Nothing new in Nagavalli

I watched this flick called Nagavalli a couple of weeks back which is supposed to be the sequel to the 2005's Chandramukhi. There were a lot of expectations built around the film with the kind of promos on telivision and print media. Nothing could match up to all this when we were actually watching it on big screen. It had the same story and the same prominent characters picked up from Chandramukhi. Venkatesh hardly fitted the role and lacked the poise and charisma with which superstar Thalaivar Rajnikant had donned the role earlier. The guru-disciple twist sounded very funny and the screenplay carried many flaws.

The only role which looked believable in spite of being extended from the prequel was that of Sri Ramachandra Siddhanti (Avinash). The presence of four heriones was just a gimmick to garner goody points for the film even before its release. Kamilini Mukerjee acted well in a miniature role. Anushka was also good, but she needs to throw some attention at her constantly increasing weight. Shraddha Das was disappointing and two of her reel sisters (Poonam Kaur and a newbie) had no role to talk about. Richa Gangopadhyay was okay as the victim. Sharatbabu and Prabha were adequate as parents of the four sisters.

There is nothing to comment on the music as you will hardly remember any tune once out of the theatre. Cinematography was decent and editing was crisp to an extent.

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

Profits Online

I recently shipped a Rakhi to my brother living in Chennai. Infact, that was the first time that I had resorted to any online shopping/ gifts website, reason being lack of time to go buy one and get it couriered. If I overlook ease of logistics and time saving options, I understand that the price of the above two starts from Rs. 200/- and can touch even a steep four digit number. I would not prefer taking the name of the local Chennai online gifts portal that I visited, but the profits hidden made me rethink about my current profession.

I shelled out 261 bucks (may be that 1 rupee was a token of shagun for that portal :D) for a simple rakhi that would have otherwise costed me a maximum of 20 bucks had I bought it from any random street across the country. Let us now subtract the cost for couriering it to - speed post at 30 bucks? All in all, both would have costed me around Rs. 50, but I paid an extra of Rs. 211 for the same. Even if we deduct a meagre 50/- as retailer collaboration amount, it will leave around 150 Rs/- with the person. A minimum of Rs. 150 per rakhi is not a bad amount at all to have in profit!

I Hate Luv Stor(y)s

What happens when there is sizzling chemistry between the lead pair sans any story? Result would be a cliched film like I Hate Luv Storys. Now, what does storys mean? Punit Malhotra, first time director from the "Karan Johar's school" should only be able to tell us. After all, he tried so hard to make this film look urban. Coming to the lead pair, I must admit that I had got mesmerized for the third time watching Sonam kapoor (as simran) with an exuberant display of skill and charm, after Sawariyan and Delhi6. Imran Khan as Jai Dhingra, prefers to be called Jay not Jai, as the latter does not go with his cool casanova image. Sameer Dattani as Raj, Simran's fiance is as expressionless as a rock. Time for him to realize this.

Jay is an AD (assistant director) to Veer, a director who tastes grand success with every run-of-the-mill love story of his. He hates romantic films, but sticks to Veer's team for the sake of his resume and monthly bills. Enter Simran, an art director, hired to work on Veer's new romantic saga and Jay assists her. Simran falls in love with him as he makes her realize that her so called perfect life with Raj is not as perfect as she had thought it to be. Dreams shatter to reality when Jay tells Simran that he does not feel the same for her. But, he eventually realizes his love for her and wins her back on the same day as the film premiers.

The first half of the film is a little entertaining but the second half tests your patience with a sagging plot. Music by Vishal-Shekhar is just okay with Bin Tere and Sajda standing out from the album. I will recommend this film for just one reason - Sonam A Kapoor.

My rating for this film - ***

(* You will shoot me

** Waste of time

*** Can sit through

**** Worth watching once

***** Must watch)

Template change

I have imported my blog to a new template. Everything was fine until I noticed that the comments on older posts are all lost - some hundreds of them. I forgot to take even a backup of my old template. :( Any expert suggestions on getting them back?

My Birthday Prediction

You are highly intuitive and creative. Your mind thinks in pictures. You seem to draw information and ideas from out of the sky.Your intuition is your gift, along with a powerful drive to know the Oneness of all things. You are so driven by spiritual pursuits that no ma...tter what you do in life, the world of spirit and philosophy will be central to your daily behavior. You feel linked with the larger universal forces, and nothing will change that.You have a fine mind and keen insights, but these do not come as a result of logic or rational thought. You are more likely to direct your life by inspiration, rather than by calculated reflections.On some level, you know that you are in the hands of destiny, and that you must surrender to the higher powers that shape your life.

You are usually a late bloomer. Your early and middle 30s tend to be years spent in apprenticeship and slow development. During this period, you can become frustrated with your progress, or the apparent lack of it.You need to develop faith. You are a highly charged person with much to do, but you must develop character and sound judgment before you begin to tap your true potential. Just as a tree needs roots to grow tall, so, too, do you need to develop depth of character in order to begin to expand in the ways you desire and ultimately envision.Your highly developed intuition makes you a wonderful counselor, healer, or health practitioner. You have a gift for inspiring people. Many people admire you without your knowing it. You are a visionary, and others sense your wisdom.You are acutely sensitive and easily influenced by your surroundings.

You love beauty and harmony. You crave social interaction and much attention. You can be very emotional, often experiencing extremes of happiness and sadness. You are usually too easily hurt.You get depressed easily and feel the lack of confidence during times you are in a dark mood.Despite your sensitivity, you possess leadership abilities. You are modest, diplomatic and polite. You have the ability to persuade, and can be quite forceful.Your high sensitivity to others makes you compassionate, kind, and gentle. You have an opportunity for fame and success as long as you do not pursue either as your gods. Look for ways to help others and convey a larger message, with which you were blessed. This will bring you the material and social fruits you desire.

Legalized Corruption

I came across an interesting article on why corruption should be legalized in India. Few points seem logical, but then few other points written about like formalization of extortion, blackmailing, forgery and every crime under the sun sound insensible and literally out of this world. I personally did not like even the comments made on Ram Gopal Verma. He may not be making good films of late, but I can vouch for his exceptionally brilliant knowledge on film-making (shot framing, shot angles etc..) as such. Just go through this article as a casual read!

http://in.news.yahoo.com/columnist/anand_ramachandran/4/the-legalization-of-corruption

Rajneeti - A Political Feud

Hunger for power, shrewd politics, women, handful of murders and an extra marital affair is Rajneeti. Prakash Jha tried to flush all these into a 160 odd minute movie. The film begins with a flashback showing Bharthi, Chief Minister Ramnath's daughter indulging in leftist ideologies against her father with prominent leftist, Bhaskar Sanyal. She takes a liking for Bhaskar and gets into an illicit relationship with him; He leaves for unknown places having overcome with a sense of guilt. Bharthi eventually gets pregnant and her brother, Brij Gopal (Nana Patekar) abandons the child (who grows up to become Dalit leader, Sooraj played at ease by Ajay Devgan) on a river bank. Bharthi gets married to Chandra Pratap, younger brother of Bhanu Pratap who leads the Rashtravadi party. Time passes by and Bhanu Pratap suffers from a severe stroke. He hands over the party power to Chandra Pratap and his son Prithvi Pratap (Arjun Rampal) by sidelining his own son, Veerendra Pratap (played brilliantly by Manoj Bajpai).

Unable to digest this, Veerendra Pratap tries to show his supremacy in the party by working against both his uncles' (Chandra Pratap and Brij Gopal) and his cousin's will. Upon failure, he takes aid in Sooraj and quickly devises plans to remove the obstacles in his path to power. Chandra Pratap is killed in this process while he is on his way back to hospital after seeing his younger son, Samar Pratap (Ranbir Kapoor) off at the airport. Sooraj and Veerendra play their cards quickly and get Prithvi behind the bars under false accusations. Samar promises Brij Gopal that he will restore everything to normal and teach both Veerendra and Suraj a lesson.

Samar shrewdly devises plans to let his brother out from jail and set up a new political party, Janshakthi under his brother's candidature. He also gets his brother married to Indu (Katrina Kaif), daughter of a rich business tycoon in the idea of generating surplus funds for the campaign trail. Indu sacrifices her love for Samar and marries Prithvi. Sooraj and Veerendra counteract and plant a bomb in Samar's car to kill him. Things do not work as planned when Prithvi and Samar's American girlfriend, Sarah die in the blast. Samar then decides that he will not let relationships come in between and takes oath to kill both Sooraj and Veerendra. Meanwhile, Bharthi comes to know that Sooraj is her eldest son and tries to cajole him into leaving Veerendra and accepting Samar as his brother, only to face disappointment.

Indu steps into Prithvi's place and contests the elections and eventually wins with a very high majority. Veerendra and Sooraj go to an abondoned factory to take revenge on Samar when they hear that Indu has won because of the EVMs getting hacked, and are killed before they realize that it is a plan to bring them there singly. The film ends with Indu getting pregnant with Prithvi's child and Samar returning to America.

The film was promoted as a story resembling the characters in Mahabharata, but I personally could not relate both to even a small extent except for Ajay Devgan's role resembling Karna's. It may not be a great film but Rajneeti is a one-time flick with good screenplay and powerful dialogues.

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

Creativity gets bigger

The new advertisement on Classmate (ITC's Notebook range) is too good to believe. I was awestruck by the smart AV that caught my eye when it was first aired on television a couple of days back. Now, that is what I call a fantastically creative idea and making. Soha Ali Khan looked very comfortable in the half-minute reel, but Yuvi seemed completely out of place and dud for a while. Instead, Kunal Kapoor would have been a perfect fit with his quirky acts. Catch the ad online on Youtube.

There is one more creative commercial that I found on Youtube. You may want to check this one out too - Zales Commercial.

Karthik calls himself 'Karthik'

Karthik does not know that he leaves messages for himself. Moreover, his 'uncommon mental disorder' called Schizophrenia, not only affects his subconscious mind, but also eats up its conscious part to the extent that he cannot distinguish a reminder from a call. How can a reminder get marked as an incoming call or get marked with a number? He can go to the telephone exchange and enquire about the caller or the calling number but cannot trace the reminder in his phone!!!

That is Karthik Calling Karthik, starring an unusually good looking pair Farhan and Deepika. It is about a middle-class, low on confidence Karthik who sees his life change with an unexpected call from a well wisher, also named Karthik. The first half of the film is very slow. The suspense element will not hold you for long and it becomes very obvious as the film reels forward in the second half. The director partly succeeds in gripping the audience in the post intermission segment though. Music by Shankar trio is catchy and songs are well placed. Screenplay could have been better, but editing is the major drawback of this film. Deepika looks good and manages her role well.

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

A Mere Leader

I catched up with Leader yesterday. My expectations were very high and I was eagerly waiting for this film to release since Decenber. Alas, it had nothing much to fulfil those expectations. The message was good and quite idealistic (I like idealisic films because you hardly get to witness such things in real life), but the film lacked punch and the screenplay too lagged in many parts. The usage of songs in a subtle manner to gel with the story was good. I was greatly disappointed to realize that "Maa telugu thalliki" song was just made instrumental when the beautiful voice of Tanguturi Suryakumari garu would have added intensity to the climax, which otherwise did not have a great impact.


Leader also bored me in few places and the dubbing done for Ratna Prabha's character sounded quite unrealistic and bad. The romantic track between Rana and Richa was neat and acceptable. Rana has made a good start as an actor, so did Richa Gangopadhyay as Archana, a reporter and social worker. Rana can improve on his dialogue delivery and modulation. Kota Srinivas Rao and Ahuti Prasad as presidents of opposition parties are apt for their roles. Subba raju and Rao Ramesh also fit into the villainous roles with their routing acting. Editing is not crisp and its poor form shows up at a number of places in the film.

Music by Mickey J Meyer is adequate. Aunana Kadana and Leader theme are catchy and stay with you even after you come out of the theatre. On the whole, the film is okay to watch.

My rating for this film - ***1/2
(* You will shoot me
** Waste of time
*** Can sit through
**** Worth watching once
***** Must watch)

Random Thoughts

I am yet to watch Avatar. Tickets for Avatar 2D were easier to get than 3D and I had already made my mind that I would catch it only in 3D. We could not get bulk tickets in the first few weeks and later I became busy. And, now I have lost interest at least not as much required to pull me to the theatre playing it. But, I hope to watch before it is pulled out of Hyderabad. There are few other flicks besides Avatar on my list - Ishqiyan, Sherlock Holmes and couple of others. I usually prefer watching movies on the big screen than at home. It does not build the atmosphere and neither does it have that feel to it. Would love to write a film review here again!

I have been very busy at work of late, working like never before. It has been a year since I have worked this hard. Hope to find time for myself again very soon. Meanwhile, things aren't getting any better in Hyderabad. People are being crazy about this Telangana fever. What good will it make anyway? Disturbing internal peace and debts of hundreds and thousands of crores all over again. :(

Gamble

A Gamble is a Gamble, no matter you get into it yourself or someone else pushes you into it.

Happy New Year

Wish you all a very Happy, Prosperous and Dynamic year ahead in 2010. May God bless you with lots of love and courage.