Cheeni Kum

Cheeni Kum.

"A sugar free romance" is how the creators of this movie would like to project it. Thankfully, they aren't right.

Statutory warning: Spoilers Ahead.

It's one of the movies, that could be classified as refreshing.

Buddhadev Gupta, (Amitabh Bacchan) a NRI, lives in London. He owns a popular restaurant, Spice6 and proclaims it as "London's finest Indian restaurant". He is egoistic, arrogant, short tempered and brash.He would not tolerate a Brit, employed at the restaurant, wrongly pronouncing the names of the indian dishes, on the menu. Neena Verma, (Tabu) a diner at that restaurant, is at the receiving end of Buddha's bad temper. What starts of as a duel between these two, paves way, to make the movie interesting! Sexy (Baby Swini Khara) delivers a memorable performance, being a "friend" to Buddha. Zohra Sehgal and Omprakash Varma (Paresh Rawal) live upto their names too.

Bhalki, the writer and director of this movie has induced a lot of humor, in the script and the result is wonderful. A few instances in the first half of the movie, would have you in splits. The second half , slows down a bit.

It's Amitabh's cradle snatching time, once again. However, this movie is different and much better compared to his previous attempt at the same. Spice6, his restaurant, seems to be his accomplishment and he isn't a fan of imperfection, at that place. His ego, as a talented chef, has to eat the humble pie, when Tabu returns a "favour", he asks of her! He enjoys life and at no point feels he is "old". He hits the gym to tone his muscles and wears Versace, designer glasses to impress Tabu. Jealousy, is expressed evidently, when he sees Tabu with a male aquaintance. It's hilarious to see him take away candles from his birthday cake. The humor is dry and his tone sarcastic. It does bring in smiles at quite a few instances though! His relationship with Sexy (Baby Swini Khara) is filled with witty dialogues and you can't help but thoroughly enjoy that section. The dialogues are witty at most times, however the dual meanings at some sections could have been avoided as they were affecting the overall ambience. It's just ironical, that his dinner meal, prepared by his mother, isn't quite great. His chemistry with Tabu is one of the highlights of the movie. Overall, its a pretty neat performance.

Tabu, looks stunningly refreshing! She brings in genuinity to the character she plays. She takes a dig at his ego, and enjoys doing it. The anti climax, when she is approached by Amitabh, with a date invitation is wonderful. Her defiant stand against her opinionated dad, her relationship with Amitabh, witty dialogues all make her one of the other valid reasons you should not give this movie a miss.

Zohra Sehgal, plays the role of Amitabh's mother, whose mission in life seems to be , ensuring her son is regular at the local Chelsea gym. She for one feels, he has a lot of life in him and needs to keep himself fit at 64. The scene where she helps Amitabh, to embrace the Ashoka Pillar, and her, observation that his inability was a result of his prolonged absence at the gym brings in comic relief to the otherwise tense environment in the movie at that point.

Swini Khara, goes by the name Sexy, is the only "friend" Buddha has. She is an absolute treat to watch.The kid, plays the character of a girl who suffers from blood cancer and is losing the battle to stay alive day by day. The only character that has access code to keep Amitabh, amused at times. She has one desire, to watch "A" rated movie as she feels she would be leaving the world soon. She mocks Tabu as 'Tangdi Kabab" and speaks quite profound for her age. She delivers a memorable performance.

Paresh Rawal, has lived upto his name with another good performance. A Gandhian, who is hypocritical at times , his only concern seems to be his daughters future. His satyagraha and his attempt to keep reminding Amitabh of his age .... make way for some hilarious situations at times.

The movie, also has a string of performances from other members of the support cast. The cooks at the restaurant who eagerly await to listent to an apology from their boss, their mutual leg pulling and all make some hilarious situations!

Vintage Illayaraja on a roll. He brings out a few melodious numbers. The music for these songs were already used in Tamil and Kannada previously. However the rendition of the same in Hindi is even better. "Baatein ...." has traits of "Kozhaloodhum kannan .....", "Cheeni Kum ......" of "Mandram Vandha" and "Jaane ....." of " Jothe Jothealli" . The background music misfit at times.

Overall, the movie is definitely worth a watch. It's a Thumbs Up to the cast and crew.

Nishabd

Yet another film from the , Ram Gopal Varma 'factory'. Over a few years, RGV has managed to create a niche segment of audience for himself. Most of his movies are experiments. 'Nishabd' is no different.

When the news of the movie, began to make rounds, all the news channels geared up, to claim that the movie was the Indian version of 'Lolita'. RGV, kept denying that the same. He was right. This movie is not a rip- off from 'Lolita' alone. This movie borrows its central theme from "American Beauty" and "Poison Ivy" too.

Vijay (Amitabh), a sixty year old photographer lives in a lush green tea estate, with his wife Amrita(Revathy). His daughter Ritu(Shraddha Arya), and her friend Jiah (Jiah Khan), pay a visit to the couple and the ensuing events form the crux of the movie.

Jiah Khan makes an interesting debut. The introduction scene, of hers, where she carries on an ornately designed leather accessory, which has "L-O-V-E" written on it is almost a nosebleed! She crosses her legs in almost every scene! Well ... she dosen't even have beautiful legs. But the director just seems to push more and more of her 'cool' attitude, down our throat! Also, her catch phrase .. 'Take Light', when i last counted, was used forty-one times!

Revathy, plays her role wonderfully. She plays the role of a naive wife who fails to understand her husbands meandering ways. Shraddha Arya, who plays Amitabh's daughter too have done her job reasonably well. There are cameo appearances by Aftab Shivdasani, who claims to be Jiah's love interest and Nasser, who plays Revathy's brother.

Amitabh. The movie belongs to him. The most difficult part of his character is that it is too ordinary.He has a strange attraction towards his daughter's friend. He sympathises with her. He is playful. She plays a few practical jokes and he enjoys the same. He knows he is being swept away. He is not able to resist too! In a particular scene, Jiah plays around with him across the dining table. Surprisingly, he finds that funny and leaves the table, laughing away, much to the surprise of his wife who just does not have a clue of what happenned. He laughs about that, the whole night, getting his wife almost hysterical. That scene ... you can't help but laugh with him. Or the other scene, where he starts singing, "Jiah jhale......." for no good reason, perplexing his wife even more. She is still naive that there is something brewing between him and her daughter's friend. His performances are getting better as he is getting older!

The movie does not spend too much time on explaining the motivation of each of them. Jiah, comes from a dysfunctional family and she is emotionally unstable and hence she falls for him. Why amitabh had to succumb to that, is not explained. Was it the age? Was it a hidden fantasy? Was it an adrenaline rush? Was it the vaccum created by his wife who is just too simple? We are allowed to judge and reach our own conclusions. RGV manages to captivate the audience, even though there is nothing "much" happenning in the movie. In the scene where Amitabh confesses to his wife about him liking Jiah, RGV does not make it a Bollywood drama, with a lot of hysterical crying and drama. He uses silence, to cast a sombre mood. Amitabh loses the trust of his wife. He loses Jiah, who introduces him to a life, he had long thought was dead. He loses his daughter who is shocked at what she thinks is an "immature" act by her dad. He is reduced to a mere signature on his daughter's college application forms. He is depressed. RGV captures all these emotions brilliantly. The background score adds to the mood, cast by the director. The ending of the movie, perhaps, is when you feel,RGV could have done better.

Overall, its not worth a miss if you are either a RGV fan or Amitabh's.

The Namesake

Mira Nair has always been sharp and straight to the point when it comes to touching the subjects of her movies. When she picks up Jhumpa Lahiri's widely acclaimed novel - The Namesake - and portrays a solid starcast - Tabu, Irfaan Khan, and Kalpenn - for the movie, the expectations are going to be very high.

Ashoke Ganguly (Irfaan Khan) marries Ashima (Tabu) and brings her to the United States to start a new life in an unknown country. With time, they selectively embrace the American ideologies and life progresses. The story revolves around their son (Kalpenn) who is a namesake of the Russian author, Nikolai Gogol. Raised in the American way, he refuses to accept anything Indian. His parents, out of helplessness, cannot tie him up with the heritage they think should be passed on to their kids. He especially does hate his name, Gogol, given behind a famous psychotic genius. Gogol changes his name to Nikhil after high school and goes forward into a new life with a white girlfriend.

As time passes by, the distances between the two generations keeps increasing until the story takes a sudden turn with Ashoke passing off all of a sudden. But just before his death, Ashoke tells Gogol the reason as why he was named Gogol. It is after Ashoke dies that Gogol realizes how far has he come from his family. The second half of the movie is the journey of Gogol as how finds out the significance of Indian values and gets close to her mother. And ultimately the words uttered by Ashoke to him on why he came to USA takes Gogol back to move to India.

Not just being a typical Indo-American movie, 'The Namesake' addresses the mental dilemma of America born Indians who swing back and forth between the two cultures. Some scenes in the movie do really bear the midas touch of Mira Nair, specially the sequence where Ashoke takes young Gogol walking on the rocks on the beach and asks him to remember the scene always as they came to some place where there was no way to go further. However, Ashoke and Ashima's second child, Gogol's sister, is totally sided out in the movie.

For performances, Tabu is rocking and so is Irfaan Khan. Kalpenn has done a really nice job too. Mira Nair's direction is good, but however it cannot be compared to her previous works like Salaam Bombay and Monsoon Wedding. Overall, the movie is a good watch. I have not yet read the book by Jhumpa Lahiri, but I am sure it would be far better and insightful than what is sketched in the movie.

Dr Strangelove

Stanley Kubrick, a giant among directors was at his best in this 1964 black comedy classic. Dr Strangelove also known as Dr Strangelove:or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, is universally acknowledged as one of the best movies of all time. It ranks 3 on the AFI: 100 years ... 100 laughs list. The movie was shot at the height of the cold war, with the threat of a nuclear war being very realistic, during the Cuban missile crisis of 1962. It is against this back drop that the movie was shot. We have Peter Sellers in three roles: as the President, the eccentric scientist: Dr Strangelove and a British RAF officer.

The concept of eugenics, i.e. selective breeding based on genes is put forward by Dr Strangelove as a solution to the doomsday device. He claims that such a selected sub section of the population must live in underground mine shafts for 100 years before the earth will be inhabitable again. The movie also refers to the Mutual Assured Destruction theory floated by Herman Kahn during those years.

Comic Elements: The delusional commander, Dr Strangelove's alien hand (apparently he was a Nazi scientist earlier and his left hand has a mind of its own, leading to funny sequences), General Turgidson's antics, disagreements between the general and the Russian ambassador. All in all a political satire.

My Rating: 10 on 10

Plot Gist: A delusional commander, Jack Ripper commands his Air Force division to attack USSR with nukes, apparently in fear of a communist conspiracy "which threatens to "sap and impurify" the "precious bodily fluids" of the American people with fluoridated water". Chaos results with the US and USSR cooperating to preempt such an attack. The Russian premier discloses a secret doomsday device built, which would automatically trigger if any installation on the USSR soil is nuked. The doomsday device relying on cobalt bombs would apparently destroy the earth. We have a General Turgidson, who believes the US must go on a full out attack to preempt any Soviet retaliation. Common sense prevails, with the President stating "I do not want to become the biggest mass murderer in history". Recalling the planes becomes an impossibility because of the fail safe codes incorporated then into the Air Strike system. Only Jack Ripper has access to these codes and he rather suicides than let the codes out under "torture". The RAF officer figures out the code and all planes are called back. But one plane without radio contact (due to anti aircraft fire) continues with its mission. The plane succeeds in its mission unfortunately and the movie ends with world destruction.
End plot gist.