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Saturday 11 August, 2007

Sholay-The Best Hindi movie i ve ever seen or rather ever made...



"यह हाथ नही फासी का फंदा है ,यह हाथ हमका देदे ठाकुर "

Pardon me for my delay in watching a movie as great as "Sholay", when i am 20 something...i really regret watching it soo late...regret enjoying such a masterpiece after being made about 3 decades back...not being able to rejoice a 4 hour long beauty in the cinema halls as a youngster(if i could)...regret whistling for those power -packed dialogues....regret not being able to watch it on the 70 mm screen where it truly deserves to be worshipped..... i have fallen in love with this movie..
I feel too small a mortal to give a review on this movie but i definetly want to bring out all the flavors in this movie which made me soo happy watching this bollywood masterpiece...The two characters i terribly (sorry for my adjectives) enjoyed are Thakur-essayed with great elan by Sanjeev Kumar।Watching this movie made me fall in love with Sanjeev Kumar all over again-i loved him from days i watched his movies like Manchali,Silsila and the others of those times.And the other undoubtedly being Gabbar by Amjad Khan..he was worth a watch in his debute...not once did i feel that this might have been his first movie..his first taste of the silverscreen...his slippery dialogues...his boisterous laugh all fit perfectly in this already perfect movie... Believe me i would have watched a zillion spoofs of nearly every scene in this movie before watching it today...i would have seen soo many rip offs of the particular scenes in this movie but while watching the movie-i felt like i was watching every scene for the first time.. like i was feeling every scene for the first time ,every dialogue,every location,every everything...the first time!!!

There are very few Hindi movies which have a realistic effect all throughout...and this is definetely one of those...

*You want to feel the desperation of Thakur to have Gabbar alive..
*You want to feel the pain of Radha..the pain of loosing your husband and his immediate family soon after ones maritial status coming along..
*You want to feel the anger of Veeru when Jai-his best friend through thick and thin is dead..
*You also want to believe that just 2 people(Jai and Veeru) are enough to fight the army of dacoits around them..
*You also want to believe that yes....Thakur can fight against Gabbar with just his legs and his head alone ;)

Thats not all....generally when ur watching a movie your either sympathetic towards hero and his good men or towards the villan and his bad boys ..but this is one movie you would love both the sides...because both of them are brilliant and effortless in their own way...
The script being strong does justice to every character and every situtation shown..
The music feels appropriate- no unnecesary songs to prolong the movie..and the best part of the music is that there is minimalistic background score-which gives the viewer soo much attention and lets him feel the scene till the very end.And also unlike the movies of those days no sounds of "dishoom dishoom":)....
The setting seems perfect for us to picturise the gang of dacoits exploiting Ramgad.....
The part which i loved the most...the only mode of transport shown all throughout being primarily -horses....It was amazing to see every scene being shot with these 4 legged beauties which gives such a realistic feel to this movie...
And also nothing would make this movie as good as it is without the superb dialogues by Javed Akhtar, one of my favourite dialogue from this movie-
"
यह रामगढ के आदमी अपने बेटियों को ,कौन चक्की का अता पीसते है रे !!!!!
" Wow what a dialogue!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hats off to Ramesh Sippy and his crew for brewing up such a phenomenal movie....It was soo worth the 4 hours i spent on my comp today ...

Honestly i am very apprehensive of watching Ram Gopal Varmas -Sholay...It couldnt have got better than the original..but this chain of thoughts will be another post :)

Saturday 4 August, 2007

Parking Troubles

Ever felt frustrated because of some unkonwn stranger(s),whose lack of common sense affecting you?Someones lack of discipline annoying you?making your life miserable for a while?????
Well i had such an evening yesterday,a cool Saturday evening to venture out for a long drive and do some amount of shopping left me feel so harrowed for around 35 mins-thanks to no parking space.This place -the soo called most well planed suburb of South Bangalore was stinking with overpopulation of cars.Worst then that was the annoying habit of shoppers to park cars on both sides of a narrow road,when parking is only on one side of the road.The lanes being wide enough to allow just 2 average size cars to move simultaneosly at a time..it was an annoying experience to find a place to park my car..And adding to all this are the One-ways on every other road..!!!!
All this leaves one to park their car about 2 kms from where they need to visit,and the whole purpose of driving a vehicle around is lost...

Wednesday 1 August, 2007

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows



To keep the reviews going..heres the second one.And this is on the latest arrival on the book stands..Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Am sure this book needs no explicit description,this was one of the most awaited books of 2007. J.K.Rowlings 7th and the final baby in the family of the Harry Potter series.

If i were to describe this book in just one word...it would be very easy ,and i would pick the term 'Disappointing'.Well if you are a hardcore Harry Potter fan,one who is blinded by the deeds of this extra-ordinary boy ,one who just wants to know who dies Harry or Voldermoth ,then am sure you would disagree me,but if you are a prolific reader,who is looking for something beyond the packaging strategy used by J.K.Rowling,then am sure u'll readthis article along.
Now why i call it a disappointment is basically for the fact that it had nothing new in terms of contributing to the story .We all knew from the last book(a painstakingly long one i must admit) that Harry was given a mission by Dumbeldore i.e to kill all the remaining Horcruxes.The story just keeps getting dragged from the page one till where Harry reaches the task and also gets to find out one of the vital Horcruxes being he himself.
Another reason why i use the 'D' word for this book is that,there was just one new concept which was brought in the whole book which the reader was never exposed by Rowling(in her previous books),the whole idea of -'The Deathly Hallows',-The Invisibility Cloak,The Resurrection Stone and The Elder Wand ,the combination of all of which will enable one to overpower death.This was a novel twist (Horcruxes v/s Hallows) brought into this seemingly boring story but i felt that Rowling was confused all throught out whether to add this concept as the vital part of the story or leave it just as a myth.She introduces this in the later half of the book,stirs up some curioisity but the whole thing fades off from the reader because she couldnt maintain whether she wanted to add it to the story or not.
The third and the most vital reason why i call the book a let down,is that she takes a lot of liberty in the concept of magic and tries to overuse it,there were times in the book where i felt that she made the book melodramatic to a very great extent.The whole concept of accepting death by Harry which makes 'He-Who -should-not be -named' turn into a purer, rejuvinated soul-looks like a plot picked up straight from some Bollywood movie.Meeting the dead Dumbeldore in the third world and trying to gain answers to unknown questions were some of the liberties which the author took on the readers magical understanding.
Also what put me into serious thinking over Rowlings creativity were the names of Harrys kids...they are called Albus,James and Lily.Its nice that she wanted to hold a connection between the past and the future but i think it was a little over the roof..to use a more colloquial terms-'Bollywoodish ;)'
I would still stick to the fact that its a nice fictional journey created by Rowling which gripped the reading world all together but she should have made the end as good as the beginning itself.We have all lived the life of Harry while reading the book so its fair enough if we were asking for something better.