Saturday, October 24, 2009

Fake Life..

It is nice to see people having faith, it makes me at times, believe in life only for a moment maybe, but well, it is just heartening to see someone having a reason to wake up the next morning. After every door gets slammed to your face and after you decide to abandon your friends, since they'd abandoned you first, it's not easy to stay away from becoming a cynic and a cold-hearted creature, or so I believe. I have always been an escapist myself and no I'm not ashamed of this fact. It's just how I've been. I tend to find the easier way out and I get out of every other thing that is trying to mess me up, and this may come at whatever cost to me or anyone else, it's just my way of dealing with life. Hence, becoming a cynic and hatred or non-acceptance have come easy to me. I choose to detest everything that makes me uncomfortable, pushing the blame on that something, getting rid of the guilt factor and then rest, or attempt to rest in my dark.

And then you meet a person, who might have achieved everything, who might have reached the desired place, but there were always these needless struggles, painful battles, scars for life. And the person still believes in life, looks forward to it, even while a dark cloud gets formed in the background.

Maybe, maybe is a nice word, I just have lost it's meaning.

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Blue

Blue is a perfect movie which has disguised its countless flaws & plot deficiencies with some very good technical post production. The movie talks about a treasure hunt throughout, but there is never a hunt, it’s like Bloated Dutt knows it all.

The movie’s first half is brainless & gets you brain dead till it reaches the half way mark. The makers have used up all their money to pay up the firangi (Pete Zuccarini) & to get Kylie Minogue to sing and dance on the embarrassing ‘Cheegy Weegy’ (that’s how Sonu Nigam sings it… lol ). In the midst of all this they forgot to get someone to give them a strong story/screenplay.

Now, after the National Geographic style opening credits, we have a super rich Arrogant Kumar who befriends Bloated Dutt for his own reasons, obvious from the start but revealed right at the end. Bloated Dutt is a working class fishmonger, who has a sea-facing furnished ‘bangla’, a naukri under ‘arrogant’ and Bikini Dutta for arm candy (all this at the producer’s expense of course).

The happy three live happily in the breathtaking filmed Bahamas, flaunting their lifestyle which might put Donald Trump to shame, because our awesome threesome do everything except work. But along with Bloateds dark memory about his father (who gives him a ‘kasam’ under water through his oxygen mask) he also has a good for nothing brother Useless Khan (who is solely there because the producers thought about cost cutting).

Now, Useless Khan under the adrenaline rush (because of K Kaif) has a brush with the Bangkok mafia screws up big time and is under debt of $50 million. Useless Khan does not know what to do and flees to Bahamas, one big useless that he is. The mafia follows Useless to Bahamas giving rise to some redundant bike chase & a gun battle at Bloateds bungalow which leads to his house being burnt to ashes and Bikini Dutta kidnapped.

All this finally leads to the much talked about treasure hunt under the ‘Blue’. Bloated has to revisit his dark memory, arrogant is only too happy & Useless is useless. Now the most awaited treasure hunt and the corner stone of the plot turns out a like a ‘thanda thanda (blue) pani’ makingschool treasure hunt competitions look more challenging. The trio has just found out the Mahabharata style ‘khazana’ after navigating through colorful corals, fishes and some harmless sharks who are as disinterested in them as you are. Bingo!

Finally, the mafia is killed the raaz’s are revealed, bloated is united with his bikini and Useless feels like he’s come out of the blue. The climax is plain juvenile and stupid.

Blue, only scores high points in the cinematography department. The look of this movie is quite distinguished. The scenes shot underwater and the night scenes where Akshay confronts Sanjay to look for the treasure has brilliant framework associated with it.

Its the festival of lights and colors, don’t just restrict yourself to ‘Blue’. As for this movie catch it on the ‘Blue’-ray disc.

Verdict: It leaves you feeling Blue!

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

About a semi-perfect movie

Over the years, my expectation from Karan Johar movies have steadily declined to the point that despite the good music and good promos I didn’t have much expectations from Wake Up Sid. But cut to the end of the first half, and I thoroughly liked the movie.

Wake Up Sid is a simple story based on the coming of age genre and compared to other recent Bollywood films in this genre like Lakshya or DCH, the story line for Wake Up Sid is much simpler and the canvas smaller. Unlike the protagonist of Lakshya who redeems himself by battling against Pakistan in the Himalayas, here the protagonist merely manages to get a job as a photographer in a magazine. The redemption story is no more grandiose or dramatic. But there are a few reasons why with seemingly bland narrative and storyline the movie still works.

Why the movie works is because for the most part the movie stays believable, realistic and likable. The music of the film, though almost one dimensional expect for the Iktara track, actually serves as good situational music. The scene conceptions and dialogues are quite natural and realistic. Majorly though, it rides heavily on the performances of its lead actors. Konkona Sen Sharma pulls off another wonderful performance. Ever the earthy and realistic next door girl, unlike her most other roles where she ends up being the loser, not getting the guy, here for a change she doesn’t cry and instead has a bright road ahead. Ranbir Kapur for once and for all proves that he can really act. He carries off his role with absolute ease. Doesn’t overact, doesn’t suffer from mannerisms, just the right treatment meted out to Sid’s character. Actually the biggest reason why Wake Up Sid works is because of Ranbir Kapoor’s affable portrayal of the central character.

While the story and screen play of the film avoids all the melodramas and Bollywood cliches, it does appear to be undercooked a bit. The biggest grouse being it’s too flat and bland. It’s alright to not have all the rona dhona and stereotypes but the movie could have definitely done with a bit of humour. Jane Tu Ya Jane Na had a tremendous comedy element and that gave the movie a major lift. Here, the mood of the movie is thoroughly monotonous in the absence of a single comic scene. Also, while it has been shown how Konkona’s character loves Sid, the other way round hasn’t been explored. Sid’s journey from friendship to love has been covered in under two minutes. That aside, the music also could have done with a bit of depth. Here, barring the Iktara song and the song right in the end when it starts raining (which is not there in the album?) the music is again monotonous. Actually the music being so one dimensional made me think before I saw the movie that it’s going to be a rich kid’s cliched bollywood coming of age movie. I’m happy it didn’t turn out that way.

While I’d say that the film is terrific up to the interval, as the movie ends, I felt a little let down on account of absence of a little more depth or drama. When I look back and ponder over some movies which have really hit me, I realise there was this constant factor in them that the screen play altered its pace at places, hitting peaks and troughs and changing in intensity. Here, a lot like “Luck By Chance”, the film stays in the same intensity most of the time.

To sum up, while I enjoyed the movie, and it’s a fresh movie with great performances and without the usual melodrama and cliches, I do feel that it’s a tad undercooked and it could have done with some hilarity and fun. Add a little more fun and humour, it could have been a perfect movie.

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