It is 4am in the morning, and I’m still awake. Aimless, Purposeless, I’ve stayed up yet another night. Right now, I’m listening to the song “ Yeh Zindagi Bhi” from Zoya Akhtar’s delightful movie ‘Luck By Chance’. Like its source, the movie, the song,as well as the other songs from this movie, ‘Raahi Re’, ‘Pyaar Ki Dastaan’ and ‘Sapno Se Bhare Naina’), are extremely underplayed. The restraint, the setting limits to its desires to be noticed was the best thing about this Zoya Akhtar endeavor. Also, I remember ushering in the year 2009, in a very lacklustre way, alone in my room, under my blanket, with my Chemistry books, and with this song (or these songs) plugged into my ears. The night was angst-ridden. I was getting nowhere with my Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics, and school-final exams were just two months away. I remember having made myself a bucket-list of things I wanted, and goals I wanted to achieve in the year 2009. I am not an innately lucky person. Things are not necessarily fairy-tale for me. Yet then, and without much hard work from my side, I have been able to(touchwood) achieve and attain everything I’d set out to that evening, even with two more months left for this year to wither away…
“Jo palkon ke tale, hai apne sapne leke chalein, yeh keh do who chale sambhal ke,
Na kar na koi gile, kahin jo thokar aise lage, ke sapnein toote, aasoo chhalke”…
Speaking of ‘Luck By Chance’, I simply adore Konkona Sensharma. Not only is she a brilliant actor, but she is also a very intelligent girl. The decision to not limit herself to neo-realistic, pseudo-intellectual, intellectual, regional-intellectual and renowned-directors’ movies, and to reach out to the mainstream through ‘Luck By Chance’, ‘Wake Up Sid’, ‘Life In A Metro’ is certainly taking her places. Along with the glamorous and undeniably-beautiful Katrina/Priyanka /Bipasha/Kareena , Konkona too is one of the most sought-after actresses of mainstream Bollywood today.
Consequent to a ‘conspiracy theory’, a non co-operation movement launched by my PC, Laptop, BSNL Broadband, iPod and iTunes ever since I returned from my fortnight-long tour of the ‘Land of Gods’-Himachal Pradesh, I’ve been unable to watch any of the movies I’d downloaded and had been intending to watch, like ‘Rear Window’, ‘Pierrot Le Fou’, ‘P.S.I Love You’, ‘Chungking Express’ and ‘New York’. This misfortune has however been amply compensated by the three movies I watched in the theatres(read multiplexes) in the last one week. ‘Wake Up Sid’, ‘Inglourious Basterds’ and ‘What’s Your Rashee?’
‘Wake Up Sid’ evoked a lot of Lakshya-related deja-vu. The movie was a nice watch, however. It never took itself too seriously, and its efforts in conveying a ‘message’ weren’t too ‘in-your-face’. I liked fluid pace, and the lack of majorly convoluted subplots, and build-up of retrogressive and/or clichéd dramatizations of circumstances. Also, for what is probably the first time in a big-budget Hindi movie, the lead actors repeated their costumes. Konkona and Ranbir both were easy and charming, but since it was majorly Siddharth’s world that was being dealt with, Aisha’s character remained half-baked. And Rahul Khanna, once again, saddled once again with a the-guy-who-loses-out-on-the-girl’s-affection role after ‘Love Aaj Kal’ dazzled in his bit role.
‘Inglourious Basterds’ has not replaced ‘Kill Bill’ or ‘Pulp Fiction’ to become my favorite Tarantino movie. Having said that, I loved every moment of the movie for there was no mistaking the quintessential Tarantinoisms throughout the entire running time of the movie. The director retains his himselfness all through. The performances by Brad Pitt, Christoph Waltz, Michael Fassbender, Eli Roth, Diane Kruger, Daniel Brühl, Til Schweiger, Mélanie Laurent, the generous sprinkling of humor elements, the portrayal of women as masterminds of the French and German resistance, the justifiability of the sadism behind the Basterds’ modus operandi- these are a few among the many reasons why the movie could very well become a cult-favorite among the classes and the masses. Out of all the actors, the two lesser-known faces, Christoph Waltz whose diabolical performance as Hans Landa blends monstrous malice and seductive charm, and Melanie Laurent as the intelligent, intriguing and a master-plotter Shoshanna Dreyfus especially stand out. If you do not watch this movie, it would have greater negative repercussions than the inability of scalping a 100 Nazis would have to an I.B.
‘What’s Your Rashee’ was a carelessly made movie. Ashutosh Gowariker’s( the maker of the brilliant ‘Lagaan’, ‘Swades’ and ‘Jodha Akbar’) decision to foray into the rom-com genre was evidently a fatal mistake. For when you’re watching a movie with a flavor of history, or with an aroma of patriotism, a three-and-a-half hour duration can be tolerated. A rom-com of the same duration would however, without fail, fail to engage the audience, especially when the content is no patch on Lagaan, Swades or Jodha Akbar. It wasn’t entirely a bad movie, but the inclusion of inane, illogical, Rohit Shetty, David Dhawan-esque subplots tarnishes the impressive capacity of the entire movie. Harman Baweja is receding into being a greater non-actor with every movie. His voice and accent would get on anyone’s nerves. The music isn’t bad, though. And then there’s Priyanka Chopra, once again turning in an honest, earnest, effortless, dazzling performance(or twelve performances ?). She is the sole saving grace of the movie, the only reason why I would tolerate the entire movie. She single-handedly does to the film what twelve different actresses could have collectively done. Sounds biased? Not my problem.
Enough for now. I have a lot more on my mind, but won’t say much more in this post.
.jpg)
