Lafangey Parindey

One more gaaliful title….after Kaminey and 3 idiots (LOL), this time from Yashraj Films starring Deepika Padukone as Pinky Palkar and Neil Nitin Mukesh as One shot Nandu.
The movie starts with a fight club like scene with Nandu winning with his trademark single shot which has earned him his title. He gets bashed up like no one’s business and is always blindfolded. He then lands the Kayo punch just when his opponent thinks he has won the bout and has let down his guard. Making money out of these fights is Usman Bhai (Piyush Mishra). Pinky meanwhile is seen skate dancing around in an abandoned house with her colleague in a pristine clean Mumbai chawl (how typical Yashraj).
One rainy night, in a freak accident Anna (Kay Kay Menon) is killed after being sent out to kill a business rival and Pinky also loses her eyesight. Surprisingly, the rest of her body is scratchless….Teflon coating tha kya?!?!?! Taking her of her medical expenses is the secret angel Nandu thru her so-called brother Chaddi (Namit Das). Pinky is unperturbed post her loss of eyesight and wants to continue her efforts for a dance reality show which would mean instant fame and passport to a better life. But alas, her partner is not so understanding and eventually backs out. Nandu meanwhile decides to help her improve skills to compensate for her lack in eyesight. How? Since he fights blindfold…Why? Isn’t it obvious…. And also becomes her dance partner, on skates, while teaching her how to judge distances with ringing bells, sacks of fish and hens.
Soon, as predictable as ever, they reach the finals and in the process fall in love as well. On a parallel track, the cops investigate Anna’s death and linked somewhere is Pinky’s accident. The moment of truth is revealed to her just when she is about to perform, but that does not deter her a teeny weensy bit.
And all’s well that ends well!!!
What worked? – Nothing much….maybe some of the dialogues which maybe original
What didn’t: quite a lot
A Mumbai chawl that’s well landscaped and too clean
Neil’s out of place with Marathi;
Deepika still can’t act, dance and use her height to her advantage
Very thin storyline…nothing outstanding; too much Marathi used which looks fitted in for the sake of it.
Music – not worth remembering
My rating: 2/5 - we can soon find this being telecast on First time on Indian Television category

Aisha

Legendary Anil Kapoor has finally launched his own production company with “Aisha”, but completely executed by his younger daughter Rhea Kapoor.
Aisha (Sonam Kapoor) is a bubbly, vivacious girl whose sole purpose in life is match-making among her closest set of friends/relatives. Courtesy: She was instrumental in setting up the match between her maasi (Anuradha Patel) and an army guy. Aisha drives around Delhi in a Beetle, shops whenever she feels like it and is always glammed up along with her best friend Pinky Bose(Ira Dubey). Her dad even sweetly admonishes her spending but also pays the bill….. why can’t we all have dads like this?Randhir Gambhir (Cyrus Sahukar) a scion of a successful mithai house, is besotted by Aisha.
Enter Shefali (Amrita Puri), a girl from Bahadurgarh who is a complete behenji, who Aisha thinks will be perfect for Randhir. She gives her a complete make-over, but gets ridiculed by Arjun Burman (Abhay Deol) for being meddlesome. And Aisha cannot stand him, thinks he’s a corporate slave, and is uncomfortable with his firang friend Aarti (Lisa Haydon – Angelina Jolie look alike).
Just to spice up things, Aisha gets together with Dhruv (Arunoday Singh), her maasa’s beta. Dhruv, is a super flirt and has the good looks to support his intentions. Just to get out of Delhi and avoid Arjun, she n Shefali even go with Dhruv to Mumbai, where she tries match-making between Shefali and Dhruv.
In a weird twist of tales, Pinky calls her bitchy. Arjun is protective of Shefali and Aisha is left alone. She then goes to the wrong party t confess her love….and then everyone is happy ever after.
It reminds me of Clueless in most parts, and good ol’ Bollywood masala for the ending.
What I like:
Sonam’s Clothes and looks – she looks wow
Abhay Deol – very natural and effortless acting. He certainly is the best looking Deol. (his dance moves have not been tested though)
Music – very refreshing, but needs some time to get used to. Only Gal Mitthi Mitthi bol is catchy enough.
What I didn’t like: Predictable story
My rating: Just about average – one time watch for all the hype

Inception

Inception is one of those movies, where if you blink, you may end up missing a crucial link in the storyline. You may even forget to chomp on your popcorn or sip your drink, but blink you may not want to.
Cobb (Leonardo Dicaprio ) is accused of intending to murder Saito (Ken Watanabe) after being found on the seashore with a gun and a curious top- the kind that spins. Just when you think that this is another random story of espionage and conspiracy, there is a twist which shows a riotous crowd and Cobb being shaken awake to no luck.
The scene then shifts its focus to Cobb and him wanting to get back to his family. Saito promises him one last extracting assignment and freedom as his payment. Cobb first goes back to his father-in law for help, to get a replacement as an extractor. What does an extractor actually do? An extractor taps a person’s thoughts when they are in a dream like state, leads them to believe certain thoughts and can even change their mind. But this is a technique that does not come easily, and requires out of the box, a different plane imagination. He finds an able student in an architect and he starts his preparation on the last assignment.
The assignment given by Saito is that he needs Cobb to create an inception in the mind of Robert Fischer (Cillian Murphy), a business rival, taking the meaning of industrial conspiracy/espionage to a whole new level. The team eventually starts the project on a long 10 hour flight which Fischer takes to go meet his father, who’s on his deathbed.
Complications arise as Cobb’s wife keeps turning up, lowering his defenses which worries the young architect. Alternately Fischer creates his own defense mechanisms making way for those subtly inserted action sequences that suddenly seem out of place.
The screenplay and the visual effects shoulder the script very well. The entire cast has been well thought of with the icing on the cake being the role of Cobb played by Leonardo DiCaprio. Have not seen a movie with s simple concept but presented elaborately, without the mental agony of figuring out the predictability of the plot.
The entire movie keeps you on the edge with concepts like dream within a dream and how if you die in a dream, you end up with complicated results. You also need to have an object that allows you to differentiate between reality, your dream and someone else's dream. The climax is very well spun and is in line with the whole theme and gets a wee bit dragged out in an attempt to show the concept of multi-layered dreams among a group of people and who need to wake up exactly at the same moment.
My rating: 4/5

Aisha, We are family

Trailer of Aisha - releasing this August: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ugdn5sG4gVU
Trailer of We are Family - this September: http://in.movies.yahoo.com/video-play.html?video_id=4417

I Hate Luv Storys

IHLS is another product from the Dharma Productions, encouraging young and new talent. This time it is Punit Malhotra, nephew of the famed designer Manish Malhotra (who designs and makes all of K Jo’s cast look like they’ve just descended from heaven)
IHLS starts with Jay Dhingra (Imran Khan) who just cannot stand the mush that his boss Veer Kapoor(Sameer Soni – spoofing Karan Johar) makes and believes in. He thinks all the movies are just recycled with different actors with slight difference in the drama and location. He bumps into Simran (Sonam Kapoor) during one boring assignment of his and they start on the wrong foot. Next thing he knows, is that Simran is the Production Designer of the latest movie Veer is making, and Jay is her assistant.
Simran is one of the typical characters who we could have seen in movies from the Yashraj banner, Karan Johar movie; all mush…loves pink and romance. She has a long standing relationship to Raj (Sameer Dattani – whose character is somewhat like Subodh of DCH) and Jay thinks they are all too filmy to be true. Raj and Simran always are seen in clothes that have been coordinated, that somewhere you think they could’ve been twins rather than lovers. They even have a funda like ,”We don’t drink on weekdays”. For someone to be playing Raj on the lines of SRK, needs to be really good and convincing. All that this Raj comes up with is expensive gifts and a white flower everyday
While they’re getting to know and work with each other, Jay and Simran start covering up for each other she even starts noticing major differences in their personality that she can’t helpthinking about Jay every time she’s wth Raj .Simran think she’s in love with Jay,who does not believe in the concept of love. She confesses her feelings for him only to be turned down.
The scene then shifts to the outdoor location of the movie they both are part of, where Jay discovers his feelings for her and confesses. But this time she says no. After a few glycerin induced moments which kind of span about 30 min of the movie, which can make you get up and shake these two up and say “ Go and get a grip of yourselves”, and a dramatic enlightening moment, they finally get together.
What I liked:
The breezy first half which showed the chemistry of Imran and Sonam
Sonam’s presentation
Clichéd filmy moments
The title track set in the beaches of Goa, and the track “Jab Mila Tu”. The other 3 tracks are hummable
What bored me:
The 2nd half, where the movie just was showing me a moping Sonam and Imran.
Imran’s acting has gone on a downward spiral; all the promise he showed in Jaane tu…ya jaane na and the kind of gene pool he’s part has disappeared. He has concentrated more on getting a good lean look and lost all faculties of his facial muscles
Sameer Dattani –why does the third angle to a love triangle have to be such a loser, that it’s obvious?
My rating: Average (3/5) – it’s good for an audience which loves the romantic movies from YRF, Dharma with the chiffon and snow

Awaiting... Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

November 2010 and July 2011 - Last (2)installments in the Harry Potter series in 3D

http://youtu.be/Yp5IggAXBa4

Raavan

Raavan
Mani Ratnam is always known for his hatke take on absolutely normal topics and spin a magnificent visual around it with the music of A R Rahman. From the likes of Roja, Dil Se, Alaipayuthey, Thiruda Thiruda,Guru etc he has now given us Raavan.
Raavan stars Aishwarya Rai Bachchan (Ragini – Sita), Vikram (Dev – Ram), Abhishek Bachchan(Beera – Raavan), Govinda (Sanjeevani – Hanuman) , Priyamani (Jamunia – Soorpanakha) and of course Nikhil Dwivedi and Ravi Kissen.

The movie starts with a visual of Hogenakkal falls and Beera contemplating a jump. And in the next scene, shows Ragini taking a leisurely boat ride, complete with a music player, taking in the scenery. She then gets kidnapped and the next thing she is aware of is she is in the clutches of Beera. Here starts the agony of a ardent Mani Rathnam follower… for a while all that happens is she struggles to escape, slips, gets bruised and challenges Beera into killing her. Random songs, which are uninspiring, which made me think if Rahman was in a coma while composing music for this movie. Dev starts his search and encounters Sanjeevani (the multiple times suspended specialist Forest Guard who really has taken his Hanuman role too seriously). Reluctantly, Dev allows him to accompany the search for Ragini, since he alone knows the way of the jungle.
Few encounters later, the first half of the movie is suddenly over and it is time for the best thing in a movie – popcorn and a soft drink. The 2nd half takes us deeper into the search for the elusive Beera and eventually Ragini. Then the motive of her kidnapping is revealed (thankfully, or the movie would have looked like a rain forest documentary). Since violence is not the solution to any problem, a peacemaker is sent from Beera to Dev, whom Dev promptly kills. This results in a blood bath and a breathtaking, gravity defying one-on-one fight sequence later, Ragini is rescued and reunited with Dev.
But Dev doesn’t seem all excited about seeing Ragini again and suspects her of infidelity. Asks her to go through an Agni Pareeksha – polygraph test. Ragini is shocked at the allegation and decides to leave him. For the ending, you will have to see the movie, but am not sure if you think it is worth the effort.
The only good part of the movie was the location. It was breathtaking, thanks to Santosh Sivan’s cinematography.
Ash was looking very bored most of the time and she’s anyways not on my list of fave actors.
Abhishek used the make-up budget that would normally be used on Ash. He would have amazing skin in his forthcoming releases, thanks to all the Multani Mitti that he had to use. He plays the Raavan with a half his heart in gold, which longs for Ragini. And when he does not how to express himself , he does a “jhig-jhig-jhig-jhig” or “ bak-bak-bak”. Since when did the world know men to be very expressive
Vikram’s role was a very sporadic one. He is Raam with a lil bit of Raavan in him
Govinda did complete justification to his role and whatever screen presence he was given.
Story and music was a huge disappointment
Only 3 songs I could remember and that too not something I would recall quickly & completely like I usually do – Behne de, Ranjha Ranjha and Beera (still didn’t understand the situation of the song)
Agree with Rajeev Masand’s verdict on this movie - 1.5/5