியவில்லை. வழக்கமான 'B-Grade' மசாலா படம் போல தான் இருந்தது. நிஜ வாழ்க்கையில் இவ்வளவு வன்முறை இருந்ததா என்பது ஆச்சரியமே. எனது ஆந்திர நண்பர்களிடம் கேட்ட போது 'ராயலசீமா' பகுதிகளில் இத்தகைய வன்முறைகள் இருந்தன என்றார்கள். திரையில் வன்முறைக்கு புது இலக்கணம் வகுத்திருக்கிறார் ராம்கோபால் வர்மா. மெல்லிய இதயம் படைத்தவர்களுக்கு இந்தப்படம் ஒத்துவராது என்று முன்னமே அவர் எச்சரித்திருந்தது உண்மையே.

வம்சம்Hai Guys, It had been a long time I had blogged. The London trip turns lonely and hectic than anticipated. In the weekends I go on sight seeing like a maniac and on the workdays returning to the hotel room by late. Still only way I keep entertained is by watching the stack of movies from my HDD. It was more like a linked process that one movie kindled the intrest on another for some remotely connected reasons. That's what made this movie watching a nice experience. After the count crossed five, I decided to make it as 'ten' a round figure. These are the short (4-5 lines) review of mine for these movies. For few movies, it can go still more longer.. but they deserve it. Leave your reviews in the comments.

Click the image to read furtherIn my case always one case leads to another - like I said in the "Kerala Cafe Review" that I want to see "Dus Kahaniyan" after watching "KC", similiarly when I watched "Irumbu Kottai Murattu Singam", it tempted me to watch another long due - Quick Gun Murugan. Why IKMS? As somebody who grew on a staple diet of Rani Comics at my young age, I was looking forward for IKMS. Also the novelty factor - Cow Boy movie in Tamil Cinema after a gap of 38 years, played a role in luring me towards IKMS. (Tidbit: A few years back Telugu cinema stepped into that terrain unsuccesfully with Jayanth C Paranjpaye's "Takkiri Donga" starring Mahesh Babu, Lisa Ray and Bipasha Basu). So watching two cowboy movies at short intervals was a fun. Many people won't agree with me considering the not so good performance at the box office by these movies, but I just want to say - the movie might have failed but cow boy genre doesn't. Even though IKMS & QGM fall in same genre, they are poles apart by their approach. However the best aspect is that both are not the "Leave your brains behind" type.

Vidya BalanThis weekend I watched all these movies back to back on a Saturday night, which had been overdue for a long time - Dostana, Love Aaj Kal and Achamundu Achamundu. Why I wanted to watch these movies now, that too after an year? Each had its own reasons - while 'Dostana' had the very strong Johan Abraham factor, 'Love Aaj Kal' was mainly for Imtiaz Ali's sensitive and refreshing script, "Achamundu Achamundu" was for its offbeat theme - paedeophiles. These movies reinforced the faith that still there are people who are there to attempt different kind of movies within the commercial format. Among the last batch of movies seen, Ishqiya appealed better to me. So rather than wasting four individual posts, I just thought I can pile up everything in one post.

Click the image to read furtherWhy the f**k the movie had been called as 'Paa' while 'Maa' or even 'Auro' would have been a better title. R. Balki needs just one scene to establish the warm relationship between the son and the mother. AB Corp's latest production 'Paa (2009)' which predominantly has South Indian contribution - 'Adman' R. Balki, 'Lens guru' PC Sriram, 'Maestro' Illayaraja, Vidya Balan, Kannada theatre artiste Arundhathi Nag, Malayalam Child Star Baby Taruni, is warm and endearing, taking us through the world of innocence and the complications of a 13 year old. One of the (rare) recent worthy releases in the Bollywood, 'Paa' is compelling in more than one way.

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It was one of the movies in my wishlist and a long overdue. I knew it was about the kid born out of wedlock and may be because of the Indian cinema's penchant for tearjerkers kept me away from this story. But after hearing wonderful reviews about this movie, when I came across it in veoh.com, I initiated the download. Man... a wonderful movie I had missed all these years. This is a movie I can't keep my attention off while watching. I was even surprised that there was a malayalam version of this movie called 'Olangal' directed by Balu Mahendra, which has this evergreen hit - Thumbi Vaa. However both the movies had drawn their inspiration from Eric Segal's classic novel - Man, Woman and Child. Ananya informed me that it was made in Telugu as "Illalu Priyaralu" and my wife shared her knowledge that Tamil version of this movie had Sivaji Ganesan & Sujatha in lead.

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When I initiated the download of the movie 'Ijaazat' from veoh, I did it for only one name - Gulzar, its director. Later, just before the viewing, I looked for its details in Wikipedia and found that it was based on a bengali novel 'Jatugriha' by Subhodh Ghosh, which was earlier made as movie in Bengali. Also this movie's "Mera Kuch Saaman" had won Asha Bhonsle's second National Award for her and also that 'Ijaazat' was the debut of beautiful Anuradha Patel. I could say that the movie is a poetry - in every frame, every shot. When I started watching it finally, I was just blown away by its sheer poetry. Ijaazat scans the concept of love after the marriage, whether the past can eclipse the future and when I masticated what I saw, I realised the complexity of the movie. Sudha and Mahinder accidentally meet in a railway station on a rainy night and sharing what had happened after they had seperated from their marriage. In a series of flashbacks, their 'marriage' life was discussed on. Gulzar takes us through the journey of Mahinder, Sudha and Maya with the scenes that revolved around these just 3 characters ONLY but still gripping and irresisting to sit through. The movie had best written female characters. Towards the end of the movie only you'll realise what Mahinder was upto and with the sweet cameo by Shashi Kapoor you come to know where Mahinder & Sudha went wrong. The more I talk about the movie, it may turn out to be a spoiler, so let me stop here. 'Ijaazat's even though reverred by the discerning Bollywood audiences, didn't get its due when it was released. Apart from the National Award for Asha Bhonsle, the movie was sidelined in the popular awards for the 'blockbusters'. Anil Kapoor & Madhuri Dixit were honoured the "Best Actors" over Naseeruddin Shah & Rekha, Sonu Walia, the vamp from 'Khoon Bhari Mang' was preferred over poetic Anuradha Patel in the supporting actress category, Anand Milind & Alka Yagnik were thought to be superior with "QSQT" & "Tezaab". That's the pathetic story between every awards these days. - {oshits} reads

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It was one of the movies that eluded me for a long time until I stumbled upon it on veoh.com. I wasted no time in initiating the download of the available copy online. This movie was one of the underrated movies that I literally had no idea about what it was all about. But I knew that it was a revenge story by the Urmila and Saif had a negative role in that. Those times Urmila was the muse of all Ram Gopal Varma's productions (ironically her last outing with Ram Gopal Varma's Factory) and Saif was in RGV's camp before he hit a big time with the Yashraj films. This happened to be the debut of Sriram Raghavan, a well known scriptwriter in Bollywood, who later had received much critical acclaim through "Johnny Gaddar". Despite all the credentials, "Ek Hasina Thi" didn't hit the bull's eye. But having seen its dark trailers, knowing that it was the debut of Sriram Raghavan, I wanted to see "Ek Hasina Thi" desperately but I didn't come across not even a single DVD in all the stores I had visited in past few years.

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This Yashraj Film's outing of Kabir Khan's semi-documentry turned out to be much more exciting than I anticipated. Actually when the movie opened to rave reviews and box office acclaim, I was not that enthused to see it, until Ananya recommended for this movie. The movie is slapping on the face of the viewers in many places - especially when Katrina is being frisked and the third degree tortures meted out to John Abraham in the detention. Thankfully the movie didn't end up as a docu drama, but it is an emotional story between the three lead protagonists. I didn't feel the slack in the pace at any points, infact the turning point in the interval point was totally unexpected. That made the climax predictable, but Katrina included in the final acts was a surprise. The movie doesn't advocate terrorism even though it may appear the same superficially but dwelves into psyche of the innocent people who were suspected and tortured. The movie had a sheen that was not seen in Indian movies before. The performances by the lead players were competent and I found Katrina Kaif extremenly well in the emotional scenes. Till date I didn't take her seriously but 'New York' had tilted the scale in favour of her. Given a good script and director, she can perform well. John exposes acting talent beneath his sensuality whereas Neil Nitin Mukesh proves that he is a face to watch for with enormous subtlety. A well shot movie and nice music, "Junoon" is my favourite that deserves a discerning viewing for sure. Go for it if you hadn't still. - //End// - {oshits} readers

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I was able to see this Revathy directed movie in bits and pieces earlier on TV, but got the chance to see it fully recently only. Media reported that this was a plagarised version of Tom Hank starrer "Philadelphia". I haven't seen that movie, so it doesn't matter to me. A nice and sensitive movie - that sums up everything about this movie. Revathy being an actress herself had managed to extract the best from everyone involved in the casting. It can be rated as the best in Shilpa Shetty's career and the biggest surprise is that Revathy had made the impossible a possible - Salman Khan had ACTED well sans his usual eccentricities!!! But towards the end you can't stop lauding Mita Vashist's menacing perfomance as smooth talking cunning lawyer as well as the stern faced Kitty. Abhishek was a revelation and it is pity that the critics gave his natural performance a miss. Nasser and Kamalinee Mukherjee (her debut) had supported the rest cast well. The seriousness of the issue (HIV +ve) and the society's apathy / myths towards the victims are sensitively handled by Revathy.

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Here in the bus, especially during the return journeys, I very often hear that somebody is playing the songs of "Aashiqui", "Saajan" and sometimes "Sadak" from their mobile / mp3 player.... And NO... it is not from the same person.. ha! ha! ha! I am a sucker for these movie songs but quite surprised that I have so many people for my company. While those songs were composed, nobody would have expected that those songs will be played by somebody even after a couple of decades. Recently I read somewhere that the music company Venus claimed that it ha d sold more than 23 lakh units of the just cassettes of "Saajan" making it an all time highest seller in the Bollywood music industry. I remember the magic of "Aashiqui"s music, that cast its spell all over the nation, when I was in 8th std... watching "Chitrahaar" on the wednesday and expecting the songs of "Aashiqui" on air. Most of the times that year I was not disappointed because the movie celebrated Golden jubilee, so almost for an year they played all the songs repeatedly all the week. I would safely say that the prime of the Nadeem - Shravan, with a distinctive sound / style of their own, is almost similiar to what IR was for Tamil songs with the simlarity extending that AR Rahman's rise led to their downfall. When I hear those songs, these days, being played by somebody in the bus, it rekindles a lot of old memories which is soothing.. especially after a tiring day. - {oshits} reads

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When 'Niram' was released in 1998, critics tend to wite it off as a "Kuch Kuch Hota Hai" rip off. But a decade later, in 2008 'Jaane Tu.." came in Hindi, which was literally a rip off of Niram and this time, critics lauded it because it was an Aamir Khan Production. I just saw "Jaane Tu.." and through out the movie I had a sense of deja-vu with every scene reminding of "Niram", despite the fact that I sat to watch it without any preconceived notions. Funny part is that Genelia D'Souza, the leading lady of "Jaane Tu" made her Bollywood debut in 2003 with a movie called "Tujhe Meri Kasam" which ironically was an official remake of "Niram" but was a box-office dud. After seeing "Jaane Tu.." my heart started longing for "Niram" so much that I might end up buying one more copy of its VCD. I can bet that "Niram" is thousand times better than "Jaane Tu..". I had already wrote about "Niram" elaborately in my old post, so let me not waste time in reviewing it. What in "Jaane tu" & "Niram" worked for me and what not?....