It had been a very long time since I'd been to a Telugu movie. Last Friday when my folks were here, my Dad and I rushed to see Jr.NTR starring "Adhurs".
Brahmanandam and NTR have just rocked. Both of us enjoyed it tremendously. Comedy was amazing and not mention the dance steps. He dances amazingly !
Jr.NTR is doing movies in similar theme which his grandfather did. This one was based on "Ramadu Bhimaddu". Until next time, Adhurs !
Have been watching too many movies these days and the one that stands out in English is:
Sexy Beast:
These are the starting lines from the movie in typical Brit accent from Ray Winstone:
Oh, yeah. Bloody hell. I'm sweating in here. Roasting. Boiling. Baking. Sweltering. It's like a sauna. Furnace. You can fry an egg on my stomach. Ohh, who wouldn't lap this up? It's ridiculous. Tremendous. Fantastic. Fan-dabby-dozy-tastic.
The exact Audio is in the below youtube (MUST LISTEN) the video is NOT from the movie .. so just Listen to it !
Another classic from Ben Kingsley here:
I know a bloke who knows a bloke who knows a bloke.
The Long Good Friday:
Amazing soundtracks and among the very neat ones. Typical Brit gangster movie. Listen to the most famous OST here:
Love, Honor and Obey:
Another classic but not just about there. Also featuring Ray Winstone.
Saw some amazing Tamil movies as well. More on them at a later post !
There is this sudden burst of Tamil movies that I've been watching a lot these days and the one that makes me cry is "Maayandi Kudumbathaar".
Watch the trailer below:
The movie revolves around four brothers who are the sons of "Maayandi" and each one them of respect and admire each other. In days where brothers and sisters have so much friction this movie hits upon you to think and ponder. What we really miss today is this big combined family concept where life is full of activity. Property, prejudice and other matters makes it more complicated as well.
On the property front, I strongly believe one is not supposed to leave any property to its generation. This leads to the who dirty thing of hoarding money for its coming generations to survive. Neither take in any property nor leave anything for the next ones (that's my take) !
Being eldest in family is sometimes a boon and bane. The movie emphasizes on education as well wherein the one who is pursuing education is supported my the entire family.
The characters are well scripted and do their job perfectly. Nice folk song and dances and village fares can be seen. Very good movie and must see from my side !
"This is England" is a British movie that revolves around the early 80's when race and ethnic related crimes were beginning to seethe in the UK.
(Trailer below)
The backdrop of the movie features the Falkan Island war between the Argentinians and the British.
The pink heads (aka skin heads) headed the crime against the brown. Something similar to dot busters who targeted Indian women who sported dot (bindi) in the US. The movie can be drawn parallel to what we are seeing down under (Australia).
The point I'm trying to drive is, what irks a local community in its microplasam is that they want their rights and needs to fulfilled. Any particular immigrating group which tried to establish its own identity or way of living is not accepted. We can see these things even within our country when people from different states start mingling with the local communities. This is where the "ghetto" kind of living spurts in where people of a particular community all live together as a group and sometimes their living conditions are not socially acceptable w.r.t its local community.
May be that's the way we all humans are. We just cannot withstand it ! More to ponder than preach !
Pasanaga (Kids) is a neat Tamil movie that has captured idiosyncrasies in a subtle manner.
The movie is a must see for all the kids who know Tamil and must be played across all schools across Tamil Nadu, especially in the Govt. schools. If it can be dubbed in other regional languages it would be wonderful.
Trailer below:
The movie has some wonderful characters and the mobile phone ring tones are aptly used to describe certain moods and characters as the movie progresses.
A situation where the kids drive an imaginary scooter and car took me back to my childhod.. Brrrrrrrrrr......
So what does the above latin phrase translate to ?
UBI caritas et amor, Deus ibi est (Latin) WHERE charity and love are, God is there.
If you've attended to any of the serving or sermon at a church or any gospel you might have heard this during the choir session.
I came across this in a wonderful movie that I watched this Sunday, "Doubt". Doubt is an amazing move which revolves around this word "doubt" and how it actually takes over we humans, just that the context here is from the parish.
Catch the Trailer below:
The performances are just perfect !
"Doubt can be a bond as powerful and sustaining as certainty"
But the point that I'm driving home is that "doubt" can be such a dampener in any relationship. Once a person comes into this mental block by inadvertently forcing oneself to believe something sham about another person, there is unfounded belief that takes over him and doubt is one such thing.
Once doubt takes control over you then I guess there is no way you can extricate out of that doubt.
Every year Tamil cinema churns out this occassional beauty and Kancheepuram is one such. It is the story about weavers plight in and around kancheepuram just around the time of independence.
I must say that this movie is just amazing and its out and out Prakash Raj and some good support from Shreya Reddy. Its a class on its own and you'll actually understand some strong under statements (oxymoron?) made referring to the way we adopted British legacy.
This HYD trip has been with lot of runs and some quick catch up with pals. We went in for this movie called "Watchmen" and before I review it:
Movie Trailer Above
The movie is from the director of the movie "300". It is very stylishly made and the opening credits with Bob Dylan in the background makes for a perfect start. The first one hour is very good and since this movie is an adaptation of a comic book series you might want to read about its characters before you watch the movie.
If you have been thinking that only Rajanikanth or Mithun Chakroborthy can dodge bullets, then dodge that !
I saw a pathetic movie over this weekend, "Wanted" starring Angeline Jolie and the climax looked like a tribute to Rajani.
The below mentioned click will take you to the youtube (as the embedding is disabled I couldn't find any better video).
http://pop.youtube.com/watch?v=8qj8mLv9um8 Situation: Must see and try to understand. All of them are standing in a circle. How would you kill all of them standing in a circle using one bullet ?
This is how we all are. Mob violence, religious intolerance, blind worship, fanaticism, superstition, caste based ostracization, violent yet love each other. Thats quite a weird amalgamation of idiosyncrasy.
I've lived in small bylanes in small town and with Delhi-6 you can identify yourself with any bustling Indian city or small town. The small social groups that you form discussing life and politics at the same time going through your chores.
The background score is amazing and the first 20 minutes are the best I've seen in the recent past. Any comeback-home movie(like Swades) gets me hooked in.
Watch it for sure ! But don't nag if you don't like it. We are like this only.
Dev-D is an adult movie. Simple as that. It actually brings the newer side of Hindi cinema. If you've watched typical English (British Cinema) drugs, sex, violence and gangster flick then this is just the Indian twist to it with characters juxtaposed to "Devdas".
If you are obsessed with lust and drugs then you might just find a winner. Otherwise the second half is the best part with sleazy editing, front-back-front story line. Guy Ritchie, QT (Quentin Tarantino), Robert Rodriguez can all be seen in this work of Anurag Kashyap.
I'm a very BIG fan of Abhay Deol and the demeanor he carries across is what mesmerizes me the most. I guess Abhay Deol and Di Caprio are my current favorites.
Official Trailer below:
I like all the songs with some Rahman flavour !!!
Go watch it for it is an unusual movie with an unusual plot !
It means "Will (split and) meet up again" (phir milenege ?).
I've been following "Cheran's" movies for quite some time now and the subjects he deals with are the ones that we see and face in our lives. His previous movie "Autograph" was amazing. I in fact saw that in Telugu.
Watch this movie and you'll see why we are missing/loosing this "Joint Family" concept in India now. Feel good movie that makes you think !
Venkat Prabhu, the name sounds very familiar. Yes he the eldest son of Gangai Amaran (younger brother of Ilayraja). He was the director of Chennai 28. He has now come up another wonderful thriller+comedy, Saroja.
Its a must see and highlight is Premji Amaran, younger brother of Venkat Prabhu. Prem has this amazing timing all throughout this movie. Thanks to Bharath, I've been getting to know so much about Tamil cinema. Catch the trailer below:
These days I've become a big fan of this show called, "Koffe with Anu" in Star Vijay.
Other movies that I saw recently include, "Rock On" and "Welcome to Sajjanpur". Class movies in their own right !
Just saw this movie called "Hurricane" starring Denzel Washington as Rubin Carter.
It is about the life of the boxer Rubin "Hurricane" Carter. Pretty good movie it turned out to be as I watched with lot of ad break in TV. Zee Studio has been airing quite a few good movies in the recent past and I guess "Cinderella Man" is the next on the offing. Read more about him at the Wiki
Bob Dylan in fact narrates the complete list of events from Hurricane in his song dedicated to Rubin Carter. Catch the song from Youtube below:
Lyrics excerpts below:
Pistol shots ring out in the barroom night Enter Patty Valentine from the upper hall. She sees the bartender in a pool of blood, Cries out, "My God, they killed them all!" Here comes the story of the Hurricane, The man the authorities came to blame For somethin' that he never done. Put in a prison cell, but one time he could-a been The champion of the world.
Rounders: Must see because I did not understand the nuances of poker or card games. Either read the Wiki entry before or after for a better understanding of it.
John Malkovich and Matt Damon steal the show with some histrionics from Edward Norton. I fiddled with the subtitles file for long only figure out the gross delay in the Audio and subtitles. You''ll like the theme in here and if you understand the game "Texas hold 'em" then you bet !
Catch the trailer below:
Sing is Kinng: I liked it. Just chill and keep the brain out and you'll enjoy it thoroughly. Akshay Kumar all the way. Simple as that !
Bachna E Haseno: I liked, no I didn't, well I think I'm liking it, hmmm...ummmm.. actually Not bad. That's how my moods were swinging when I was watching this. OK timepass flick.. wait for the VCD/DVD instead.
Sardar: This is about Sardar Patel acted by Paresh Rawal. Must see if you have the DVD/VCD. Or order it from Shemaroo's website. They have the original rights for the movie. Awesome movie and many things you did not about how the Union of India actually was formed.
CID Moosa (Malayalam): Simply awesome. I actually understood the entire movie. Very hilarious and situational comedy genre.
Thanks to Chandy for recommending me this movie and he knows my kind of genre correctly. This movie is about the life of Steve Prefontaine and his coach Bill Bowerman, and after watching this movie you'll surely go for a quick three miler.
There are glimpses about the how "Nike" shoe prototypes initially came about before being established as a company.
I'm not too sure what made KB (K.Balachander) go ga ga over this new Kamal flick. I wasn't too sure what Kamal was trying to do here. Emulate a Rajani in getting a cancer our from his brain through a gun shot. Rajani I guess still does such stuff with panache. Seriously if Kamal and others think this was a great work and I must confess that this movie is a very mediocre attempt with the makeup being very patchy.
I loved Kamal only as a granny and the Christian (guess it was a Keralite role). The Telugu role was good but they just made fun of India's RAW. It was CG (Computer Graphics) everywhere. You name it and there was CG used. Even when a normal slow motion would have a done the job they used a CG. Sucks man, seriously it sucks.
I'll give this movie a 1.2 out of 5. Trying to gain some sympathy by bringing forth of yore differences between Shiva and Vishnu followers. Pathetic effort and all I could see in the whole movie was CG. I guess my juniors at IIIT Hyderabad would do a fantastic job of it. I'm not too sure how Kamal and co burnt so much money.
