Infinite thoughts

  Watching a dubbed movie is not exactly a choice for us as a family. I have been doing it occasionally, had watched some movies on Sony some time back. In recent past, it was “ Wild Dog ” starring Nagarjuna and Diya Mirza. Typically the plots are better in the South Indian movies, is what my observation is or I have been extremely lucky to have watched movies having a better plot. Meghana is not that inclined to watch such movies as watching a dubbed movie/series is a incoherent experience - lip movements and the audio create a feeling that something is wrong and then you can’t focus on movie or story. The songs are usually the worst of the lot as they are typically “प्राची ला गच्ची जुळवणे”. Mrunmay wasn’t a big fan either. He may have watched some while around me. In his recent trip to Bengaluru, his cousin took him to a movie - RRR . And since then Mrunmay has been only talking about the movie and the songs only. He must have listened to the song “ Nattu Nattu ” - maybe - a thou...

Mrunmay was keen to watch this movie about the Math Genius and had kept his eyes on the release date. So as soon as it was released, we watched it on 1-Aug. So the review is a bit late and some points may be little blur in details. My first reaction after the movie: this is a story about a celebrity (and that to an egoist celebrity) and her daughter. I really don't know how close this one is to real life and hence putting up my points from the movie angle only and not comparing it with real life at all. Shakuntaladevi , who was a genius in maths, since her childhood, grows doing Math shows across various places - schools, restaurants and what not. Having sacrificed her childhood and schooling for being the primary bread-earner of the family, she develops a huge grudge against her father. And against her mother too - for not speaking up.  As life takes turns and as Shakuntaladevi fights against the odds, she reaches London. After more struggle there, she finally finds herself ...

As the year-end approached, I was on the lookout to continue our tradition of watching a movie on the first day of the year. This has been going on for the last 3 years - started with Dangal , followed by Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle and then Simmba last year. I was aware of the sequel of Jumanji being released - Jumanji: The Next Level and quickly checked out the availability of tickets. To my surprise, the tickets were easily available for IMAX 3D as well as 4DX. Since I never had watched a full movie in a 4D environment, I decided to give it a shot. I was thrilled by the original Jumanji and the next one. Both were done very nicely keeping the audience engaged at every moment and I was hoping to have a similar experience for this movie as well. Additionally, there was excitement for the 4D aspect as well.  The plot of the movie is pretty much the same as that of the last two movies. However, this one is more predictable. Since the time they have introduced the video ga...

At the insistence of Mrunmay, we decided to watch this animation movie - " The Boss Baby " and wow!! I had a good laugh during the movie multiple times. Excellent animation with some very innovative ideas, this movie makes a must watch for adults.  The movie takes a dig at corporate life many times during the course and the real fun will come to those who have experienced it themselves or have at least been exposed to the jargon. The movie starts with a concept how babies are born rather "manufactured" and how do they decide whether to send them to families or to management.  It turns out that "Babycorp" is in the business of manufacturing babies and is feeling a threat from "Puppycorp" due to their increasing market share of "love" from human beings. As a result Babycorp decides to send one of their best to a family of "Templetons" - A couple and a boy named - Timothy (Tim) and that results in the disaster for Tim. This ...

After much deliberation, we decided to watch " Naam Shabana " and it turned out to be a good watch.  In this prequel to the much acclaimed 2015 movie " Baby " which tells you the story of special agent "Shabana" played by beautiful and talented actress - Taapasee Pannu . If you compare this one to "Baby", you are going to miss a lot of action and thrill as this one turns out to be more focused on the lady character "shabana" and her early days.  Shabana's characters is slowly developed in the beginning, telling you about why she is so dry on emotions and the demur behaviour. As the events happen, she looses her closest friend before she could express her emotions and how the special task force coax her to recruit in the force and ultimately putting her on the mission.  Taapasee has played the role well and has some good action sequences, albeit short ones. She has kept her focus very well.  Akshaye Kumar has very little...

Yesterday Zee Marathi aired one of the recent movies in Marathi - BP (Balak - Palak) . I had heard a lot about the movie and also had planned to watch it in theater, but somehow I couldn't. So when I get to know the timing, I blocked my calendar and also ensured that Mrunmay doesn't disturb in between :p The theme is very different from the movies that we have seen so far and very happy for the BP team to take up such a subject. It is about the children with their unending curiosity for everything including sex and some of the side effects of it. You can read more about the storyline and other things at imdb and other sites . What I liked about the movie: All the kids (not kids really) - Avya, Bhagya, Chiu, Dolly and Vishu. Very good performance by each one of them. Kadam kaka by Kishor Kadam Song selection when the kids were trying to peeping through the window - That one is too hilarious!! The emotional disturbance after the kids watch the BP aka "Dhinch...

Set in the beautiful islands of Bali, this movie is meant to entertain the kids. But unfortunately adults may not find it that interesting.  As usual, when Bheem along with his gang and King of Dholakpur reaches Bali, they find that Bali is in danger. Apparently, Bali's Queen is King of Dholakpur's sister and were invited for crowning ceremony of the prince Arjun. Upon arrival, Bheem and the team found that everything is devastated in Bali and there's no trace of Royal family including Arjun. After much of a search, Bheem finds the Rajguru (Royal Priest) who had helped the prince escape the wrath of the invader - Rangda.  The story line is pretty much predictable and there are no surprises till the end. Bheem needs to be the ONLY savior and it turns out to be that way. (This actually is a problem for children mentality, but I'll save the thoughts for some other time.) Overall animation is similar to the serial and there didn't seem to be any attempt...

Jolly LLB - Nice story line, but wasted.  This movie is about an aspiring lawyer from a small town, who wants to make it big in some or the other way. Jagdish Tyagi aka Jolly ( Arshad Warsi ) is a small time lawyer from small town in U.P. who is struggling to get established. With a strong belief that he can settle down Delhi, he reaches the capital, but there's no change. As part of his presence in the court he happens to attend a high profile case of hit-and-run, represented by a well known lawyer Mr. Rajpal ( Boman Irani ). The case gets dismissed due to the usual reasons of no eye-witness, no evidence and all similar *t. Mr. Rajpal was expecting a huge fees from Mr. Diwan, whose son was the main culprit in the hit-and-run case. And Mr. Diwan makes a mistake there. Rajpal is given peanuts as his compensation since the case gets closed in just about 6 weeks. And this hurts Rajpal's ego.  Jolly sees an opportunity in his attempt to get established, and files a PIL (...

An excellent movie by Neeraj Pandey, maker of " A Wednesday ".  The plot is picked up from real story taken place in late 80's, to be precise in 1987. The details of the story could be found easily on the web  and hence not covered here.  Anupam Kher is outstanding as usual, in the role of "sharmaji". Jimmy Shergil has given yet another best performance. Comparatively the role is smaller is length, but is very crucial in the movie. Akshay Kumar has done pretty well and something different from his usual Khiladi image. Manoj Baajpeyee looks awesome in the role of Wasim Khan. Director has taken a lot of effort to make the scenes live and mimic the settings in mid-80's and I must say it has paid off well.  On the whole, I would say it is a must watch!! PS: Did someone say what about Kajal Aggarwal ? if you are her fan (possible, but doesn't matter), you should have watched it by now and if you are not, why bother? I have alrea...

Honour killing that has been on rampant in recent past is the main theme of this movie. Some good sequences with speed of the story keeps you hooked for quite some time, but looses the grip after a while. Three students from medical college disappear suddenly while visiting home town of one of them. When students increase the pressure throug media, CBI enquiry is started (Ajay Devgan and Akshaye khanna) After a lot of struggle to gather the witnesses and proofs, they get some breakthrough, but that turns out to be ugly face of the honour killing. After lot of blood bath, the duo is able to bring the culprits to the justice, albeit by taking some crooked ways, which obviously pay off. The story is developed pretty nicely, but there are some obvious loose ends, some stretched sequence which distract you, particularly in the second half. Overall it can be watched once and you might actually like it if you don't notice the loose ends. And yes, if you are going there with some expectati...

Star Plus was broadcasting the recent flick - Rann and I happened to notice it well on time. The story line projected by Tata Sky info looks promising and led me to watch the movie. Movie revolves around the role of the Media in current times and how it could be used by some mighty people to their benefit. It was more like mix of a bunch of movies including a marathi movie " Simhasan " which was prepared way back in 1980 where two politicians fight each other and a media person was witnessing it, " Kurukshetra " (2000) and couple of others. The movie proceeds in a predictable manner and there are no twists at all. Although Rann has a strong starcast - AB, Paresh Rawal, Reitesh Deshmukh, Gul Panag - it fails to make the impact. AB has maintained his usual style and there were no great scenes made for him in this movie. I was really disappointed with the role that Paresh Rawal has played. There's nothing new for him to do in this role and kept me wondering why did...

As expected, the movie turned out to be boring. Nothing much was happening in the movie. I spent time in figuring out some of the lose ends which could get resolved only after I talked to Meghana as she had read the book. The movie has added twist of existence of werewolves, which happened to be around Bella in the form of Human Beings. Her best friedn Jacob himself is a werewolf and the sequence in which this was revealed was the only piece I could remember after the movie. Jacob is trying to be protective of Bella and wants to keep her away from Vampires (Collins family), but ultimately loses to Edward as Bella decides to chose love against the best friend. All in all, I didn't feel that story has advanced worth 2 hours.

After all the hype that was created around " Twilight ", it was obvious to watch it sooner or later and we managed to watch it last weekend. The story revolves around the basic theme of a young girl falling in love with a boy, who happens to be a vampire, yes, vampire. Most of the initial part has come out very cutely, the way Bella (the cute, beautiful girl) attracts to Edward (the vampire), how Edward gets involved with Bella, the pain that Edward goes through everytime he suppresses his urge to suck blood out of Bella, the realization that Bella has when she joins the dots, her visit to Edward's family - all these things have come out very beautifully. Disappointedly, then comes a villain (what would that love story be, if there's no villain) and from this point onwards, it became just another hindi movie - Villain kidnapping the dearones, Hero making all attempts to save his sweetheart and all. This was the point when I lost my interest in the movie. If it would ...

Without breaking the suspense, I would just say 8x10 Tasveer is a one time watchable movie that too not in any multiplex. One can wait till it is available in video library or even till small screen premier. The story is about a person having super-natural power of going into the past 1 minute through any photograph. While he uses this to the rescue of the needy persons, he lands up in a situation where he needs to use this power for his own sake - to find out if his father's death was an accident or a murder. Once the plot is set, the story takes kind of predictable turns. It becomes easier to guess what the end is going to be and fails to keep the audience locked in the story. Akshaye Kumar is okay, Ayesha Takia-Azmi doesn't have much scope for acting as such, she just needs to be around. Anyone could have done that role. Frankly speaking no one leaves the feeling that this role couldn't have been done by anyone else. Movie seriously fails considering that it's a N...