Sunday, May 29, 2011

YaaBaa DaaBaa do0O for Kung-Fu King Po0O

Heeeeee-Hawwww...YaaaHoo
Po0O is back. Kung Fu Panda is that brand of cartoon movies which typifies the art of associating absurd characters with their allotted roles. Imagine a fatso Panda doing Kung-Pu (and not simple pawing)? Imagine a goose as father of a giant Panda? Kung-Fu Panda made us believe that and illustrated the power of animation movies by becoming a big hit. The first edition was also an Oscar nominee.

Dear Movie viewers,
I am glad to inform you that Kung-Fu Panda 2 sets the same standards and enjoyment level like its predecessor. Therefore, it has been rated at 4.5/5

Story –
The giant Panda Po0O is now The Dragon Warrior in the Valley of Peace and along with the Fantastic Furious Five, he has to now deal a new enemy. The Peacock that is (super surprise) – Lord Shen. The evil Peacock (yes I used the adjective evil for a Peacock) wants to end Kung-Fu with the help of a canon-gun and our Super Strong Six (Po0O + the Furious Five) now have to stop him. Along with this, Po0O also has to find solace with his inner mystery about his origin.

Voice-Cast -
The life in the cartoon characters in an animated movie is given by its voice. The Incredibles, The Toy Story series are prime example. No wonder why characters like Woody in Toy Story cannot be identified without Tom Hanks’s voice.
Po0O, the Giant Great Panda cannot have an effective presence without the voice support of Jack Black. The voice is as tangy as the Panda’s Kung-Fu movements. Expressive, funny and effective (most importantly). Be ready to hear Jack Black as voice artist for Po0O in the next edition (as you tend to identify characters by their voices, example – Tom Hanks as voice artist for Woody, the cowboy and Tim Allen for Buzz LightYear for all Toy Story parts).
Tigress is voiced by Angelina Jolie and this time around, both the dialogues and the voice seem more effective. Lord Shen voiced by Gary Oldman makes him hear villainous. Rest of lot is all good.

Kung-Fu Panda 2 has great visuals (not a surprise as coming from DreamWorks Animation). The movie has some great scenes (even fight scenes) with great comic timing. The dialogues and one-lines are top class supported amazing well by all voice artists. The story by Glenn Berger and Jonathan Aibel serves all. Apart from Kung-Fu fight scenes, there are great set pieces where we see introspection and self-questioning. Kung-Fu Panda 2 is fulfilling both to eyes and soul.

What works – cartoons & characters & everything about them
What not – nothing negative just that movie should have been longer (greed of a viewer)

Speaking Pictures's verdict – YaaBaa DaaBaa do0O for Kung-Fu King Po0O. Kung-Fu the summer heat with this. Must watch.
ps: I seriously pray that Kung Fu Panda 2 will not inspire a movie like Chandni Chowk To China to be remade.

Monday, May 23, 2011

BMW Vision (BMW Batmobile)

In one of my earlier post where I blogged about Delhi Auto Expo 2010 (here) I was quite critical about BMW pavilion and their show of strength. May be BMW read that post and asked their headquarters in Munich (Germany) to send some stuff which has hooking power. Obviously not grass!
So on a Saturday, while I was strolling and rolling in CP (New Delhi), I saw BMW Vision (I call it BMW Batmobile)…
a car with muscular cuts, plenty of neon lights, transparent built, powerful engine, patented technologies, future perspective and I can go on but I have a office to go tomorrow morning…
BMW Vision (BMW Batmobile) here…(click on pic for full view)



Incase you need a higher quality pic of any the posted above, please drop in a comment with your email
ps: I am still a bigger fan of Merc than BMW.

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

a light meal in 'Stanley Ka Dabba'

I used to study in a school which had canteen among its permanent absentees. I always used to get angry about this cruel fact whenever I use to hear my after-school tuition peers discussing the day’s happenings at canteen. I relived some moments back today. Stanley is a beautiful movie and very well suited incase you like light-hearted ones.

Rating – 3.75/5

Story –
Stanley is a bright kid who studies in fourth class and doesn’t bring his dabba (tiffin). However his classmates are there for him and Stanley erases his hunger from his peers’ dabbas. The children of class are natural actors and it’s a pleasure to watch them.
Like every school, here too we have a strict strange teacher (fantastically stereotyped) – BabuBhai Verma (played by Amol Gupte). He loves plunging into his students’ dabbas and is the ‘bad-teacher’ of the movie. The race for dabbas is now like a cartoon series – Uncle Scrooge vs Beagle Boys (Stanley vs BbB). The first half of the movie is better paced than second half. The climax has a message which also reveals the answer to Stanley inability to get his piece of tinbox.

Since you are in school, how can you miss out on regular characters (without which a school-movie does not complete)? So, there is a Rosy Miss and a Mrs. Iyer (again fantastically stereotyped). Rosy Miss is the cute English teacher and Mrs. Iyer belongs to science. These characters brings movie close to real life and helps the movie to create that school ambiance. You can easily identify them with teachers in your life (abbey mere school mere bhi bilkul aisi hi ek Miss thi!).

Star Cast –

Partho (son of Amole Gupte) as Stanley is brilliant. He is natural throughout. Not to leave out his gang. Amole Gupte (writer-producer-director-actor) is a researcher of children behavior and his effort shows. His observations of children’s activities have helped him to write child-sequences and a judgment on his creative abilities won’t be wise especially after witnessing Taare Zameen Par. Divya Dutta as Rosy Miss is sweet. Divya Jagdale teaching science looks real and rational.

However, music needed to be a bit more emotional and touching. Nevertheless, nostalgic feelings do arise after watching Stanley and as they say! Everybody loves to peek in his future once in a while. Stanley Ka Dabba opens a chance of going back to fourth standard.

Speaking Pictures verdict – Innocent unadulterated pleasure with cute smiles. Who will like to miss it! GO for it.

What works – great acting, school nostalgia, special moments of fourth grade
And what not – music, lack of quality emotional content (like we experienced in Taare Zameen Par)

ps: I remember as we didn’t had a canteen, our class teacher use to ask the class to contribute food incase somebody missed his lunchbox. But the catch was she too tasted the best meals from that collected lot. Movie dekh ke confirm ho gaya ki chaalaak thi (That she was clever is confirmed after watching this movie).

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Enagaging 'Shor in the City'

Horns! Bombs! Noise! Loudness! Violence! Blood! Knife! Wives! SxXx! Ashanti ! Shor are words not new to us. Infact they reside in our society quite abundantly. No wonder the material for this movie seems apna sa (familiar to us).

Rating – 3.75/5

Story –
Shor In The City (siTc) comprises of three nested stories all based in Mumbai –
1) an NRI from land of opportunities coming back to India to create opportunities HERE. However! he still likes the girl with think accent. His life changes once he encounters goons demanding protection money.
2) a lover who is being force to see polished bridegrooms BUT she loves somebody else - A batsman who aspire to be in the local Ranji team and can go to any limits to fix his place in the team.
3) a newly-wed couple who are shy of each other and are still not known to each other. The couple is an interesting one where the wife is educated and the husband runs a book piracy business (in an ethical manner that is). His supporters are small time robbers and they all manage to pull off quite a unique robbery that of a book manuscript before its official release.

Star Cast –
In a movie like this, stars don’t work. We need actors and there were quite a few in siTc…
Never heard talent Pitobash Tripathy – plays the character of Mandok and who survives by committing small crimes. His make-up is in your face and has a fantastic resemblance to Natha of Peepli Live.
Tusshar Kapoor – one of the finest star’s son acts in this movie surprising everybody. Surprising here he gets something to speak (courtesy - channel Ekta) and gives a good performance. He maintains the same subtleness as he did in Gayab (unwatchable) but maintains dignity throughout.
Sendhil Ramamurthy is good in the role of NRI with his accent complementing the character very well. All other actors except Nikhil Dwivedi (main lead of My Name Is Anthony Gonsalves! remember) and Preeti Desais (plays the character of accented girlfriend of NRI) are fine.

The best part of movie is its story and compliments must be given to the trio of Raj Nidimoru (also the director), Krishna D.K. (also the director) and Sita Menon for writing an engaging script. Music is a standout in Shorr. Saibo and Karma (Suraj is back) are numbers of opposite taste and have that typical new song addiction. Screenplay is ok, could be better along with cinematography.

Speaking Pictures verdict - You know you are watching something worth enough if you don’t have any clue about the ending till the last 15 minutes. Shor In The City as a thriller works on this and does not disappoint. Definitely watchable.

A bit of philosophy – “Karma is a bitch”. Do you agree? I do!

Mere ghar mein shor hai, Mere dil mein shor hai,
Ab kahan jao, Jab mere chain mein bhi shor hai
(Noise is there in my house, noise is there in my heart, where to go! When noise is there in my comfort)

Sunday, May 08, 2011

"Luv Ka The End"...boring from start

College flicks are always lovely to watch. They are free-flowing and are most fun-filled with the most important ingredients like youth-energy, rebellion against system and never-say-die attitude. But not this one. Luv ka The End can easily be ‘substring’ed to ‘The End’.

Rating – 1.5/5

Story –
Story is about a girl, Rhea who first feels needy to get through her virginity tag as she becomes an adult. Then she finds the whole ‘yes! I lost my v tag’ pleasure-episode was with a cheater (Luv Nanda) who merely participated in the episode to score some ‘elite’ points. Now! maturity comes to girl and she transitions herself to an avatar to seek revenge from the cheater and say ‘Luv ka The End’.

Star Cast –
Shraddha Kapoor as Rhea is good. Her sweet face is pleasurable to watch and she successfully manages to put a face of that ‘teenage-virgin-victim’ quite effectively. Taaha Shah as Luv Nanda is just ok. Rhea’s accomplices have given satisfactory but somehow I was never able to transition myself in the college ambience, which speaks of the set-up of the movie and basically everything else in the movie, which is standard. Sadly nothing stands out.

Some half a decade ago, when I was in college I too played a similar character (male casanovish-type character) in a college play. It was thoroughly entertaining and I had become a stereotyped ‘bad guy - MCP’ for quite some time post that play. The whole point I made through his self-confession was the severity and the leverage this kind of topics can have for collegiate.
However, ‘Luv ka the End’ does not capitalize on these issues and there is no effective engaging story in it.

Speaking Pictures Verdict – it is not a decent watch especially when we have two better movies (Chalo Dilli and Shor In The City) still playing out.

Movie also gets credit for having the worst and wannabe B-grade lyrics to fill the desires of the current youth. Read yourself -
“Mera jism, jism, Mera badan, badan, Main hun taza mutton mutton, Khol dilo ke button button.” (My body body, my figure figure, I am the fresh meat, open the buttons of your hearts)

Tuesday, May 03, 2011

Chalo Dilli (with message of chalo jindagi)

“Babu Moshai, Zindagi Badi honi chahiye, Lambi nahin” – Anand
A cult movie dialogue which says a lot about philosophy. The plot of this movie is simply out of this dialogue. And like the plot is its whole set up (quite simple). May be because this is the first work of Bheegi Basanti Productions (fantastic name for producing Hindi movies).

Rating – 3/5

Story –
The whole movie revolves around two characters - Mihika Mukherji (Lara Dutta), who is big-time into investment banking has more than 600 people directly working UNDER her (why a capital-wala UNDER here? Wait). She is clean, drinks purest form of water and likes to walk on high sleek heels. Other character is Manu Gupta (Vinay Pathak); gutka-freak large-hearted person who wears loud clothes out of Govinda’s wardrobe and carries more luggage than Govinda did in Coolie No. 1 (Govinda – man of inspiration here). By the way, is Manu going the soon-to-be name of Hindi movies (on the lines of Prem and Raj of 90s)? It sounds appealing to the opposite gender, is short, cool, funny and recently proved rhyming (Tanu Weds Manu).
Going forward, this story here is not new and has been spotted many a times in Bollywood – a road trip with two absolutely different personalities. They meet, they clash, they learn and we enjoy. Something same happened here. M&M (Mihika and Manu), both set their journey to Delhi from Mumbai and end up being in Jaipur. The road trip is now between Jaipur and Delhi where these two characters travel together meeting regular interesting people - dhaba owners, village goons, corrupt ticket collector, helpless inspectors, B-grade hotelier, system cribbing Bengalis and many more. The two characters of opposite nature learn to adjust with each other with social messages being shared in sporadic manner. So! In the end do they fall in love?

Star Cast –
Vinay Pathak – who will be the first choice to play character of a large hearted fatso? He has done these types of character many a times (previously in Dasvidaniya, Bheja Fry) and his performance momentum continue here too. Fantastic enjoyable performance with high-end quality but he needs to beware of such stereotyping.
Lara Dutta – she was never made to act but he has given a satisfactory performance in Chalo Dilli (remember she is also the co-producer, so I think the pressure worked). Her performance as a snobbish posh high society executive is not up to mark but she covers it later during her road journey. Vinay Pathak’s influence clearly visible.

Rest of the stuff is average (songs, cinematography, etc) except some of the come-on-laugh-now dialogues which are quite unnecessary. As an example, imagine the above mentioned UNDER me dialogue with Lara’s bums in focus! Also the movie starts with a lot of PJ settings (majority given to Lara) but thankfully it doesn’t reaches irritation levels.
Another drawback of the movie is its pace. It starts slow and just when it starts to bore, it gets to reasonable levels accept the emotional climax. The transition from a light hearted situational comedy to emotional ‘be-happy’ message giving ending is just too sudden and does not attract attention.
Anyways, the movie is a much respite as the comedy in parts is good and brings casual smiles. The best thing about light-hearted movies is that you needn’t bring your brain to use, it’s all so cosy!

Speaking Pictures Verdict - watchable ‘paisa-vasool' stuff.

But why did they name it Chalo Dilli (why not my write-up’s title - Chalo Jindagi)? Chalo Dilli seems to be a freedom movement slogan and after seeing the movie, the title seems disconnected.

“to ye kaunsi badi baat ho gayi” – Manu
“bhaiya gobbar khana tha to haathi ka khaata” – village goon