The trailer of Karan Johar’s upcoming movie My Name is Khan was released yesterday on the TV channels. I checked the promo today on YouTube and was totally mesmerized by it. Kajol is looking gorgeous and extremely at ease with Shahrukh Khan as usual. Their impeccable chemistry could be felt on screen. While Shahrukh Khan, I lovingly call the character ‘A(u)rtistic’ Khan – looks incredible.

This is yet another movie made in the backdrop of 9/11 and how the main character(s) suffer due to post-9/11 paranoia regarding Muslims in North America but it explores more of a human side of the suffering. I am sure this isn’t anything hardcore and typical jingoistic flick.

It’s after such a long time that I have been excitingly waiting for the release of any film. It will come out in February 2010. In August, I had posted a blog about the First Look of the movie. This time I am posting a promo. Enjoy!

PS: I am wondering about my excitement. It could be due to:

• Shahrukh Khan, Kajol, Karan Johar trio is back after eight-nine years.
• I like Karan’s movies – the ones that he directs.
• I can’t recall when was the last time I watched SRK in a proper full length role.
• Whenever he plays a ‘different’ role – he promises something new to offer (Remember Chak De!)
• Positive vibes – and I have no explanations for that. Sometimes things instantly click!

Since last night, I was feeling so corny due to Pakistan’s unexpected exit from the ICC Champions Trophy 2009. Let’s admit whole heartedly that Pakistan’s batting was sloppy and so was their fielding otherwise NZ wasn’t that strong a team. I’m sensing quite an easy victory of Australia in the final. The yellow monster of cricket has risen again. Anyway, I don’t want to discuss cricket. As obvious from the title – I am going to unleash my view about a movie

After such a long time I enjoyed watching a chic, urban and a total commercial movie called Wake Up Sid. It’s a wonderful movie based on a simple story and thought. I totally relate to both ‘Aisha’ and ‘Sid’s’ characters. Perhaps that’s why I loved it. Konkona Sen was quite an unconventional choice to play the female lead but luckily I like her so to me she looked fine. Ranbir is becoming a better actor with every movie. I don’t have anything else to say about it except that it is (one of) the best movie(s) I’ve seen this year *Thumbs up*

Originality is a rare concept in Bollywood. Every movie that the world’s largest film industry churns out has usually predictive, borrowed and an oft-repeated script; yet once in a while, like a whiff of a fresh air, releases a movie that grips the core of one’s imagination. The latest Indian movie ‘Kaminey’ (Rascals) by Vishal Bhardwaj is one such movie. So fastened your seat belts, get ready for the wild ride and enjoy the two hours of edge-of- the-seat entertainment.

‘Kaminey’ is about twin brothers, Charlie and Guddu [Shahid Kapur] (no, they were not separated in the village fair). Three years ago the two brother who have nothing in common set on different paths and vow not to see each other again but life put them face to face in an unexpected turn of events.
Charlie, who lisps as he pronounces ‘S’ as ‘F’, have a deadly formula of shortcut for achieving things in life. One night he finds a guitar case with cocaine worth of 10 crore rupees that can set him as a professional bookie. But life never offers anything so easily and he gets himself into a deep mess. His twin brother Guddu, who stammers, works as social worker and spreads awareness about HIV but ironically ends up impregnating his girlfriend Sweety [Priyanka Chopra]. Guddu after a little reluctance marries her. But to his dismay Sweety turns out to be a sister of a local goon cum aspiring politician Bhope Bahu [Amol Gupte] who is hell bent on making Guddu’s life hard. The two brothers strive to save their necks and of their loved ones and in the process they suck deeper into the world of bookies, drug mafia, corrupt cops and gangsters.

The performance by Shahid Kapur as twins is top-notch. Forget ‘Ishq Vishq, Vivah, Jab We Met and Kismet Konnection; this is undoubtedly the best performance of his career so far where he finally managed to shed his chocolate boy image and emerged as a rough and tough man. He masters the speech defect perfectly. You can’t help falling in love with Charlie’s lisp. Every time he pronounces ‘saale’ as ‘faale’ and ‘dus’ as ‘duf’ a smile is bound to appear.

Priyanka Chopra has a short role as the screen is mostly dominated by Shahid Kapur but she does leave an impression in a role of a feisty, Marathi girl. She gets loud as required by the script but doesn’t go overboard. The surprise package is a diabetic thug cum aspiring politician played by Amol Gupte (the writer and creative director of Taare Zameen Per). His filthy look and uncouth personality is a treat to watch.

The music is ‘Dhan Te Nan’. Yes, the movie has other soothing tracks but it is the ‘Dhan Te Nan’ that topped the charts and could be heard playing everywhere. The song can more or less fall in the same league as ‘Goli Maar Bheje Main’ from the movie ‘Satya’. When I listened the song first time, I thought to give it a miss but when I heard it the second time the music grew on me. It is not easy to ignore Gulzar’s lyrics anyway. Every popular piece of work tends to invite some sort of controversy and this song was no exception. The song has lyrics ‘Til Til Tara Mira Teli Ka Tel’; the Teli Samaj found the lyrics disgusting and demanded them to be changed. Vishal’s reaction to the controversy was that he’d change the lyrics only if the hundreds of phrases related to Teli Samaj were removed from the Hindi books.

Vishal Bhardwaj, the director, writer and composer of the movie deserves accolades because stories like those are easy to conceive but in the process of filming focus can be lost easily and the end result is a sheer disappointment. He came in the limelight in 1996 with his popular song ‘Chappa Chappa Charkha Chale’ from the film ‘Maachis’ (again the Gulzar-Vishal combo) and now he don’t need any introduction. His iconoclast movies such as: Makdee, Maqbool, The Blue Umbrella, Omkara and Blood Brothers (a short movie about HIV awareness) speaks volumes about his caliber and have already established him as one of the finest filmmakers.

The movie is definitely worth a watch. IF you like pulp movies.

She’s been diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a rare form of cancer and she revealed it on her blog two days back.

Myeloma is incurable. It’s a relatively rare cancer of the bone marrow that affects about 6000 Canadians. Every year, approximately 2100 more cases are diagnosed.

I’m a junior Member in many ways, having been diagnosed at 37, while the average age is 65. Makes the disease not quite as ‘Sexy’ as other Cancers. But we can change that.

She blogs at Lisa Ray I’d be visiting her blog often – though I admit it is heartbreaking reading a young person suffering from apparently an incurable disease. Cancer is so vicious – I must say. But it is great to see that she is battling it with courage.

I hope her treatment is successful and she has a long and healthy life.

I am looking forward to this movie. First, it is Karan Johar’s movie. Second, it stars Shahrukh Khan and Kajol (the lethal pair). Third, I am hoping an electrifying performance from SRK since he’s playing the role of an autistic person called Rizwan Khan. The movie is set in America and the story as much as I know, revolves around the current discrimination, alienation and situation faced by every Muslim globally. Perhaps the same tug-of-war between a moderate and rightist. (That’s only my hunch).

Honestly, KJ has never disappointed me although I found Kabhie Alvida Na Kehna quite morbid because we are used to watching only feel good movies from him and that movie was a complete departure from his usual work.

My Name is Khan too seems different. I hope it would be a nice entertainer with sound message.

Take a first look:

I have watched many holocaust movies. All of them have certain emotional appeal. But The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is, according to me, takes you to another level of poignancy since the story revolves around two kids of the same age but of different religions. This movie doesn’t show violence. It rather tells us about the friendship and contrasting lives of two children.

The movie plot is based on the (fictional) novel of the same title written by the Irish novelist John Boyne.

In Berlin, the eight years old Bruno’s life is mostly about going to school and playing with his friends comes to a halt when his father the SS officer (Schutzstafflel) is promoted and transferred to a country. Bruno isn’t excited about moving to their new house since he has no one of his age to play with and he’s not allowed to leave his garden. From his bedroom window he spots certain people in the stripped pajamas working behind the barbed wire. Having no idea that they were Jewish prisoner being kept in the concentration camp he misunderstands them for peasants.

He wasn’t allowed by his mother to go their but one day he sneaks out to take a closer look at the people working there. He befriends a Jewish boy of his age called Shmule. They meet at the barbed wire and keep meeting until a fateful day when the lives of SS officer Ralf, mother Elsa and his elder sister Gretel change forever.

We change over the course of time. I am no exception. Like just three years ago I would watch movies religiously. There wasn’t a single movie that I had missed. Yes, even the B and C grade movies would entertain me. And now I don’t care much even if the movie is starring one of the top Khans or is a huge success. I watch it just by the way and mostly online.

I remember I was so excited about Chameli’s (the movie) release that I phoned Shabana Video (now Bilal Video) in Nishterabad a number of times to know when the movie would reach the local market. By the way, it is one of my favorite movies even today and I must have watched it ten times.

I would buy two film magazines a month and read every article, interview, each piece of news and gossip about the actors. When the internet came to my home I started visiting film and trade websites. I had become a walking, talking movie encyclopedia so much so that the amount of info I knew would amaze me.

Now when I look back at those times I marveled at the intensity of my interest. I am glad that I didn’t curb my desire to buy/collect and watch movies and magazines at that time because with time when the number of responsibilities and worries grow we distance from things that pleased us at one time.

Life’s become so entangled that I know I would never be able to regain the same sort of passion for these things at least. It will only remain alive in my memory and journals now.

PS: I opened the drawer after such a long time to take the picture and it astonished me that I have some really junk movies in my collection as well

These are basically video CDs.

A few weeks ago I watched this critically acclaimed movie based on a short story of the same title by Canadian writer Shaun Mehta. The movie is slow and mainly caters to those who appreciate serious cinema. Talking about my taste, I’ve always appreciated such movies.

The story is about an eccentric old man whose path crosses with Amal and impressed from his humility he bequeathes him his entire estate before passing away. Does Amal get the inheritance in the presence of the old man’s greedy sons? And does Amal know about how rich he could become by signing the paper is the story.

The best scene of the movie is when old man’s son is shown playing gamble in casino while on the other hand the rickshaw driver gambles with life by mortgaging his rickshaw – his only source of income.

The story of the movie impressed me too much. A young writer has written about a character – the rickshaw wala – that we usually find in Ashfaq Ahmad’s stories. The movie is fairly good. At least it is worth watching once. I’d like to read more of Mehta’s work/stories.

He is a slick filmmaker, scriptwriter, director, lyricisit and host. But he could act and sing too I didn’t know that. I didn’t like him at all initially. In fact, I am still not his die-hard fan but he can act and emote well. Though his voice is just too much stuck. So first I watched his second movie Lucky By Chance and then his debut Rock On. Lucky By Chance is about the aspiring actors and movies based on such theme usually don’t appeal to me. But that one was interesting. The script was powerful. Rock On, on the other hand, is more like Dil Chahta Hai made in the backdrop of music and rock band. But again music was not the center focus of the movie. It’s about the friendship of those four band members and their journey.

What amazed me that even with a stuck voice Farhan can sing. Well, the songs are like exactly what the rock bands usually sing. For example:

Meri laundry ka ek bill

Aik aadhi padi novel

Aik ladki ka phone number

Meray kaam ka aik paper

Mere Taash se heart ka king

Mera ek chandi ka ring

Pichle saath dino main maine khoya

Kabhi khod pe hasaa aur kabhi khud pe roya

It’s a fun song, mostly for the teenagers. I remember listening to many such songs by the Pakistani pop bands in early 90s. Tum Ho Tou is a romantic song. Almost all the songs are performed by Farhan Akhtar.

I did like his version of Don with Shahrukh Khan and I read somewhere he’s planning to make Don 2 with the same cast.

Last night, just randomly I watched this movie titled Billu Barber. I don’t wait for movies now. I don’t plan to buy them or try to be hooked to the cable in order to catch my favorite movie. I watch movies when and if I get time and desire.

I had seen the songs from that movie, all of them starring Shahrukh Khan with different heroines. The promos didn’t excite me much. So I watched this movie without any expectation. It turned out to be really nice and entertaining. The village where the movie has been shot is scenic. The acting was fine and so was the story. I could very well understand Billu’s hesitation to meet the super star Sahir Khan when the film unit comes to shoot in his village. The dialogues in the end where Billu says to Sahir that you paced in life and touched the heights of success while I remained the same old village man were wonderful and totally natural.

Sometimes simple stories appeal so much as compare to the glitter and glam that’s mandatory part of the commercial cinema.

Khudaya Khair: That’s my most favorite song. It has amazing lyrics:

Woh surmay ki tarah meri

Aankhon main hi rehti hai

Subah ke khawab se udai hai

Palkon ke neechay chupai hai

Mano na mano tum

Soote soote khawabon main bhi khawab dekhati hai