‘Piku’ – MyView

Piku theatrical poster

“Insan ka emotion uska motion ke saath judaa hua hai“, (A person’s emotions are connected to his bowel movement) aptly said by Mr. Bhaskor Banerjee (Amitabh Banerjee) which I guess every Bengali will agree to. This movie is so simple and intricately appropriate which everyone could connect to. Myself, a bengali away from home past 6 years, this movie was an escape in disguise (and should I mention, I watched it for two consecutive days!). Hats off Shoojit Sircar!

The movie revolves around a father – daughter relationship who takes shit seriously! I mean it, the movie is all about excretion. We all do it, its vital but nobody ever speaks of it. Well, except the bengalis who can vividly cast their imagination describing every little detail of it. Shitty, eh? We take pride. 😛

As described by her father (Amitabh Bachchan) to every potential suitor, Piku Banerjee (Deepika Padukone) is a financially, emotionally and sexually independent, non-virgin architect who lives with her father in C.R. Park, Delhi. Everything in her life borders with the dysfunctional bowel movement of her father which gets her irritated and exhausted but nevertheless, her life revolves around “Did baba go? How did it go? When did he go?” Torn between responsibilities and her love for her father, she finally agrees to the road trip to Kolkata.

Rana (Irrfan Khan), the cab company owner, ditched by his own drivers decides to take the father, daughter and the “chair” to Kolkata. The road trip is absorbed by the episodes of hissing sound which makes baba pee, the amazing graphical representation of how excretion happens, the Piku – Rana bonding, the mesmerising banaras ghats and the various remedies to constipation!

Another refreshing thing about this movie was the subtle romance angle. Piku and Rana have taken romance all together to a new level, like seriously, no melodramas, no bling songs, just simple and realistic.

The other characters Chobbi maashi (Moushumi Chatterjee), Syed (Jisshu Sengupta) have well justified their roles on screen. A special mention to the singer-songwriter-composer Anupam Roy’s music which is so subtle and blends perfectly with the movie.

The story of Piku does not hold much weight but it stands out because of its brilliant narrative and distinguished performances.

 

‘Alone’ – MyView

Alone Theatrical Poster

Well, first of all, do not watch this movie alone, nope, not because you are gonna shit your pants but because this is such a shitty movie you surely want someone to smell it with you!

This is a ditto remake of the movie Alone (2007) but fails to recreate the spine chilling horror which most of the horror loving fans might have come to see. But, people who came to watch Bipasha in skimpy clothes sure had a gala time!

The story revolves around the conjoined twins – Sanjana and Anjana (Bipasha Basu and Bipasha Basu) who promises to stay attached forever but decides to split out of jealousy and insecurity of loving the same man, Kabir (Karan Singh Grover) and one of them dies and haunts the other; you will know if you have seen the trailer itself. But if you have seen the trailer, then that’s pretty much to it! All the horror scenes are already revealed in the trailer then why would spend your 2 hours and 13 minutes that you will never get back! why? Why? WHY? Yes, that haunts me!

Not to repeatedly point out, the same kinda make up, the same kinda haunted house, the same kinda ghastly housekeeper, the kala jaadu and typical hindi horror movie scenes.

So Sanjana receives a phone call the exact same moment she delivers her dialogue that she doesn’t want to go to Kerela; irony much or deja vu? Anyways, they go to Kerala, the ghost (Anjana) is not pleased, of course and haunts her sister, gets in her body, romances the hot-bod Kabir, exorcism occurs, revelation of plot twists – that Sanjana is Anjana and bleh, both the sisters are dead, end of story!

Furthur classifying, the first half of the movie deals with the ghost sister juggling her twin sister and I will not be exaggerating but the entire theater laughed whenever there was a ghost on the screen. “Oh look! the ghost sister, bwaaaaaaaahahahaha!”. And the second half of the movie just deals with the flashing of the hot bodies unnecessarily! I know it will not be the first time with Bollywood, but the songs were abrupt and forcefully squeezed in the scenes!

Oh! the acting, please don’t get me started on that! I strongly feel that Bipasha should not jump into the horror genre just because she has Raaz in her pocket! Karan Singh Grover needs to brush up on his acting skills as well. The chemistry was pathetic between the duo, I mean two sugar cubes in my tea have a better chemistry than them!

So altogether, if you wanna see a horror movie this week, I would suggest please stick to your own movie list. You ain’t getting any horror strokes outta this one!

Stalking Penn Masala

Yes! Yes, Now my ever-never-ending stalking list has another add on -Penn Masala. The Penn Masala is the world’s first Cappella group and guess what! it was started by a bunch of Indian students at the University of Pennsylvania ! HAAH! *just proud* 

Looks like you can take the Indians out of India but you just cannot take the India out of the Indians! For Indians, our TV channels will just shuffle between Cricket or anything Bollywood. We are just C-R-A-Z-Y for it (now I strongly believe that our DNA must have been modified by now).

I happened to stumble upon them through the recommended list by YouTube. ❤

Source: http://www.pennmasala.com

Few fact checks (of course! I had to Google them!), Formed in 1996, the music is an amalgamation of ‘East meets West’. They are already eight albums old and have had numerous music tours all over the world and met a lot of famous personalities; well, lets just say that they are now one of them.

Penn Masala with US President Obama

Though its just that they mix the songs pretty well, I mean any disc jock can do that. What’s so special? I don’t know, its maybe how they sing without any instruments (Cappella), you can totally feel the soul of that particular song! I personally like to put my earphones on (and increase the bacteria in my ears).

This one was the song I stumbled upon. It shows the evolution of Bollywood like nothing else. All famous songs put together in the 5 minutes’ compose. And guess what! I knew all the songs! 😀

Now I’ll just go back and stalk them some more till the battery of my laptop dies.

‘ 2 States’ – MyView

2 States Theatrical Poster

This is the story of the union of ‘Butter Chicken‘ and ‘sambhar‘, a story which is so cliche in India. Be it the whatsapp era or the old times, Indian parents have always twitched on the idea of inter caste or worse inter state marriages. Truly its not ‘just’ marrying the other person, its rather marrying the entire family!
The story of Ananya (Alia Bhatt) and Krish (Arjun Kapoor) who fell in love while studying at IIM Ahmedabad is also on the same page. The first half of the movie mostly dealt with how Krish was smitten by Ananya’s charm and beauty but could not tell her because he did not want to be the 56th or so rejection (because all the other 55 IITians proposals were rejected by Ananya). And he was also afraid that Ananya might make him her ‘rakhi IIT brother’ which is the most dreadful relation of all! So what does our hero does? He starts ignoring her leaving her all confused. So the girl (after knowing about Krish’s feeling) takes her chances and starts dating him. Lucky IITian? eh? So Few songs here and there with their love stories wrapped in them, that’s all the romance you will be seeing in the movie, next is all drama and action!

So on their convocation, both the families meet and then starts the cold war between the ‘punjabis’ and the ‘madrasis’ (for Punjabis, anyone from south is a Madrasi!). So entire movie goes on and on about persuading his family, her family, her mother, her father, her brother, his mother, her, him, then persuading both the families to like each and everything else in between.
*phew*
A lot of emotions and drama but not much romance between the couple past the IIM days. I mean even Raj and Simran wanted to marry only with their parents consent, but they had their romance in between (Those who don’t know I am talking about the movie Dilwaale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge here). Yeah I know, DDLJ was a bollywood masala and 2 states is an autobiographical, but I felt a little more could have been done in terms of the love in between them, I mean wasn’t the movie’s fundamentals based on love?
To sum it up, its a good watch if you already liked Chetan Bhagat’s 2 States, the movie goes pretty much same of what’s in the book. Alia Bhatt looked gorgeous and she held the movie together. Arjun Kapoor was a bit shaky but you’ll get used to him seeing him on the screen after some time. The cold war between Revathy and Amrita Singh is something to look out for. Altogether a nice weekend flick, not awesome as I expected.

‘Main Tera Hero’ – MyView

Main Tera Hero Theatrical Poster

Are you a person who loves comedy, parody, romance-te-dance, colorful costumes, a little dishum-dhishum all in Govinda ishtyle? Well, if you have seen this (Main Tera Hero) movie, you exactly know what I am talking about, if you haven’t, you are missing something awesome here! This is a typical David Dhawan movie; I think David Dhawan’s movie should be classified as a different genre – senseless movies where logic gets out of the back door but awesomely hilarious and has the major 3 factors of Indian Cinema – Entertainment! Entertainment! and Entertainment! Remember the laughter riots we had back then seeing his movies, this movie is certainly not a disappointment to me! And ohh! Varun Dhawan! Did you see his smile? His killer smile? Aaah! Varun! *sigh*

Varun Dhawan ❤

So, after all the drools and ogles, this movie, -yes-you-guessed-it-right- is a love triangle which eventually becomes a square. With twist in every corner, this movie is surely not much predictable, but of course, the ending is obvious; Hero-ji-Dulhaniya-le-jayenge. *happy endings*. The movie starts with the prologue of introducing the character Seenu (Varun Dhawan) in his hometown and how he is the Denis-the-Menace of Ooty. This is to build the characteristics of the Haraami boy whom you’ll witness in the entire movie.

The Haraami Seenu

The movie actually begins when the sweet-innocent-swami-type-ka-Seenu-who-is-actually-very-Harami-type-ka falls for the pretty Sunaina (Illeana D’cruz) on the first day of his collage only to learn later that a local rowdy, terrorizing policeman Angad (Arunoday Singh) is obsessed with this girl and torments her. Ofcourse! He is the hero and apparently saves his lady and they fall in love (Here, I would not like to spill the beans of how he does that. Watch it).

The Barfi Parody

Tell it the twist of fate or director’s choice, Ayesha (Nargis Fakhri) also falls for Seenu who is a big Bankok Gangster Vikrant’s (Anupam Kher) beloved daughter. Sunaina is kidnapped and Seenu is forced to marry Ayesha. Now you must think it is such an intense moment, where is the comedy? That my friend, you have to watch. 😀 It will literally make you R-O-F-L-M-A-O! Both the parts after and before intervals are equally funny (My popcorn bucket almost tossed and dunked the fellow beside me *embarrassing moments*)

Nargis Fakhri as Ayesha

Varun Dhawan being a newbie (well, just a movie old, now two) has done a splendid justification to his character because doing comic roles are quite a challenge in itself. Looking forward for more ‘Father-Son’ duo comedy flicks. And Thank God! Nargis Fakhri was not given emotional drama, though her absence of emotions (We have our own Kristen Stewart! Are you listening Hollywood! HAAAH! 😀 ) was not much of a concern unlike her previous role in Rockstar.

Main Tera Hero Hotties! Can someone switch on the AC please?

Aah! it would be my bad if I don’t mention, the ladies had the curvaceous HOT bodies! Oomph-La-La! I could literally hear the men beside me going Oos and Aaas. Lucky Varun to have got a chance romancing both of them. 😉 Good performances by Anupam Kher, Arunoday Singh, Rajpal Yadav and Saurabh Shukla.

I might re-watch it again! Its gonna be a weekend again. ❤ :3

‘Shaadi ke Side Effects’ – MyView

Shaadi Ke Side Effects Theatrical Poster

After the historic ‘Pyaar ke side effects’ comes the sequel ‘Shaadi ke side effects’, but I rather think it should have been titled ‘Baccho ke side effects’ because their married life was sailing smoothly until the kid came along!

To be honest, I really had high hopes, which were thrashed a little, but nevertheless, it was worth seeing Farhan Akhtar *Drools* and Vidya Balan sharing the screen. The movie starts with Trisha (Vidya Balan) and Sid (Farhan Akhtar) flirting in a club, only you’ll find out later that they are actually married! Its their fantasy of meeting up as stranger and “stay in love”. Farhan Akhtar has this full-proof plan of a perfect married life, his guru-mantra being, “If it’s your fault, say sorry. If it’s your wife’s fault, say sorry”. I mean how many times have we actually gone through this joke. A LOT. Hello! We know that fact already. So, they have a fun-filled life (what every married couple wants) until they find out that Trisha is pregnant. That’s when the poor husband looses his wife and is stuck with the mother of his child.

The first half of the movie will actually make you fall of your seat (a little exaggeration here), full of drama and laugh riots! But it fails to make the same effect after the interval, then its more of the senti and drama where Sid is guilty of having an affair (Affair as stated in the movie, is anything that you do in the ‘time’ which you should have been devoted to your family, is an affair) with a much careless alter ego of himself with his flatmate (Vir Das) and parties all night (yes, he rents a PG to have ‘his own guy time’), lying to his wife that he is stuck in his studio work (he composes jingles for a living). There are few scenes of Purab Kohli in the movie which is cute where he is a friendly neighbor, Sid is jealous of. “Tum rehne do na! Shekhar (Purab Kohli) hai na!”

So, all together in the end,  after all the drama, the mantra of a happy married life is “Stay Truthful” ! REALLY! This is something we have been hammered since our childhood! I wanted to know more full proof points to avoid the side effects! Being truthful is so mainstream.

Watch it for the superb acting of Vidya Balan, Farhan Akhtar, Ila Arun, Vir Das, Ram Kapoor, Purab Kohli and others. The cast is pretty interesting to look out for. The chemistry between Farhan and Vidya is also worth seeing, after all he is the bechara-pareshaan husband haunted by his DramaQueen-naggy wife!

Don’t watch if you are expecting a what-to-do-LIST to avoid the side effects, because your list will just have ‘be truthful’ and we all know that!

‘Highway’ – MyView

Theatrical Poster of Highway

Everyone needs an escape. Escape from your daily job, your monotonous love life; sometimes you just JUST need to escape; to find yourself. And this story was about Veera Tripathi’s (Alia Bhatt) escape. Though it was something she never planned but eventually things worked out (they always eventually do) and made her a stronger person in the end (after all that she went through is quite commendable).

The story starts with all the melodrama which happens in any Indian wedding, sarees-jhumkas-and-people! Though I feel that there could have been a better start (DOP department could have done a better job here), but nevertheless, between all the chaos you can still make out that Veera feels trapped; a streak of being uncomfortable is something which you just cannot miss on her face. Did I mention, its her wedding?

Okay, so before her wedding, she goes out with her husband-to-be (though they were not allowed to, and the man here was a F-A-T-T-U) to catch her breath (she is suffocated with all the show-sha-baazi) before she is married off. Story takes turn at the petrol station where she is abducted by Mahabir Bhatti (Randeep Hooda) and gang and she cries out to her man for help, and all he can chant is “maine kaha tha na, maine kaha tha” (this is the moment where you feel like going right into the screen and slap that bastard!). And then, the movie starts!

The drama starts when Veera, a typical nice-well-behaved rich girl and Mahabir, a rowdy, uncivilized guy with criminal records, coming from two different genres of life and society, are tossed together into one topsy-turvy trip to North India! Both having a dark deep secret which had haunted them once brings them closer (Emotions! Emotions!). The story is finely weaved with the right thing at the right place with the right dialogues.

From oh-my-god-he-kidnap-me petrified phase to tum-mujhe-kaafi-cute-lagne-lage-ho phase, the sudden overnight change in Veera’s character is sort of weird (after all, he kidnapped you and was going to sell you to a brothel) but she convinced me (to some extent, but I still have my doubts!). Him, whereas, did a splendid justice to his character and the transition was superbly smooth and well convincing. I liked that part when she puts up an English song and starts dancing to it (it was so innocent) in her ghagra, well no item number or anything, but a plain regular dance; it was funny but hey, we all dance like that!

The movie as the name suggests is all about the highway, people on and off it, majestic landscapes, the being-free notion to it; its all capturing. Its about how she finds freedom in bondage. This movie tells us in disguise that life is simple, you can find your happiness in every small bits and pieces. This movie is a blend of love, frustration, drama, life, misery, disappointment, anger, hatred, happiness, relations and even sheds light upon a sensitive topic like the child abuse (which is a very serious issue and needs to be addressed). This movie is also about coming out of your closet and breathe in.

One of my favorite dialogue from the movie is – “Jahan se tum mujhe laaye ho, main wahan wapas nahi jana chahti, jahan bhi le ja rahe ho, wahan pahuchna nahi chahti, par ye raasta, ye bahut accha hai, main chahti hun ye raasta kabhi khatam na ho”. This is deep.

The landscapes are no doubt breathtaking (I can relate to that pretty much as I lived in Himachal Pradesh for 4 years and mountains can be very addictive, I can assure you that!) which added the depth and the rich texture to the movie along with the spellbound music by A.R. Rahman. My favorite one being (no doubt) – Patakha Guddi (Amazing vocals by Nooran sisters). This song truly celebrates the spirit of freedom. About Alia Bhatt, this lady being a fresher, surely knows how to get her act straight – completely honest with her character, whether be it Veera’s innocence or non stop blabbering or talking about how she was a victim of child abuse. She did a great job! And well, Randeep Hooda *Sigh*, lets just say, I fell in love with him, all over again! *blush*