Movie Review – OMG Oh My God! (Hindi) – A divine comedy!!

Imagine a scene where the God says, “I didn’t update my Facebook profile picture so people still visualize me in my old props.” This makes your mouth wide open and also breaks you into laughter while watching OMG. The movie was not on my wish list, so I walked into the cinema expecting some run-of-the mill comedy coming from the duo of Akshay Kumar and Paresh Rawal. But after watching the film I was speechless. The film makes you think and raise your eye brows on hitherto established religious practices. In case you are still confused - The movie is not against GOD, but it’s somewhat against RELIGION!!

OMG is a cinematic adaptation of the Gujarati play Kanji Virrudh Kanji which had a successful run for many years. Though some parts of it were lost in the translation, the film succeeds in its objective and it sends the right message that swivels around “The Act of God” and the ones responsible for it. At times, the comedy loses its cinematic touch because the bone of contention here is a common man who loses everything in an earthquake and how he sues God and God men (who are lampooned as Salesmen) for this act. How this case moves on and will he get the claim amount or not forms the rest of the story.

The film has a tongue-in-cheek tone but knows the right way to say things. Director Umesh Shukla who’s also co-written the film with Bhavesh Mandalia seems not to believe in myths and apotheosis of tainted men that the system of “Organized religion” is trying to deal in. The film doesn’t make a sardonic poke at God - it mocks those mortals who involve in blind beliefs and idiosyncrasies in the name of God. It preaches about finding God in humans and advocates us to embark on a philanthropic journey. The way it says the essence of life is in Gita, Quran and Bible is adorable.

The premise is loaded with sassy comedy and the script meanders through the pretence of institutionalized religion. By the time the preachy climax rolls slowly and heavily through, the audience had a large chunk of the Godly perspective of the film. This is where the movie takes a giant leap and makes a thumping impression. Shukla also wins by not letting the audience realize the scenes with television type framing and meager production values. Most of the movie is a court sequence and that vouches the aforesaid fact. The film describes many religions, but a special appearance by a Hindu God Krishna makes it a bit confusing, nevertheless it’s entertaining. The impeccable pace of the film makes the audience spell-bound.

With a finley etched character, Paresh Rawal is full of entertainment and that makes the first half a whiff of air. Comedy is his key strength and that gets skyrocketed in the film, because he has reprised his role from the play which he effortlessly pulled off with poise for many years.  Akshay Kumar has very little to offer than posing in some Godly yet humanly costumes and wearing a big grin. The major part of the second half revolves around Akshay - Paresh repartee. It’s good to see them together after a long while and their chemistry is magical. Amar Mohile’s background score is impressive especially the divine flute bits.

Bottom-line: The film is a brave attempt and writing a review is challenging though. You should shut your atheist – theist side of yours and watch the film, because there’s a problem of using your perspective to watch the film. If you are blind-folded by religion you may not appreciate the film because you may feel that the gap between you and spirituality is widened, and you simply negate this film as a clichéd comedy. On the contrary, atheists will be astonished at the viewpoint the film takes because it’s not involved in quizzing the very existence of God. So, watch this taut and touchy take on organized religion with an open mind. OMG is an entertaining, inspiring and enlightening DIVINE COMEDY!!

My Rating: Expectation – 5/10; Reality – 8/10

Movie Review – Kamaal Dhamaal Malamaal (Hindi) – It suspends your disbelief

Priyadarshan – the name is all about a classy phrase on which all films rely on - Suspension of disbelief. He mastered this craft with heavy doses of uncanny production design, quirky characters, slapstick comedy etc. Every scene moves at such a frantic pace and forces the audience to fall into a laughter trap. It happens again in his recent flick Kamaal Dhamaal Malamaal. Don’t get perplexed with the title – It’s neither a sequel to Malamaal Weekly nor holds any semblance to it. The only common thread that connects the two is the hero’s fetish for lottery tickets and the brand name of the ticket - Malamaal weekly.

Kamaal Dhamaal Malamaal is a remake of super-hit Malayalam film Marykkundoru Kunjaadu. Surprisingly, the movie had a 150 day run in Kerala and is rated 7.1 on IMDB. Like his other movies, Priyan restores the same characters and locations from the original without much change. This makes the movie a little hard to stomach by the Hindi film audience because the aura it exuberates is typically Mallu. Though Sabu Cyril made some decent sets to create a village atmosphere, the movie’s template is not that glossy. The villagers try to provide over-the-board comedy but you need to be a fan of Priyan to appreciate that and enjoy every fun filled moment.

The movie has an intense plot and pieces of it are thrown onto the audience at regular intervals. Once you get into the shoes of Priyadarshan and treat all the characters and happenings to be believable, the movie-watching experience becomes a roller coaster ride. You will be aghast by the mysterious happenings but there is dent to the proceedings that comes in the form of miserable performances by some characters, boredom and predictability. The movie stretches like a chewing gum in the second half and one particular scene has been elongated to an excruciating length.  

Coming to the acting department, Om Puri and Paresh Rawal are the lifelines of the film. With a perfect comic timing and fine portrayal of their characters, they prove that they are still the best. They own the movie and they do everything with poise. Shreyas Talpade plays Johnny “The Bakri” whose lazy antics take you on a joy ride. He does proper justice to his role. Madhurima Banerjee is lukewarm with a pleasant smile. She plays the love interest of Shreyas but has got less to do in that role. There aren’t any proper songs that can be called romantic or that can surface the love element between the two. I still can’t understand why Anjana Sukhani is wasted in that shoddy item number. The man to watch out is Nana Patekar. Albeit he looks serious with his deadpan like role, he’s engrossing all though the movie.

Bottom-line: Watch Kamaal Dhamaal Malamaal if you are fan of Priyadarshan. This has got all his usual elements of laughter and nonsense, but without compromising on the emotional quotient.

My Rating: Expectation – 6/10; Reality – 5/10

How to combat an imminent "Lyrical Calamity" ?!

Movie songs-um today are in a critical condition-um with words not making any sense-um. They seem to be catchy-um but what they carry-um is a tag-u that says “jarring-u listening experience-um is here”

Welcome to the land-um of just-u plain-um gibberish-u

DREAMUM WAKEUPUM from Aiyaa (Hindi) - The song explains the art of lovemaking. But you may hear people singing this freely as it’s difficult to catch the lyrics.

Dreamum wakeupum critical conditionum

Earthum quakepum hil dool sab shake upum

Face to faceum dharti putram

Top to baseum kama sutram

Thighsum thunderum downum underum

Sizeum matterum thinkum wonderum

Jumpingum

pumpingum

Throbbingum

thumpingum..

Wune runde mune naale

Heart beatnum dhol peetnum

Love lust double kasht bada dheetnum

Body heatnum hot seatnum

Calling fire brigade bhi defeatnum

Same to sameum dil me utarum

Top to baseum kama sutram

 

Thighsum thunderum downum underum

Sizeum matterum thinkum wonderum

Jumpingum… pumpingum

Streelingum.. purlingum

Wune runde mune naale

KEVVU KEKA from Gabbar Singh (Telugu) – Naa touring talkies-u ribbon cut-u, nuvvocchi show meeda showle kottu seems to be an open invitation for all hungry souls.

Out of the many gems showered by the tinsel town, the one that stands out is the eternal WHY THIS KOLAVERI DI? from 3 (Tamil/Telugu/Hindi)

 

What should we call such an act of blasphemy?! I think calling it “Lyrical Calamity” would be an understatement!!

NFDC Film Bazaar 2012 - Call for entries

Work-in-Progress Lab and Viewing Room.

Date & Venue: The 6th Film Bazaar will be held from November 21-24, 2012 at the Goa Marriott Resort (India) alongside the International Film Festival of India 2012.

Deadline: The submission deadline is October 10th 2012.

Work-in-Progress: At the Work-in-Progress (WIP) Lab, 5 selected projects in their rough cut stage are presented to a panel of international film experts. The intention is to help the filmmaker achieve an accomplished final cut through expert insights.

--> Celebrated film critic & historian, Derek Malcolm; Head of Israel Film Fund, Katriel Schory & Chris Paton from Fortissimo Films were the mentors for 2011 WIP Lab.

--> The films from the 2011 Lab have gone on to have World premieres at prestigious international film festivals: Ashim Ahluwalia’s Miss Lovely (World Premiere, Cannes Film Festival in official competition section-Un Certain Regard) Manjeet Singh’s Mumbai Cha Raja and Anand Gandhi’s Ship of Theseus (World Premiere, Toronto Film Festival 2012), Ajay Bahl’s BA Pass (World Premiere, 12th Osian’s Cinefan Film Festival).

CRITERIA: The lab is open only to feature length films and documentaries in the rough-cut.

Viewing Room: Previously known as Screening Room, it was successfully introduced in FB 2011 with the aim of presenting films seeking finishing funds, world sales, distribution partners & film festivals to investors, world sales agents and film festival programmers.

--> The Films are viewed on individual computer terminals in private booths via a specially designed Viewing Room software, which allows the viewer to watch complete films, access details of the film as well as contact the director or producer.

CRITERIA: This section is open to films of all genres and lengths which are complete or in the rough cut stage. Films presented in this section last year have been selected by various film festivals.

CONTACT: For more details and application forms visit www.filmbazaarindia.com (Click here for 'Work-in-Progress Lab' page and click here for 'Viewing Room' page) or write to films@filmbazaarindia.com

 

Movie Review – Heroine (Hindi) – Get SET for SET pieces!!

Let’s kick start the innings with a sneak peek into the Cast, Characters & Crew

Cast & Characters:

Mahie “Bipolar-nonchalant-commitment-phobic” Arora – Kareena Kapoor

Aryan “Moody-Macho-Superstar-Lover-Father” Khanna – Arjun Rampal

Angad “All-I-need-is-Cricket-and-Actresses” Paul – Randeep Hooda

Protima “I-have-methods-to-teach-method-acting” Roy – Shahana Goswami

Pallavi “Branding-and-stardom-go-hand-in-hand” Narayan – Divya Dutta

Abbas “I-am-an-Actor-Editor-Director” Khan – Sanjay Suri

Ria “I-don’t-accept-debut-awards” Mehra – Mugdha Godse

Tapan “Don’t-teach-me-film-making” Da – Ranvir Shourey

Shagufta “I-am-used-to-all-this” Ali – Helen

Rashid “I-am-an-eternal-loyal” Bhai – Govind Namdeo

Music, Editor, Camera and other technical department:

“What-can-we-do-when-there-is-no-scope”

Director:

Madhur “I-am-the-mouth-piece-of-INDUSTRY” Bhandarkar

The director’s obsession with SET PEOPLE is prevalent since time immemorial. He opened his innings with Page 3 set, then in the middle-overs he sailed through murky waters of Fashion set, and now his muse has reached the slog-overs with an outlandish design of Heroine set. Madhur Bhandarkar has spent a meaty time in the industry, but, what should probably take shape from an insider’s insight turns into a prevarication resulting in slimy sketches of characters, err, caricatures. Sometimes, the characters are believable and many a time they are so excruciating that you can’t stomach them any further. Thus making Heroine a lackluster and detestably loooooong story of a star/heroine/actress (I thought all these terms can be used alternately, but there’s a difference and every term is explained in the film) Mahi Arora, narrated without quip, ponderousness or ingenuity.

The movie opens with a mishap in Mahie’s life and the narrative moves back in time to show where it all began – Heroine on her career’s pinnacle. Her relationships, her rise and fall from stardom owing to her moody and impulsive behavior form the major chunk of the film. Despite the predictable follow of events, the movie has some glorious moments where the audience becomes aghast with an uncanny depiction of people connected to the industry. But with time, these stereotypical set pieces pile up, and Bhandarkar being the film’s co-writer passes the blame game baton to bad parentage which results in peevish behavior of Mahie.

The characters are akin to real-life stars, and everything we have read or heard about Bollywood is thrown onto the giant canvas made by Madhur. He shows an adamant art house Bengali director who cribs about tight budget and gives Mahie just an hour to memorize a four page dialogue but takes whole nine months to complete only half the film – Mr Bhandarkar, is it character elevation or character assassination?! The other players completing the lineup are: the ubiquitous paparazzi, the impression of debauchery, a lesbian act, the existence of casting couch, a manipulative male star, page 3 people who smoke and drink round-the-clock, and a PR executive – a person with myriad equations and calculations and she says, “I create brands.”

The only bankable factor in the film is Kareena Kapoor’s performance, albeit there isn’t any string of surprises to that. A few scenes add life to the film, but the trite dialogues take away all the sheen - You can hear the word INDUSTRY a zillion times in the film. After an excruciatingly chewing-gummish pre-climax sequence, like in every film of Rise-and-fall-in-film-industry genre, people close to Mahie walk out of her life and she succumbs to seemingly implausible ways to bring back her lost smile. After bombarding the star with every piece he could assimilate from the Pandora’s Box, now “Mr Preacher” Bhandarkar expects some HOPE, and takes the route of leaving the stardom to negate the harrowing past that (according to him) is inevitable in the life of every HEROINE!!

Bottom-line: The movie falls prey to the formulaic template of film-making – An entertaining first half that eventually drops into a splash of post interval melodrama. Despite some moments of glory, the film remains a twine of dreary banalities. The caricatured characters fill the screen space and the screenplay wanders through many streets, at times induces sleep, and ultimately loses its destination. Madhur Bhandarkar should realize that if he makes a rehashed version of his earlier films, it may result in an inevitable damp squib. Let’s seal the innings with this line - Watch Heroine for Kareena's superlative performance or watch it on your TV sets this Diwali (I hope this time my predictometer will be bang on).

My Rating: Expectation – 7/10; Reality – 4/10

 

Barfiland or H.I.P.Land!!

H – Homage

I – Inspiration

P – Plagiarism

Barfi! Is going strong at the box office, and the reactions have been quite good so far. Though the critics liked it but most of them were not very impressed.

In this post, Inside the Celluloid draws a line for what can be called homage, inspiration or plagiarism. As we believe that “copied” is a derogatory term, we have replaced it with HIPed. Now the onus is on the audience to decide where does a particular scene fits in – H or I or P. Had it been some other filmmaker, it would have been easy to say that it was all homage, but it’s not all the same with Anurag Basu who has quite a history - Saaya, Murder, Gangster, Life in a Metro, Kites. And more so because Charlie Chaplin can be counted as a genre now. Having said that, as I wrote in the movie’s review (click here), I like his direction style and his display of craft in bringing the magical moments together. The way he cherry-picked the right elements to create a visual panache made him the cynosure of all movie-watcher’s eyes.

To start the homage, inspired or plagiarised debate, first watch the following videos.

The Chaplinesque Effect

1) Let’s kick start the innings with the movie’s promo – a cat –and-mouse hunt scene with Saurabh Shukla and Ranbit Kapoor.

Here is the original scene from the Charlie Chaplin movie The Adventurer.

2) There is a scene in the movie where Ranbir is sleeping under the cover of a statue that is inaugurated. That scene is HIPed from Charlie Chaplin’s City Lights. Charlie Chaplin scratches his leg but Ranbir adjusts his underwear because it’s obviously funnier.

Couple of pages from the adorable, tear-jerking “Notebook”

3) There is a scene in Barfi where Rupa Ganguly tells her daughter Ileana about her lover. The scene is HIPed from The Notebook.

4) Priyanka coming and lying next to Ranbir during the final scenes. But it would be too farfetched to say that even the climax is HIPed because it’s quite a generic scene.

The funny side of Barfi Keaton

5) There is a scene in the movie where Ranbir is on a ladder and the cops are trying to catch him from either side of the ladder. That scene is HIPed from Buster Keaton’s Cops.

Why the Oriental cousins should be left alone?

6) This clip from Kikujiro. Seems like the art director was told to even get a similar nail and place it in the same way.

7) The bicycle chase scene in the narrow lanes and the act of tapping the windows reminds you of Jackie Chan's Project A. Doesn't it?

Masand’s favorite

8) Rajeev Masand of CNN – IBN has mentioned in his review that the kidnapping subplot seems to be inspired from Gone Baby Gone. Agree or Die!!

Let’s start Singing

9) There is a scene in the movie where Ranbir walks into a door and his nose gets bent. There is also a scene where he sits on a sofa with a dummy and tries to entertain Priyanka. Both those scenes are HIPed from Singin' in the Rain.

Watch the video from 1:50

Yesteryear’s Hindi cinema breathes a new life

10) Here is the Koshish scene from which the scene of Barfi asleep and not listening to his father’s screams is inspired from.

Oh my dear Mr. Bean – Are you “Back to School”?!

11) The scene where a piece of paper sticks to Barfi’s hand and he finds difficult to get rid of it.

Mind the Rat!!

12) Is the white rat in the rotating cage taken from Emir Kusturica’s Black Cat, White Cat?!

Watch the video around 1.40

(Vikramaditya Motwane, director of Udaan in an interview with Rajeev Masand told about Kusturica’s 1995 film Underground. He went ahead saying how he happened to watch this Serbian movie at a film festival, how it changed his perception towards life, how it made sweeping changes to his film appreciation, and finally how it honed his film-making skills. Taking all the cues from the interview, I have watched Underground and other films of Emir Kusturica. I strongly recommend them for avid lovers of cinema)  

It’s all in the CHARACTER!!

13) The two lead characters - Barfi and Jhilmil - inspired from hollywood movie Benny & Joon and the Korean film Oasis.

“Hey boy, we are also there” – Yours truly, AD WORLD

14) Ranbir Kapoor sitting next to a semi-naked guy and reading a newspaper.

"Three" is the flavor of the season

15) The three musicians playing instruments in the film is from the animated movie Rango.

Are you in mood for wholesome ransom!!

The ransom note (of Rs 7000) which is a collage of letters taken from various newspapers/magazines is taken straight from Baby’s Day Out and even the way the letters are shown through the camera is same.

Eye for Detail

16) Some details from Mani Ratnam’s Thiruda Thiruda (Tamil) / Donga Donga (Telugu)

Show some sympathy

17) The kidnap-ransom-father’s surgery episode. Even Sympathy for Mr Vengeance has a similar theme.

Catch the tomato

18) The scene where Barfi throws food stuff and other goods out of the freight train to the poor kids and then challenges Shruti to jump out of the running train, which she easily does, was HIPed from the movie Fried Green Tomatoes. 

What’s in the body??

19) The scene where Jhilmil sees Shruti’s body and tries to imitate in front of mirror is from The Other Sister, and also her being brought from Muskaan.

Not that beautiful

20) Barfi’s walk as he goes to kidnap Jhilmil and Barfi taking Shruti on a bicycle ride is from Life is Beautiful.

Unwind this rewind

21) The time rewinding scene after proposing to Shruti and urinating in a crop field scenes are HIPed from Lover’s Conerto.

From God’s own country

22) The shoe throwing scenes to attract the attention of Jhilmil was apparently HIPed from Mathilukal - an award-winning Malayalam film directed by Adoor Gopalakrishnan. Watch this part of the film from 40:55 onwards... 

 

Finally, our favorite!!

23) […] Anurag Basu disinters the innate Jean-Pierre Jeunet (director of the path-breaking French film Amelie) in him to create a world of capricious and unfeasible set design. […]

This one is from Inside the Celluloid’s review of Barfi! (click here). Suresh Sistla adds to that saying, “There is this music which plays almost constantly throughout the movie. It’s HIPed from these two songs from Amelie.

Homage, Inspiration, or Plagiarism – Audience, please decide.

P.S. Don’t get into intricate details to decide whether this blog post is H or I or P. Here, we are only taking about Barfi!

Movie Review – Barfi (Hindi) – Don’t Worry, Be Barfi..!!

“Let Barfi be!” and all was an eternal saga of romance, sacrifice, and unconditional love!!

The road less taken is taken for a reason and Barfi is a living testimony to this adage. With this film Anurag Basu embraces motley of surprises such a genre-defying cinema could plausibly offer. The film goes into our hearts as a beautiful, heart-warming story, albeit there is some piece de resistance in the mystical land Basu creates - something that is itself a medium through which he tells his multiple timeline story. With poise and craft induced in almost every scene, he leaves no room for gloom and contrition. Anurag Basu disinters the innate Jean-Pierre Jeunet (director of the path-breaking French film Amelie) in him to create a world of capricious and unfeasible set design.


Barfi is not about cinematically caricatured characters, or exaggerated performances, or even forced emotions. The tour de force lies in the carving of three seemingly normal yet living in a mental twilight characters. They stand on three vertices of the triangle and the flow of events merges them into the centre. That’s mathematical, but shown in a way philosophical in the film. Imagine this – a mainstream Bollywood film with a deaf and dumb protagonist and an autistic female lead without the accentuated levels of Bhansali melodrama, something that’s pleasingly alarming and difficult to stomach. Only Basu could pull off such an act with aplomb.


Ranbir Kapoor plays Murphy, or Barfi. He charms with his Chaplin antics and always tries to be on the run. This trait of his does not leave him when he’s wrinkling and withering on the bed. He shows his intellect and innovation as he takes on this role. The character’s silence comes handy to introduce silent movie theatrics and slapstick, and it pays off well. Ranbir sticks to the same pitch throughout the film thus making the character’s transition seamless and convincing - a whimsy young man, a jester, a doomed lover, a person afflicted for losing something adorable, and many more. Now, he is Bollywood’s most talented actor, with the astuteness and élan he shows in cherry-picking his roles.

Ileana plays Shruti for whom Barfi falls head over heels, and what follows is a fickle yet fairy tale like romance that ends abruptly. After watching her portray dumb-witted-damsel roles in Telugu and Tamil films, this one is refreshing and marks a staggering leap for her Bollywood career. In one of the scenes, her naiveté and nonchalance is vivid when she says, “Yeh Khamoshi hi pyaar ki jubaan hai.” During the course of the film, she evolves as an expressive actor exuding charisma. The role essayed by her translates into a seemingly tough one owing to the beat-all-conventions-romantic genre of the film. Through out the film, Shruti’s life is on tender hooks with relatively hackneyed predicaments, but she seems like a broken thread from a beautifully woven tapestry.  


Priyanka Chopra as an autistic Jhilmil is Basu’s trump card and is surprises galore. Jhilmil is a child, and Priyanka inhabits all child-like nuances to get into the character through every possible way, but also becomes painful to watch at times. The emotion her role should garner becomes slightly inopportune and superficial – a writer’s fault for not fine tuning her role. A series of events bring Jhilmil close to Barfi, and their daunting but joyful journey together spans for many years. All the dosage of ‘old is gold’ style romance – a rarity in Bollywood these days - has been brought to screen, thanks to Basu.  

Barfi has also got some setbacks. The second half drags over by at least half an hour and nothing miraculous happens towards the end. The conclusion is not neat and looks half-baked; it doesn’t even offer any satiating treatment for the story that ties the characters together, except for some unfolding of events loaded with intrigue. Basu who’s always been a consummate storyteller tries to incorporate idiosyncrasy in the script in captivating ways. The film-maker’s biggest achievement comes when the audience loves Barfi for what he is, and not for what he could have been. The film, with its time-shifting narrative, strikes the emotional chord with a right mix of subtle and shrewd performances by the lead and the supporting cast.

Superlatives become mandatory to describe, analyze and appreciate the music and background score by Pritam and intensely endowed sound design by Shajith Koyeri (won a National award for Omkara). You will be aghast while you listen to strings in his compositions, and please wait till the end credits to see the humongous team that’s part of the music department. The entire recording was done in two different studios in London and the BGMs go on to become myriad embellishments for the film.  

Ravi Varman’s cinematography lends the film an appealing, often magnified, rustic aura. The movie’s location shifts between Darjeeling and Kolkata. The fog and mist coupled with steam engines sets a perfect template for Darjeeling whereas the guerilla photography comes to forefront in canning a chase sequence in Kolkata. He complements the film-maker’s muse by selectively framing the Hooghly in the backdrop of some scenes and painting a large canvas of greenery-soaked rural landscapes of Bengal. This makes your view on the city and its surroundings more romantic. Perhaps, in some scenes, the visual panache subdues the characters inhabiting them.

Bottom-line: Barfi is a gently flavored, soothing savory, blended in perfect proportions of sugar and other ingredients to make it palatable. It is more than capably executed by Anurag Basu with the right message - “Zindagi mein kushiyaan choti choti cheezon mein hoti hain.” He unusually engrosses you in his world of sounds and long-winded stillness, beating the stardom of two superstars to pulp and sensitively weaving a magical world around them. The film is a visual, comical and musical joie de vivre replete with emotions, and the storytelling leaves you optimistic, revivifying a lost faith in archaic style of unconditional loving.

My Rating: Expectation – 6/10; Reality – 8/10