Movie Reviews and More ...

Priyadarshan’s sleeper hit bhool bhulaiyaa(2007) gets a poor cousin in the form of this franchise successor bhool bhulaiyaa 2 this time spearheaded by comedy king Anees Bazmee. Now Bazmee is nowhere in the league of Priyadarshan, considering his penchant for brainless comedies (some of which have become all time blockbusters) and the ‘brainlessness’ reflects in every frame of this horror- comedy!  Set very evidently in Rajasthan inorder to justify a ‘Royal’ background for the story, a lot of paranormal events start occurring in the Thakur family during the course of a wedding preparation week. Rooh Baba (Kartik Aaryan) arrives to solve the mystery which is deep rooted in the dark past of the Thakur’s.  Comedy- okayish, mystery- hollywoodish, music- pathetic. Overall is a bore drama, there are some genuinely funny moments specially the ones involving Mishra and Yadav, but Aaryan acting like a poor man’s Akshay Kumar is a big letdown. Advani looks as beautiful as 70s Dreamgirl b...

Directed by: Prashant Bhagia  Streaming on : zee5  Cast: Priyamani, Satyadeep Misra, Mrinal Dutt, Nikhil Bhatia, Mikhail Gandhi, Rajeev Kumar, Parinita Seth, Anmol Kajani, Charu Shanker, Rheanne Tejani.  Surprisingly, the otherwise intolerable Alt Balaji (Ekta Kapoor) has been coming out with some decent stuff these days, breaking out of the Saas Bahus and Gandi Baats she’s exploring some good subjects being handled sensitively. Hmm.  So the story is actually about two men in love with each other in a homophobic world, but the lead actress has played her part so well that she manages to convince you that it’s actually ‘her story’ and not ‘his story’, seriously that’s how good actress Priyamani is in this role. A working woman, chef by profession who’s been in a happy marriage(or so she thinks) of twenty years with a wealthy entrepreneur suddenly one fateful evening finds her husband smooching a young guy in the car! Soon she comes to know the guy is her husband’s bo...

Directors: Neeraj Ghaywan, Kayoze Irani, Shashank Khaitan & Raj Mehta  Streaming on : Netflix  An anthology series with four shorts from the house of Dharmatic productions helmed by Karan Johar and company. It’s like continuing with the tradition of Lust stories, Ghost stories etc, these are like twist stories exploring unconventional human relationships with an unexpected bittersweet twist at the end.  MAJNU In an affluent family live an incompatible couple who haven’t consummated their royal marriage for over three years, the wife longs for attention & love. One fine day a young boy enters their lives & is employed as a finance manager for their business. Things get awry when both the husband & wife get hopelessly & sexually drawn towards him.  Can be termed a black comedy, it’s got these subtle comical undertones & thanks to a brilliant actor like Jaideep Ahlawat it’s thoroughly enjoyable. Armaan Rahlan exudes machismo and that’s perfect c...

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.  ...

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 marri...

Director: David Dhawan  Cast: Varun Dhawan, Sara Ali Khan, Paresh Rawal, Jaaved Jaffri, Johnny Lever, Anil Dhawan, Sahil Vaid, Bharti Achrekar, Shikha Talsania, Rajpal Yadav, Hemant Panday, Manoj Joshi, Vikas Verma.  Yet another remake! That’s going to be the standard expression no? David Dhawan remakes his own 90s hit, frame by frame, no room for improvisation, includes comic formulae that is so 90s that it’s outdated now, sigh! And as an audience you are expected to lap it up.  The story which has its basic plot exactly the same as the original goes like this, a Panditji (Javed Jaffri) is humiliated during a matchmaking  by an eccentric wealthy man(Paresh Rawal) who’s a Goan Christian. Now what a hindu pandit was doing at a Christian matchmaking ahem, it’s communal harmony you see. Anyways the pandit vows revenge and plans to get the wealthy man’s daughter married off to a roadside , err railway side coolie(Varun Dhawan). To complicate matters the coolie has to ro...

KASHISH(1990) - revisited YouTube is generously retelecasting retro Doordarshan serials and one such classic is the fresh as a morning daisy Kashish (1991), almost thirty years and still so watchable and heart warming.  Directed by Kaamna Chandra it’s a simple love story actually a love hate story between an eccentric film maker (Sudesh Berry) and his heroine(Malvika Tiwari). With just eight episodes it deals with their bittersweet relationship, egos, unspoken romance and must say the director has handled it with so much tenderness and simplicity. There’s also a lovely ghazal sung by Kavita Krishnamurthy.  Nothing over the top, no sex no violence, yes there is a prospective Saas and her to be Bahu but they are so normal almost unbelievable in today’s context of tv serials! Berry no doubt had an visible Amitabh hangover but he looked dashing and fit that Mills and Boon hero slot in this romance. Malavika looked like a dainty, petite blooming flower, that husky sexy voice and s...