Tuesday, January 24, 2006
Forthcoming attractions of 2006
A good guide to the films that can be eagerly expected in 2006. I am positive that at least half of them will turn out to be real good efforts. Their box office fate however remains to be seen.
Amongst these interesting movies, my personal lookouts will be for
Adaptation of Chandra Barot’s Don by Farhan Akhtar.
Don was a terrific stylish movie and it still remains a mystery to me about the inability of Barot to come up another good movie. This was perhaps the coolest movie of 1970’s and I completey trust Akhtar's ability to churn out something on similar lines.
Adaptation of Shakespeare’s Othello by Vishal Bharadwaj with Ajay Devgan, Saif Ali Khan and Konkona Sen in lead roles.
For sure, this one will be a scorcher in terms of performances. When I saw the director’s earlier effort Maqbool, I was blown away by his adaptation of Shakespeare’s Macbeth and by the performances of Tabu, Naseeruddin Shah, Om Puri and Irrfan. But the actor who stole the show was undoubtedly Pankaj Kapur. He was class personified in his role as the ageing don, something that made me remember Brando’s performance in The Godfather. A highly under utilized actor, he gave a stand out performance.
In a similar way, I somehow feel that Saif will steal the show from the other two gifted actors, Ajay and Konkona and the director will once again put up a magnificent adaptation of Othello on the screen. Let’ see.
One thing is for sure, 2006 will surely see an interesting and varied crop of movies from Bollywood.
A good guide to the films that can be eagerly expected in 2006. I am positive that at least half of them will turn out to be real good efforts. Their box office fate however remains to be seen.
Amongst these interesting movies, my personal lookouts will be for
Adaptation of Chandra Barot’s Don by Farhan Akhtar.
Don was a terrific stylish movie and it still remains a mystery to me about the inability of Barot to come up another good movie. This was perhaps the coolest movie of 1970’s and I completey trust Akhtar's ability to churn out something on similar lines.
Adaptation of Shakespeare’s Othello by Vishal Bharadwaj with Ajay Devgan, Saif Ali Khan and Konkona Sen in lead roles.
For sure, this one will be a scorcher in terms of performances. When I saw the director’s earlier effort Maqbool, I was blown away by his adaptation of Shakespeare’s Macbeth and by the performances of Tabu, Naseeruddin Shah, Om Puri and Irrfan. But the actor who stole the show was undoubtedly Pankaj Kapur. He was class personified in his role as the ageing don, something that made me remember Brando’s performance in The Godfather. A highly under utilized actor, he gave a stand out performance.
In a similar way, I somehow feel that Saif will steal the show from the other two gifted actors, Ajay and Konkona and the director will once again put up a magnificent adaptation of Othello on the screen. Let’ see.
One thing is for sure, 2006 will surely see an interesting and varied crop of movies from Bollywood.
Thursday, January 19, 2006
The best hindi and telugu movies of 2005
Now that 2005 has gone, I am reminded of my own words penned at the starting of 2005: “May this year 2005 bring us good music, movies and books helping bloggers like me to keep penning opinions, ideas and thoughts.”
And 2005 did deliver…it brought us good movies, music and books. There are hundreds of lists out there on the net that talk about the best of these three categories. Hence, I devote my attention only to movies – a category to which I devoted much of my time in 2005 (evident by my infrequent blog posts) and try to talk about Hindi and Telugu movies that deserve to be talked about.
Hindi
Black – According to me, this is the best Hindi movie of 2005. This one movie surpassed everything else that came out of Bollywood in the last year. Very rarely does a movie come that touches a chord in almost any person who views it. A must see. Do read my review of the movie for more stuff on it.
Any my earlier anxiousness regarding the release of ‘Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi’ has been perfectly justified. It never got released here in Hyderabad! Hence, can’t talk about it or include it here. However, going by the opinion of various magazines and people, I believe that this is a movie that’s again a must-see and deserves an honorable mention in the ‘best of 2005’ list.
And that’s it! Apart from these two, there is no other Hindi movie can be talked about here.
Telugu
In my opinion, three movies were released in 2005 that showcase Telugu film makers at their best.
Nuvvostanante Nennodantana – An out and out commercial film that has a heavily borrowed storyline, this movie turned out to be the biggest hit of 2005. But that’s not the reason it figures here. It’s a perfect example of a top class commercial film that also happens to be a feel-good family movie. Complete with all the elements of sentiment, action, romance, comedy in the right proportion, the debutante director Prabhu Deva and producer M.S.Raju with liberal help from the lead protagonist Siddharth ( in a delightful performance) dished up a hard to resist concoction.
Athadu – Wow! This movie starring Mahesh as a contract killer (top class performance) was absolutely brilliant in all the technical departments, especially the photography by KV Guhan that makes this film a cinematography student’s delight. Leaving aside the technical aspects, director Trivikram tells us a tale of a reformed contract killer with utmost finesse, helped by fine performances from the entire cast.
Anukokunda Oka Roju – This director Chandra Sekhar Yeleti’s first movie ‘Aithe’ was a pleasant surprise to many viewers of Telugu movies. It was a small budget, tightly woven thriller movie with terrific screenplay that was a big success. He follows it up with this gem of a movie that again scores high marks on the screenplay. A suspense thriller (a genre very rarely exploited by the telugu filmmakers) that has tons of terrific moments, it succeeds immensely in keeping the audience clueless till the very end. The other attractions were heroine Charmee’s excellent performance and cool music by Keeravani.
All the above three movies represent the best in three different aspects. While one was a feel good family movie, the other one was a cool action movie with amazing technical expertise, where as the last one was a cool suspense thriller. In that sense, the future of telugu movies looks bright because three different types of movies were happily lapped up by the audience, giving that much needed encouragement for filmmakers.
So here’s a wish that 2006 will be even more entertaining with a better number of fantastic movies.
Now that 2005 has gone, I am reminded of my own words penned at the starting of 2005: “May this year 2005 bring us good music, movies and books helping bloggers like me to keep penning opinions, ideas and thoughts.”
And 2005 did deliver…it brought us good movies, music and books. There are hundreds of lists out there on the net that talk about the best of these three categories. Hence, I devote my attention only to movies – a category to which I devoted much of my time in 2005 (evident by my infrequent blog posts) and try to talk about Hindi and Telugu movies that deserve to be talked about.
Hindi
Black – According to me, this is the best Hindi movie of 2005. This one movie surpassed everything else that came out of Bollywood in the last year. Very rarely does a movie come that touches a chord in almost any person who views it. A must see. Do read my review of the movie for more stuff on it.
Any my earlier anxiousness regarding the release of ‘Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi’ has been perfectly justified. It never got released here in Hyderabad! Hence, can’t talk about it or include it here. However, going by the opinion of various magazines and people, I believe that this is a movie that’s again a must-see and deserves an honorable mention in the ‘best of 2005’ list.
And that’s it! Apart from these two, there is no other Hindi movie can be talked about here.
Telugu
In my opinion, three movies were released in 2005 that showcase Telugu film makers at their best.
Nuvvostanante Nennodantana – An out and out commercial film that has a heavily borrowed storyline, this movie turned out to be the biggest hit of 2005. But that’s not the reason it figures here. It’s a perfect example of a top class commercial film that also happens to be a feel-good family movie. Complete with all the elements of sentiment, action, romance, comedy in the right proportion, the debutante director Prabhu Deva and producer M.S.Raju with liberal help from the lead protagonist Siddharth ( in a delightful performance) dished up a hard to resist concoction.
Athadu – Wow! This movie starring Mahesh as a contract killer (top class performance) was absolutely brilliant in all the technical departments, especially the photography by KV Guhan that makes this film a cinematography student’s delight. Leaving aside the technical aspects, director Trivikram tells us a tale of a reformed contract killer with utmost finesse, helped by fine performances from the entire cast.
Anukokunda Oka Roju – This director Chandra Sekhar Yeleti’s first movie ‘Aithe’ was a pleasant surprise to many viewers of Telugu movies. It was a small budget, tightly woven thriller movie with terrific screenplay that was a big success. He follows it up with this gem of a movie that again scores high marks on the screenplay. A suspense thriller (a genre very rarely exploited by the telugu filmmakers) that has tons of terrific moments, it succeeds immensely in keeping the audience clueless till the very end. The other attractions were heroine Charmee’s excellent performance and cool music by Keeravani.
All the above three movies represent the best in three different aspects. While one was a feel good family movie, the other one was a cool action movie with amazing technical expertise, where as the last one was a cool suspense thriller. In that sense, the future of telugu movies looks bright because three different types of movies were happily lapped up by the audience, giving that much needed encouragement for filmmakers.
So here’s a wish that 2006 will be even more entertaining with a better number of fantastic movies.
