Jodhaa Akbar --- Movie Review

One of the biggest and mostly "awaited" movie of the year Jodha Akbar finally got released amidst some controversy . The movie is no doubt amongst the longest movie I've ever seen . The length though does not deteriorate its quality and the script demands for it . My review would also be as long as I can talk about it . The movie is one of its kind , I say so because it manages to hold people's attention for a really long time . It loses grip several times but very soon manages to gain back audience's attention . This is the reason why I felt like watching a very long but interesting TV serial of seven, Half Hour episodes , at a strech . The reason I say so because it has been dealt like that . In every Half hour slot you have 2-3 interesting scenes , 1 song and some lose scenes that can be thought of as commercial breaks .

The movie no doubt would be shown on Television in a Seven Part series some day or other . The Best thing is that Ashutosh has managed an almost Impossible task that is of keeping people awake throughout the four hours because of his capability to excite audience every now and then . The movie entirely focuses on the love story of Jodha and Akbar which again is a brave thing to do because making a period film with war element and extravagant budget and still keeping it a love story with very less violence is a very difficult task . People expect very grand war scenes in such movies with a lot of violence but such people will be disappointed . It has very less graphically violent scenes . The war sequences shown in movie disappointed me very much . Though they hired a big crew it still lacked the finesse in terms of fighting techniques . If the movie is sent for Oscars then it will show the weakness of our films in technical manner .

The movie is full of cultural practices of both Hindus and Muslims and is a crash course for the people of India and abroad on Indian Culture . There should be such movie in every 4-5 years that should remind us of our cultures else we will stop being proud of it and forget it . The movie focuses on the backlash that Akbar had to face when he decided to get married to a Hindu Rajput princess and how he manages to overcome all the opposite forces and in the process becomes a great king who respects all religions and views them in equality . The movie has managed very well to show a historical chapter in a quite interesting manner . The cast of the movie is fantastic with every character being given justice .

Talking of Acting , Hrithik Roshan has proved it once again that he not only looks and dances well but also knows how to act . His portrayal of a great King Akbar is almost perfect . A new thing I got to see was Hrithik getting angry on screen . He has never done a role of an angry person in past . Mission Kashmir had a Revenge emotion but not an emotion of pure Anger. And and actor should be able to show this emotion also and he has done it in really great manner . He has really worked hard for the movie and brought everything possible he could to his character . The thing that I didn't like was that a lot of male cast was shown with a "Gillete Clean" shave in that era when people without facial hair were considered as women . There are several such small technical glitches in the movie but the larger things that matter like Script , Screenplay and Direction were all with minimum faults .

Aishwarya was born to play historic roles and roles with period element in it . She looks very beautiful as a rajput princess and her role has the same importance as that of Hrithik's . She was horrible in her last movie with Hrithik in Dhoom 2 where only Hrithik held the show . But in this movie Aishwarya has acted at par with Hrithik . She has the charisma of a Princess . Sonu Sud has a small part but he has left a mark in that also . All of the supporting cast has also acted acted quite well . The Music is also good and has suited the movie quite well .

The Cinematography and Art Direction is top notch . The costumes and choreography is also very ethnic and authentic . Talking of the script , it is very well researched and written with utmost care . The script has clearly just focussed on the love affair between Jodhaa and Akbar and has at no point lost its track . The Editing of this movie would have been a very tough task and Ballu Saluja has done a good job .

Overall the movie is a one of its kind and its grandeur can be felt by only seeing it once . This flick is definately worth watching once . Nothing to be afraid of the length of the movie . The Direction is great and Ashutosh has managed to pull off one more good movie to his name . Nothing about it will make it a classic but its definately worth a watch . The first Indian historic film that you will experience on Dolby Sound systems and excellent Projection Systems of Today's Multiplex . Go for it .

Movie Rating : Four Stars out of Five for fantastic screen presence of Hrithik and Ash

SRK's Take 2 on Television ---- "SRK == Creativity and Business Skills"

SRK is back on Television but with a different style , yet the show still is a gameshow and will check the intellect of Indian audience . The show is titled "Kya aap Paanchvi Paas se Tez hain ? " . As the name suggests it will have questions that will be asked to adults but their level would be that of a fifth grade student . And people will see that its not easy being a fifth grader . The show is an Indian Version of " Are you smarter than a 5th grader ? "

Each game is played by a single contestant who earns money incrementally based on a payout ladder by answering simple trivia questions, with the game themed as a school quiz.

The contestant is presented and entered in textbook for the grade level of the particular question. Some questions are multiple choice or true/false; others require the contestant to answer without any options.

Each correct answer moves the contestant up a payout ladder with a final bonus fifth grade question moving the contestant up one more step to the top prize. At any point up to the final question, the contestant may quit the game after seeing the question. For the final question, the contestant must decide whether to quit after seeing only the subject; if they choose to see the question, they must answer it.

There are five "classmates" in the game of approximately fifth-grade age who also answer each question in secret by writing their answers. These answers are sometimes used to create tension when the classmates answers do not correlate with the contestant's. Additionally, the contestant selects one of the classmates at the beginning of the game to help them during the game. Each classmate can only help for two questions, and then a new classmate must be selected.

The selected classmate provides the contestant with two "cheats", each of which may only be used once. The contestant may choose to "peek" at the classmate's paper, which allows them to see the classmate's answer before they give their own (once the peek is used the contestant must answer the question); the contestant may "copy" the classmate, which automatically locks the classmate's answer in as their own. In addition, the contestant has one "save" which comes into play after the contestant gives their first wrong answer. If the classmate has written the correct answer, they save the contestant; otherwise, the game ends and the contestant loses the game and wins nothing, unless they have correctly answered five questions, at which point they are guaranteed the fifth level of the payout ladder. The cheats are not available on the final question , additionally, once all three cheats are used, the chosen classmate returns to the group and no new classmate is selected. The classmates continue to write answers for the questions, however, to be used for tension.

Upon leaving the game either by quitting, or answering incorrectly, the contestant must profess to the camera, "I am not smarter than a fifth grader."

Above information is courtesy Wikipedia and according to me they are not going to change much since the "americans" don't allow to change the format much . I don't get one thing why all Game shows have to be copied from west . Cant they make something that West can copy from us . Big stars should force these people to device something new since they hold all the power .They just don't want to take risk , follow what has been successful , even though the sensibilities of American and Indian audiences are completely different .

SRK is a true professional . He had three months off and he wanted to work as he kept on saying this on national television . He is a workaholic and workaholics are in great demand in today's world . He is in true sense an Idol for youth . Today SRK is trying his luck at anything and everything but this doesn't mean that he is just throwing himself just for money .

He is a strategist and a man with a king size dreams . His dreams are larger than his personal being and are also not selfish . I say so because he is recently involved in making Bollywood go Hi tech and make it at par with Hollywood in terms of SFX . He has recently signed people from the creators of "The Matrix" for creating a technical base in India for high quality Visual effects (VFX) . He has signed Anubhav Sinha (CASH) for directing his next venture as producer with a whopping budget of 100 Crores . He wants to create something like Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) of George Lucas of the west . Now he is also in IPL which is not only just a business proposition for him because he can't afford to lose 500 crores . He will work hard on that too and with his heart . It would be really interesting in watching SRK grow as a wholesome entertainer . No doubt in the years to come he might become a very powerful corporate as well as creative face of Bollywood . Creativity packed with Business Skills is a lethal combination and SRK has it .

My best wishes to SRK for all his ventures and I hope he succeeds in whatever he wants in life . Be as busy as you could possibly be .

Mithya --- Movie Review

The "Bheja Fry" team is back with its latest movie in the form of Mithya . The unexpected hit of the year 2007 , undoubtedly , was Bheja Fry . The one big factor in its success was its unique sounding name and other being a dull week . The week is as dull as it was during the release of Bheja Fry with only one film in competition with mithya i.e. Superstar . The name of this movie is also quite unique and so is the treatment that the Director Rajat Kapoor has given to its story . The story is quite new because of its twists and end . Else it is just the same with a little bit of thrill and romance and comedy . The best part of the team of Rajat Kapoor is that all are intelligent and fabulous actors . I mean look at the list Naseer-uddin Shah , Saurabh Shukla , Harsh Chayya ,Vinay Pathak ,Ranvir Shorey etc. etc. They all are such fine actors and never scared to do any role no matter how long or short it is .

Rajat is an intelligent man and has great sense of cinema . None of his movies in past had bad or no script and neither does this one . Mithya has an average story with an unusual ending to which Indians are not accustomed to . Thats why I call Mithya "a brave attempt " because he (Rajat) didn't care of Audience's reaction and made a film exactly according to the story and didn't manipulate it so that it gets successful . It takes courage to make a movie with a style so different from the usual style of Indian cinema . I cannot reveal whats different because it will spoil the show . Till date I have not figured out that how did Bheja Fry got successful . It was a nice movie but it had a sense of humour that would not have matched with general audience .The same will happen with this movie . If the audience that loved Bheja Fry genuinely comes and watches this movie then it will succeed for sure .

Talking of story it revolves around this simple and down to earth guy Viren who is a wannabe superstar and tries his luck in acting . The entire story moves around him and how he gets trapped in the Underworld and how he ultimately pays for it with no fault of his own . During the entire process he meets another wannabe , Neha Dhupiya and falls in love with her . The entire movie has several comic sequences which are quite genuine and not forced into . The pressure of making another successful movie was there on Rajat , after Bheja Fry , but he didn't care about that and remained faithful to the story he chose .

Acting is top notch by all actors with Ranvir shorey giving his best in his career . I never thought when he came earlier that he would turn out to be such a fine actor . One more hats off to Rajat since he is the only guy who can take Ranvir as the lead actor in a film . Neha Dhupia also acted her part well and may be learnt a thing or two in acting from such great actors . Hope she continues to do such films . Direction was great and brave which needs to be applauded and the cinematography was also quite unique . I remember the Credits of Bheja Fry . They started off with something like this "Handmade Films Present" . This movie also appears to be "handmade" with minimal use of technology . Even the credits Graphics were kept as simple as possible . No money to spent on useless things such as credits . Who cares of the credits if the movie is not good .And if the movie is good the simple credits also get noticed more than the fancy ones .

Overall the movie is worth a watch if you are open to experiment and creative freedom . The movie has everything that a genuine entertainer should have and best of it all it sticks to a good script that has been given excellent treatment by Rajat Kapoor . The film would be loved by the critics and I hope it is appreciated to some extent by the cinema-lovers .

Movie Rating : Three and a Half Star for Brave Script and fantastic acting and Direction

Trailer review --- Krazzy 4

The first film as a full time producer for Rakesh Roshan has taken shape in the form of Krazzy 4 and the movie is all set to roll out in the month of April . The Movie stars Arshad Warsi , Irfan Khan , Rajpal Yadav and Suresh Menon as a group of 4 krazzy people . The first trailer of the movie is out now along with "Sunday" and it looks like another movie with ensemble cast is set to release . The trailer of the movie is also in a movie with ensemble cast . But the difference in the two is the presence of a solo star . While Sunday has Ajay Devgan as a solo star wheras Krazzy 4 has no one in it . The movie would have to be directed really well and the script would also play a big role in its success .

Talking of the promo it gives a brief intro of the krazzy cast . The first krazy guy is Arshad Warsi who is shown crazy for Anger , probably that means he gets angry soon .
Next on the list is Irfan Khan who is crazy for Cleanliness . Then comes Rajpal Yadav who is crazy for Freedom and last but not least Suresh Menon who is simply crazy . All of them probably run from some mental institute and start their crazy n funny activities in public . All of them are crazy yet not so crazy . Their is a series of crazy n funny sequences in the trailer to show their level of craziness . Then comes in the name of probably the most important of them all , that is , the director Jaideep Sen . Jaideep has earlier worked as an assistant director to Rakesh in Krissh and also in several other films . Do not confuse him with Jaideep Sahni of Chak De fame .

Apart from these the movie also has Juhi Chawla as a Doctor and Dia Mirza . It also has Rajat Kapoor who is now seen in many movies and is a fantastic actor .
The movie doesn't have the Big stars but it does have for sure two Item Numbers from two of the Biggest stars of Bollywood , SRK and Hrithik . Combined with brilliant music of Rajesh Roshan , the movie would pull the crowd for sure initially but then it would be upto the film . The Problem with Director Producers' is that they intervene in the film making and I know they can't help it . I hope such a situation wouldn't have created that Rakesh would have had to intervene . Because when two of the guys call the shots the projects goes somewhere else and loses direction .

The Promo looks good and with the coming few days we'll no more about the movie and its music which is a big factor for any movie's success .
Check out the Promo :