Movies, Theater and Reviews

Butter And Mashed Banana

Khushboo Desai — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 23:47:00 GMT

With no explicitly defined characters and three real life people switching roles on stage, Butter And Mashed Banana portrays the story of a boy born to parents belonging to two different political parties. The challenges that the boy faces even before taking birth in this world of choices and conditional living is interwoven with his journey through to success of being a famous author of a internationally bestselling book, which is then made into an Oscar winning movie.

The real challenge or rather struggle that the then ‘boy’ faces is to ‘establish’ himself in the Indian scenario where his book and movie are under serious scrutiny by the censor board, consisting of well educated lawyer, economists, artists and other ‘significant’ members. The consistent and failed efforts of the author to publish his book and release the movie in India frustrates him enough hence drives him to take politics as a career. The play ends with an elaborate discussion on why the dictionary would be banned by the government, justified by reasons relating to “socially immoral” use of dictionary to source the meanings of the words that otherwise do not belong to the far and wide spread “Indian Culture”. The last dialogue by the new politician and the 'failed' author highlights all the words that begin with ‘F’, ending with the word “free”.

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Delhi 6

Rahul Desai — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 06:00:00 GMT

I finally started living in my new (rented) apartment in Bangalore, with no great movie to look for on TV (not sure if I should blame TataSky for that). The only option was to re-explore my old DVD collection. No rewards for guessing, I picked Delhi 6 – one of my all-time favorite movies (as most of my closest people already know). I loved it so much the first time I watched it, that I immediately bought its DVD and happen to have watched it more than once (being modest).

While I’m about to watch it (n+1)th time today, the only question running on my mind is – why would anyone not like Delhi 6? That’s a question for those to answer who can’t appreciate this phenomenal creation. I belong to the proud-others, who’re sane enough to understand and digest its perfection. And so, this article. If you haven’t seen it as yet, here are a few reasons why you should:

Waheeda Rehman – probably the prettiest actresses of Hindi Cinema. The only other name I can think of is Madhu Bala. Such a charming face and a refreshing character, you can still see that Guide-times aura on her face when she dances – don’t trust my word blindly, youtube ‘Genda phool…’ for yourself.
Sonam Kapoor, one of the best new-comers to happen to Hindi Film Industry. One of my friends finds her ‘raw’ in this movie; but I feel it’s the plus point. One other friend has a not-so-good-word for her acting in this movie; I say she was closest to the perfection. You can consider watching ‘I hate Luv Stories’ (and NOT ‘Aisha’ for that matter). I liked Aisha, by the way.
Chandni Chawk a.k.a. Dilli Chhe (Old Delhi – Pin Code 110006). If you’ve been there, you can’t agree more how this movie is the best portrayal of Old Delhi, the people there, their accent, their typical behavior and what not.
The A. R. Rahman Charisma! Musically, this movie is a delight for Rahman-lovers. The background score and richly-worded songs add to the story line. Unlike typical other Hindi movies, Delhi 6’s story continues progressing with the songs, during the songs. The best part being, none of the songs takes more than a minute at any point. Only the beginning, or a stanza, and that’s it! Buy an original audio CD from the market, if you want to listen to the full songs.
Great homework and a very careful picturization. Director Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra has addressed minute details in every scene. Take that growing Tulsi plant in the movie. It’s dried, almost dead when they first enter the Delhi house. With the story, the plant revives one leaf at a time and prospers completely by the end. The same goes for the lighting and sound as well. Not exaggerating, it’s a technically-perfect movie. After Mani Ratnam, I believe Rakeysh Mehra, is the only person who could make Abhishek Bachchan act.
The story of the movie is like a message. It’s realistic, and still with a moral like that in an epic. It’s a rather conversion of the writers’ imagination into lives of actual – rational characters. They’ve neatly projected the relevance of message from an epic like Ramayana with culture and day-to-day life today – and still making sure the story doesn’t lose the grip.
This symbolic story knitted with hand-picked characters and the best of the actors. It’s a star-studded film with exclusivity for each. Every character is well justified – be it Ali Baig (Rishi Kapoor), Madangopal (Om Puri), Mamdu - the halwai, Jalebi (Divya Dutta), Kala Bandar or Masakali (the pigeon). Characters are redundant, and still distinct.
Rama Bua! How can you not fall in love with Rama Bua? My affection and for this character may go out of this article’s scope and etiquette of online writing; simply put, she’s one nice face worth looking forward to.

Ask me for a reason, I gave eight. It’s a good movie. Worth watching. You don’t agree? Tell me what you think.

Slumdog Millionaire

Rahul Desai — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 15:45:00 GMT

A Mumbai teen who grew up in the slums, becomes a contestant on the Indian version of "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?" He is arrested under suspicion of cheating, and while being interrogated, events from his life history are shown which explain why he knows the answers.

Great movie with amazing background (and foreground) score, I feel this movie is fairly overrated. It closely touches the bitter reality and the aspects of 'Real' India unknown to many.

[There's more to this. I just wrote this article since I had to publish something to get this Blog rolling. There's lots more coming this way - including more detailed review of Slumdog Millionaire. Stay tuned!]

Jaane Tu... Ya Jaane Na

Rahul Desai — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 11:59:00 GMT

A good movie... 6 on the scale of 7: C-SAT!

The right weightage to every character and a good balance of the flow. Especially, if you're a theater-crazy like my jijaji Aakash, you're bound to love it - Naseeruddin Shah, Ratna Pathak Shah, Paresh Rawal, Rajat Kapoor, Anuradha Patel... it really was a rich movie!

The heroine was "cute" as Barkha could decide, and the lead-actor (Imran Khan) wasn't bad either. And the Jignes Patel guy kept reminding me of Pradeep (although he was sitting right next to me).

I really want to write a lot more, but can't think of anything. It's 5.52 in the morning and I should hit the bed.

In any case, it's a great movie... do watch it! You'll like it for sure..

Rang De Basanti

Vaibhav Goswami — Mon, 13 Feb 2006 19:25:00 GMT

Rang De Basanti!!!!
LOSE CONTROL!!!!!

Watching the 3rd consecutive movie which made me feel something to be proud about Bollywood. The Movie I would simply say is the BEST among the Hindi movies I have ever seen so far.

With an essence of patriotism the movie portrays the fact that no matter where we are, what we do and to where we belong, we still are a part of the community called Indians. The best part about the movie is that there isn’t a call for the youth to fight for the country or to devote their life for the nation, but the fact that how these characters who look to me among just like one of us, who have nothing to do with all the CRAP as we all consider it to be get inside the heart of National issues, which then affects their personal lives and then they get in to taking the initiative for something which they always considered as Crap!!

Apart from all the major issues this movie deals with, it seems so nostalgic to people like us who have just came out of colleges and does include some very minute things which apart from the theme of the movie could not be neglected.

The characters displayed in the movie a fabulous and the way these characters are kept in track with the young freedom fighters of that era is a feast to watch. The movie never loses its grip at any point of time, and the Music of the movie is fabulous. Every character is so very much alive in the movie that the person watching the movie finds himself somewhere in the movie.

The Movie also targets to the various sections of the YOUTH which includes a student politician Lakhan Pandey who has different objectives than our dudes like DJ and Sukkhi. The English lady has been amazing in the movie especially when she says 'Maa ki Aankh' to the boss of hers.

The MOVIE simply passes a message to each and every one of us that 'MEDIOCRITY is SIN'.

Catch more, from Vaibhav at: http://twitter.com/vaibhavgoswami