Dasvidaniya 2008
Disclaimer: This is my personal view point of Bollywood in 2008, of the movies i have seen. As far as Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi is concerned, my take is not great, not bad, just plain average, but considering that lot has been said, nothing really of value from my side. And lastly i feel absolutely stupid putting up this disclaimer, but considering some comments i have been getting off late, i am putting it up just in case.
Well its that time of the year when every one starts to take stock of what has happened, and comes up with the Best, Worst list. Some years are quite crazy, they just leave you dumb founded and dumb struck. 2008 was such a year.
Wall Street went bust, thanks to some dodgy business theories, floated by overpaid B-School Grads, who took Michael Douglas words on “Greed is Good” too seriously, and tried to make a quick buck. All it resulted was in investment banks becomming a part of history, savings of many Americans wiped out, and ordinary Americans finding their lives more insecure and indebted.
As Wall Street crashed, the dollar went South, and all economies of the world, closely interlinked with Uncle Sam’s, took a big hit. Laissez faire, Liberterian capitalism, received its biggest blow, as proponents of “Market is God” looked for a place to hide. The Bush Govt, which swore by “Less Govt is the Best Govt”, had to resort to bailouts, to save the economy, with not much success. The recession is officialy on in the world now.
For the first time in its history, a person who was non White, non Protestant, with a funny sounding name, who was Half Black, Half White, Half Muslim, went on to win the White House. This in a country where riots broke out in 1900, when Teddy Roosevelt, invited a Black scientist to dine with him at the White House. This in a nation where 4 to 5 decades back, Blacks had to sit in separate seats in buses, and were not allowed into restaurants. Barack Obama’s election showed a nation, overcomming its guilt and racial prejudices, not fully though. The Deep South, still remains a bastion of Whites First ideology.
For India it was not a good year. The recession and slowdown in US, hit many companies hard, as layoffs and salary cuts, put paid to the dreams of many young Indians. Floods in Bihar and Orissa wiped out thousands of people, while religious conflicts flared in Orissa and Karnataka. Terror attacks took their toll of lives in Jaipur, Delhi, Ahmedabad, Bangalore, and it reached its horrifying culmination in Mumbai on 26/11, which has left wounds on the Indian pysche that will take a long time to heal. The silver lining was in sports though, where India came up with its best performance in Olympics, and the Indian cricket team gave us some moments of sheer pleasure.
So what of Bollywood in 2008? Some ramblings of mine
Too many RGVs make an Aag
In 2007, RGV ki Aag, was taken as the benchmark for a movie that was the worst disaster commercially and critically. This year mainstream movie makers seemed to fall over with each other, to see whose movie would make RGV Ki Aag, look like Citizen Kane.
Tashan, Love Story 2050, Mission Istanbul, Kidnap, Drona, Yuvvraaj the list is quite long. It is apparent that mainstream cinema in India needs to pull itself up. You cant keep venting your ire on pseudo intellectual movie critics and blogs, when it is clearly apparent, that not many are ready to sit through what is being passed off as entertainment. Ocassionally a Race or Singh is King, may make it just on the star power, but that can’t happen to every movie. Unless the mainstream movie makers understand that they cant keep fooling the junta, we will keep having more and more Aags out there. The only good mainstream movies we had this year were Jodha Akbar and to an extent Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi.
The original Aag creator meanwhile had a mixed year. Sarkaar Raaj was average, Contract was a disaster, and Phoonk was a surprise hit. Rann is keenly anticipated with its take on the TV channels.
Old is Gold
One of the best flicks of this year, starred two old men well into their 50’s. But for close to 1.5 hours, Anupam Kher and Naseeruddin Shah, kept the audiences on tenterhooks, comming up with brilliant performances in A Wednesday. Two men, who have shown that sheer brilliance in acting, and a tight screenplay, with deft editing, can make for a gripping movie. More power to Neeraj Pandey.
Farhan can act Saala
We knew that Farhan was a good director, but in Rock On, he made a good debut as an actor also. Though his voice did not exactly gel with rock, he neverthless did well. Rock On was less about rock, and more of a follow your heart and dreams, kinda inspirational fable. On that count it worked rather well for me.
Mumbai Mein Jaan hai
Mumbai Meri Jaan would be one of my top 5 this year. Right from the ensemble characters to the stories to the performances, this movie just connected with me somewhere. And the performances from Paresh Rawal, Vijay Maurya, Madhavan, Kay Kay Menon and Irfan Khan, were top notch.
Jodha Akbar ki Prem Kahani
While not many were pleased with Ashutosh Gowariker’s version of the Jodha Akbar story, i would still rate it as one of my favorites this year. The detailing, the sets and the grandeur were authentically recreated, as was also the dramatic scenes. Hrithik gelled well as Akbar, and trust me one of the few times i liked Ash. It was not perfect, the movie needed better editing, and also some more focus on Akbar’s political strategies. But still i would commend Ashutosh for attempting a genre, which most of our movie makers would not even touch with a barge pole.
Aamir, Not the Khan
In the first half of the year, there were only 3 movies i liked Jodha Akbar was one, and other two were Aamir and Mithya. For the most part Aamir was an engaging movie, about an ordinary upper crust Muslim doctor, who finds himself in events beyond his control. Though slow in places, the movie works big time, and a great performance by Rajeev Khandelwal in his debut.
One movie that i wanted to see but did miss out was Mithya, hoping to catch it soon.
Movies that Deserved more
Like any other year, there were some movies that deserved a better viewership.
Tahan- Santosh Sivan’s fable like story about a young boy in the vales of Kashmir.
Hulla- Though many critics, wrote this off, i really felt it had its own charm, and great performances from Sushant Singh and Rajat Kapoor.
Dasvidaniya- Wonderful charming tale of a man spending the final years of his life. Vinay Pathak take a bow sir.
Oye Lucky Lucky Oye- Great movie but released at the wrong time. People were not just in a mood to go to the theaters after the terror attacks in Mumbai. Hoping that the movie gets its due in years to come. Abhay Deol is fast cementing his reputation as one of the best actors around, and we just hope he gets the due he deserves.
Agar Main Kahoon
Aamir Khan- Yeah i know you are Mr.Perfection, but does every picture, every pose, every promo of yours have to scream out “Look at me i am so perfect, so methodical, so different”.
Shahrukh Khan- Would love to see you more as Surinder Sahni. There are dime a dozen folks out there for the Raj/Rahul roles, leave it to them sir jee. We love you as Surinder.
Salman Khan- Just don’t sign any movie on dotted line to make your friends happy. Not even Amitabh Bachan could save some rank bad movies. Time to think less on fights, and more on your movies.
Saif Ali Khan- What ever happened to Langda Tyagi of Omkara? Please dont get into a rat Race sir. After all its not always Thoda Pyaar, Thoda Magic.
Ajay Devgan- And again the same question, where is Omkara? Where is the actor who once enthralled us with his performances in Zakhm, Legend of Bhagat Singh, Gangajal?
Akshay Kumar- I admire you just for making it to top, without backing of any of the industry’s big banners or big Daddies. Without you Singh would have never been the King. But i know you are capable of more, as in Khakee. We have seen you rise as the super star,now we wanna see you as the actor also.
Rani Mukherjee- Fire your costume designer, your stylist, your hair designer. Black is history, your patented weepy eyes act is now getting repetitive. Time to do a rethink maam.
Katrina Kaif- You have been close to 5 years in the movie industry. Please improve your diction and please learn how to do some acting. The Sexiest Asian or the sexiest Martian tag, has a limited shelf life.
Madhur Bhandarkar- I still admire you for the way you choose to pick up realistic topics. I liked Page 3, and also Corporate, Traffic Signal too. Fashion however looked more like a cross between a Sidney Sheldon novel and Aaj Talk. I dont like either.
Subash Ghai, Harry Baweja- Yaar retire ho jaao, aap ka time ho chuka hai.
Abhishek Bachan- You have an understated presence, and restraint is one of your strong points. You were the only watchable aspect in Dostana. Yaar dosti ke liye, please dont ever do flicks like Drona, which do you no good at all.
Love to see more of these people
Irfaan Khan, Atul Kulkarni, Kay Kay Menon, Abhay Deol, Neetu Chandra, Vinay Pathak, Ranvir Shorey, Sonu Sood, Sushant Singh, Jimmy Shergill, Arjun Rampal, Vijay Maurya, Purab Kohli, Gul Panag, Sharman Joshi, Sanjay Suri, Chitrangada Singh.
And among the new lot Shahana Goswami( Rock On), Prachi Desai( Rock On), Rajeev Khandelwal( Aamir), Aamir Bashir( A Wednesday), Richa Chaddha( OLLO).
In dire need of career counselling
Kareena Kapoor, Vidya Balan, Shahid Kapoor, Rajpal Yadav,Bobby Deol, Sohail Khan, Manoj Bajpayee.
Disappointments
Movies that promised something but ended as damp squibs- Shaurya, Ugly Aur Pagli, Maharathi.
Okayish
Movies not too great, not too bad- Fashion, Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi, Bachna Ae Haseeno, Welcome to Sajjanpur, Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na.
And i reserve my comments for Ghajini, but having seen the Tamil version, i am sure that the Hindi version will not make it to my Best movies of 20o8 list.
Till then Dasvidaniya.
Tags: 2008, Bollywood, Movies
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
ratnakarji …achaa likha aapne. bahut achaaa…
us Karthik krishnan ko bhi kuch sikhaa dete to…..maaza aa jaata.
Very well balanced opinion…wavelength match ho gayi ji…..badi buri tarah se resonance ho raha hai….:-)
Well penned (or typed) recap of the year. My list for 2008 would be pretty much the same.
A few things I’d like to add though (completely my point of view):
1. I think Shaurya would fit right in the “Okayish” section.
2. I’m sure you meant that “retire ho jao” comment for Harry Baweja and not Harman. Bechaara abhi abhi toh aaya hai. :D
3. I’d put Apoorva Lakhia in the “retire ho jao” segment too. He’s given some pretty daft movies and IMHO is probably the most overrated director in the industry. If not ‘retire’, atleast career counseling toh chaahiye hi chaahiye usko.
You have covered most of the things. Few addition for me.
I liked Superstar (Kunal Khemu one, I thought it was pretty decent). Seeing SiK, I think Sunday was better. Mithya was OK for me.
Hulla Bol was let down. So was Race. Burmawalla brothers could have done better than that. For TPTM, the opening credits were fantastic and then that’s pretty much it. This year I saw no Sallu movies just like last year.
For Her-Man, thoda early hain, remember Ab baby had 7 flops or more before he found his Yuva.
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I agree on SRK and AK “Thumbsup”. Akki was good in Khaki. Thanks SRK for Suri ji (Gosh, I am tired of repeating myself, please bear with me :-))
Yup for AK”Coke”, I don’t know, Ghajini ka trailers dekh kar aisa lag raha, they are trying too hard to promote.
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Hopefully, I will see Mumbai Meri Jaan, Dasvidaniya, OLLO, Tahaan in 2008 or 2009.
Tab tak,
Hum Hain Rahi Pyaar ke, Phir Milenge, Chalte Chalte :-)
@ Ratnakar
Suban Allah! that was a lovely write up from you sirji.Even I feel the year has been so-so for bollywood.
1. I loved Tashan-it was a roller coaster tribute to the 80’s.Unfortunately not many including you got it.
2. I personally felt bad to see a fine movie like Tahaan going unnoticed.
3. I’ve already written earlier that UTV should have postponed OLLO by a week or two- would have worked in favour.The latest I hear is that the movie would be premiered in a week’s time on Tata Sky & Dish TV.
4. Priyanka Chopra showed great resilience- after a string of flops she bounced back with Fashion & Dostana.
5. UTV showed they could balance a Race or Jodha Akbar with an A Wednesday or Aamir very well.
6. I liked Ghajini in tamil except for the climax.Since they’ve tweaked with the climax in hindi I think it should come out well.
7. Akki- only you could have give us SIK.
8. SRK- you made us happy with Surinder Sahni.
Looking forward to 2009 !!!
Yaar Sethu, that was the reason i never liked Tashan much, for i hate the 80’s period movies. Yaar it was too much roller coaster, chakkar aa raha tha mere ko.
UTV is proving to be India’s Miramax, comming up with a fine range of movies and balancing mainstream with more art house cinema.
SIK was not bad, but with the story line it had, it cud have been much better. It had a great potential, but sadly Anees Bazmee, did not exploit it well, and let Akki do everything.
@ DnDJee
Thank you Jee. Arre Jee, hum kaun hai, doosron ko sikhanewala, woh kya bolte Andaz Apna Apna. aap yahan comment karthe rahiye, aur bhi resonance hoteh rehti hai
ratnakarji
I was just joking abt sikhaana…
aapne theek kaha andaaz apna apna…
uske andaaz bilkul nahi bhaaye mujhe.. :-)
wasnt that pure unadulterated vitriol…
I sometimes get fed up of some general chamchagiry maine dekhi hai….ho sakta hai aapne bhi dekhi ho….
log WTF ityaadi shabdon ka prayog karte hue auron ko nikal jaane ko kehte hain….
sabki aawaaz hoti hai…. meri bhi hai.
DnD Jee, sab chaltha hai, yeh duniya hi aisi hai.
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Rahe chamcha giri ki baath, it is universal, cant help it.
Hum chamach se khaane se, angrezon ka chamcha giri karthe hai, kyon ki hum bhi angrez banna chahte hain
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Aur Rahe WTF ityaadi shabdon, hamaari bhaasha mein gaaliyon ka khoob prayog ho jaata hain. WTF se bhi badkar. Par hum kisiko nikal jaane to nahin bolthe hain.
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Sab ki Aawaz hoti hai, aap ka bhi, mera bhi.
Baaki sab Maaya hai, maya.
. My Bheja getting friend. Boys is thank you. I go have my Kingfisher now.
..
..
Geez man, WTF i am typing out here.
Dark ji n ji Dusky ji, app itna emotional chraged kyun hai? Usne likha, apko nai accha likha. Baat khatam. Itna hangover kis baat ka? Complan pijiye aur swasth rahiye!
My take on the 2008 movies that didnt disappoint me: (not in any specific order)
Aamir, OLLO, A Wednesday, Rock On, Mumbai meri Jaan, RNBDJ, JTYJN, Jodha Akbar, Mithya, Dasvidaniya.
Movies I expected to be better:
Shaurya: (shameless copy of A Few Good Men, but deftly handled, and Deepak Dobriyal, take a bow, I wud like to see so much more of you).
Sorry Bhai: (Sorry Onir Bhai, but it didnt work for me..)
Sarkar Raaj: (too typical RGV-ish, Godfather hangover)
Dostana: Too sugar-coated and ‘YRF-KJo-campish’. Priyanak looked a million bucks though
Guilty Pleasures: Tashan (80’s throwback stuff), Singh is King (Akki is King), Race (loved HOT Bips)
Couldnt Watch (Want to): Tahan, Hulla
Didnt even think of Watching: Yuvraaj, Fashion, Phoonk, Love Story 2050, Kidnap, Drona, Ugly Aur Pugli, Maharathi (Paresh rawal sucks with his trademark-one-liners-comedy efforts)
Shaurya for me was messed up by Rahul Bose and Minnisha Lamba. Rahul is one of the most overrated actors IMO. He just has a set of expressions, and every movie he goes through the same routine. Not that Tom Cruise was any better in the original, but at least he did well in the climax court room scene, Rahul made a royal mess here. And Minissha’s was not a patch on Demi Moore.
Sarkaar Raaj went off on too many tangents.
Yaar problem with Tashan, was that it just jumped around from here to there. And that bit about childhood love, was the final straw for me.
SIK was ok, worked mainly becaue of Akki, and to some extent Javed Jaffrey also.
Fashion was more like a Sidney Sheldon novel for me. Female from small town, wants to make it to top, compromise on ethics, falls, gets a morality attack. I liked MB’s Traffic Signal more than this.
Deepak Dobriyal was superb in Omkara also. Wish to see more of him and also Vijay Maurya, who played the cop in Mumbai Meri Jaan. The scenes between him and Paresh Rawal were the best in the movie.
BTW wonder what happened to my other favorite Atul Kulkarni? Not been seeing much of him nowadays.
Also Boman Irani, should stop wasting himself in meaningless roles like in LS2050 and Yuvvraaj.
The surprise for me this year have been Arjun Rampal and Jimmy Shergill. I never thought much of Arjun, but he gave a really good performance as Joe in Rock On. Jimmy was fabulous in A Wednesday, after a series of not too great movies.
I certainly dont understand why Neetu Chandra is not doing more movies. She is good looking, sexy and talented. I really hope to see more of her.
Yeah BTW i liked Ek Vivah Aisi Bhi, i always felt Isha Koppikar was a good actress, but producers were more interested in exploiting her sexy image. Sonu Sood also acted well both in Jodha Akbar and EVAB.
@ RS: Great write-up yaar. Kabhi dasvidaniya na kehna…
almost all my favs.I think Phoonk also can be in cluded in ‘movies not too great,not too bad’category
due to excellant performance by child artist and camerawork
All said n done, the opening sequence of tashan cud hv been from any typical Tarntino movie, but it was a royal mess-up with all the non-linear tangents,and yes, tht childhood love story was really too much. Loved the songs though, white-white phace sasura..
Shaurya wasnt so bad IMO, honestly i hv never liked Minissha except in Yahaan & Dus Kahaniyaan, n Shaurya was no exception. I loved KayKay & Deepak immensely. SiK never meant to be different, it was supposed to be entertaining, and it did. And yes, recently I was in a Punjabi wedding in Chandigarh, and you shud hv seen the impact of Bhootni Ke..
@ Vishesh
Oops sorry my bad, that retire ho jaao was meant for his dad Harry Baweja.
And if you have not seen MMJ, yet, see it ASAP. It was one of the best movies this year, for me.
Sonu Sood is one actor who hasnt yet been fully exploited. same for Neetu Chandra, Deepak & Arjun Rampal. I loved Jimmy in Maachis & Yahaan, and somewhere he got lost..
Honestly, one of my guilty pleasures of all times has been Kya Kol hain Hum, and for me, Isha rocked in tht movie.
Atul Kulkarni & Milind Gunaji do more of Marathi theatre/movies these days.
And yeah, Antara Mali has put on a lot of weight lately, and is slated for directing a movie with RGV in 2009. Isnt acting in tht (i think).
Yaar for SiK, I did not find anything funny. I really wanted to like it but kuch bhi pasand nahi aaya. I chuckled once or twice aur ab woh bhi yaad nahi kis baat par. Compared to that, I laughed and had a great time in Tashan.
SiK could have been something like Oscar (Sly Stallone comedy) and Kat-ji is best for song and dance routine, IMO. Welcome looks so good in front of SiK.
@ Ratnakar
I agree with you about SIK.Kabhi online milenge to I’ll tell you how I would have made the story to move once Akki becomes the King.Tashan for me was a guilty indulgence-nothing more than that
I found Shaurya o.k when compared with Samar Khan’s previous effort.and no I hated Phoonk.I use the word hate since coming from RGV & with all the hype he generated it should have been a lot better.Frankly I found 1920 to be better than Phoonk!!!
Yes Sonu Sood is an underrated actor & I’ve found him to be good right from his Yuva & Athadu
( telugu) days.I think with EVAB,Jodha Akbar & SIK he has got much more exposure which he deserves.
Same is my opinion of Isha Koppikar- there is a long overdue factory movie called Shabari where she plays the main lead & is supposed to be quite good in it.
Deepak Dobriyal is an awesome actor- liked him in all his movies so far- Omkara, 1971 ( have any of you seen it- I really liked it- very underrated movie again) & Shaurya.
Neetu Chandra is good – whether it be Garam Masala, Traffic Signal, Godavari ( telugu) or OLLO, she fits the role very well.
I always liked Arjun – only felt bad that he wasnt doing the right kind of movies but with Rock On I think he was spot on.Same goes to Jimmy Shergill in A Wednesday.
Atul Kulkarni has been doing movies in the south also for some time ( tamil & telugu).In fact even people like Ashutosh Rana, Ashish Vidyarthi etc are more seen in the South these days.
Have watched 1971, liked it too, but i thought it had that “Great Escape” hangover. Loved Manoj Bajpayee & Deepak in tht movie though.
Sonu Sood was very good in Athadu. I heard its being re-made in Hindi with Bobby playing Mahesh Babu’s role. Hop Sonu Sood reprises his role from the original.
The Athadu remake has long been in the pipeline, but i guess with Bobby’s career right now on the skids, not many are showing interest. Athadu itself was loosely based on Assasins, the climax especially.
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For me 1971, was a bit more like Von Ryan’s Express, but still it was a really well made movie. It deserved much better IMO.
@sethumadhavan
I think hate would be a too harsh word for a small film like ‘Phoonk’May be many people compared it to ‘exorcist’and found this one to be inferior.But if u leave aside all comparisons and look at subject u can see RGV has made an attempt to address a topic like Black magic and common man’s belief in it also how a father who is an atheist becomes confused when something beyond normal happens to his own child.Also I feel most of people excepted the kind of sound effects shocks like in ‘Bhoot’,which was not much in ‘phoonk’
I liked Isha in Pinjar and D too. BTW Sethu have u seen that Isha-Prashanth movie Kaadhal Kavithai, i thought it was well made.
Liked her other Tam movie En Swaasa Kaatre too.
Interesting take on things. I agree with you on the failing of mainstream bollywood. The public is more aware than ever now and they just can’t take everything the director has etched up in his mind. That being said, surprisingly Singh is King, Race and Dostana were the biggest bollywood hits in Pakistan ( yes, I am a reader from Pakistan).
You can read an article related to that here:
http://cosmopolistan.blogspot.com/2008/12/lessons-you-learn-from-bollywood.html
regards,
@sethumadhavan
going off topic
Did u watch ‘Bommalattom’?There seems to be no one talking about a Bharathi Raja Film where as RNBDJ seems to be getting over attention
Yaar Sharath or Sethu, any one of u seen Bomalattom, put up a post. I seriously need a break from this Rab Rab overdose.
One more post on RNBDJ, and i will have to seek for mercy from Rab himself.
@ Sharath & Ratnakar
I’ve seen Bommalattam & I’m working on a separate write-up on it right now.Hope it would get showcased here.In any case in a nut shell if I were to talk about the movie- I would say the first half was average- with shades of BR’s brilliance seeping in.But with the 2nd half especially the climax, I could get to see vintage stuff from BR.Nana was simply superb, ragini the new heroine was also good too.But music from Himesh Reshamiyya was a disappointment.Baaki I’ll elaborate in my write-up!!!
Ratnakar@ 24
Yes I’ve seen Kadhal Kavidhai & also En Swasa Katre.Liked her in both.
@ Vicksteria
Yaah bad of me, i meant Harry Baweja. Harman ka dekthe, filhaal mujhe usse koi badi umeed nahin.
@ Ratnakar
Why the sudden change in your profile name? ( of course I know its linked to your blog in a way).well even I dont have a great feel about Harman- but saale ke pass solid line up of movies hai.He’s doing Bommarilu’s hindi version with Genelia, he’s doing Ashutosh Gowariker’s next with Piggy chops of course
& quite a few more.So lets wait & watch!!!
Yeah well, its my blog name.
Scorpius is coz im a Scorpio, Maximus after the Gladiator hero, and Indicus from India.
Yaar Harman star son hai, he will get chances to prove himself. Had he not been so, he would have been out after 1 flop.
About Shahid… Vishal’s kameenay is releasing March 9. I hope it does a lot of good to his career and his acting skills.
Haha. Nice post- funn, breezy enjoyable read. Agree with you on Aamir 100% indeed.
@ Harvey-25
I dont have much idea about what Pakistani audiences seek for in a movie, but from what i heard, they look mostly to escapist cinema, and thats why i guess those 3 movies u mentioned are a big success.
Hey Ratnakar
U gotta watch Isha in “Shabri” shes gonna be gud!!
I think Isha really missed out in the beginning of her career…bad luck…she did some good movies where she did act…d ya remember ‘Chandra Lekha’..apna Nag and Ramya in it…
Yeah did watch Chandralekha, i think at first it was a Mallu movie, dont know who starred in original version.
And movie itself was taken from “When you were Sleeping”, and later remade into Hindi as Har Dil Jo Pyaar Karega, starring apna Sallu Bhai.
@ Ratnakar
Chandralekha was a Priyan movie in Malayalam.It had Mohanlal, Pooja Batra & Sukanya in it.The movie was a hit & had good music & the comedy was quite good too!!!It had Anil Kapoor also in a one scene appearance
@Ratnakar and Sethu
Guys…guess who played Anil Kapoor’s role in ‘Chandra Lekha’? Options are…
1. Sallu
2. Sanjay Dutt
3. Jakie Shroff
Mayur it was apna Sunju Baba, and in Hindi version it was SRK.
Yup Anil Kapoor,Sanjay Dutt & SRK- great choice of actors I must say.And though its just one scene, their entry point makes it quite dramatic actually.Full marks to Priyan for getting it right & for the others to just copy the same correctly!!!
@ratnakar
Welcome to Sajjanpur was awesome – needs to be in “Movies that deserved more”
@42 deepbluelotus, agree with you.Really loved the movie.Somehow reminded me of Suraj Ka Satwaan Ghoda though this was more of a comedy.
This year has given us great performances from the supporting cast.Ila Arun(Jodha Akbar,Welcome To Sajjanpur),Shahana(Rock On),Purab Kohli(Rock On).In fact Ila Arun deserves a best supporting actress award this year.
Oh I forgot… the entire supporting cast of Jaane Tu were great too.
Hi Ratnakar,
You have very nicely summed up the year 2008. Just couple of things – I thought Bachna Ae Haseeno was pretty neat. Definitely the best Yashraj product since Chak De India (IMO). Was expecting the worst, but I actually liked it. I liked Sarkar Raaj too. On a different note Madhur Bhandarkar’s next one is called – JAIL. No prizes for guessing what that one is about!
@ Raj
Yes Jail sounds interesting- it has Neil Nitin Mukesh who was very promising in Johny Gaddar.I’m looking forward to Jail & New York mainly for him.
Sethu,
Jail premise sounds interesting but Bhandarkar needs to make it a bit more subtle.
ratnakarji…
Ek vivah aisa bhi kaafi hadh tak…
Tapasya(rakhee and prikhshit sahni) jaisi thi….
maine bachpan me ye movie DD par dekhi….
kaaf rulaya rakhi ji ne usme…..achi lagi thi…
would definitely like to see more of Sonu sood..
I really like Atul Kulkarni a lot …..
kuch kuch Guru Dutt ji jaisa lagta hain…dekhne me..
Loved him in Satta and RDB. would loved to see him with Konkona….good chemistry there(was it in page 3)
bachpan me Pyaasaa aur Kagaz ke phool dekhkar bhi bahut roye the…. was 13 and couldnt understand it fully…
I think his Mr and Mrs 55 is the most romantic movie ever….
for all at the movies raj kapoor acted in and made…he was classy in jagte raho….
is saal ranvir aur vinay ne khoob hasaaya…
Loved Mixed doubles,dasvadaniya, oh my god.., mithya want to see a lot more of these guys.
Hi Ratnakar,
Nice writing. Simple and bang on the spot. Frankly speaking, I do not like reading movies reviews because I always feel that reviewers are biased and try to impose their opinion. But yours is different or may be I just like it. Keep on writing.
Cheers
Abhishek Tripathi
@ Dnd
Yeah had seen Tapasya, it was kinda nice movie. EVAB was like Tapasya for most of the time. But after watching too many Baywatch kinda inspirations, it was refreshing to see. Jaisi bahut baar fast food khane ke baad, aapko apna daal chaawal, acha lagta hai.
I liked Atul in Satta too, he was brilliant as the manipulative politician.
Yaar i liked Vinay and Ranvir from days of Jism itself, jisme unhone John Abraham ke dost ke kirdaar nibhayi.
@ Abhi Not B
Thanks, well i try to let the readers make their opinion.
Yes EVAB was Tapasya recycled just like Main Prem Ki Diwani Hoon was Chitchor recycled.I think they learnt from their lesson gained from MPKDH.It was an atrocious recycling of an otherwise simple straight from the heart film.Whenever I think of
“Sundar Nagar” ( shot in Europe) in MPKDH, I cringe.So thankfully EVAB was atleast similar to Tapasya in treatment!!!