Take it with a pinch of salt (ツ)

Saturday, August 10, 2013

Chennai Express - The Good, The Bad And The Worst

When I had seen Bheja Fry when it came out in 2007, one thing had really confounded me. I didn't really understand Rajat Kapoor and his friends' sick twisted way of enjoying other people making fun of themselves. I probably wouldn't have thought about it much; but the fact that he tries to recruit Vinay Pathak, a stupid innocent gullible and likable person, as one of his "talents" to show off in front of his friends made me wonder this is something that I would never relate myself to. But, alas, the trio Rohit Shetty, SRK and Deepika Padukone didn't let me be that way...

SRK's pathetic attempt at "comedy" has led me believe that his days as Bollywood superstar are now numbered. His whole appearance throughout this turd called "a movie" sounded like a cry for help of once famous actor fallen prey to his age. All those so called "homages" to his previous hit films and mentioning of his dreaded "age" by way younger(way way younger) Deepika has reduced him to a laughing stock. I know Deepika can't act at all. But the smile she had donned while making fun of SRK's age in the movie seemed far too wide and genuine. I had to give her that one.

Speaking of Deepika's performance, who would give a person, who can't properly act, a role which involves delivering dialogues in a different accent?(Wait! The answer is indeed Rohit Shetty. Only he is "sane" enough to do such thing. But we will get to him later). But Deepika's dialog delivery has turned out to be some what OK part of this shit-storm of a movie. There is one scene in the movie that really bothered me though. She goes into full Vidya Balan mode(from Bhul Bhulaiyya) and acts all possessed for no apparent reason. I'm sure her new avatar would be the sole cause of soon to be skyrocketed Viagra sales in next couple of weeks, because she would've killed that many boners by her "performance".

Now let's move to the director himself - the vehicle hater Rohit Shetty! I'm not sure if I should praise him for making egomaniac like SRK to be so miserable and somewhat enjoyable to watch in slightly sadist way when SRK is stripped off of his glory. Or hate him for making the movie!

Shetty doesn't live up to his name. There were far too fewer car explosions this time around. Perhaps Shetty was busy removing teeth and talons from SRK's ego and reducing his role to that of a furniture, that he forgot to add some over the top explosions that public might have actually enjoyed! So for that, bravo Mr. Shetty(I guess)...

Thursday, February 28, 2013

Zila Ghaziabad - some pondering

In year 2000 when the world was celebrating Y2K a person named Bharat Shah was paying enormous sums of money to vultures(aka lawyers) to save his neck from CBI in a case which would later convict him for his connections with Mumbai underworld. He also happens to be a "diamond merchant" which happens to be just an euphemism for diamond smuggler. He was sent to prison and got out within a year thanks to that sweet sweet moolah that he had stacked up somewhere in his basement.

A casual day at Bharat Shah's house.

And guess what he is doing with the money which now is perhaps 10 folds of what it was 13 years ago? He is producing movies. The kind of movies which are nothing but a cover to convert that backer than डांबर money into whiter than Katrina Kaif money. And the reason to rant about him is to let the world know that I happen to be one of the million idiot pawns who inadvertently fell victim to Mr. Shah's shamefully blatant plan.

See!

Now that the producer's motive is unearthed lets dig deep into the actual two hour and forty four minute long shit storm which would put super storm Sandy to shame when it comes to causing havoc in people's lives. You can also call it "a movie" just because Indian sensor board let the director exercise his right to free speech and allowed the movie to play in the cinema halls all over the India instead of doing the more saner thing of putting a lifetime ban on him just so that the Indian audience would be spared from such debacles of epic proportion. The movie was actually worse than those Ajay Devgn movies which come out every Diwali to part many families from their hard earned money just because they feel that watching a मसाला film together is equivalent of spending some quality family time.

Ajay Devgan. Pictured here : about to put his hand in your pocket to grab your money!

Anyway, there is nothing to say about the story which looks like a C grade version of Gangs of Wasseypur gone horribly wrong even for a C grade movie. Actors looks like किराये के टट्टू who would put bar dancers to shame when it comes to shaking your leg(and possibly few other limbs) for few bucks. Not a single silver lining to this movie. If you want to prank someone then go ahead and let him watch the whole movie alone. I bet that will go really well...

You are welcome!

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Makkhi - stereotypicality at its best

Life of a single software engineer can be very frustrating. It hurts when others get paid more for doing less and enjoy doing so. There is only one salvage out of this misery - to vent out the anger at someone else. For a long time Bollywood was my favourite punching bag. No matter what season it is, Bollywood keeps churning out crap after crap just to be thrown back into the bottomless pit of oblivion. Giving a chance to a viewer like me to vent our his anger, frustration, caused by his own inability to better his life, at these gems(some call them "movies")

An example of a "movie"(sarcasm intended)

For last few days Bollywood is acting like a scornful mistress. I took her for granted for too long so she punished me by hitting me where it hurts the most - my solace in watching bad movies.

Right in my "solace"

Barfi, OMG, KLPD, English Vinglish and now Aiyyaa have disappointed me in a good(or bad) way. Instead of giving me pure joy of being angry at someone, they gave me the joy of spending my money on something worth watching. And boy was I pissed by that...

I want crap god-dammit!

I was so hooked onto the bad movies that I was actually hoping to waste my hard earned money to watch crap. And finally my prayers were answered. Not by a Bollywood flick but by a Tollywood one! This movie was crappy on such an epic level that they dubbed it in Hindi and converted it into a Bollywood flick.

No, not this one!

The movie that I'm talking about is Makkhi. The movie so poorly named that it won my heart(and anger) right when I heard the name. It is so simplistically ridiculous that I decided to watch it right then and there. And boy was I happy to be super pissed at someone! The movie was hilariously bad. Talk about being stereotypical! You have your typical south Indian lover boy.

This boy in love is ready to do anything for his lady. Which involves defying laws of physics by creating a flood-light out of a tin foil and a dish antenna.

At least two physicist died of heart attack after watching this!

Then there is a typical cute and cuddly good girl.

And as an antagonist there is one "rowdy" villain with kick-ass moustache and a constant frown which gives an indication of his eternal constipation.

And to top it all you have got a protagonist. A house fly!!

That's right bitches, I'm here to kick some ass!

But this is no ordinary house fly. It is the human reincarnated into a fly's body which is after the villain for some sweet sweet revenge.

And may be for some open food!

There are some antique shenanigans involved like a housefly combing its hair to look bad ass.

A housefly communicating with a human using sign language.

A housefly wearing a gas mask to counter pesticides.

There is also a Rocky like montage where this housefly works out to be stronger and nimble. The workout routine involves fly through hurdles.

Running on a treadmill.

Working out like a boss using tungsten wires in an incandescent light bulb.

The end of this workout is insanely dramatic breaking of tungsten into pieces by sheer brute force.

The housefly gets prosthetic claws which would make even Wolverine jealous.

This housefly is so bad ass that it can wield weapon ten times its size and can give you nightmares for rest of your miserable life.

It can out fly even the wickedest looking sparrow in the world.

Angry birds my ass!

You can't even kill it with a bullet. Bullet can't touch him. Apparently this housefly is Neo from The Matrix and can dodge bullets in slow motion!

P.S. : Just two words - Thanks Bollywood! :-P

Saturday, July 21, 2012

The Dark Knight Rises - Truth Behind The Sham

It is always intriguing how some people are exalted to the level that any critique about them is received with anger and mindless defence. People lose their reason and whatever sportiness that they have when it comes to defending their demigod. I heard this one incident about one South Indian ~~star~~ Megastar Chiranjeevi. This happened when Chiranjeevi starred in Telugu remake(Shankardada MBBS) of hit Bollywood movie Munnabhai MBBS. Hindi movie had a scene where Jimmy Shergill slaps Sajay Dutt. Makers of Shankardada MBBS wanted to include similar scene in their movie where Chiranjeevi gets slapped by some random dude. Everything would have been Hunky Dory if it weren't for few overzealous fans of Chiranjeevi who objected to the scene. When I say "objected" I mean they went berserk and started vandalizing public properties and other "normal" stuff that goes around in India in case of public unrest. The reason they gave deserves the most ridiculously plain worded reason of all time award. They didn't want to see their Megastar getting slapped on screen!

Chiranjeevi fans - devoid of reasons as always...

I heard about this thing couple of years back and just shrugged it off and let it go as this was just another South Indian movie. But when I saw The Dark Knight Rises(TDKR) yesterday I couldn't help but wonder is this trend of demigod-ifying your favourite actor/director passed on to Hollywood from Tollywood? People have been waiting for TDKR and their have been predictions that its sheer awesomeness might end this world. Well, bad news, it didn't. And the movie sucked too.

No matter how awesome the teaser poster was, the movie sucked!

I don't mean it was the worst movie ever. It was mediocre at best. People wanted to watch the movie that they wanted to watch and not the movie that was shown to them. The movie was unbearably slow and flat out boring but people had already made up their minds about this movie. And with their preconceived notion they "liked" the movie a lot. Not because the movie was good. But because they wanted to "see" a good movie.

It's like inception of bullshit!

Let's take a look at the movie. It's 164 freaking minutes long! And the length is not the worst part. The slow pace with with movie moves(or rather doesn't move) forward is. Christopher Nolan apparently forgot that he was making a fast paced action masterpiece. Instead we got sluggish mediocre-piece.

Things moving faster than TDKR - a turtle...

The interactions between Michael Cain and Christian Bale were the worst. Especially the part where Cain gets overly emotional and tells Bale about his daily routine where he goes to some shitty restaurant for breakfast and expects to see Bale with some chick across the table. The problem with this scene - 1. It was so over-dramatic that you could smell its smugness from miles away. 2. This scene made the end so predictable and we knew what would happen at the end. Surprise! Surprise! Cain's day-dream comes true.

Michael Cain - smugness level 9000!

Christopher Nolan forgot what made The Dark Knight one of the best movies of all time. It was the main antagonist and how the protagonist handles the whole situation. And what we see in TDKR? We seen Bane. Who is not terrifying and no stranger we should be afraid of. All thanks to the promotional photos that Nolan and gang posted all over the internet.

WTF??!

See what I mean! This is the picture which makes your main villain look less villainy and more cute and cuddly. The kind who you want to hang around with having a good laugh. The same kind of laugh Batman(who is supposed to fight this madman) is having with him at this very exact moment.