BHANDARKAR BHANDA PHODKAR

MOVIE: Fashion
CAST: Priyanka Chopra, Kangana Ranaut , Mugdha Godse
DIRECTOR: Madhur Bhandarkar




Everybody knows that Bhandarkar has always taken up the job to expose out realities of various societies. Be it the corporate world in Corporate or the glamorous world from the eyes of journalists in Page 3 or the life on a Traffic Signal. Here in Fashion he views the glamorous world from various eyes within and outside the glamorous world. Its the beeds of Bhandarkar's observation and research that have been weaved into a three hour movie. Even though it is nothing but a collage of known things it is dramatically well built to keep the audience guessing and teach them many things on the way both about the world of Fashion and also about the world itself.

Meghna Mathur(Priyanka Chopra) is a Chandigarh girl who comes to Mumbai to become not a model, but a supermodel . The story is about her journey of ups and downs in the industry. Kangana Ranaut plays an established model who is overthrown by Chopra. Mugdha Godse is an experienced and struggling model who knows everything about the industry but is not able to taste success.

It is a complete inner and over view of the industry and Bhandarkar's excellence lies in beautifully weaving both into a beautiful cinematic experience. He exposes a lot of things which are already known to most but he shows us the humanity attached with those inhuman deeds. We often say so many things about models and actresses and how they sell themselves for success. We are sometimes right, but often wrong. Fashion not only tells us that there is sex to rise up here, there is drug consumption to manage stress, there are gay fashion designers, there is gossip about models, there are drink and drive cases, but it also explains how much humanity is existing here.

We often say that relationships are nothing in the world of glamour. But Bhandarkar shows how relationships are everything in this world. He has touched some really matured relationships and few have made me cry. The scene where the successful but gay designer Rahul Arora, played exceptionally well by Samir Soni, proposes Mugdha for a no sex marriage is a very cute scene and a lot of humanity is involved in it. Gays have been a joke, as big a joke as eunuchs in our society. Kal Ho Naa Ho and now Dostana have made fun of gays. Being gay is not wrong. Gays are as male as males. But their mental set up is a bit different and they do not have sexual desires for women. Thats it. Bhandarkar explains this point very well too.

In the second half the friendly relationship that develops between one time rivals Kangana-Priyanka is another beautiful aspect of this cinema.The reunion of Priyanka with her parents show another aspect of relationships.

Also the scene when Priyanka tells Arbaaz Khan who plays Sarin, the owner of a fashion magazine Panache that she is pregnant with her child and Arbaaz says, "Bas Itni Si Baat. It can be handled" strike a statement about this world.

Fashion though continuosly involves a lot of skin show, bikini clad models, even a wardrobe malfunctioning scene, is not really a cheap material for cheap people to whistle in a dark theatre and say, "Abey kya item hai". Though the girls are really hot items, amongst all these glam sham, Bhandarkar gives us a great message of rise and fall not only in the fashion world, but in any field.

Coming to performances, Kangana plays the eccentric girl very well, like she did in Gangster and Woh Lamhe. Her performances in these two movies made her the clear choice for this role to Bhandarkar as well. Priyanka plays various moods in the movie. One of a struggling model, that of a rising superstar, that of a superstar with loads of attitude, that of a falling superstar with attitude but no work, that of a defeated person abandoned by all, and that of a person whos come back....and she excells in all these colours. Mugdha has given the best debut performance surpassing the good acting of Imran Khan in Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na . Arjun Bajwa is a new face to Bollywood as well and after being a successful Telegu actor, I am sure he is going to make it big here.

Samir Soni, Kitu Gidwani, Harsh Chhaya, Raj Babbar play their respective roles very, very well. Coming to Arbaaz Khan who is the second male lead in the movie has given his career best performance. Everyone else who was a part of this movie has done fantastic.

Few things were a bit unclear like the way Mugdha and Priyanka got introduced also the fact that why was a cocaine obsessed person like Kangana Ranaut was given something which also excites the nerve, caffeine in coffee. These are minor points but unexplained.

Salim Sulaiman give a good background score and a beautiful songs were composed by them. The producers have done full justice. The cameos were good, but one expected much more. If Karan Johar would have been given charge of this he would have roped in more exciting faces in the movie. So to sum up, Fashion is definately the best Bhandarkar movie and is a must watch!!!

LOT OF ICING, BUT WHERE'S THE CAKE??

MOVIE: Golmaal Returns
DIRECTOR: Rohit Shetty
CAST: Ajay Devgan, Kareena Kapoor, Tushar Kapoor, Amrita Arora, Arshad Warsi, Shreyas Talpade, Celina Jaitley




MTV Fully Faltoo has spoofed a few recent classics into complete disasters. But they have off late become the biggest source of comic entertainment amongst the MTV watchers. One big reason these non sense spoofs have become popular is because they have spoofed the popular. All three spoofed movies: Chak De, Jodha Akbar and Taare Zameen Par are both critically and publicly acclaimed. Golmaal spoofs throughout the movie, more in the second half, and finally becomes a collection of spoof of flops like Saawariya and Tashan. They continued to spoof Black and Munnabhai MBBS here also like in the first part.

The comic element was there. The dialogue writing was very nice and some were as fresh as a daisy and really really funny. Apt lines like, "Horny ko kaun taal sakta hai" and "Shaq What the.." made the crowd laugh aloud. Also some not so innovative and long heard jokes were repeated like the one on the secretary and personal secretary. Amongst all the comedy and entertainment, you slowly start realising that theres no story actually...

Basically, Devgan is a sex obsessed male(tharki) and Kareena is a K-serial freak, doubtful wife(as she should be). Amrita Arora is Devgan's sister and Tushar is Kareena's brother. They all live in the same house. Amrita Aroras love interest is a cop played by Arshad Warsi. Shreyas Talpade comes for a job to Devgan and Celina Jaitley is Talpades love interest.

One night under strange circumstances, a murder occurs and the same night Devgan had to spend a night with Celina under forceful circumstances. So the whole movie is about how he produces the whereabouts of his not being there that night and also how he proves to the police that he is not the murderer. The movie gets over dramatic at times and is a "comedy-jerker" Slowly towards the end they lose grip over the story and the movie heads to a poor finish.

Like is the trend in all comedy movies these days, the climax brings together all the characters. Its very important to make this collection believable. I think this movie does well here to bring all the characters together for the climax. I guess amongst recent flicks the best climax was that in the 2003 Hungama by Priyadarshan. But unfortunately the climax is sheer nonsense. Over dramatic and not really funny. Also there was a song prior to the climax with lots of special effects which was completely unnecessary.

Clearly, this is a collection of relatively good jokes punched into a two and a half hour movie with a ten minute story. This reflects the dangerous tendency in comedy movie makers of Bollywood. They go ahead with a script without perfecting it and just punch good jokes and promote it well to make it a hit. Comedy movies should have a very strong script which should have a strong message and should have excellent dialogues and jokes. The dialogues and jokes are the icing though which are meaningless without the strong base of the script. Golmaal Returns makes a lot of icing here, but no cake...no story....no message. So like many other names like Sunday, Phir Hera Pheri, Bhagam Bhaag and also for that matter the Golmaal 1, this flick too gets thrown into the nonsense bin....Phew! Golmaal!!

HIGH MESS RESHAMMIYA

MOVIE: Karzzz
CAST: Himesh Reshammiya, Shweta Kumar, Urmila Matondkar
DIRECTOR: Satish Kaushik




After writing a nine hour examination all I wanted to do was sit back, relax and watch a movie in strong air condition and watch a relatively zero intellect movie so that my mind doesnt get further stressed. I dont think greats like Satyajit Ray, Cristopher Nolan, Ashutosh Gowariker and not so greats like even Karan Johar and Sanjay Gadhvi or for that matter Abbas Mastan could have given me such a movie where I use nothing of my brain. Thankfully though the cinema theatre I went to had a 630 show for a Satish Kaushik directed flick called Karzzzz!

This movie is as you all might know, the remake of the version which was few Zs short and was made by Subhash Ghai decades ago. The story is of rebirth. How a wicked kamini called Kaamini (Urmila Matondkar)kills her fiance (Dino Morea) for huge property he owned in South Africa. South Africa seems to be too lucky for Bollywood. The few hits this year like Race and Jannat were shot mostly in South Africa. Karzzz too is a hit I hear!

Dino Morea dies in a relatively less stupid plane crash and dies only to come back with a vengeance, 25 years later, in a less good looking avatar of Monty(Himesh Reshammiya).... After this scene the whole movie is like a music video compilation and not so hillarious comedy events and not so romantic romantic scenes. There is this girl Tina (Shweta Kumar) who is Himesh's love interest. The story is that he slowly starts remembering his past life and then finally with the help of Tina plans to kill Princess Kaamini(the prefix added after she got hold of all that property)

Let me be really frank: the acting wasnt all that bad, Himesh has really improved from the disastrous last Suroor of his. Shweta Kumar gives a very charming appearance and a pretty confident debut. Urmila, except for her slightly over expressive face at times, was a charm to watch and suited the character nicely. All this came as a nice surprise to me as I did not expect nice performances from Himesh and Shweta atleast. But stop....the movie is still a dud! and it is so because of Satish Kaushik....who has literally spoiled the movie. I think this is the worst possible direction I have come across from a long time.

In one of the scenes, Monty rides a helicopter and is in air close to the ground where the heroine is standing. I have been close to choppers on numerous occasions and I know the ear tearing sound of the chopper fans and the gusty wind that it produces.....but here we see Himesh nicely singing(without a microphone) and the heroine is smiling at him.

Another disaster was a scene where Monty was chasing Kaamini in a car. Suddenly Kaamini's car vanishes only to suddenly return in a private jet! As if the private jet was parked out somewhere in the middle of the road....!! Also Satish Kaushik did not take care of the fact that the scene which was running parallel to this was shot at night and this scene was a broad noon scene!

This movie has also shown white women go mad mad mad and faint whenever they see this Gujju bhai Himess' and his hair in mess!!

If I start mentioning these mistakes, I would end up writing a "N Mistakes of Karzzz"....! There are many gliches like these in the movie. But overall when you want to rate it for fun and timepass, its a full nonsense and entertaining movie.....

When I went through the reviews in newspapers and the net recently I found the well celebrated Taran Adarsh of India FM has sung praises for this trash...I mean clearly one could see how purchased out was the writing. No wonder this is a must watch...I mean such movies are not normally made...where the actors and director make real shit out of tonnes of money at attractive locations. Talking about the comparisons with the old movie and stuff let me tell you Karzzzz cannot be compared to Karz or for that matter to Om Shanti Om. The latter are creatively miles ahead. If Karzzz can be compared to any other movie it is only Aapka Suroor and Himesh Bhai will be happy to listen that his effort in this one was better than his debut disaster!

Whenever I rate a movie and its below 5, you can take it from me that its not worth a watch. But heres an exception. This movie is worth what I gave it but is still a must watch. Not only I know this, Its many of us who know this. This X factor makes Himesh so successful. So at the end of the day you gotta say..."Maan Gaye Himesh bhai"

STIFFLERS FOR LIFE

Movie: American Pie : BETA HOUSE(2007)




Most things in life happen without you expecting them to happen. I never knew that I would be sitting(rather lying) on a relatively small single bed along with two more boys, and three more who were around in front of a personal computer, with reduced volumes so that "aunty doesnt hear", and watching a not so recommended for teens, teenage movie called the American Pie Beta House....

The movie is about the legacy of the Stiflers and the college keedas they do. It really took me time to adjust to what was going on in front of my eyes...I never saw things going so much out of control, rather out of censor on screen. But whatever be the case, being a man, it was fun! So talking about the story, Dwight Stiffler leads a house called the BETAs and their rivals are the GEEKS.... Both have got the greek letters as their symbols. The major part of the movie deals with how Dwight trains up new BETAs by making them complete 50 unbelievably mischeavous and maddening tasks! I remember one of those tasks was to have sex with a college proffesor!

Now these 50 tasks and the love life of a BETA in the making, Erik Stiffler forms the major part of the story. This includes super funny sequences like father encouraging child to have sex, girls stripping around in dance areas, common bathrooms for girls and guys, phew phew phew!!. For the climax we have this maddening event called the Greek Olympiad. In this we see the tussle between the Geeks and the Betas for supremacy and existence.

During these events many things happen which are not really describable(like the horse semen gun), but let me tell you, they are sheer fun.

One reason why I appreciate this movie is that though it has got maximum exposure and freedom in both dialogues and scenes, it still isnt an adult movie as such. It is an ever teen movie. It tickles your inner youth spirit and encourages you for many things, its your choice where you want to get tickled and where do you want your encouragement.

Most of the people would be encouraged to go around and try to create this "pseudo-sex anytime anyone " world and get into trouble in their real lives. But the real beauty of the movie is its encouragement for team spirit and the power of unity. How the BETAs defeat the GEEKs just by their superior team unity. Thats a thing which should be learnt.

Off late, this 2007 blockbuster has tickled my class friends all over. They also formed this BETA group in our Government run high school, got their group uniform and stuff and have united big time. I dont know what they achieved by trying to be Stifflers but I can tell you they are much stronger friends and are much more united than before because of this adhesive called BETA......Such is the effect of movies like these....

These considerations inspire me to become a BETA too....Malay are you listening?