Jhoom Barabar Jhoom sucks big time!

Making a Yash Raj production is the easiest job for directors these days- they will sign a plethora of stars (who are ready to do anything to get into a Yash Raj production, thanks to the media overhype it generates), hire a good production designer, costume designer and a choreographer, record some songs, zoom off to Europe with your stars and cameraman, shoot whatever you feel like shooting, shoot some good scenes exclusively for the promos and unleash your movie onto the audience! The formula kind of worked well for the producers till Dhoom:2, but the rate at which their movies are flopping (Kabul Express, Ta Ra Rum Pum); if they continue to make duds like JBJ (Acronym for Jhoom Barabar Jhoom- Very important these days, a very stylish way of promoting your movie), it would not be long when Yash Raj films will be remembered as the banner that used to make (successful) movies in the past. Well, in case you are interested, this apology for a movie is about Ricky Thukral (Abhishek Bachchan) and Alvira Khan (Preity Zinta) who meet at the Waterloo Railway station. Both of them have come to receive their respective fiancees and since the train is 2 hours late (I heard comments from the audience about how Laloo Prasad Yadav's presence in the UK ministry could have saved us of this torture), they decide to tell each other how they met their fiancees and got engaged. So goes Ricky first describing about his meeting with Anaida (Lara Dutta), Assistant Manager at the Ritz, Paris and the audience is treated to Anayanka Bose's excellent camera angles capturing the beauty of Paris. 3 scenes, one song and cut back to Waterloo. Now you have Alvira describing her fantasy tale of how she met her fiancee, the very successful half- Brit, half- Indian lawyer Steve Singh (Bobby Deol). The routine of 3 scenes, one song continues and you are cut back to Waterloo only to be forced to believe that in between narrating these stories, Thukral and Khan have actually fallen in love with each other!!! How these love stories progress and how Shaad Ali Sehgal makes your head spin with his narration is what the rest of the movie is all about. Honestly, by the time the tour of Paris was over, I was not really bothered about who was in love with whom or who was about to fall in love with whom. Love is blind but the film makers who make love stories in Bollywood are blind, deaf, dumb and crazy!!! Coming to the performances, Bachchan Jr. is at his boisterous best here, but he really seems to have enjoyed every moment of shooting for this crap. There is something endearing about the man and his over the top performance in the movie does not affect the star aura that he has even one bit. Lara Dutta is first- rate. She looks hot and her French- Hindi accent in the first half and her foul mouthed Punjabi avtaar in the second half are both equally convincing. Bobby Deol gets some respite from his inane action roles and he charms his way to the audiences' hearts with his honest performance. Preity Zinta looks awfully out of shape and old. She goes on repeating herself here too adding to the audiences' woes. From the middle of nowhere, Amitabh Bachchan crops up every now and then mouthing few lines of a song. No one quite understands why he is there in the movie, but the veteran manages to hold his own with his unquestionable screen presence. Shankar- Ehsaan- Loy's tracks are pedestrian and cannot be compared to the winner of a sound track in Sehgal's "Bunty Aur Babli". The title track is definitely foot tapping, but that does not mean it should keep playing in the background throughout the length of the movie. The songs have been very well choreographed by Vaibhavi Merchant, though she seems to be suffering from a Farah Khan- Kunder hangover. The screenplay is a drag, dialogues are pointless and the direction is shoddy. Shaad Ali Sehgal showed promise in Saathiya and played to the galleries in Bunty Aur Babli. Here he appears to be confused about how to get the best out of his stars with the help (!) of a lack lustre script and he fails big time. I hope JBJ is a good lesson for Shaad. If there is one technician who impresses, it is Aki Narula. The designer seems to have had a ball dressing up the galaxy of stars in the movie. Abhishek carries off his outlandish costumes with elan, Lara Dutta looks super stylish in the first half and super sexy in the second, Bobby Deol looks affable with his highlighted streaks and trendy clothes and Preity Zinta as always looks casual and cool in her cute clothes. JBJ is a very good example of wasted potential and half way through the movie one starts wondering- Is complacency setting in at the Yash Raj studios?

Life in a Metro is disappointing!

Now, this was one movie I was really looking forward to. With Anurag Basu (whose previous works include Murder, Gangster and the forgettable Tumsa Nahin Dekha) at the helm of affairs, a winner of a sound track (Courtesy: Pritam) and an ensemble star cast, I expected the movie to be out of the ordinary. Unfortunately, Life in a Metro is an unrealistic and one dimensional take on life in metros. So, we have a host of protagonists- the over sexed Ranjeet (Kay Kay Menon) who works as a top executive in a call center; his wife, the sexually disinterested Shikha (Shilpa Shetty) who has sacrificed her professional life for the sake of bringing up her daughter; the sexually deprived Akash (Shiney Ahuja), a small time actor, unsuccessful and separated from his wife who takes an instant liking for Shikha; the will- sleep- with- anyone Neha (Kangna Ranaut) who gets hooked to Ranjeet; the will- do- anything to come up in life Rahul (Sharman Joshi) who hands out the keys to his apartment to his seniors for them to have a good time with their girlfriends and who falls for Neha's charm; the still- to- have- sex- with- anyone Shruthi (Konkona Sen Sharma) who is nearing 30, but is still unmarried and a virgin and the unlucky with sex Monty (Irrfan Khan) who is 38 and still on the look out for a wife. How these characters bump into each other and make life miserable for themselves as well as the audience is what Life in a Metro is all about. In the middle of all this, we have a cute romantic track running between Shivani (Nafisa Ali Sodhi), Shikha's Bharatnatyam teacher and Amol (Dharmendra) who happens to be her childhood sweet heart. Shivani is a widow and has been left in an old age home by her kids. Amol has returned to India after working in the US of A for 40 years. How they re unite at old age against the wishes of Shivani's kids is another track in the movie, the only interesting and progressive track in the middle of all those cliched and jaded story lines. What saves the movie from being a complete disaster is definitely the performances of the stellar cast- Kay Kay Menon is intensity personified, Shilpa Shetty is highly effective and it is good to see the actress exploring new dimensions of her acting abilities. Hope producers and directors are able to look beyond her hour glass figure in future. Kangna Ranaut is disappointing in a badly written part. Sharman Joshi is earnest. Shiney Ahuja tries but his characterization betrays him. Dharmendra does a cute cameo and Nafisa Ali Sodhi is perfectly cast as Shivani. Irrfan Khan is his usual sprightly self and Konkona Sen Sharma is simply the best! The movie definitely has some very well written, well shot and well acted out scenes- watch out for Shilpa Shetty breaking out in front of Kay Kay Menon explaining the sacrifices she has made for her family, Konkona's confrontation with her gay fiancee, Irrfan and Konkona's first meeting at a cafe, Shiney and Shilpa's scenes at Shiney's friend's place, Konkona and Irrfan shouting their hearts out on the roof top of a Mumbai sky scraper etc. But, a host of good scenes cannot really make a good movie. Anurag Basu's script is good at times, but messy most of the time. He really tests the patience of the viewer towards the climax. Pritam's sound track is excellent and the songs blend very well with the mood of the movie. But, the presence of Pritam and his band on screen while every song is being played out is a bit too jarring and invites the wrath of the audience. To sum up, Life in a Metro is regressive and disappointing, but the performances and the music save it from being a total disaster!

Unnale Unnale is preachy and pretentious

Oscar Films' V Ravichandran produces "Unnale Unnale" (Tamil) directed by Jeeva and starring newcomer Vinay with Sada and Tanisha Mukherjee in the lead. Unnale... is the story of Karthik (Vinay), the tall, dark, handsome hero who is always surrounded by girls of various sizes and shapes. Karthik falls for Jancy (Sada), who is temperamentally just his opposite. Jancy is a very simple girl, extremely possessive about Karthik and will not tolerate Karthik even speaking to another girl. Jancy looks at Karthik with suspicion and cannot come to terms with his open minded nature. Problems erupt and their love story ends even before it begins properly. Fate has other plans for the duo however. They bump into each other in Melbourne, Australia. Jancy takes up a job there and Karthik is transferred to Melbourne for a project. Along with them, they have Deepika (Tanisha) also, who has come down with Karthik on the same flight to assist Jancy with her project. The rest of the film is all about how Karthik tries to evoke romantic feelings for him in Jancy, how Jancy spurns all of Karthik's advances, how Deepika tries to unite Karthik and Jancy and in the end falls for him. The film starts well. The romance between Karthik and Jancy and their consequent split is interestingly conveyed. But, once the story shifts to Australia and with Deepika's entry, the script goes haywire. All the characters start preaching about how a boy behaves, how a girl behaves, how the two behave in love, how should they ideally be blah blah blah!Its here that the dialogues start getting on your nerves and you start praying for the movie to end! Cinematographer turned script writer cum director Jeeva borrows heavily from the recent successful youth flicks- Karthik and Jancy's first meeting and exchange of words is lifted straight out of Mani Ratnam's "Alaipayuthe"; the scenes between Karthik and his friends (Raju Sundaram and Sreekanth) is inspired by Farhan Akhthar's "Dil Chahta Hai" and Deepika's plan of falling in love with Karthik in 10 days remind you of Nikhil Advani's "Kal Ho Naa Ho". Alas, if Jeeva's script was as interesting as any of the afore mentioned movies. New comer Vinay is good looking and is definitely, star material. However, he has a long way to go as far as acting is concerned. His lip syncing is horrible, making one clearly understand that Tamil is an alien language for him. His facial expressions and hand movements in emotional scenes look very awkward. He could have been made to appear neat in the movie by avoiding that stubble and bushy sideburns. Strangely, Sada maintains a surprised look throughout the movie, even in scenes where she is supposed to look angry. She, either has a problem with her facial anatomy or has some wrong notions about acting in her head. No wonder one does not get to see much of the actress in spite of having mega hits like Jayam and Anniyan to her credit. High time she thought seriously about improving her acting abilities lest she wants to become history soon! Tanisha Mukherjee is full of zest and energy. However, she too suffers from the lip sync problem, thanks to her complete ignorance of the Tamil language. She is nowhere close to her effervescent and natural sister, Kajol, who made an impressive appearance in Tamil in Rajiv Menon's "Minsarakkanavu" (1997) The photography by Jeeva is fabulous and the beauty of Melbourne has been very well captured by his lenses. The characters in the movie appear hip and trendy. A special mention must be made about the costumes and the complete natural look that all the three main characters sport. Tanisha's costumes are the cutest and the trendiest! However, what works the most in favor of the movie is Harris Jayaraj's music and background score. All the 7 songs in the movie are good and the songs- "June ponaal", "Muthal Muthalake", "Muthal Naal Indru" and "Vaikashi Nilave' stand out. The choreography is also very good. To conclude, Unnale Unnale is a classic example of body beautiful, soul zero and with a little more effort on the part of the script writer cum director Jeeva, could have been a real landmark movie.

Some thoughts on "The Guide"

The second book which I managed to read during my chicken pox days was R K Narayan's classic love story- "The Guide." Now, please don't think that I have the audacity to review a book written by some one like R K Narayan. I am just trying to pen down my thoughts on the book. For years together, I have been fascinated by this story of Raju and Rosy, more so after watching the marvellously shot songs of Vijay Anand's cinematic version of the classic novel starring Dev Anand and Waheeda Rehman. Who can forget the immortal songs like Gaata Rahe Mera Dil, Aaj phir jeene ki tamanna hain and Piya to se naina lage re. Not that I have had a chance to watch the entire movie, but whatever I had seen of it in bits and pieces had interested me immensely. This was the reason why I picked up the Guide at DC Books, Kochi and man, what a great work it is! Starting as the story of Railway Raju, a small town guy turned petty shop owner turned tourist guide, it proceeds to become the love story of Raju and Rosy. Marco and Rosy, man and wife, bump into Raju and make use of his services as a tourist guide in Malgudy. How Raju interacts closely with the family, understands the lack of love and passion in their relationship and falls for Rosy's charm is what the rest of the story is all about. Now, Rasipuram Krishnaswamy Narayan is one of the greatest Indo Anglian writers ever, there is no question on that. What sets "The Guide" apart from his other works is the sheer progressive theme. One does not expect a writer from India, that too from the more conservative South India to write a story about a woman who leaves her husband for another man and eventually, ends up a successful dancer. One may initially feel offended at Rosy's lack of morality, but the way Rosy's character has been conceived and narrated, you cannot help but feel for her. In spite of dealing with a theme and protagonists who break every rule of the traditional Indian society of the 1950's, the narrative progresses on a very judicious note with Raju being jailed for forgery. His consequent release from jail, his travel to another village and how the people in the village mistake him for a yogi have been explained very interestingly indeed. The inevitable death of Raju in the end in a way upholds the traditional "good wins over evil" dictum too. All in all, the Guide is an extremely enjoyable book that grows on you slowly and provides the kind of pleasure that you derive from listening to slow, melodious music.

Book Review- Five Point Someone.

That period of Chicken pox in my life did work to my advantage in a way- it reconnected me with the world of fiction which I had left behind long back! More so, coz there was hardly anything I could do other than reading, with those boils all over my body! The first book that I selected for reading was- Five Point Someone by Chetan Bhagat (Rupa and Co. Rs. 95/-). Now for all those who do not know who Chetan Bhagat is, well, he is an IIT, IIM working in an investment company in Hong Kong and is also the author of the best selling "One night @ the call centre" (Extremely interesting book, that one!). Lets get back to Five point...which is the story of 3 youngsters- Hari (the narrator), Ryan and Alok who get together at the IIT and through these 3 characters, the author proceeds to tell his readers what not to do at IIT through the (mis)adventures of the threesome. The threesome become friends consequent to a ragging experience; one of them falls for a professor's daughter, the other has original ideas and hates the whole system of teaching at the IIT and the third has personal commitments (an ailing father, a sister of marriageable age and a helpless mother) due to which he wants to get out of IIT scoring good marks and a high paying job. How a series of circumstances within the IIT affects and changes the lives of these characters is what Five Point Someone is all about. To start with, for a story like this, at no point does the author become preachy, even though he himself is an ex- IIT. The narration flows effortlessly and the escapades that the three characters get into have the reader always hooked to the narrative. The three lead characters have been very neatly sketched out with their backgrounds, personalities etc neatly and convincingly explained. The characters of Hari's girl friend, Neha; her father, Prof: Cherian and also of the helpful Prof: Veera have come out very well. The best thing about the book is that it is not pretentious at any level and one can zoom off with the book with the speed at which one watches the recent Bollywood flicks. No wonder, the book is soon to be made into a feature film...

Chicken Pox- When one feels really sick...

Thanks to a totally unexpected attack of Chicken Pox, I have been confined to home for almost 11 days now. The fever about which I had mentioned in my previous post on the trip to Kaavalam developed into Chicken Pox and the first boils were visible on my arm on the evening of 27th May, Sunday. I just double checked with my mom and off I was packed to one of the bedrooms in the house with literally nothing for company for the next 3 days. I had to suffer all sorts of miseries in that room- the room was smoked with Kunthirikkam (I dont know what one calls it in English). It leaves a good smell but it is a disaster sitting through the smoke. Neem leaves were strewn all over the room and the worst thing was that I could not eat food with oil or salt. Being the foodie that I am, this was the most difficult thing that could ever happen to me. The first night went on fine, but the next morning, I could find boils all over my body. The heat that the wretched disease generates within your body is awful, and to add to that there is the peak summer heat outside for company. I was feeling as if there were fireballs placed all over my body and supposedly, the only thing that could bring a little respite to the heat were fruits!!!Now for a person like me, fruits are something that are eaten when you have nothing else to do and here I was prompted to eat nothing but fruits for a full meal. That too fruits of all kinds, sizes and shapes- rock hard bananas, sour grapes, water melons (which in my opinion are simply disastrous) and the like. Thanks to the boils all over my body, I could not sleep in any one position. It was so very itchy and I had to spend days and nights on bed twisting and turning my body towards all sides. Anyways, good bless allopathic medicines thanks to which my ordeal finally ended in 6 days when the boils slowly started disappearing from my body. I had that infamous post chicken pox bath on Monday, June 4 and now I am all set and raring to go. I really cannot wait till Friday, June 8 when I will be joining back work and when I will be able to get out of the four walls of the house. On hindsight, I still feel this is the worst kind of disease that can affect someone like me who finds it so difficult to sit at home even for a day! So all of you friends, who have been lucky enough not to be affected by Chicken Pox till now in your lives, it definitely is not an experience that you would like to go through. So, whenever you hear about chicken pox spreading in your office or your neighbourhood, please make sure to take the preventive homoeo medicines that are available. I am sure none of you would like to go through the agony that I went through. Do remember my words coz as they say- Experience is the best teacher.