SpeakingShadows

Naa Autograph: A good effort

vamsidipak — Fri, 27 Aug 2004 19:23:05 +0530

Didnt ve time to review it comprehensively. But, still I cant stop myself from writing a few lines...

Naa Autograph... as the name suggests is supposedly a biography.

"Isnt biography a bit of too much for our Telugu movies?", I thought and decided to try.

Though it is not exactly a biography, it is a sincere, entertaining and well-told story of somebodys life till his wedding acutally happens.

Its about the giant whirlpool of memories... those school days, college days, parent-child clashes, first crushes, lost loves, rising-from-ashes stuff, finding that-best friend, job hunts, finally satisfied arranged marriage etc...

Its about reminding us not to forget that we cant "plan" things in life... to keep going on with the breeze...

Its about telling us sweetly that life is the summation of all the compromises that you make daily... and even then, its worth living.

When you sit down to list the people whom you plan to call for the wedding... you flashback your days, your level-best not to miss out on anyone who means something to you... thats where the movie takes off...

And thank goodness, there is no typical-TeluguMovies-forced-and-vulgar-humour.

Donno much abt the credits, but the music is by Keeravani.. and is pretty good. Chitra's Maunangane deserves special mention, it plucks your heart strings. Lyrics by Chandrabose are excellent.

After Missamma, this is the next (and only) Telugu movie that I liked.

Try to catch it up somewhere, sometime... and get ready to call me for your marriage. :)

Signed,

Vamsi Deepak Gadey.

Meenaxi: A tale of 3 Programs

vamsidipak — Thu, 12 Aug 2004 07:42:37 +0530

STATUTORY WARNING:
LEAVE THE LOGISTICS OF LOGICS BEHIND i.e. STOP
THINKING.

Meenaxi.c // A tale of 3 programs

#include
#include
#include
#include

vd_review main(Writer Nawab, Place Hyderabad)
{

heroine_character Meenaxi;
// The writer, Nawab sees a beautiful damsel, Meenaxi
// which occupies his run-time memory

ret_val=fork();
// this function call by the director, Hussain forks
// a child process which the audience is unaware of
// till the climax

if(ret_val == child) // inside story1
{

hero_character Kunal;
// The writer, sees his hero inside his forked child

jaisalmer(Meenaxi, Kunal);
// call story2 inside story1

interval();
// audience totally lost

prague(Meenaxi, Kunal, Nawab);
// call story3 inside story1

exit(0); // normal exit
}

printf(“Zindagi khayaal hai yaa khayaal ki talaash”);

// Is life a thought or a search for a thought ??

} // THE END

jaisalmer(Meenaxi, Kameshwar) // story2
{
// A prince meets a princess love story here
// some abstract philosophy 1
exit(-1); // abnormal exit 1
}

prague(Meenaxi, Kameshwar, Nawab) // story3
{
// West meets East love story here
// some abstract philosophy 2
exit(-2); // abnormal exit 2
}

OutPut:

vd_review structure contains:

A movie (if at all it is !) with stunning music,
breathtaking cinematography and excellent art
direction... but without direction. This is what
happens when a director (the programmer) is given
access to pointers (!!??!!). Meenaxi is an abstract
(but beautiful) piece of Art (with capital A) that
empties the heads (OHT) even before it explains
itself. Too many pointers leave anyone confused.
Perhaps that was another point Hussain was driving
home (if at all there was someone at home :)) .

The idea of recursive characterization is great, but
the execution leaves much to be desired. Hussain being
a painter doesn’t understand the medium of cinema at
all. Meenaxi stuffs much of the existential and
God-knows-what philosophy in his complicated
screenplay with complicated dialogues, but fails to
engage anybody.
But, Hussain has definitely risen much above his first
movie: GajaGamini.

Nevethless, Tabu is an absolute TREAT to watch as the
three variables she gets typecasted into. And, you can
watch this just for her, if you arent too much the
philosophical kinds. But, do watch it on a VCD, where
you can control the pointers of Hussain. Its a win-win
situation for both.

Ravi and I once upon a time did talk of forking our
real selves and wanted to write a story on this idea.
Hussain heard us, and forked himself. And, I am happy.
What say, Ravi ?

Overall, Rating: *.% :)

Main hoon Na: Dum Masala

vamsidipak — Thu, 12 Aug 2004 07:39:34 +0530

Veg Stuffed Red-Chillies MHN Dum Masala 65

Ingredients:

100 thrillograms SRK, 1 kg Nasir Hussain, 500 gms
Manmohan Desai, 20 ml.Yash Chopra, 5 Karan Johar
leaves, 4-5 chopped RD Burmans, 1 full Anu Malik,

Whats your YQ?

vamsidipak — Thu, 12 Aug 2004 07:30:49 +0530

The Average of Mani Ratnam is also the best of
Bollywood. That’s the way I had like to describe Yuva.
Considering Mani Ratnam’s masterpieces, Yuva is
certainly low on substance, but Mani is absolutely in
his element with his impeccable style of painting his
frames. It is these ‘but’ts of style, the trademark of
Mani, that make Yuva still a good piece of cinema.

“Yuva” represents half a billion Indian people whose
ideas shape the ideals of tomorrow’s India. Mani
classifies them into:
-the RamGopalVarma-ish (Satya) Lallan, one who is on
the wrong side of the law, and knows only one rule of
life – “Live life king size by hook or by crook”.
-the revolutionary (Legend of Bhagat Singh) Michael,
one who is the change agent of the degenerating
socio-politic fabric and believes in “If its to be,
its upto me”
-the cutie-sweetie-wittie-flirtie (Saathiya) Arjun, a
happy-go-lucky guy with this – “I ll take care of
myself and the world will take care of itself“
attitude

These are the X, Y, Z axes of a graph called Yuva,
heading in three different directions.
All of us can map ourselves somewhere on the graph,
and that’s the strength of Mani’s characterization.

So, what went where with Lallan, Michael and Arjun.
The Opening Shot: Lallan, Michael and Arjun run into
each others lives accidentally.
Their origin is the Howrah bridge, which boomerangs
each of them into an episodic flashback of their lives
(and girls). Now, this sparks off a series of events
that lead to a very expected normal ending – the
victory of good over bad.
The Ending shot: Lallan in jail. Michael and Arjun are
the new jeans-clad MLAs representing the future of
Bengal(and India).

This very unlike Mani Ratnam ending only leaves you
asking for more. Mani sir, we only expect a “Yuva
Janta Party” – a sequel to Yuva. But, there is nothing
wrong with happy endings. Dil Se seems to have taught
Mani Ratnam a lesson he didn’t want to learn.

The theme of unleashing the spirit of youth and
making a statement to them, loses steam with too much
of everything. But, its the unmistakable freshness of
Mani’s screenplay that keeps the narrative from
degenerating into a 3 story, 1 ending Darna Mana Hai
narrative. But, Ravi Chandran’s camerawork and Sreekar
Prasad’s editing oozes energy of the youth into the
film.

The songs certainly slow the pace of the film. But,
its always a tremendous feeling to reverberate to
Rahman-Mani combination.

Ajay Devgan as The Legend of Michael,as good as ever,
is again the same angry young man.Vivek Oberoi is
WakaW - his usual Saathiya brand of yuppie self. But,
Abhishek is the real scene stealer, with an incredible
performance – whether its his walk or talk or look. He
is splendid as the Lallan of the masses. Another scene
stealer is undoubtedly Om Puri as the Bengali Babu,
proving his credentials yet again.

The one-and-only Mani Ratnam is how people like me and
so many others, call him for his incredible ability to
balance style and substance. Only this time, the
balance has not been perfect. Otherwise, it’s
definitely worth going for Yuva and plotting yourself
on the Yuva chart and calculating your YQ (Yuva
Quotient).

LAKSHYA- thats the word!

vamsidipak — Thu, 12 Aug 2004 07:27:37 +0530

Dil Chahta Hai - That was the MANTRA
Lakshya - That IS the WORD

Thats the movie we all have been waiting for, isnt it?
Farhan, the man who gave us Dil Chahta Hai, mirrored us straight on the celluloid and heralded a new genre of Indian cinema that spoke our language. "Thats the man we waited for" we called him. And, when Farhan tells us that his new protagonist "took 23 years and 18000 feet to find himself", we felt that here was a man who would give us an "Alchemist" to prod us to fetch our dreams, listen to our hearts, and make us stronger day by day, just as the font of Lakshya conveys.

What could ve been an amazing journey of
self-exploration of an individual clueless of his
lakshya in life, is reduced to a boy-becomes-hero-saves-country episode. And, thats what pinches me. It definitely gives you something, but not everything.

Karan Shergill, a happy-go-lucky guy lazy of
everything important in life, gets going to Indian
Military Academy, more by circumstances
than by choice. His ego acts as a fountainhead to
drive him through the tough life at IMA, makes him a tough man (main aisa hoon, aur bas aisa hi) from a confused man (main aisa kyoon hoon?). Its his new-found-isms that now make him win Operation Vijay for us.

Romila Dutta, a journalist-in-the-making who knows
what she is doing, gets going to become a news
reporter. A classmate and girlfriend of Karan, she
makes Karan "think" and "act". She is the one who
triggers the man in Karan.

Karan and Romila love each other, get apart by the
usual ideological and ego differences, and come back together by circumstances. Thats what the Lakshya love-angle is all about in a nutshell.

Farhan is absolutely in-his-DCH-element, reflecting the typical upper class, spoilt guy and socially sensitive Delhi women (aka NDTV Barkha Dutt). The elan with which Farhan handles the love thread, the mechanics and dynamics of so many spoken and unspoken things would leave anybody wanting more of Farhan.

What Farhan misses out is that something as BIG as
KARGIL hijacks the idea of self-exploration of a
normal-simple-but-confused individual, and puts it on a routine track. Kargil, which was supposed to be JUST the pallette for painting his painting, becomes a painting by itself.

But...

The Kargil scenes are definitely not a deja vu of
LOC-Kargil. The scenes are absolutely breathtaking
here (cinematography: German Christopher Popp) and
above all, non-redundant, non-anti-pak, non-jingoistic and non-melodramic.They pinch us into believing that we are watching a Hollywood movie. A special mention to the rock climbing scene that gives you real goosegumps.

While, JP Dutta's war brigade tells us how a story is NOT to be told, Farhan's storytelling aided by Javed Akhtar's effortless, natural screenplay and dialogues, just leaves you spellbound.

Hrithik and Preity are cool and great. No second
thoughts, they look great in their stuff, and do great stuff. And, do I need to talk about "Main Aisa Kyon Hoon". It rocks like hell. It is the bible for getting just about everything right for a song in a movie - the synergy of lyrics, music, choreography and situation. Prabhu Deva(Choreography) plus Hrithik Roshan is something sure to become a sensation.

You just wish if you could have seen more of the witty and yuppie Farhanisms.
"Is Farhan married-or-something... why did he become serious in life."

You just wish Karan didnt become so heroic.
"Why does Hrithik do great things in life in all his movies"

You just wish a better,crisper editing.
"Why is it so stretching...?"

And, definitely... you just wish better music.
"Is the music really by Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy?"

Sure, Lakshya doesnt break new ground, but it does
show us the "other" side of Farhan Akhtar, and carries forward his legacy of giving us good films. Overall, I would give Lakshya -- 8.5/10 for its sheer sincerity of a story well told. I would recommend it for everyone, but just dont go to the theaters humming, "Dil Chahta Hai Lakshya"