Hollywood Movie - Avatar

Have you seen “Titanic”? If so you could not have forgotten the thrill it caused, showing the sufferings of human beings in a sinking ship. After many years, the same director, James Cameron has come up with Avatar, to bewilder you with the 3-D effect Fusion Camera System. Just be ready to see this movie, which will take you to another alien planet off the ground and enthrall you with awe.

Cameron shows the usual swindlers, the corporate giants of this world, capturing another world and trying to steal its enormous wealth of a rich mineral deposit, in a gripping style of a gigantic special effects movie.

Jack Sully (Sam Worthington) is sent to another planet called Pandora. The planet is amazingly filled with deep forests, magnificent water falls. The inhabitation there is incredible creatures and species like human beings – Na’vi. Sully takes a genetically-engineered Avatar – transformed into a hybrid Na’vi of 10 feet tall.

He believes he has been sent there for helping the population of Pandora, learn the cultures and life-styles of these aliens and return to earth. But it turns out later that the real purpose was to extract a mineral, wanted by American corporate giants. During Sully’s stay in that planet, he meets a beautiful female Na’vi (without this how can be a cinema?) by name Nevtiri (Zoe Saldana).

The story goes expanding the unusual experiences of Sully at Pandora; the life with Na’vi people, who knew that Sully is a hybrid; the conflicts between the natural citizens of Pandora and the greedy human beings, trying to drive them away to get hold of the mineral wealth; the ensuing battle between the two sections and Sully’s dilemma as to which side he should support – forms the rest of the story.

Leave everything aside – you get a chance of seeing movies like this very rarely – with astonishing graphics; special visual effects; the 3D experience and a science fiction. So don’t miss it. TOI announced 4 **** to this movie.

Hindi Movie – Ajab Prem Ki Khazab Kahani (2009)

This film – Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani – is a romantic comedy and has the elements that pull the audience in abundance – love and laughter. This good entertainer is fit for seeing with the family and kids.

Directed by Rajkumar Santhoshi, coming again after his exile for a few year , but has given earlier hits like Ghayal, and , Damini this film tells the talent of the Director to make it a commercial success. Remember his Andaz Apna Apna – which was a run away success?

The plot is packed with many scenes to entertain the audience with laughter. Ranbir Kapoor and Katrina Kaif make a fresh Jody and are fine to look it. May be soon they will come a full round in Bollywood in commercial entertainers, mixed with cine-masala, as in this film.

The hero Prem is a happy youngster and along with his friends runs a “Happy Club” (how he lives without any worthwhile job to do?). The motto of the Club is to make others happy, including helping lovers to unite in wedlock. But all the good deeds of Prem end in disaster, like the one where he is supposed to kidnap a loving-girl in yellow dress, mistakenly kidnaps the new comer to town, Jenny (Katrina) wearing the same color dress.

Prem falls in love with Jenny, but when he tries to disclose it to her, she is found to have gone to Goa, all of a sudden with her foster parents (she is an orphan as usual to mount sympathy on her) in a bid to marry her to a wealthy idiot. When Prem finds her at last she tells that she is in love with another guy Rahul (Upen Patel). However Prem helps her run-away from the wedding Mandap and how Prem, Jenny and Rahul sort out their issues is the rest of the story.

All the actors including those appearing as friends of Ranbir perform well to make Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani an entertainment movie.

]]> http://www.thelatestone.com/movie-review-%e2%80%93-ajab-prem-ki-ghazab-kahani-2009.html/feed 1 http://www.thelatestone.com/the-curious-case-of-benjamin-button-review.html http://www.thelatestone.com/the-curious-case-of-benjamin-button-review.html#comments Mon, 30 Mar 2009 17:01:25 +0000 Neha Aggarwal http://www.thelatestone.com/?p=1060

It is an intriguing and unique love story that withstands time, mystery and old age. Based on a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, director David Fincher portrays a beautiful story that spans decades in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

In a series of flashbacks from Daisy (Cate Blanchett), she gradually unfolds the story of a boy called Benjamin Button (Brad Pitt) who is born as an 80-year-old and proceeds to age backwards through life.  Ironically, he is taken in and raised in a nursing home as an old child amongst elderly, where he has a lovely tender relationship with his adoptive mother and has a wonderful sense of curiosity about the world around him.

At the nursing home he meets a beautiful red-headed young girl named Daisy, who befriends him and sees beyond his old body into his child-like heart.  Daisy grows older and he grows younger, yet both of them keep in touch through their various adventures and life experiences. The love they seem have for each other seems to grow in spite of their actions and eventually brings them together again.  But Benjamin’s unusual disease complicates their lives making them both marvel at the beauty of life and realize its fleeting quality.

This movie is absolutely beautiful.  The costumes and make-up are obviously amazing, and it is remarkable to watch Brad Pitt literally change beneath our eyes with every scene.  Cate Blanchett is a star in this movie, touching in her portrayal of this vivacious and sweet young woman from her twenties to old age.  The character of Daisy encapsulates beauty, youth and excitement.

More remarkable than the beautiful scenes or the truly wonderful acting is the way director David Fincher weaves a tale that reveals how precious life is and reminds you that remarkable things can happen everyday.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, with its heartwarming messages, beautiful scenes, and touching love story is one to watch over and over again.

Ray Acharya (Neil Nitin Mukesh), a young freelance photographer who is struggling to find work.  He is down and out, when suddenly with the death of his grandfather, his life begins to change. From his grandfather he inherits a camera that at first he assumes is ordinary.  However he soon learns that the camera is a remarkable machine that allows him to see ahead into the future for any picture he wants to take.

The camera changes Ray’s life and he soon meets a young sassy DJ, Simi, (Bipasha Basu) whom he falls in love with.  Everything seems to be going well, but Ray must also realize that this power can also be dangerous and he must make tough choices and face the evils that arise.

Aa Dekhen Zara is a fast paced stylish conglomeration of science fiction, action, and romance all put together.  It is certainly action packed and teeming with musical entertainment.  Possibly because the main female character is a DJ, there is a lot of upbeat dance music with traditional Hindi lyrics.

The downside to Aa Dekhen Zara is that the movie is fairly unoriginal and predictable.  The film takes a lot of ideas and story lines from other well-known science fiction, romance and action movies and throws them together.  There are no additional original twists thrown in to keep the movie-goers on their toes.

If you don’t mind a plot that is pretty familiar and doesn’t do much out of the ordinary, Aa Dekhen Zara is a lively entertaining movie to watch.  A good, musical fun film that would be enjoyable on a date, when you don’t want to concentrate too hard.

There is no room for polite niceties in this Anurag Kashyap film which took 7 years to come to the making, so if you are sensitive or squeamish, I would suggest you stay away. There are some classic moments in the dialogue and one very poignant one which springs to mind is “If your father had withdrawn in time you wouldn’t have been born a bastard”

Gulaal pays tribute to the film making of Vishal Bhardwaj in this squalid world of lawlessness which undermines any quality of life. The writer-director spares none of us the details of a world where people both live and die by the gun. It is a kingdom of complete anarchy and the film is not for the faint of heart.

This portrait of an overcrowded, claustrophobic world in some ways mimics the Martin Scorceses Italian mafia genre. The egocentric characters portrayed in the film have a similar disregard for human life, and Gulaal depicts just this type of scenario. The mood of the film is perfectly pitched to depict characters who are nasty, just because this is the only means of self preservation they know, and women who scheme by means of their sexuality to get what they want.

The sound track is completely cohesive with the nature of the film, whilst at the same time displaying a certain incongruity. In Gulaal, we could almost perceive a meeting of William Shakespeare and Quentin Tarrantino which propels us forward at a furious pace to a dusty death.

Rokeysh Omprakash Mehra made two movies earlier – Aks and Rang De Pasanti – the latter sweeping the mass appeal and a box office hit.  Now the same director brings out his third movie “Delhi 6” and already the film has started sending ripples among critics and expectations of “Bollywood” movie lovers.  It is said that Omprakash Mehra has made this film, based upon his own growing up as a lad of Chandni Chowk area of Old Delhi.

The story moves around a young man from the foreign soil to his family roots in Old Delhi. Incidentally the Postal Code Number of Old Delhi is 110006 and the title “Delhi 6” denotes old Delhi conversely.  Abishek Bachan (son of the greatly popular Amitabh Bachchan of Indian Cinema) is the hero Roshan – an Indian-American guy.  His grand mother (Waheeda Rahman) is ailing and wants to be at her native place, Chandni Chowk of Old Delhi, at the time she breathes her last.  Just to fulfill the last wish of his beloved grandmother, the hero takes a trip from America to India, least knowing that what was planned as a quick-trip (for the very first time to India) would meet with many developments and thrills to end well.

Once reaching Delhi with his grandmother, the hero meets Bittu (Sonam Kapoor) a beautiful girl and daughter of a neighbor.  This being the first visit of his to India, everything that takes place in India, that is Delhi with its rituals, the religious beliefs, the food, the culture and friendly attitude of people fascinates him.  But as he sees the hypocritical tendency of his neighbors, in concealing their evil side behind a friendly mask, Hindu Muslim religious riots, attributed to a phantom figure “Black Monkey” and every other thing an American can see in India, he gets upset.  How he resolves all his problems is rest of the story you can watch on the silver screen.

The supporting roles of Rishi Kapoor, Atul Kulkarni, Om Puri, Divya Dutta, Tanvi Azmi, Supriya Pathak and Pavan Malhotra are accomplished by the artists finely. The fans of Hindi Hero Abhishek Bachchan and Bollywood buffs await the release of the film in India on 20th February.

Now some of the inside stories doing rounds about the much awaited film are – Director Omprakash Mehra, during the early stages of development of the film wanted to introduce new faces for the lead roles and changed his mind due to commercial compromises.  Headlines about frequent changes of choices for the hero appeared in News reports – first with Hrithik Roshan set to play the hero, but was dropped out due to scheduling problems. Then Akshay Kumar was considered and the idea was dropped as he refused. The ultimate cast, Abhishek Bachchan got the nod and later Mehra stated that he was his first choice.

On December 20, 2007 the film started production and grew, but Mehra said he was not involved in the editing of the film.  At the Dubai International Film Festival, the movie unveiled first and following the screening, the director and the cast of the film answered questions from the audience.

Februay13 was the date originally the movie was scheduled to be released, but consequent to the release of another much talked about film “Billu Barber” on that date, to avoid conflict the release date was rescheduled to February 20.  But the premier screen went off at New York City’s Museum of Modern Art, on 15th February.

A.R. Rehman, the first Indian Music Composer to win the prestigious Golden Globes for his numbers in “Slumdog Millionaire” and has been recommended for 3 Oscar Awards , has done music to the film “Delhi 6”. The music tracks and sound tracks were released on 14th January at the Indian Idol 4 competition.  Since then positive reviews are pouring about the songs of “Delhi 6” (Prasoon Joshi is the lyricist).

The first video of the song “Masakalli” featuring Abhishek Bachchan and Sonam with a pigeon was released.  This song is not there in the original film.  The Director reasoned out later about the cut-off, as a song about a dove will not fit in a film like “Delhi 6” and only after nearing the climax scene shooting he realized it.

A load of positive reviews about Rehman’s album release have come up and here are few excerpts –

“Delhi 6 – is as rich, just as powerful, and just as awe-inspiring, as his work in Slumdog Millionaire. As we take the timeless stroll down the streets of Delhi-6, let us rejoice the phenomenon that is Rehmania”

“Delhi 6 is near perfect. If one thought that Slumdog Millionaire, Ghajini and Jane Tu Ya Jaane Na were superb, then listen to Delhi 6 once.”

“Rehman beats his own score with Delhi 6, which would easily go down as one of his best scores till date.”

With such encouraging reviews, fans are anxious to see for themselves what is in store for them in “Delhi 6”.

Jugaad is a story based on the real-life Delhi sealing (closing down of businesses) events occurring throughout the huge metropolis, and how a true entrepreneurial spirit will always find a way to prevail in the end, even if that means dead-of-night squatting on someone else’s property and enlisting the aid of more than a few shady Dehli characters.

Played more for laughs in many instances (and what is it about men and their bathroom habits that’s popular the world over?), than for seriousness — though the theme itself is serious — Jugaad follows the ups and downs of a successful Delhi ad man (played by Manoj Bajpai), and what happens when the business he’s sweated over and raised to relative success is suddenly “sealed” by the authorities.

Aided by a good friend (who gets absolutely nowhere in dealing with the notorious Indian bureaucracy) in an attempt to straighten out the wrongful sealing, Bajpai’s character must instead turn to various crooks, charlatans and greedily-corrupt officials in order to keep his advertising business going, and his livelihood from completely falling apart and reducing him to poverty.

A series of pratfalls (expediters, for instance, who promise you the moon and the sun but instead abscond without delivering what they’d promised) occurs, and the amount of people with their hands out, guaranteeing that the lights will soon be turned on or the water flowing, grows along with the number of times bribes are offered.  Pretty soon, it’s as if almost all of Delhi is lined up for a piece of the pie, so to speak.

Sometimes uneven in pacing, and occasionally failing to take full advantage of Bajpai’s acting talents, Juggad nevertheless makes for good, light entertainment, even given the serious events it plays for laughs.

]]> http://www.thelatestone.com/jugaad-goes-for-the-off-key-and-largely-succeeds.html/feed 0 http://www.thelatestone.com/the-stoneman-murders-looks-to-disturb.html http://www.thelatestone.com/the-stoneman-murders-looks-to-disturb.html#comments Wed, 18 Feb 2009 11:28:23 +0000 Neha Aggarwal http://www.thelatestone.com/?p=911

Back in the mid-1980s, a new phenomenon struck at the street dwellers of Mumbai.  Given the name “Stoneman,” for the large stone used by the  serial killer to crush the heads of his victims and murder them, it’s believed this person was responsible for taking a dozen lives over a nearly 2-year period.  As is the case in more than a few serial murder sprees, the killer eventually slipped back into anonymity and ”The Stoneman Murderer” was never captured, as far as Mumbai police could determine.

The Stoneman Murders looks back at that era, and in the relationship between two of the cops assigned to the case.  Taking us through some truly poor neighborhoods and shanty towns, one gets a sense of how easy it was for this killer to pull off his crimes with relative ease, given the large numbers of homeless roaming the streets of Mumbai, sleeping wherever they could find a dry place to lay their heads.

As the murders were never solved, just leaving the movie to that ending would never have created maximum suspense and gripping drama.  A plot twist is therefore employed near the movie’s end which supposes a theory for why the murders were committed, and who committed them.  This is an age-old device in murder/serial-killer movies, and The Stoneman Murders freely draws from the influence of movies such as 1944’s “The Lodger” or a more recent effort like 2001’s “From Hell.”  Both used the ”Jack the Ripper” serial killings in the same manner used by director Manish Gupta to add some spice to a case which, in reality, petered-out from lack of clues or activity.

Sometimes jangly and discordant, and always disquieting in tone, The Stoneman Murders brings back a disturbing time period in Mumbai.

Making the rounds in theaters these past several weeks, the Will Smith vehicle Seven Pounds ( December 19th) asks the question just how much one needs to do to atone for a past mistake.  In Smith’s case, the answer is ”a heck of a lot.”

Also starring Barry Pepper, Woody Harrelson and Rosario Dawson — who’s probably the film’s single best-drawn character — Seven Pounds takes us through a series of flashbacks and in-the-moment scenes, mostly involving the interplay between Smith’s character (a former high-powered media executive named Tim Thomas) and a number of the people whose lives he’s set out to change for the good.  Seeking not merely to give them a gift right upfront, Thomas also secretly examines several of the potential recipients for their essential goodness (or lack of), including the luminous Rosario Dawson, who figures prominently in the decision taken by Thomas to bring his atonement to a final, jarring end.

There’s an interesting backstory involving Smith’s character and that of his younger brother, an IRS agent out on medical leave and whose life was saved by the donation of a portion of the elder Thomas’ liver.  It also helps to explain how Thomas is able to find such a wildly-diverse group of people who seem to be in particular need of the gifts which he can bestow.

Along with Dawson, Woody Harrelson (playing a blind customer service representative and part-time piano teacher) also delivers a decent performance in the limited amount of screen time he’s given.  One can sympathize with him, given the poor hand he was dealt by life and how he deals with it.  Given the somber tone of the movie at times, and its ending, Seven Pounds probably isn’t for moviegoers seeking the typical lighthearted Will Smith romp.

At time what happens that your expectations from a film is zilch but to surprise, it is able to catch your attention by its power packed and fascinating script. But here we are talking about a film, people had zilch expectations from and it proved to be the same. Yes, Aasma-The Sky is the Limit, falls into the latter category.

Throughout the film you are trying to derive the central theme of the film and you are completely clueless about the message the film is trying to convey. You may call it the imitation of Dil Chahta Hai and Jaane Tu….Ya Jaane Na, but it fails. And if you are trying to compare it with ‘Phir MIlenge’, then even there it fails and one more guess which may be about its being a musical film. Well, let me make it clear that this film does not land anywhere.

Writing is entirely unprofessional and direction by Rohit Nayyar also could not meet up the standards of film-making. Instead you might feel like asking these guys if they have ever come across the grammar of film-making. Obviously, no one can deny from a lively performance by the hero Shubh who is stepping into the bollywood via this film. It can be taken as an exercise in boredom. The film crashes on the land contrary to its name.

‘Aasma’ is a name of a theatre group. They come across a number of hardships when the main sponsor (Sachin Khedekar) leaves them in between. They all try hard to gather resources but amidst all this hustle-bustle, the leading hero of the film is identified with HIV.

Each and every component of the film including writing, performances and the making, is tawdry. The limit is that a serious issue like HIV has been treated so carelessly that it comes as a shock to the viewers.

As far as performances are concerned- Shubb shows confidence but he should avoid Shahrukh hang-up as soon as possible. Hrishitaa Bhatt and Nausheed Cyrusi suffer from improperly defined roles. And will anyone please explain why Seema Biswas is speaking English throughout?

Music of the film given by Afsar Sajjid, is also fine but not as such good. Track like ‘Ye Pal’ is an enjoyable track and you might like it in its ‘club mix’ as well. Title song ‘Aasman’ might not be considered as something that one would like to hear. The best track of the film is sung by Rahat Fateh Ali Khan and which is ‘Man Bawra’. This is a fabulous song based on Indian classical music.

In overall, you can say that the film has decent soundtrack, but dim prospects.