Ishqiya

Director Abhishek Choubey first assisted Vishal Bhardwaj when Vishal was shooting for the children’s film Makdee in 2002 and then was the Asstt Director for him in The Blue Umbrella, Maqbool and Omkara. Ishqiya is Abhishek Choubey’s debut film as Director. The much acclaimed Kaminey last film by Vishal Bhardwaj (Kaminey) also had Abhishek doing the screenplay. ISHQIYA sees Vishal and Abhishek teaming up with Sabrina Dhawan to write a crackling screenplay that makes for a film that is will remind you of Omkara and Maqbool in terms of its stylised story telling and powerful music. Great visuals and twists and turns that make for a brilliant film. The dialect is authentic and does not falter anywhere – not in the Bhopali Hindi nor in the Hindi that you hear in Gorakhpur where bulk of the story is set.  If you were offended by the unfiltered language of Omkara then beware there is a lot more of that in Ishqiya. Why? ‘coz that is the way the characters communicate in the film. It is way the two crooks Khalujaan (played by Naseeruddin Shah) and Babban Hussein (Arshad Warsi) communicate.  Read more

Three Idiots

What do you get when you take an author like Chetan Bhagat who writes bestsellers, a director like Raju Hirani who directs hit movies like the Munna Bhai series, an actor like Aamir Khan who knows not just how to act but also can teach many MBAs a thing or two about how to market a film to the masses? The answer is 3 Idiots. Be sure to place your bets on this movie winning several awards besides raking in big bucks for the producer Vidhu Vinod Chopra who is laughing all the way to a solvent bank (not affected by recession). Read more

Quick Gun Murugan

Quick Gun Murugan’s official website says, “Quick Gun Murugun is an unlikely Superhero with Guntastic powers. He is a sincere South Indian Cowboy who considers it his duty to serve and protect. The movie revolves around mis-adventures of Quick Gun Murugun and his fight with his arch villain Rice Plate Reddy! In 1994, a maverick called Sashank Ghosh (MBA from University of Jodhpur), left MTV to become the creative head at Channel Vand created a character called Quick Gun Murugan. Those “fillers” in between programs were a rage among the youth. Quick Gun Murugan trailers quickly became the talk of the town especially in the colleges across India. It introduced the phrase “We are like this only” as a tagline that reflected the growing comfort with Indian English. Years later in the film Om Shanti Om, Shahrukh Khan imitated this character complete it the catchphrase “Enna Rascala”! This is an out and out spoof on film heros who duck bullets, thulp twenty attackers without ruining the shirt crease. The character is said to have been inspired by MGR, the cult movie hero of yesteryears in Tamil films. Read more

Kaminey

I am a fan of writer, lyricist, music composer and film director Vishal Bhardwaj. He brings in a breath of fresh air into Indian cinema especially mainstream Bollywood. He has cracked the magic formula of making movies that are aesthetically appealing and yet are commercially successful.  Never afraid to experiemnt, Vishal is gifted and gutsy. As a director, his films Maqbool (adaptation of Macbeth, made in 2004 *ing Irrfan Khan and Tabu) and Omkara (adaptation of Othello, made in 2006) have made audience sit up and take notice. Taking great stories to the masses is a challenge. To take the complexity of a Shakespearean play and adapt it to contemporary India and yet make it appeal to a broad spectrum of audience is what Vishal does best. His literary and cinematic mentor Gulzar writes songs that play at an upmarket nightclub as loudly as they do in the autorickshaws. Omkara had Saif Ali Khan and the blockbuster song Beedi Jalai Le (watch the song here if you have not) featuring a sizzling Bipasha Basu. Kaminey has Shahid Kapur. He carries the script all the way. Read more

DevD

When Saratchandra Chatterjee the Bengali novelist (15 September 1876 – 16 January 1938) wrote the novel Devdas in 1901 (published in 1917) little did he know that 108 years later it would morph into DevD. That is the hallmark of a great story. Well this one is written by Anurag Kashyap who wrote the story for Satya (’98) and some fab dialog for movies like Guru, Yuva, Honeymoon Travels, Shool  etc. I loved Shool because even Ravina Tandon could act in that film! Read more

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