So, was the end result worth the effort spent towards it? I hate to admit this but not quite.

The first one hour of the movie is plain tiresome. The gags are way too many in number, they are all overdone and, barring a scene or two, nothing elicits any laughter.
If Farah Khan’s game plan was to push down expectations so low at the onset, that anything following it would be a welcome relief, then I must say she succeeded very well in her attempt.

The movie does start lifting after the initial drama but only just. To give credit where it is due, the story beyond this point is quite nifty and, just as expected, very seventyISH. If only they’d left it alone though! You just begin to settle down with the narrative and down your throat goes yet another gimmick. Most of the gimmicks are so forced into the going-ons they’re more interruptions than puns.

Not that there aren’t any exceptions. <spoiler> Shahrukh’s cheeky jab at himself and how all his movies look and sound the same was hilarious. As was Manoj Kumar’s driving license sequence. </spoiler> And atleast a dozen others that I can’t recall now. Simply because they were either so stretched the smile on your face disappeared before the joke even got over or because they got lost amidst a barrage of surrounding bad jokes.

<spoiler> The Karz tribute is quite well done and even comes with an extra twist in the end but by the time it came on I’d completely lost interest thanks to an overdose of everything.</spolier>. Same goes for the title song. It should have never been promo-ed on air. It’s no fun watching a star-studded sequence that’s already been done to death in bits and pieces on TV. I tried very hard to spot someone I hadn’t seen earlier in there but couldn’t.

The performances are as over the top as everything else in the movie. Kirron Kher overacts to the extent of becoming an irritant and Shreyas Talpade is thoroughly wasted in a role that any passerby could’ve done. I think I’ll need to go revisit Hum Tum and Dor again just to remind myself that these guys are wonderfully funny actors otherwise.

Since the hamming department got taken over, Shahrukh decided to play cool for a change (which is not to say he did not overact at all). His scenes with Arjun Rampal (it’s criminal to make a man as good looking as him play a baddie but that’s another story!) are some of the better sequences of the movie and quite remind you of his Don avtaar.
I don’t know how she does it but Farah Khan sure knows how to make her heroines look good. Deepika Padukone is no patch on Sushmita Sen (who would be!) but she has great screen presence and looks ravishing enough for the guys to go over and watch and the movie just for her.

As for me, I’m shifting back to my tried and tested “reviews first” formula. I’d prefer a certified JWM over an over-hyped OSO any day!

The first verdicts are out and while I haven’t read any OSO review yet, Raja Sen has completely ripped Saawariya apart in his review on rediff.

In his words, the movie is “melodramatic trite”. Why am I not surprised! Melodrama has after all always been the hallmark of Bhansali’s movies, right since the days of Khamoshi. With characters experiencing, on an ongoing basis, the kind of emotions normal people would encounter only in situations of extreme duress. So, if Saawariya is seeped in theatrics, it has definitely not done its maker’s reputation any harm.

Right now I’m off to watch the preview show of Om Shanti Om. I didn’t quite enjoy Main Hoon Na the first time I watched it. It was way too much “tamasha” for my taste (though I’d have to admit I gaped at Sushmita Sen almost as much as any of the guys did, if not more ). I would like to believe I have since become more tolerant of humour beyond the Hrishikesh Mukherjee variety.

I’m keeping my expectations low nevertheless. If the movie’s worth even half the sleep time and dough (with tickets priced at 1.5 times the normal fare) I’m parting with for it, I’d be very glad. Or as the phrase goes, just looking for some “paisa and time wasool” entertainment!

The dozen odd “must watch” reviews the movie’s garnered over the last 2 weeks notwithstanding, I wasn’t expecting anything more than a Namastey London from it. The sort you watch sprawled on a sofa on a Sunday afternoon with nothing better to do. I was in for a pleasant surprise though.

The movie isn’t anything spectacular. It isn’t even very original. Yet it manages to completely arrest you with its thoroughly entertaining narration of a sweet little tale.

The humour is very fresh and very real. The characters are not contrived. They look and speak like normal people (within the scope of a mainstream movie of course). They get into situations that you and I may not normally get into but definitely wouldn’t have minded getting into a couple of years younger. And the casting is perfect.

The director couldn’t have picked up better people to play the two protagonists. Shahid looks every bit the sophisticated, quiet and mild mannered rich boy that Aditya, his character, is and Kareena probably actually babbles as much in real life as Geet, the character she plays. He tops it up by bringing out the striking contrast between the two characters through some really charming repartee.

It’s very heartening to see characters and situations rise above the bollywood stereotype of morality and chastity every now and then. <spoiler> The scene where Shahid asks Kareena how she knows her boyfriend is not impotent </spoiler> reminded me of that adorable scene in Dil Se.. where Preity asks Shahrukh if he’s a virgin and he starts coughing in response.

And goodbye chiffon sarees. Our heroines finally get to wear woolens when shooting in snow clad hill stations!

No disrespect meant to the man here. To his credit, Sarkar, minus the brain damaging background noise, was a very good remake of The Godfather.

Why Sholay though? It just doesn’t belong to his brand of in your face cinema. The essence of Sholay lies in it’s heightened sense of drama, in it’s very rooted yet larger than life characters and in it’s “written for posterity” dialogues. And those are the very things RGV has squirmed at and made fun of in his movies. So, what is he even trying to update?

And how! Can someone explain what Ajay Devgan is doing as Veeru? And how on earth can some newbie model work in a role that is one of Amitabh’s most memorable.
Though the casting that takes the cake is Nisha Kothari as a modern day Basanti. If I was Hema Malini, I would’ve sued RGV for insulting me thus!

What’s the whole point of a remake if it looks like a shoddy rehash of the original. RGV could’ve taken a cue from the new Don, if Sarkar has gone too far down in his memory (thanks to the Shivas and James he made inbetween).

When you remake an Amitabh blockbuster, you get someone who can hold a candle to him to do the role. And then make sure you make everything look better and bigger than the original! Though some would argue that while Don was just another roller coaster ride, Sholay is a cult classic, that shouldn’t be touched even with a barge pole.

If a Macbeth and an Othello can be remade into movies the Bard would’ve nodded in approval at, a Sholay can definitely be remade.
Only you need a Vishal Bharadwaj to do it. So something can be added to the masterpiece, without taking any of it’s sheen or grandeur away.

So, perhaps to save admirers like me the misery of having to answers such questions, ’Mr Bore’  has suddenly decided to turn entertaining. 

First it was a completely uncharacteristic 92 off 60 odd balls at Bristol. Then an almost equally (given that it was a much bigger ground) quickfire 50 in the 3rd ODI (towards a lost cause, though).
And, who knows, if it hadn’t been for the eventual run-out, Dravid’s figures from last night could as well have read 40 off 25 balls or some such. 

To think this is the same guy who was not so long ago labeled a “test batsman”. Talk about re-inventing onself every now and then.

Suits us fans just fine though. It helps keep silly questions at bay!

So, the first thing I do on waking up is switch on the TV in the hope of catching a glimpse or two of the match on one of the dozen news channels on air.
But lo and behold! Salman is on his way to Jodhpur to surrender himself and the TV channels care about little else right now.

I put up with numerous recorded videos of Salman outside his house, Salman at Mumbai Airport, Salman aboard Jet Airways flight 9W3407, Salman perched on seat 3D (NO, I did not make those up), Salman with puffy eyes hidden under dark glasses etc etc etc for well over an hour waiting and hoping atleast one of the channels would relent but all in vain.

Aren’t Ekta Kapoor and her brigade offering enough “wholesome entertainment” on the other channels already? Can the news channels be spared for the rest of us please!

It still isn’t the worst movie I’ve ever seen. That honour goes to a list of 3 more worthy ones (in increasing order of misery caused during and after the movie).

3. TAAL
The lone reason this doesn’t make it to the top spot is because it got released centuries ago and most of my memories from it have got replaced by much worse ones over the years. And yet, even after all this time, every time I see anything even remotely related to it on TV, my hand reaches out for the remote almost involuntarily. Maybe because “Ek doosre ka jhhoota COKE peene se pyaar badhta hai” is very fresh in my mind, even centuries hence.

2. MOHABATTEIN
One cheesy love story in a movie is BAD enough, this one has four! Yet, for some reason the director thought it still wasn’t “mohabbat” enough. So, he included some two dozen “as original as they get” sequences that absolutely redefine the meaning of love. The classroom scene where Shahrukh Khan goads the “young lovers” in his class to picture the “loves of their lives” parked at the college entrance, very befittingly culminating in three of them actually running towards the gate, still haunts me.

1. KABHI ALVIDA NA KEHNA
This one wins by a mile. It is an experience of a kind. The kind that makes you question your love for cinema, even months after you finished rummaging through it’s 3+ hours of pure unadulterated (pun unintended) trash. I have a feeling the director never showed the final result to any of the 5 stars. Atleast one of them would have had the sense to not let it be released!

The first time around, my mom had dragged a very unwilling me to watch it with her in the hall. I was home for vacation and, of all the movies playing then, this was the most convenient watch, playing as it was in the hall next door. I had very well etched out plans to catch up on lost sleep over its 3 hours run but the movie, surprisingly, kept me quite awake.

Vivaah is not a great movie by any stretch of imagination. It is at best a worthy successor to ‘Maine Pyaar Kiya’ and ‘Hum Aapke Hain Kaun’ and I don’t think those were great movies either. There are atleast half a dozen scenes in Vivaah that make you cringe, half in shock and half in disgust. Not to mention all the usual irritants that any Rajshri movie would be incomplete without. They are all there – melodramatic scenes, corny dialogues, soapy tunes and still soapier lyrics.

And yet, there is something about its simple and unassuming storyline that catches your ‘multiplex movie fed’ attention and holds it for (almost) it’s entire length.
The movie is a huge refreshing change from the “traditional farce in the garb of designer clothes” trash that is being churned out with amazing regularity these days. Vivaah never pretends to be a contemporary urban movie and that is where it scores.

Contrary to what certain reviewers have written, the movie is anything but regressive. A mainstream movie that caters to a very traditional audience and still manages to openly denounce dowry is fairly progressive in my opinion.
Telling your daughter that her sole purpose in life is to find a good groom (Fanaa) and labeling women who make more money than their husbands bad moms (KANK) IS regressive. Advocating that beauty is only skin deep is not!

Much as I am sad and disappointed at the turn of events and much as it makes my weekend TV calendar for April appear stark blank (I’m not as avid a follower of world cricket as I am of Indian cricket), I still think we as a nation accord far too much importance to the World Cup.

The team was routed equally (if not more) embarrassingly in West Indies and in the Champions Trophy. We cribbed and complained, perhaps even vowed not to spend any more sleepless nights watching cricket matches, and then went back to cheering the team and looking forward to the showpiece event of Cricket. No one spoke of replacing the captain, throwing out Sachin & Dhoni and bringing back all the “electric fielders” we so unceremoniously bade goodbye to just before the event began.

It’s almost hilarious that people (some seemingly important ones at that) are already talking about focusing on the next World Cup. I sure hope they remember that there is 4 years of cricket in between and the next edition is not next month!

Just hope the premature end to India’s crusade doesn’t bring about an early end to my blogging. I for one did think the launch of the campaign was an auspicious time to start.

Much like its counterpart, this one is also a simple and heartwarming tale about the innocence and beauty of childhood.
The movie revolves around two young siblings Ali and Zahra who end up time-sharing their school shoes after Ali loses Zahra’s lone pair. As the two kids sprint around town trying to cope up with their mini adventure and their mid-day shoe exchanges, you get a glimpse into their ‘turned upside down’ world and experience Zahra’s suffering at having to wear dirty sneakers one size too large and Ali’s disappointment at having to miss all his morning football matches amongst others.

The scenes featuring the two kids are without doubt the high points of the movie. Their little world has been depicted to near perfection and the two protagonists more than match it up with their spot-on performances. There’s one scene in which Zahra’s (borrowed) shoe lands into the gutter and she has to chase it all the way through drain pipes. The desolate expression that she wears on her face through the chase really makes it seem like her entire life depends on that one shoe. The next one is a bit of a spoiler but couldn’t resist the temptation of putting it down. There’s a race sequence in which Ali makes a near desperate attempt to come 3rd, just so he can take new sneakers home for a prize and then looks so heartbroken when he accidentally reaches the finish line first that you almost feel bad that he won. A very “smileworthy” watch indeed!

The single disappointing bit was the title. I nearly said no to picking up the DVD assuming it to be a documentary about underprivileged kids. Thank god for plot outlines though.