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Showing posts from July, 2020

JAWAAN (2023) : review

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And finally the much hyped, much awaited Jawaan saw light of the day ! Big stars, big budget( humongous budget actually), big music composer, everything super large. But does it meet the expectations of the average viewer? No it goes not. Read on.  A decorated jawan locks horns with a criminal called Kaali, this is in 1986 ( the year movies like Aakhri Raasta released, just for reference). Kaali gets him eliminated and send the pregnant wife to jail. The baby born in jail grows up to become the hero (look alike of the father) and decides to avenge the misdeeds done to his innocent patriotic parents. Well, isn’t it a masaaledaar full on Bollywood- Tollywood drama subject ?  And then the director Atlee also borrows ideas and references from various retro movies, some idea from Sholay (1975) as the hero assembled a gang of jailed Qaidis in order to form a team to nab the villain, then there’s an entire episode borrowed from Dhartiputra (1993), and the basic theme is copy pasted ...
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SHAKUNTALA DEVI (2020/ prime video)

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SHAKUNTALA DEVI (2020/ prime video)  Directed by: Anu Menon  After watching this ‘miscalculated’ version all I think of is why not a detailed webseries on the life and times of one of the greatest mathematicians of the world who we can proudly say was an Indian woman. Seriously why not ? This biopic is a hurried rushed saga that has more loopholes in its screenplay than the potholes on your neighborhood road.  Chronicling the life of “human computer” spanning eight decades across various countries, there is so much more the new generation would have liked to know about the great lady that Shakuntala Devi was during her lifetime. Unfortunately the director Anu “Lola Kutty” Menon delivers a badly calculated mathematical sum, the result of which is nowhere close to the perfect answers that were Devi’s forte and claim to superstardom. Devi’s obsession with mathematics and her alternate jumps into a successful astrological field and a failed political attempt are dealt as a p...
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MANGESHKAR MONOPOLY- Myth or reality ?

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It’s been debated for almost four decades now and there’s no final conclusion to the age old Mangeshkar monopoly in Bollywood. So did the talented songstress Lata Mangeshkar have a strong monopoly or is it just a myth to malign her squeaky clean image of the lady in white ?  Humble beginnings  Lata started singing actively in 1942-43 but achieved success only in 1949-50 with Barsaat and Mahal songs. So the period from 1942 till 1947 when she sang her first full fledged song was entirely a struggle phase. She didn’t have it easy, mid 40s to late 40s there were powerful singers like Noorjehan, Suraiyaa, Rajkumari, Amirbai Karnataki, Zohrabai Ambalewali, Shamshad Begum and others who ruled the playback field. Yet Lata scrapped all competition and made her way to the top by 1950-51 itself. How?  What worked in Lata’s favour?  She was criticised for a thin and shrill voice, the traits she used in her favour. Her voice as sweet as honey and immense command over the Sur ma...
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BREATHE INTO THE SHADOWS (2020) a review

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BREATHE INTO THE SHADOWS(2020)  Directed by: Mayank Sharma  Cast: Abhishek A Bachchan, Amit Sadh, Nithya Menen, Saiyami Kher, Shrikant Verma, Hrishikesh Joshi, Plobita Borthakur, Shraddha Kaul, Shruti Bapna, Pawan Singh, Kuljeet Singh, Baby Ivana, Resham Shrivardhan, Sunil Gupta, Jaspal Sharma, Vipin Katyal & Nizhalgal Ravi.  Streaming on Amazon prime video this 12 episodic webseries delivers an high voltage suspense thriller but gets weighed down with an hackneyed disoriented plot theory.  A celebrated psychiatrist- chef couple’s child gets kidnapped. The kidnapper has an unusual demand of ransom, the father of the child has to murder a list of people one by one as instructed by the kidnapper! The story progresses with an impulsive hot headed cop investigating the killings, the father of the child and the kidnapper playing a cat and mouse hunt with the police.  Gripping? Yes. Fast paced? No. The episodes move at a snail’s pace dragging an otherwise taut st...
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KHALNAAIKA (1993)

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KHAL-NAAIKA (1993)  Directed by- Sawan Kumar Tak  Cast- Jeetendra, Jaya Prada, Mehmood, Bharat Bhalla, Puneet Issar, Varsha Usgaonkar, Baby Saahebzadi,Master Zain Ansari, & Anu Agarwal.  A frame to frame copy of the Hollywood thriller “The hand that rocks the cradle”(1992) this Indian adaptation by the “Souten” specialist Tak was actually quite decent as it didn’t divert from its central plot with unnecessary side tracks. There was no attempt to Indianise the movie, thankfully. Maybe that’s the reason the audience didn’t lap it up.  The life of a wealthy couple is terribly disrupted on the entry of a sultry governess in their palatial mansion. They soon discover the governess is on a cold blooded mission with “revenge being her only desire” - that was the tag line.  Promoted as the hottest film of that year it’s unfortunate that it was marketed as elite soft porn, the distributers focussed on a breast feeding scene and the raunchy disgusting “Choli” item so...
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KHILADI (1992)

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KHILADI (1992) ~~~~rewatched  Directed by: Abbas-Mustan  Cast: Akshay Kumar, Ayesha Jhulka, Shakti Kapoor, Deepak Tijori, Johnny Lever, Dinyar Contractor, Anant Mahadevan, Harpal Singh, Sanjeev Chitre, Sabeeha, Beena Banerjee, Kunika, Guddi Maruti, Tinnu Anand, Sharat Saxena, Amrutlal Patel & Prem Chopra.   This enjoyable suspense thriller was playing on tv yesterday and it just doesn’t get old, it’s so 90s. So what worked in its favour? It had a stale storyline, an unknown lead hero, the director duo and music composer duo were non entities, so what worked? The “freshness” is what u believe.  Four young college going fun loving friends play a prank that goes awfully and fatally wrong! A murder that needs to be investigated and the real killer should be nabbed before the innocent youngsters get caught in a web of mystery. A similar storyline was used earlier, but the dynamic brothers Abbas-Mustan presented the old wine in a delightfully decorated new bottle that...
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MR. YOGI (1988)

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MR. YOGI(1988)  Directed by: Ketan Mehta  Cast: Mohan Gokhale, Sushmeeta Mukherji, Radha Seth, Deepa Sahi, Channa Ruparel, Winnie Jogalekar, Shubhangi Gokhale, Pallavi Joshi, Savita Bhatia, Rekha Rao, Kiran Sethi, Rani Gunaji, Anita Sareen, Raj Zutshi & Om Puri.  Based on the novella “Kimball Ravenswood” this sitcom aired on Doordarshan, directed by Ketan Mehta who was till then known for offbeat classics like Mirch Masala(1987). The episodes were earlier streaming on Airtel Xstream and few are available on YouTube.  An US based NRI Yogesh Ishwarlal Patel lovingly called Mr.Yogi(played by the charming Gokhale) returns to homeland to hunt for a bride, according to his meticulously designed plan he meets a girl of each zodiac sign during his stay, whom he ends up marrying after the twelve adventurous matchmaking sessions leaves you stumped! There’s a narrator aka Sootradhar(Puri) playing the humorous link between Yogi and the audience.  Mehta has handled the ...
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