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Showing posts from March, 2021

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 from Kaml
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PAGGLAIT(2021) review

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Directed by: Umesh Bist  Streaming on : Netflix  Cast: Sanya Malhotra, Ashutosh Rana, Aasif Khan, Rajesh Tailang, Raghuvir Yadav, Nakul R Sahadev, Jameel Khan, Sheeba Chadda, Meghana Mallik, Ananya Khare, Chetan Sharma, Shruti Sharma, Sharib Hashmi (Sp.App), Sayani Gupta(Sp.App) Surprise of surprises!! A Netflix original collaboration with Balaji Telefilms with no sex, no obscenity, no foul language !!! Are we dreaming ?  A simple uncomplicated story about an unexpected death of a young newly married man in an upper middle class household. The death shatters the family members and several relatives flock the house to be a part of the thirteen day funeral rituals/ rites. What surprises everyone is the young widow has no grief to express and is herself unable to accept the fact that she’s not sorrowful about the untimely demise of her husband of five months ! Leading to several situational comical proceedings the movie also highlights feminism in its brightest form.  Bist has handled th
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Sensational magazine covers and shocking confessions

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Do you remember the magazine MOVIE ? Was quite popular in the 90s and then suddenly stopped circulation. It was like a bridging gap between the virgin Filmfare and the saucy Stardust. There were sensational covers where established stars as well as starlings tried to hog the attention of gossip hungry readers. Revisiting some controversial tag lines and sizzling covers.  So if you can’t take your eyes off the bohemian lass Pooja Bhatt from the above 1994 cover then kindly read the honest not so animal friendly confession by Nawab Saif Ali Khan Pataudi. In a royal pride manner he confessed to having dropped his dog from the seventh floor! And also sliced his pet parrot !!! Those were the days when the society wasn’t exactly animal friendly. Imagine an actor making such claims today and how he’ll be mercilessly trolled and labelled an inhuman butcher.  It’s a well known fact that former superstar Rajesh Khanna aka Kaka once eclipsed by the then angry young man Amitabh Bachchan, held a g
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And the National award goes to.....

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And the national award for best actress goes to.....Kangana Ranaut! Her fourth national award and third in the best actress category. A must to revisit some Bollywood heroines who’ve been awarded the coveted award in the past. Now these awards are awarded taking into account all the language films in the country and that makes it all the more tough to win it, but some of the winners haven’t been controversy free. Here’s a look at Ten Bollywood stars who won the National Award for best actress (also known as the Urvashi Award)  Magnanimously talented Nargis Dutt is the first Bollywood actress to have won the national award, she won it for Raat Aur Din(1967) where she portrayed a middle aged woman suffering from dissociative identity disorder wherein she’s a docile housewife during the day and transforms into a nightclub crooner at night.  Rehana Sultan an FTII graduate won the award for her very first movie Dastak(1970) where she played Salma, a newly married woman who shifts into a ro
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Retro Real life Love Affairs

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Passion, romance, unconditional belonging, togetherness, love ! All these beautiful emotions and feelings were evident in yesteryear’s love affairs in Bollywood during the golden era from 50s through 80s where on screen romantic couples defied societal stereotypes and jumped into unconventional romantic liaisons in personal lives. Revisiting some iconic screen couples who dared to fall in love in real life but circumstantial road blocks prevented marriage !!  In the 50s debonair Dev Anand was every girl’s Dil ki dharkan while the singing star Suraiyya was the conventional bride material. Both fell hopelessly in love with each other, Anand even proposed marriage by offering her an engagement ring. Unfortunately the singing star’s conservative mother didn’t approve of the inter faith marriage. So much was the dominant mothers control over Suraiyya’s life that she had to throw away the ring into the sea to put an evidential end to the blooming romance. While Anand moved on and married c
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CHAKRAVYUH : Review

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Directed by: Sajit Warrier  Streaming on : mx player  Cast: Prateik Babbar, Ashish Vidyarthi, Simran Kaur Mundi, Gopal Dutt, Shiv Pandit, Urvashi Sardhara, Anjali Shivaraman, Ayesha Kanga, Twinkle Tshering, Ruhi Singh, Rajesh Khera, Rohan Joshi and others.  If successful this series could turn into a franchise chronicling the adventures of inspector Virkar( Babbar). This particular season deals with cyber crime and sex racket. And how Virkar with his intelligence and wits unravels the mystery. That’s what we are made to believe.  There are a series of serial killings in Mumbai that give sleepless nights to the crime bureau. The beefed up inspector Virkar is assigned the responsibility to track down the serial killer. The victims are all young teenagers, it starts with the brutal murder of a young boy where he’s castrated and stabbed to death. Then another boy is murdered brutally and his eyeballs are sucked out of their sockets. The third victim is a young girl murdered on a train and
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QUBOOL HAI 2.0 : Review

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Directed by: Glen Barreto and Ankush Mohla Streaming on : zee5  Cast: Surbhi Jyoti, Karan Singh Grover, Mandira Bedi, Arif Zakaria, Lilette Dubey, Waqar Sheikh, Shalini Kapoor, Saurabh Raj Jain, Ashwin Mushran, Priyal Gor and others.  There was I believe a TV show by this title that aired on zeetv and was hugely popular. This is a web-series version with a fresh outlook and apparently a new storyline with a larger budget and bigger canvas.   The story though uninteresting gets a fresh and novel treatment thanks to the directors Glen and Ankush (I remember their forte was the crime and supernatural genre in the 90s), this is more like a Muslim social getting a makeover of crime, national integration and mystery.  A handsome sharp shooter from India, Assad (Grover) meets a Pakistani runaway bride Zoya (Jyoti) in Siberia and they fall hopelessly in love with each other. Now they are on the run together being chased by Zoya’s rejected groom and his allies. How they land in Zoya’s hometown
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HIGHEST GROSSERS OF THE 60s

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Revisiting the golden era of Bollywood cinema, the sensational sixties that witnessed some of the biggest blockbusters produced in Hindi cinema, replete with class, timeless music and breathtakingly beautiful photography, and not to forget the celluloid stars whose charisma and charm attracted the audience to cinema halls.  MUGHAL E AZAM(1960) An epic, a masterpiece that has been revered over the decades continues to charm the cinema lovers, directed by K Asif the tragic love story between Salim and Anarkali impressed the audience. Naushad’s music and Madhubala’s aristocratic beauty were also major crowd pullers.  GANGA JUMNA(1961)  The tale of two brothers portrayed on screen by real life brothers, thespian Dilip Kumar and the lesser known Nasir, turned out to be a box office blockbuster. Naushad’s melodies were chartbusters so were Vyjayantimala’s dancing histrionics.  BEES SAAL BAAD (1962)  A chilling murder mystery with the haunting song Kahin Deep Jaley pulled the crowd to the th
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