Hindi Movie - Bachna Ae Haseeno (released in 2008) - Starring Ranbir Kapoor, Deepika Padukone, and Bipasha Basu

When you get a movie that has some of the most charismatic, sexy and young faces of Bollywood, you would expect a very interesting movie. I would not call 'Bachna Ae Haseeno' an incredible movie, but it was a very interesting movie with a subject that was different. For the likes of Ranbeer Kapoor, doing a role that also subjected to him being humiliated on screen, having to follow the dictates of somebody whom he had ditched, gives him a reputation for looking out for interesting roles. Further movies he has done after that include such movies as Rockstar, Rocket Singh and Barfi. The music for the film was given by Vishal-Shekhar, and the song 'Khuda Jaane', sung by KK, became very popular.
The movies stars such young stars as Ranbir Kapoor, Deepika Padukone and Minissha Lamba, and also an experienced and sexy star such as Bipasha Basu. The movie, produced by Aditya Chopra, was directed by Siddharth Anand, an experienced director (who had some successes such as Salaam Namaste (2005) and also a failure in the form of Ta Ra Rum Pum (released in 2007)). The selection of the leading ladies for the film took a fair amount of time, with some of the actresses being considered including Preity Zinta, Katrina Kaif, Amrita Rao. However, even though the story included 3 actresses, the story weaved in and out, and there were almost no scenes where the actresses were in the same scenes, keeping the spotlight firmly on Ranbeer Kapoor, since he was there in all the scenes.




(If you don't want to read the story of the movie, don't read any further)
The story in a nutshell is the story of a young man, who goes from one love affair to another, but who decides on his own when to stay and when to leave the affair, irrespective of the feeling of the girl he is with, and what this does to the girl when she finds out.
Raj Sharma (Ranbeer) first meets Mahi (Lamba) who is out on a trip on a train in Europe. She is like the typical romantic, somebody who believes in true love and who will sweep her off her feet. She misses her train, and who does she but Raj, apparently missing the train because she had missed her train. He offers to help her catch up by getting her to the airport, and even writes a poem for her. As expected, she falls for him, but he was just doing time pass, and then hears him boasting to his friends about what they did, and is shocked, and he sees her when gets shocked.
Next episode, he is working with Microsoft and has a modern neighbor in the form of Radhika, an upcoming model. Soon they fall for each other and start having a live-in relationship. But when he gets an offer to move to Sydney, he expects that he can easily break the relationship and she will not have a problem, being a modern girl. However, she has love and marriage on her mind, and she finally ends up being ditched at the registrar's office. 2 girls ditched so far, and both of them carry deep wounds because of this.
And then the reverse. He meets a girl called Gayatri (played by Deepika) who is truly an independent women. She drives taxis, she studies and so on, but when he falls for her and proposes, she has no interest and refuses. This finally causes him to realize what he did to the earlier 2 women in his life, and taking this further, decides to go back to Mahi and Radhika and apologize for what he has done to them.
What happens next ? Do these girls decide to forgive him for what he had done ? What about Gayatri ? See it on TV or get the DVD.

Hindi Movie - Kati Patang (Rajesh Khanna, Asha Parekh) - Released in 1971

In the space of a few years, the late Rajesh Khanna became a superstar, enjoying a level of adulation that is difficult to achieve for anybody after him (even the level of success of Amitabh Bachchan soon after him did not reach the amount of crazed fandom that Rajesh Khanna achieved), giving a consecutive series of 15 hit films, something that nobody has managed to do since. This stardom lasted a few years, but made Rajesh Khanna a name that would forever be remembered. One of the movies released during this duration was 'Kati Patang', which also became a huge hit. The movie was produced and directed by Shakti Samanta, and was the second in a series of 9 films they made together. The movie earned a number of Filmfare nominations, but the only award won by the movie was for Asha Parekh as the Best Actress, and the movie did seem to have a focus on Asha Parekh as the person on whom the movie revolved around. The music of the film, by RD Burman was very well liked and appreciated, and Kishore Kumar sang most of the songs for the movie (Kishore was the usual singer for Rajesh Khanna). The movie was actually based on a novel by the name of "I Married a Dead Man," by William Irish (real name of the author being Cornell Woolrich, with William Irish being the name under which the novel was published) and was made into English and French language movies as well.

The movie was an emotional movie, based on the struggle of a woman who took a decision in her life that impacted her again, in an amazing coincidence. Like many people of the current age, the heroine of the movie Madhavi (Asha Parekh) took a decision that you would consider right. She was an orphan and when her uncle arranged her marriage to somebody whom she did not know, she ran away from there to her lover rather than get married to somebody she did not know. Unfortunately, she found that she had been deceived, since her lover Kailash (Prem Chopra) was only playing with her, and she found him with another woman Shabnam (Bindu). Hurt and betrayed, she returned home to find that her uncle had died. With this distressing situation, she ran away and ran into her friend Poonam who was with her small child. Poonam had married her husband against the wishes of his family and they had never met her. However, she was now returning to his family after the death of her husband, and yet, in another tragedy, Poonam dies although her child and Madhavi both survive, with Madhavi now having to take care of the child.
Madhavi decides to travel to Poonam's inlaws, and since they have never seen Poonam, Madhavi takes on the guise of Poonam, living as their widowed daughter-in-law. And then she runs into the person who has suffered an emotional turmoil, Kamal (Rajesh Khanna). Kamal's would be wife ran away before the marriage, something that affected him terribly emotionally. Madhavi is very distressed to hear about this, since she was the one who had caused such pain to Kamal. However, when Kamal starts to get closer to her, she resists since she does not want her truth to come out. And then the complication happens, with Kailash and Shabnam re-entering the scene and twisting things around so that she is liable to get blamed. How does she handle this and who supports her ? Watch the movie.

Music from the movie: Video from Youtube, Lyrics, MP3 on Amazon: Na Koi Umang Hai (link) Yeh Jo Mohabbat Hai (link) Mera Naam Hai Shabnam (link) Yeh Shaam Mastani (link) Pyar Deewana Hota Hai (link) Jis Gali Mein Tera Ghar (link)

Golmaal Returns - the extra suspicious wife and a murder (released in 2008)

When you get a successful film, there is a pressure to create a franchise, create more movies with the same set of actors and the director in the hope that viewers will also like this movie and make it successful. This has actually worked in many cases, with sequels of movies in Hollywood (Terminator, Pirates of the Carribean, Superman, Spiderman, etc) doing excellent business and providing riches to their creators. Of course there have been cases when the same success has not come to the next movie, but then there is no harm in trying. In the case of Bollywood, the concept of leveraging on the success of a previous movie is a pretty late one, only in the past decade that it has been seen. Golmaal indeed could be one of the first ones to make this a success, even though the sequels have no connection with the previous one in terms of story, but do have the same crew (director, and many actors and actresses being the same). Golmaal Returns was one such movie, which was released in 2008, in order to leverage the success of the earlier Golmaal (which was released in 2006).
Between the 2 movies, the director was the same (Rohit Shetty), and the main crew members were the same (Ajay Devgun, Tusshar Kapoor and Arshad Warsi). Sharman Joshi was no longer there in the sequel, and the heroine was also changed, with Kareena Kapoor brought in to enhance the star power, and some additional actors and actresses also brought in. The movie was a hit, even though critics were not particularly impressed by the movie - the humour in the original Golmaal seemed pretty genuine, while the humor in this one seemed a bit forced, written in to try and put more humour in the script, and leaving a slight jarring edge. But no matter, audiences loved it, and it was a hit. The songs were also liked, with the music being composed by Pritam, and one song 'Thar kar Le' being composed by Ashish Pandit (and the lyrics for the movie were by Sameer).
Now onto the story. I was not particularly fascinated by the story, since the attempt seemed to be to bring as many characters into the storyline and use some incredible coincidences to push the story forward. So, here goes (and if you have not seen the movie and want to keep your suspense, do not read ahead of this point).
Gopal (Devgun) and Ekta (Kareena Kapoor) are a couple with 2 siblings - Esha (Amrita Arora) is the sister of Gopal, and Lucky (Tusshar Kapoor, playing a mute) is the brother of Ekta. Ekta is an avid watcher of hindi serials (particularly the Balaji type serials) and is very suspicious of Gopal. Gopal keeps on warning her from time to time to not be so suspicious, since it would create problems for them.

Gopal works in a fishing company and has some periodic clashes with people in his company (not very serious though), especially when he believes that his colleague is instigating his wife against him. And then something happens which would cause the suspicion of Ekta to become reality. He is coming home from work, when he sees a girl being assaulted by some hoodlums and saves Meera (Celina Jaitley) from those goons. Unfortunately, due to some circumstances, they are forced to spend the night together on a yacht (although nothing happens between them).
Now, when Gopal reaches home the next morning, there is going to be trouble. Ekta, ever suspicious, wants to know where he was; Gopal obviously cannot tell her the truth, so he lies that he was with a friend of his. When Ekta pushes him for the name of the friend, Gopal comes up with a name 'Anthony Gonsalves', with a fictitious address. However, Ekta is very suspicious and sends of a letter to Anthony, and in the coincidence of a lifetime, there is actually a person called Anthony Gonsalves and an actual address and the letter is received.
One of Gopal's juniors, Laxam Prasad (Shreyas Talpade), who claims to be a great problem solver, then decides to take the place of Anthony to ensure that Ekta is not suspicious. Another coincidence, Laxman is also the boyfriend of Meera, and Meera has not told him about this incident. And then the big problem, where a dead man is found where Gopal had fought the goons, and this is the same person Gopal's office with whom he had a tiff. This brings inspector Madhav (played by Arshad Warsi) on the scene; Madhav is in love with Gopal's sister but has a running feud with Gopal and is incredibly happy that there is a chance for him to put Gopal in a difficult position.
Eventually, Madhav learns that Laxman is not Anthony, and when they tell him about Meera (and in the meantime, Ekta leaves Gopal when she learns that he told her a lie), he tells Gopal that he better bring Meera quickly to the station if he wants to save himself. Gopal and Laxam hire Munni to play the role of Meera, which she is willing to do for the money. However, her boyfriend, Vasuli, currently behind bars, is not happy at this. And then Munni is kidnapped by the murderer.

And then starts a whole trail of events to try and find Munni, in the meantime Vasuli kidnaps Meera since he wants his Munni back, and then finally Gopal learns that his boss was behind the murder since he was smuggling drugs under the guise of the fishing business, and his colleague was killed because he found out. After some more drama, there is a happy ending.

Golmaal returns (DVD on Amazon)	Music for Golmaal returns - Amazon	Golmaal Returns - Movie on Flipkart

Songs from the movie Golmaal Returns: Tha Kar Ke (link) Vacancy (link) Tu Saala (link) Meow (link)

Tashan (released in 2008) - A much awaited movie, but acclaimed as a major disaster

Tashan was one of the most awaited movies of 2008. The movie was the first movie together of the new star couple (Kareena Kapoor and Saif Ali Khan) and hence very awaited. In addition, Akshay Kumar was also part of the star attraction, combined with Anil Kapoor in a negative role, some much awaited (and different) music by Vishal-shekhar, and the much-talked about major attraction of the movie, Kareena Kapoor in a size zero and in a green bikini.
And this was also one of the biggest stinkers of the year, getting a just about average rating from critics, and getting pretty bad word of mouth. This was compounded by the fact that there was a huge dispute about revenue sharing between the multiplex owners and the film producers and it took some time to get this dispute resolved. This dispute also resulted in some reduction in the bookings for the movie; but the bigger problem was that most people did not really like the movie. The saving grace for the movie is that the CD / DVD of the movie is a good seller, which means that people like this movie when they can see it at home, but did not really want to see this movie at the hall.

Amazon	Flipkart

The movie saw a lot of interviews before the release, with a lot of coverage of Kareena Kapoor for the size zero she achieved, and the exercise regime she followed for getting there. And there were the sound-bites by Vishal-Shekhar about the music they had released, and how it would become a landmark event, just because of the different kind of music. Anyhow, all this hype fell flat, and let us get some idea of the story.
The movie is a bit of a madcap, chase, deceit, love, and a lot of courage. In addition, the romance is shown in the end between Kareena and Akshay rather than between Kareena and Saif. So, you have Jimmy (Saif Ali Khan) as a person teaching English at a call center. Into his life comes Pooja (Kareena), wanting him to teach English; he assumes that he will be teaching her and agrees. However, it is actually her boss Bhaiyyaji (Anil Kapoor) who wants to learn English. Pretty quickly, Pooja is able to get Jimmy on her side, convincing him that she owns money to Bhaiyyaji and wants to go to her father's funeral at Haridwar. So, Jimmy agrees to help her steal money from Bhaiyyaji, and they run away. He does not know too much about Bhaiyyaji, and when he learns that Bhaiyyaji is a mafia don and known for his cruelty, he wants to warn Pooja but she has already run away with all the money.
Bhaiyyaji sends Bachchan Pande (Akshay Kumar) to go after Jimmy; and when Bachchan catches Jimmy, they head off towards Haridwar to get Pooja. However, she sees them and runs away, and in a fight between Jimmy and Bachchan, the car has an accident, and falls into the water, the same water from which Pooja emerges in a scene meant for the front-benchers. Some episodes later, Pooja realizes that Bachchan is actually her childhood love, and that long lost love is reactivated. However, Jimmy has changed the money with stones, the same stones that Bachchan is now taking towards Bhaiyyaji. And then follows a fight at Bhaiyyaji's place, where they are surrounded by a lot of henchmen, but then they defeat everybody and Bhaiyyaji gets killed.

Fashion (2008) - The dark side of the fashion industry - directed by Madhur Bhandarkar

Madhur Bhandarkar is famous for making films on hard gritty subjects and not shying away from portraying the reality (including the ugly side) of things. Some of these movies include Chandni Bar, Page 3, Traffic Signal, etc. Madhur also won a national award for the direction of Traffic Signal. In addition, while his movies may not be super-hits, they make money, and for movies that are about the ills of society, making money is a big plus. Also, because his movies are seen as good cinema, actors and actresses can develop a great reputation by acting in his movies. Fashion is one such movie, that gave a filip to the careers of actors such as Priyanka Chopra, Kangana Ranaut and newcomer Mugdha Godse. Priyanka Chopra in fact has got a very good reputation after this movie, something which also got enhanced after her role in another movie, 7 Khoon Maaf. In fact, Priyanka also got a National Award for Best Actress for her role in this movie.
The movie also bears an uncanny resemblance to the story of Geetanjali Nagpal, the former model who was found in a pretty bad condition on the streets of Delhi in the year 2007; however, Madhur has denied that Fashion was based on the story of Geetanjali. The story of the movie was by Ajay Monga, with narration by Priyanka Chopra. Music for the movie, with some acclaimed songs such as 'Fashion ka Jalwa' and 'Mar Jawan' was by Salim-Sulaiman, with lyrics by Sandeep Nath and Irfan Siddique. The movie was fairly successful, and won a host of awards at such events such as Filmfare Awards, Star Screen Awards, IIFA, and Stardust Awards.

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The movie is the story of the ups and downs in the fashion industry, especially when success goes to somebody's head. The story is that of a girl, Meghna Mathur (Priyanka Chopra) who wants to be big in the fashion industry in Mumbai and leaves her house against the wishes of her parents since she wants to follow this career. However, life is not so easy, and success does not come easily. And of course there are other models who are on top, such as the current reigning super-model Shonali Gujral (Kangana Ranaut). However, after some efforts, and being tutored by her friend and another struggling model Janet (Mugdha Godse) as well as a struggling make model Maanav (Arjan Bajwa), she finally gets lucky and is noticed by one of the executives (Anisha Roy (played by Kitu Gidwani)) of a big modeling agency Panache. Anisha in turn introduces her to her boss Abhijit Sarin (Arbaaz Khan). Abhijit is impressed by her, and since Shonali is struggling with her drug problem, he decides to replace Shonali with Megha, part of the downfall process for Shonali.
Megha is now successful, which means that she gives up her relationship with Maanav, and starts having a relationship with Abhijit, even though he is a married man. Their relationship proceeds, till she gets pregnant and is pressured to abort her child; something which causes her to break the news to Abhijit's wife, causing her to get fired from her peak position and further fall in the clutches of drugs and alcohol (a path that Shonali is already following, increased after she had a wardrobe mal-function). When Megha has a one-night stand after a party where she has got drunk, she realizes how much she has fallen, and decides to leave the industry and return to her parents in Chandigarh.
However, this is not the end. Her parents encourage her to get back to her life, also as a way of getting back her self-confidence, and she decides to make up with Janet and gets back to Mumbai, however, no longer the top model. Things shake her when she sees Shonali on TV as a homeless drunk, and she brings Shonali back in order to make her better again, a process which also acts as a healing ritual for her. Even though she is not able to save Shonali, Megha gets back her confidence to again become a top model.

Kismat Konnection (2008) - Starring Shahid Kapoor, Vidya Balan and Juhi Chawla

Shahid Kapoor had the super-hit film with a pairing with Kareena Kapoor, and the movie ? Jab We Met. Unfortunately, his luck ran out then, and in fact Jab We Met was released when the pair was already done, with Kareena waltzing off with Saif Ali Khan, and Shahid looking for somebody on the rebound. During and after the course of this movie, there were a lot of stories about a relationship with Vidya Balan, but soon after this movie released, the talk went away. In fact, the movie had a strong opening and a great first weekend, but then went weak and was classified as a weak movie at the box office. The songs were okay, the chemistry was okay (although there were a number of comments about his boyish look while she looked like his aunty), and then of course, there was withering criticism of Vidya Balan's wardrobe, something that must have riled her a lot (she talked about this criticism for some time after the release of the movie).
The movie also had a role by Juhi Chawla, trying to play a non-glamorous role, and if the movie had been successful, maybe that role might have been more appreciated. However, it was not to be. The movie was released under the banner of Tips Industries, being produced by Ramesh Taurani, and was directed by the well admired director Aziz Mirza (who of course has a very strong Shahrukh Khan connection). The music was by Pritam, with lyrics by Sayeed Quadri & Shabbir Ahmed). The movie had story by Rahila Mirza.

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The story of how a particular person could be the key to another person's luck sounds like the story that a fortune teller might try to tell you, and so it was in this case. It is particular painful for a person who was at the top in college, and was predicted to do very well. Raj Malhotra (Shahid Kapoor) is an architect, and is still struggling for good work. In addition, he runs into trouble in the form of Priya (Vidya Balan) and they have a tiff (verbal tiff).
Soon after, Raj goes to a gypsy lady Haseena Bano Jaan (played by Juhi Chawla) for help and advice, and she tells him that there is a person whose very presence will bring him luck, and guess what, it will be Priya. If she were there when he was trying to do his business, it will lead to more clients, more business, and success.
Priya is more interested in doing social work, including standing up for the rights of citizens when businesses are trying to push them aside. She wants to prevent the building of a huge commercial project that will push aside a small community center, while for him, the big move is to propose himself as the architect of this huge commercial project. So he lies to her in terms of trying to help her project while putting forward his proposals for the project. And, her presence does seem to help his fortune. He also falls in love with her, but then, things get upturned when she finds out what he is actually trying to do.
However, by this time, he is for the project that she is trying to do, for her cause, and changes his plans to accommodate the community center, but is knocked out of the bidding process, even though she is attracted finally by what he is trying to do. And then help comes from a very unlikely source, such a help that you would start to believe in a concept of God. A movie that can be watched.

Ra.One (released in 2011) - Starring Shahrukh Khan and Kareena Kapoor - Wait for it to come on TV

For a couple of years now, Ra.One has been the most awaited movie in Bollywood. With the additional marketing blitz over the past few weeks, it would seem that you wherever you went, you would see something related to Ra.One; and with the product marketing tie-ups, there were many products that were related to Ra.One. The hype for the movie was incredible, and there is a sense of fear that comes when a movie is such incredibly hyped (which has been proved true for many movies in the past, the last one being Veer). I read a few reviews, asked some friends, and finally decided to take the plunge and buy a ticket (in a small group).
It's somewhat hard for me to describe how I felt, although one of my biggest indicators (looking at my watch often), indicated that the movie was not gripping enough. And, in the last couple of days, I watched some movies that were also some sort of super-hero movies, such as Robot, and Iron Man (1 and 2), it seemed to be clear that Ra.One was missing something. Which is very surprising if you look at the people and effort involved. With the backing of Shahrukh Khan, the movie was directed by Anubhav Sinha, music by Vishal-Shekhar, and with the huge budget of Rs. 175 crore letting the movie hire the best of talent from Holly wood. And yet, here are some of the negatives that really turned me off:
- The level of humour in the movie was incredibly low. What little humour there was dealt with poking fun of a Tamil accent, or of translating abuses into ones that ladies that can use, etc. I was cringing in the hall when I heard the language, and the common usage of words such as condom, main male organ, and so on.
- The film has very little action. For a movie that is styled on a super-hero, the action scenes would not be more than 15-20 minutes (or seems like that long)
- The movie has a feel of being in a video game; especially towards the end where the battle between the main characters does not really impress. Compare with the scene in Robot, and they seem better, and of course, there is no comparison between scenes in movies such as Iron Man.
- The movie displays the main Indian theme especially in the second half, where a song suddenly comes in and disrupts the entire sequence.
- The villain, supposedly endowed with superb powers, never really exhibits such powers other than the ability to deliver a strong blow (such as the one by the fireman in X-men, where energy is controlled and then thrown); further, this is a villain with only one objective, to kill the boy who last defeated him. There is no danger to the human race.
- Music is just about okay.
- Arjun Ramphal again has very little time in the film, with the cartoon character, and other guises taking up most of the appearance of the villain
- Who creates a video game with only 3 levels, and that too with only 1 gun and bullet in the 3rd stage (nobody would get hooked to such a game)

There were a few things I liked:
- Kareena did not have an action role, but otherwise she looked hot in her role
- The new kid (Armaan Khan) playing the role of the son of Shahrukh Khan was good
- Some of the interaction with the neighbor (Satish Shah) was decent
- The final train scene was good, and seemed well suited to the context of the locals in Mumbai

The story of the movie is basically the attempts of the super-hero to save the son of his creator, from another monster. So, Shahrukh works in a senior position in Barron industries, and creates video games. He is shown to be a bumbling guy, good with values and morals, and a good creator of video games. His son does not really idolise, and in fact, many times is embarrassed by the actions of his father. He is however in love with video games, and with villains. So, his father creates a new video game with the most dangerous villain, called Ra.One (the creation process of the video game shown in the movie is fairly nice), but his team soon starts to see weird things. The Artificial Intelligence given to the villain is giving the villain (inside the video game) some strange powers, and this comes out in the open when the young child Prateik (code name Lucifer) defeats Ra.One in the first level, but then abandons the game. At this, Ra.One decides to leave the game to defeat Lucifer in real life, and kills his father while doing this.
The only savior is G.One (played by Shahrukh Khan), the counterpart of Ra.One. Both of them have a brief battle where Ra.One is destroyed into several small parts, and they all flee back to India. After some sentimental scenes (sure to be a turn off for kids), Ra.One is re-created, comes to Mumbai and interrupts during the Chamak Challo sequence. A final fight sequence takes place, the movie ends. Yawn.