Why Not To Watch Jab Tak Hai Jaan - Shahrukh Khan

and Katrina Kaif, and 90 minutes less and a few less bomb diffusion and a few less accidents. Whew!

I went through the torture that was Jab Tak Hai Jaan last night. It is hard to believe that the director of movies like Lamhe and Chandni ... could have given us this 3 hours of drivel packaged as a movie. Most reviews have been muted in their comments I guess out of deference to the just demised patriarch of YRF - Yash Chopra. Never mind - Yash Chopra will be much remembered and loved for Trishul, Deewar, Lamhe, Silsila, etc - and he would prefer not to be associated with JKHJ.

Shahrukh Khan spans ten years in the movie. It was an awful sight to see a near naked wrinkled Shahrukh posing as a 25 year old in some of his risque poses with Katrina. He looks (and acts) closer to his 50 years! Will Shah Rukh be as delusional as Dev Anand and prefer to act the romantic lead ( maybe give a new definition to the evergree hero) even in his 70s??? Hindi movie heroes really cannot age gracefully. The female leads have made the transition. And play and look their age. Look at Rekha, Madhuri, Juhi and of course the current darling Sridevi! And look at Shahrukh and remember Amitabh in Mard and a host of other nineties movie...till he returned as the patriarch. A Dabangg is ok in your mid and late 40s  - definitely not a crooning, mushy Jab Tak Hai Jaan.

Shahrukh Khan has the opportunity. He should have gracefully made the transition 4 years back after Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi or Chak de India. Even a Don is preferable!

It should be a rule in Bollywood not to give pretty female leads who cant act, more than 10 minutes of screen time. If you thought it was a torture watching Aishwarya for 3 hours - just wait till you catch Katrina in JTHJ. She is pretty - that is granted. But putting her histrionics skills under the microscope for more than 2 hours. Please - I still shudder to remember last night's agony. She is definitely NOT a Kajol, Vidya or Rani. More than 10 minutes of watching Katrina's "acting" will definitely lead to indigestion.

A song like Saans from the AR Rehman group? WTF? Its like you go to a exclusive do expecting caviar and end up eating tikka masala at a Punjabi wedding. I have nothing against the music - but its like something you have heard everywhere. There has to be some atrophy in the maestro's repertoire if one song "Challa" had to be repeated 4 times (at least).

Just a few days back I was thinking that - thank God Hindi movies no loger pair up a heiress with a rickshaw wallah. I was obviously wrong. Heiresses can get paired up with beggars in Hindi movies - albeit in a slicker package than in the eighties. And this brings to mind the question -  if Shahrukh had so much cash stashed away - why wasnt he opening his own restaurant? After all the same cash enabled his slouchy, lazy, inexperienced in the food business, definitely simple friend to become a millionare. I have nothing against any class of people - i just like to watch stories that remotely make sense...that's expecting too much I guess.
If you go to a so called "family movie" with a universal rating with 6 - 10 year olds - you definitely dont expect dialogues like "i want to have sex with all accents of people (a very bad translation of the actual dialogue , am afraid)." This from a girl who is shown to be extremely cool. I mean... I am old fashioned and I want my movies to be properly labelled. Jab Tak Hai Jaan definitely deserved a PG - 13 rating.

Is there any reason to watch Jab Tak Hai Jaan? Well 10-15 minutes of the film are actually worth watching. One of them a dance. A few minutes of Shahrukh and Anoushka's perfect dive into a  freezing Ladakh lake. So just get someone to edit those parts and put it on youtube. No need to go through torture.
Rating - 1/2 out of 5

This blog has also been published by me at Xomba.com
http://mamamia07.xomba.com/jab-tak-hai-jaan-far-superior-movie-without-shahrukh-khan

Top 5 Reasons to Watch Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara

Zingdagi Na Miliegi Dobara is Zoya Akhtar revisiting Dil Chahta Hai – though in an entirely different setting. If a tribute to Dil Chahta Hai was to be shot – ZNMD would fit the bill.

1 – Farhan Akhtar does an amazing job as the down to earth, irreverent, don’t give a damn guy. He is one of the main reasons the movie was so likeable. He excels in dancing and singing too as a huge bonus!

2 - The bonding between the characters – a lot has been said about this bonding. The times the trio spent on the set as “friends” comes across in the movie. None of the scenes seemed forced – even the emotionally heavy scenes come out naturally. Hrithik, Farhan and Abhay complement each other perfectly. Hrithik doesn’t get the heavy star treatment – and that makes all the difference. Katrina Kaif’s presence doesn’t let it be a tedious all-male show!

3 - The Spain road scene – Just traveling through a foreign locale, not just along the tulip route, adds a separate dimension. The movie travels through the narrow winding roads of small Spanish towns, from the beach to the mountains. It covers the colorful tomatina festival too with a “Bollywoodish” song!

4 - The Music – Whether it is the tomatina song “Ik Junoon”, Dil Dhadakne Do or the “Senorita” sung by Hrithik, Farhan and Abhay – the songs vibe with youthful energy. Shankar Ehsaan Loy with lyricist Papa Javed Akthar have ensured that the album will not soon be forgotten.

5. The entire package – Director Zoya Akhtar must be credited with making a sensible fast paced, lovable movie that is not just a soppy romance. The various nuances and layers to the funny dialogues add an extra dimension to this road movie. There are some straight adrenaline pumping scenes like a free fall from an aircraft, deep sea diving or a terrifying running with the bulls at the climax. However the fun and adventure is inter weaved into an emotional roller coaster as the trio face their fears and find out what they want from life while getting in touch with themselves. All as they negotiate the narrow roads of Spain.

Verdict – Must watch

Dabangg - Salman "Fearless Robinhood Chulbul" Khan!

Dabangg (meaning fearless) is taking the box office literally by storm.

Will the movie be the top grossing movie ever? The WOM (word of mouth) publicity for Dabangg is awesome. I can see lines forming to watch the movies a second, a third time!

Can the movie last till Diwali  when Indian movie goers come out in force to the halls? There are some eminent movies line up for Diwali like Golmaal 3, Patiala House, Endhiran, etc

Find out what works for Dabangg (other than Salman Khan), movie review and more about the movie here

The Story of Dabangg

Kaminey Hindi Movie Review

Here is my review of Kaminey.

For those of you who haven't watched it - Kaminey is a Vishal Bhardwaj movie. Vishal Bhardwaj of the Maqbool, Omkara fame as also Makdee and Blue Umbrella - two of the best children films made in recent times.

Vishal doesn't make apologies in his movies. He shows blood, gore in full measure. But there is just one line he refuses to cross - a line that would have catapulted the films to macabre and maybe mediocre - and staying within that line his movies somehow turn out to be brilliant. The complex emotions, situations, dramas, climaxes that Kaminey portrays are the hallmark of all Vishal Bhardwaj movies.

Kaminey is an intensely complex movie. It is fast paced - but with brilliant editing there are hardly any loose ends. The movie is all Shahid Kapur (wonder what he did previously to inspire such confidence in the producer/director). It is the role of a lifetime for Shahid Guddu Charlie Kapur. And the movie is all about villians too. There are villians of all hues here. No middle path grey villain. All the villians, the "hail Maharashtra" criminal politician; the race course fixers, gun crazy and nutty Bong brothers; the international drug cartel leader; the intensely corrupt Narcs Officer - all of them are dirty, corrupt and deadly.

On a dark, dreary, rainy night all these people come together in a hunt for Guddu and / or Charlie. It was also the night Guddu was getting married (to Priyanka Chopra) and Charlie incidentally discovered he had Rs 10 crore of drugs in his possession. Guddu and Charlie happen to be identical twins with slight speech handicaps. One stammers and the other lisps. Some of the finer Shahid Kapur moments are when he lisps S as F - Jab Fell phone ko Fell phone kehta hai!

Among the characters - Amole Gupte ar Bhope is deadly, Priyanka comes across well in whatever little her role demands and Shahid Kapur is not brilliant - just okay. It doesn't look likely that his portrayal will be as acclaimed as Irfan Khan's in Maqbool or Saif's in Omkara. One character that I really liked was Mikhail (Chandan Roy Sanyal).

The movie ends in a crisply executed climax and one is left looking forward to watching it all over again - to catch those fine VB moments one may have missed in the first watch!

This article has also been published at Xomba.Com.

Dostana Hindi Movie Review

Main gay hoon, Main gay nahin hun, Main gay hun kya? Kya tum gay ho? This sums up the story of Dostana – a story of two young men over confused about their sexuality. Well the plot is thin – So thin in fact it loses itself many a times in the tangle of legs and hormones - of Priyanka Cho. and John Abe. And the cute one day stubble of Abe babe. What was Bobby Deol doing with those three? The Deol Baba was such a let-down. I was really thankful to Bobby for providing some relief in Jhoom Barabar Jhoom (The worst ever movie I have ever watched) – I guess the Director too thought of Bobby’s role in a similar way – to provide plenty of back-up to the Bachchan Baba. But here’s news for you – Abhisekh Bachchan was outstanding – Bobby Deol was a dead bore. Dostana really has brought the term gay out of the closet, in India amongst the masses. There are some thoughts that the movie would throw the fragile gay rights movement in this country decades behind. I tend to disagree – bringing such a theme into open and into the mainstream was necessary in India.

Coming to the (non-existent) script, Abhisekh Bachchan and John Abraham decide to project a homosexual relationship in order to get accepted into a PG accommodation. As the third occupant was a young pretty babe, the niece of the house-owner, young males were not allowed. However the two decided to prolong the acting in order to get a faster visa too. In the meantime, they both fall in love with the niece (Priyanka Chopra) and the three become fast friends. Priyanka, meanwhile, is in love with her Boss, Bobby Deol. The two John Abe and Abe Babe do everything their power to thwart that relationship, even going as far as to poisoning Deol’s young son’s mind against Priyanka.

There are lots of comic encounters, climaxes in the script. The scene where Priyanka’s gay Boss Boman Irani tries to make a play for the duo with a Visa officer looking on was hilarious and exasperating at the same time. In fact, that sums up the whole movie – funny and exasperating in turns. I feel John Abraham doesn’t deserve such a huge part in any script – one does tire of the biceps and looks for some expressions at times. Sigh. Too much to expect. Kiron Kher does a gem of a job as a gay person’s mother – a traditional mother trying to come to terms with her son’s sexual orientation. Susmita Mukherjee overacts. Irani does his bit convincingly. There's Shilpa Shetty in a wee bit role too. But the movie belongs to Abhisekh and Priyanka. Priyanka was outstandingly gorgeous. Actually the three of them (Priyanka, John, Abe) in their scenes together make the movie paisa wasool. One does exit the theatre with a goofy smile – so that makes the movie worth watching!

I do know it’s too late for a Dostana review – but what the heck – I watched movie now and couldn’t help writing about it! Dostana is apparently faring very well at the Box Office too.