Saturday, February 23, 2008

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

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

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 .