Where Bollywood Comes Alive
Posts tagged bollywood hungama
Movie Review: SHAKAL PE MAT JA by TARAN ADARSH
01 year ago
by Fenil Seta
in External Reviews
By Taran Adarsh, November 18, 2011 – 12:15 IST
There are times when fatigue sets in while watching the usual masala films that have precious little to offer in terms of content. The customary item songs, the much explored panoramic locales of Europe, the familiar dialogue and drama catering to the NRIs… how one longs for something fresh to come out in cineplexes that would pep you up again.
2011 has been a landmark year for Bollywood. Besides the success ratio which has shot upwards, the material churned out by dream merchants has been much better when compared to previous years. Irrespective of how these films fare, you cannot turn a blind eye to the fact that there has been a genuine effort to give the audience something fresh.
BOLLYWOOD HUNGAMA.COMSHAKAL PE MAT JA doesn’t have a Khan, Kumar, Roshan or Kapoor starring in it, but it attempts to tell a story that’s refreshingly different. However, it’s the screenplay that plays a complete spoilsport. What could’ve been an interesting movie turns out to be part attention-grabbing, part drab, part prolonged. Wish this could’ve been another high-wit, low cost comedy that’s fun to watch, like TERE BIN LADEN.
SHAKAL PE MAT JA is a story of four young boys who get caught up as suspects at the Delhi International Airport. They get caught while capturing an aircraft landing on their camera, which they claim to have shot for a documentary that they are making. With their explanation and situation not being fruitful, they are More >
Movie Review: SOUNDTRACK by TARAN ADARSH
01 year ago
by Fenil Seta
in External Reviews
By Taran Adarsh, October 6, 2011 – 14:36 IST
There’s nothing like watching a guy hit the ebb and then trying to crawl back again. The triumph of the human spirit catches our attention all the while. After all, people love watching a good tragedy. SOUNDTRACK, the official remake of the award winning IT’S ALL GONE PETE TONG, narrates one such story.
Rajeev Khandelwal is one of the few actors to have made a successful transition from television to cinema. His choice of films, starting with AAMIR, followed by SHAITAN and now SOUNDTRACK prove that he’s keen to be a part of movies that push the envelope, that push him beyond his boundaries. He’s gradually emerged as the face of intelligent urban cinema. That’s also one of the reasons why SOUNDTRACK catches your attention.
BOLLYWOOD HUNGAMA.COMSOUNDTRACK may be a ‘small budget film’ [in film parlance], but I strongly believe that budgets, however big or small, can never decide on the quality of cinema. A mockumentary, SOUNDTRACK takes a closer look at a musician’s life faced with a career-ending handicap. It has some heartwarming moments, some amusing moments, some comic moments and some lump in the throat moments.
Very well shot drama with touches of black humor, director Neerav Ghosh deserves immense praise for handling a complex story with amazing maturity. The story is attention-grabbing — it traces his alcohol, drug and sex-fuelled meteoric rise, as he battles his internal demons and a damaging handicap — and I must More >
Movie Review: RASCALS by TARAN ADARSH
01 year ago
by Fenil Seta
in External Reviews
By Taran Adarsh, October 6, 2011 – 10:37 IST
David Dhawan gets wild, wacky… and naughty! He’s back to the ‘spicy’ films he churned out with amazing regularity [and with great success] in the 1990s. RASCALS sees the original badshaah of non-stop laughathons revisit the genre, after a hiatus. Let me describe RASCALS in few words: funny, outrageous, hilarious, uproarious and most importantly, entertaining. In fact, the title as well as the promos of the film had prepared us well in advance about what to expect from this film.
BOLLYWOOD HUNGAMA.COM
Be forewarned. RASCALS is strictly for the hoi polloi, those who relish masala entertainers with glee, those with an appetite for movies that transport them to a different world in those hours spent in the dark auditorium, those who swear by movies that defy logic, motive and intellect. Do you think you fit into this description of a moviegoer? If you do, RASCALS is just for you.
At the same time, RASCALS is definitely *not* for those who tilt towards realistic/pragmatic cinema or for enthusiasts of meaningful/significant cinema or those who disregard masala films. No, nope, naah… this one’s austerely not for them!
Dhawan’s new outing is about two con men who take potshots at each other, trying to pull the other’s pants down with hilarious gimmicks, duping one another or people around them. Most con artist movies are comedies and Dhawan makes it sufficiently clear in the promos that RASCALS would be a fun-fest that’s aimed More >
Movie Review: BHEJA FRY 2 by TARAN ADARSH
01 year ago
by Fenil Seta
in External Reviews
By Taran Adarsh, June 17, 2011 – 11:02 IST
Am often asked about sequels… Do sequels ensure success? Are sequels a shortcut to victory? Are we exploiting a winning formula to triumph over troubled times? Is there a bankruptcy of ideas and is that the stimulus for resorting to sequels?
I genuinely feel that if a film-maker has created a triumphant trademark/brand name, why should he be apologetic about making wealth on it? But, very frankly, sequels don’t necessarily guarantee victory. Whether it’s a sequel or a prequel, or a recreation of a successful film, it works only if the spectator is able to relate to the goings on. Oh yes, the registered brand makes you connect to a film and its characters instantaneously and perhaps the marketing budgets get condensed in the process. But every film is judged in isolation and very significantly on merit.
BY BOLLYWOOD HUNGAMA.COMBHEJA FRY 2 looks at the escapades of Bharat Bhushan, the idiot, who continues to deep-fry the viewers’ brains with his foolhardy and imprudent deeds. But there are some observable modifications. The most prominent one being, Kay Kay Menon is the next pivotal character, after Vinay and the setting is now a cruise liner. BHEJA FRY was based on the French comedy LE DINER DE CONS, which not only inspired this Bollywood remake but also a Hollywood film DINNER FOR SCHMUCKS. On the other hand, BHEJA FRY 2 comes across as a novel concept.
It’s a challenge for Sagar Ballary to make the sequel More >
Movie Review: ALWAYS KABHI KABHI by TARAN ADARSH
01 year ago
by Fenil Seta
in External Reviews
By Taran Adarsh, June 17, 2011 – 10:57 IST
Youngistan rules! Bollywood has realized the potential of this segment of moviegoers — the teen market — which explains why movie-makers are attempting to wow Gen-X with films that appeal to their sensibilities. Actually, the social networking generation can make or break a film in a span of minutes. It is this aspect that keeps a storyteller on his/her toes. Unconventional, out-of the box themes, but contemporary by nature are being attempted. Luring the youth to cineplexes is the prime motive of the film fraternity today.
BY BOLLYWOOD HUNGAMA.COMComing of age films aren’t new. But there’s definitely a dearth of movies that look at school students. Mansoor Khan’s JO JEETA WOH SIKANDER stands tall in this list. First-time director Roshan Abbas attempts to mirror the lives of four youngsters in ALWAYS KABHI KABHI, Class XII students all. Today’s kids have a mind of their own and ALWAYS KABHI KABHI makes an attempt to make adults realize what goes on in a kid’s mind. Bridging the generation gap, did you ask? Oh yes! Making adults — parents, teachers, elders — understand the kids better. The intentions are right, but the interpretation isn’t. ALWAYS KABHI KABHI is based on Roshan Abbas’ 1999 play ‘Graffiti’. Though Roshan may claim that he has developed and modified the play to suit the moviegoers’ tastes, the fact is that the subject material is thoroughly unexciting and comes across as a hollow attempt to More >
Movie Review: BHINDI BAAZAAR INC by TARAN ADARSH
01 year ago
by Fenil Seta
in External Reviews
By Taran Adarsh, June 17, 2011 – 11:02 IST
The Hindi film industry’s fixation with gangster movies continues. Right from DEEWAAR, DHARMATMA, DAYAVAN, ANGAAR, PARINDA, AGNEEPATH, SATYA, COMPANY, VAASTAV, BLACK FRIDAY, GANGSTER, D, SHOOTOUT AT LOKHANDWALA to the recent ONCE UPON A TIME IN MUMBAAI, the city’s sleazy underbelly has been depicted most convincingly in these films. Just makes me wonder at times, how much will film-makers milk a genre? But, I guess, every film-maker has his/her distinctive approach of narrating a story. Also, it all boils down to how taut the written material is.
BY BOLLYWOOD HUNGAMA.COMUnlike some of the names I mentioned above, BHINDI BAAZAAR INC. doesn’t really open the X-files of the disreputable and tarnished, but it makes you revisit the dark alleys where shady men execute shady deals. The game of one-upmanship, the power-hungry gangsters, the scene of carnage and massacre … BHINDI BAAZAAR INC. packs just about everything that we’ve come to correlate with gangster movies. Yet, what keeps you absorbed is its engaging screenplay [Ghalib Asad Bhopali] and of course, some nail-biting moments.
Director Ankush Bhatt equates the games gangsters play with a game of chess and that’s what sets it apart. The story is narrated in episodes and though, at first, you don’t really comprehend the goings on, you gradually start getting a hang of proceedings as you get acquainted with that world and those sundry characters. Let me add, More >