Mystic India - Truly an incredible journey

Mystic India is a must watch for every Indian and for every religion. It is the journey of an 11-year old boy, Neelkanth, who walked over 8000 miles across India barefoot and barebody in quest of truth and spiritual enlightenment, before obtaining sanyas (Asceticism or spiritual yoga). This boy Neelkanth later grew up into a renowned saint and world reformer, Swaminarayan after embracing Uddhav Sampraday from Swami Ramanand.

The film captures the real mood of spiritual India - its architectural wonders, ancient wisdom and the innumerable holy places along the length and breadth of the country. Every picture frame in Mystic India is awe-inspiring and leaves you wanting more of it. The breathtaking locales from the Himalayas to the Cherrapunji, from the South waters to the Ganges are enough to blow your mind. The story of Neelkanth is neatly woven into this epic film on the unity, cultural diversity and the underlying spirituality in India.

The casting done for Neelkanth's role in the film is brilliant - Latesh Patel and Rupak Mehta playing the young and the adolescent Neelkanth respectively. The film was made in Hindi and its English version has a scenic narration by Peter O 'Toole.

Mystic India is much more than a documentary considering its reel time of 50 minutes. As the film was made on the 70mm film or the Imax format, it is not possible for it to be played everywhere. It is currently being shown in India at Prasads Imax, Hyderabad and Adlabs Imax, Mumbai. I recommend Mystic India to every human being who would like to get inspired.

My rating for this film - *****
(* You will shoot me
** Waste of time
*** Can sit through
**** Worth watching once
***** Must watch)

13B is an interesting watch

I got to read mixed reviews on 13B starring Madhavan since its release. I liked the movie myself when I watched it on Saturday. It may not have the most interesting plot ever shown in any movie, but it is gripping in parts. Please put your logic aside because this one is a supernatural thriller and we just cannot discuss logic here - ghosts defy logic.. they can enter a telivision or even a cell phone for that matter and communicate with you! Do ghosts exist? is something which is not relevant to this post. We assume ghosts exist and that is how you gotto watch this film.

Manahor aka Manu (Madhavan) and his brother Manoj move into the 13B flat on the 13th floor of their new apartment with their families. Things somehow do not seem to be going well for Manu after shifting into this new house. Adding to that, he realizes that everything that is to happen in his life (or in their house) is planned in advance by a daily soap on T.V. called Sab Khairiyat, which the women in the house get addicted to. Rest is all about how he chases the mystery surrounding the bad omens of number 13 in his life, the characters that appear in that daily soap and the reason behind their death some 20 years ago in the same building where this new apartment is now built.

13B is a cautiously made film and with extreme care not to miss continuity with any of the links in the story. Everybody did well on the acting front especially Madhavan, Neetu Chandra (Madhavan's wife) and the one who played the mentally disturbed Ashok. 13B progresses in the hollywood style of narration and it is no wonder that the US based production house, Weinstein Co has already offered to buy its remake rights in hollywood.

My rating for this film - ****
(* You will shoot me
** Waste of time
*** Can sit through
**** Worth watching once
***** Must watch)

'Let's Vote' Campaign Shoot

We shot a film for the Let's Vote campaign on Sunday. It is a 1 minute film made on a very simple concept - A group of friends having tea at their favourite hangout are made to realize the impact of one's vote by one amongst them. We were unaware of the impending JEE exam at a centre very near to our selected location. The shoot went uninterrupted, though. All of us (crew) gathered at the spot by 8:30 A.M. and called it a day (pack up :D) at 12:30 P.M.; of course not to forget the gallons of Irani chai and dozens of osama biscuits we had munched on at the road-side tiffin stall (a small road side dhaba will definitely earn us much more than what we would be earning otherwise :D). We were lucky enough to get an experienced person (Suresh) to handle the camera for us. The first cut editing is done. The re-recording is scheduled for today and if everything goes as planned, we should be ready with the final copy by tomorrow.
Let us Vote.

8X10 Tasveer

8X10 Tasveer is a supernatural thriller that stars Akshay Kumar as Jai Puri, a forest range officer, who has an unusual power of knowing the past just by looking at a photograph. He gets to see, for a minute, everything that took place at the time when a particular photograph was taken. The film is all about how he uses this power on multiple occasions with a single 8X10 photograph to unravel the mystery behind his father's death.

The suspense element is maintained until the end and this forms the pulse of 8X10 Tasveer. The climax, however, could have been better sans all the typical bollywood drama. The suspense, though, when revealed might look silly or bring out the usual 'ah! is this what I have been waiting for?' kind of an expression, but you bet is highly unpredictable. The recording done for the film is brilliant and so is the photography.

Javed Jaffri as an ex-cop helping Jai with his investigation is very good and brings in good humour at times. Sharmila Tagore is convincing as Jai's widow mother and Ayesha Takia also looks promising. The film is very rich in its technicalities. Nagesh Kukunoor made every effort to make 8X10 Tasveer look technically brilliant and has come out quite successfully with it.

My rating for this film - ***
(* You will shoot me
** Waste of time
*** Can sit through
**** Worth watching once
***** Must watch)