I saw this sequel to Before Sunrise a few days back but kept putting off writing about it. I couldn’t make up my mind about several things. Let’s give it a try now.

I can’t comment if it is better then Before Sunrise — the comparison would be unfair; apples to oranges. Before Sunrise was about romanticism, this was about pragmatism; that was about idealism, this is about reality; that was almost a perfect fantasy, this reflected a bitter truth.

The movie — standalone — is a great piece of art, no doubt. The writing, which was the highlight of the first movie, is as good and keeps the conversation engaging. It differs vastly in the setting and plot and thereby, theme. Jesse and Celine, now 9 years older, meet once again in a European city — Paris, this time — and once more, Jesse has a few hours before he flies out of Europe.

Jesse is married with kids now; Celine, in a steady relationship. The characters are mature and have changed with time since they last met. They still hit it off in the same old way, trying to be like the person they were 9 years earlier, but the masks soon wither.

The first movie had an open end. In fact, it reflected the thinking of the audience — if you were an optimist, you’d think that would meet — as decided — after 6 months; a pessimist would, well, be pessimistic. Still, the end came across as positive. In Before Sunset, they are both not exactly happy with their lives and partners; the question of what-could-have-been still lingers, but they know the time to find out has long gone. They accept things as is, live a few memorable moments and part. It leaves you with a pinch at the end, because the question of what-could-have-been is not just unanswered, it just ceases to matter anymore. The movie, accordingly, ends sooner than expected — well before they part — because it has no significance anymore.

We still have no clue if they’ll be great together, but as shades of reality appear, we suspect that there is — after all — no ideal relationship. At the end, they are all deviations from a non-ideal one. That is probably why most movies end where they do, in a moment of happiness or closure, without probing further. That is why most songs end where they do, when the music is back home, at the ‘home’ chord/note/scale.

Technically, I didn’t have any complaints. The script was written by Richard Linklater and the lead actors, Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy. It makes a difference when the lead actors pen the script, for they have lived the characters and know the thought process of the characters better (assuming they are good actors). I saw this happen in more than just a couple of scenes — my thought process was exactly how the next dialogue went. The uncut long scenes were a joy : I often realized well into the conversation that the scene was uncut. Editing is minimalistic, done only when absolutely essential. Acting is superb, without seeming forced (something Sonali Kulkarni often does — forced good acting).

I strongly recommend both movies to everyone. If nothing, you’ll get food for thought.

*

An extremely silly joke that I couldn’t resist : Why does the director of Before Sunrise/Set hate static libraries ?

A : Because his name is Richard ‘Link-Later’.

OK sorry, I’ll stop.

Sonu Nigam features prominently in a music album (3 Idiots) after many years. He has been in hibernation for the last 3 years — even announcing his retirement from singing due to lack of quality work. Perhaps that announcement was directed at music directors so they would stop seeking him for uninspired numbers. I’m sure he wanted to maintain a high level of quality but looking at his recent works – Yuvvraaj, Blue and especially, 3 Idiots — I am in favour of Sonu Nigam retiring from Hindi film music.

Until he gets a challenge.

I know my bit about music, and I have no doubt that Sonu Nigam is the most talented singer Hindi cinema has at this moment. There are more skilled, more accomplished singers, but Sonu is far superior as a playback singer (strictly).

His formative years were spent mimicking Rafi saab, the next few in tearful songs for Gulshan Kumar movies and a few more getting a foothold in the industry. Since then, he was quick to rise up and gave some wonderful songs, a lot of them for A.R. Rahman. His acting remains pedestrian, but the stint helped his mimicry skills. Not many know, but he is a superbly talented mimicry artist — often mimicking singers from Adnan Sami and Kailash Kher to Lata Mangeshkar and Usha Uthup.

He has some superb songs in Meenaxi, Bose – The forgotten hero and his recent album, Classically Mild. Besides these sporadic gems, he has been largely disappointing.

This is where regional cinema steps in. Few Hindi music directors could give him a challenge, and singing in an alien language is in itself some effort. I’m not surprised that he has done well there, while not butchering the language, as other ‘outsiders‘ often do.

I’m posting some songs of his non-Hindi songs — judge for yourself.

First, HirwA Nisarga from NavrA MAzA NavsAchA. Note how he sings the ‘cha‘ (as in ‘chamcha‘ — the Marathi word, not Hindi). The language isn’t seamless, but I am not sure if someone who doesn’t speak Marathi often can do any better.

This also reminds me of an anecdote related to the song Ashwini Ye Na (the video is hilarious — mostly unintentional), Kishore Kumar’s only (?) Marathi song. Kishore Kumar was terrified of singing in Marathi (not because of the MNS — they were infants then), because he could never get the pronunciation of ‘cha‘ right. He agreed only after Sachin, the director, and the lyricist assured him that his lines wouldn’t use the syllable ‘cha‘. I went through it fleetingly, and it seems true.

Back to Sonu Nigam, he has been active on the Kannada circuit lately, starting with the 2006 blockbuster Mungaru Male. He also released a Kannada album this year. From the few Kannada songs I heard, this one I liked best : Ninnindale from Milana.

The south-Indian singing style is unmistakable. I asked about the pronunciation to a Kannada-speaking friend : he agreed Sonu Nigam was miles ahead of other non-Kannadiga singers. It wasn’t perfect — which I believe is very hard to achieve — but Sonu Nigam was close.

I still wish his best songs were in Hindi, but I don’t mind following non-Hindi songs in the hope that he might reinvent himself and show his potential — as he did in Classically Mild.

Thanks to Raghu, Srikanth for inputs.

Update : Gradwolf, in the comments below, points me to Varayoo Thozhi from Jeans. The song is decent, but once more — pronunciation.

Feel free to write in with other non-Hindi songs of Sonu Nigam.

I’ve wanted to see Before Sunrise and its sequel Before Sunset for many days now — today I caught up with Before Sunrise. I’ve often complained about bad writing in my reviews. The reason : you can act and direct as much as you want, but a weak script can’t be an engaging movie. Before Sunrise shows what a superb script can do.

I’m finding it so hard to pin down the theme in one sentence — maybe the plot was so strong. The plot : an American guy (Jesse) and a French girl (Celine) — strangers —  meet on a train one evening. Jesse has a flight out of Europe the next morning. They start talking, find the conversation interesting and decide to spend the rest of their time together in Vienna, until the next morning.

Conversation is all there is in the movie and it takes some serious skill to make such a plot engaging. The writers, Richard Linklater and Kim Krizan, pull it off marvelously. It is a beautiful movie, and should be seen. There are hardly any moments where it isn’t engaging — interesting topics, side-characters and back-stories keep the movie going. Everything is natural, as if an invisible camera were following them. Such movies are to movie lovers what Test cricket is to connoisseurs of cricket. The leisurely pace at which it unfolds is what I cherished most. It would’ve been very different (and lame) had the characters decided to be together forever, and I’m glad the writers didn’t take the obvious way out. Then, it would’ve just been a cheesy romantic movie; now, it is easily one of the best romantic movies I’ve seen. By the end, we have just seen snippets of the characters. We don’t really know if they’ll be good together, and we’re left with the what-could-have-been question. I’ve seen 2 similar plays when I was involved in college theatre — both superbly done. I vaguely remember details, but I recall the similar lingering feeling at the end — because the characters part.

I tend to watch movies at 2 levels — one, as an audience to experience the movie and the second, analyzing the creative process that goes behind it. To the movie’s credit, I couldn’t analyze this movie beyond a few seconds and had to get back to experiencing it — every single time.

Both Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy (Jesse and Celine) are completely natural and show an impressive maturity in handling the characters. The whole damn thing is just too natural to be called a movie. Movie lovers have to watch it (if they haven’t already done so in the last 14 years).

I had the option of following it up immediately with the sequel Before Sunset, but I decided not to. I wanted to enjoy the after-effect .. and let the characters live their separate lives for a while before I caught up with them again.

Before you trust the movie review by a film critic in the future, I strongly recommend reading this post by Khalid Mohamed at the Passion For Cinema blog :

Today,  the attempt (and a successful one, too) is to control and lead on the reviewers.  Trade, non-trade, whatever. Indeed, there could be more names on the chopping block of reviewers at this very moment. Just an angry phone call from a producer, director or star to an editor, complaining about the treatment received by his film, is enough to set off an earthquake in the hallowed portals of a media office. Repeatedly the reviewer is chastened:Tone the review down if you can’t praise it, and if that’s not done, thank you, someone else will edit it for you. Have a nice day.

The gist is this : movie reviews are not always unbiased. With hindsight, this seems very plausible — such obscene money rides on big releases that no one can afford bad reviews. The opening weekend is when all money is recovered. A single bad review from a front-line news-source can set production houses back by a few crores.

So invites to film premiers follow — only to those who are more likely to give the movie a thumbs up, special concessions are given — interviews with stars as the release nears — and a tight hold via the editor on what is written completes the circle. Hence, it should not be a surprise that “film critics” Taran Adarsh and Komal Nahata pour stars over SRK and Aamir movies; a Rajeev Masand who seems largely credible, has his off-moments like Jodha Akbar for which he gave 4 stars; a Raja Sen (of Rediff) has been erratic of late. I am not alleging a conspiracy; I’m just saying it is entirely plausible. I don’t allege that reviewers are corrupt; reviews might be, under influence of higher bosses.

Looking back, I wonder if that’s the case with Paa. When all critics are overlooking basic flaws and giving it a thumbs up, rest assured the audience is going to love it. I do not mean to demean the audience, but very few are capable of — and see a need to — analyzing every movie independently.

On a related note, according to a recent law in the U.S., product reviewers are to make public all gifts (free items, seed products, etc.) that they receive from companies. This is only fair when you are influencing the monetary choices of a large number of people.

Thinking further, I doubt if such a law would work for film reviews — an interview with SRK is far more valuable and acceptable to a television channel than hard cash or gifts. The only solution is word-of-mouth. Spread the word if a movie is good; do the same if a hyped movie is bad. That just makes it a level-playing field.

****

Regular readers might recollect an old post about Sohail Khan calling for no movie reviews until the Monday after the opening weekend. As I had mentioned then, the suggestion is ridiculous and a clear way to con the audience. Don’t fall for such gimmicks or think twice before you go entering a cinema hall trusting a review.

I, as always, will try to be unbiased.

I would be lying if I said I hadn’t expected this, but reactions to the Paa review I posted have been varied — many negative. A reader with masterful introspection commented, “Internet-blogs have given platform to too many idiots”. I agree.

Before you dismiss my review as that by a Bachchan-hater (which is not very far from the truth, btw), I must tell you that I wanted to like the movie. Given sufficient reasons, I would definitely have. I didn’t get those, so I stand by the review and can easily defend the points I raised.

As I read reactions from critics and fellow bloggers, a common mention is the brilliance of Amitabh Bachchan’s acting. I suspect what they want to say is the fact that he accepted the challenging role is commendable — something I agree to. But the acting was not brilliant, even by Indian cinema standards. If Bollywood is your reference, he probably surpassed Black, Aamir is the most intelligent actor and we all lip-sync to songs and dance when happy. As we know, that’s untrue.

My point remains : I can visualize a better performance in the role of Auro, so I cannot call it brilliant. If I revisit scenes from Paa, I can see Mr. Bachchan in every single scene, not a 13-year old. He tries — no doubt — but he is far from brilliant. Because he doesn’t fit there. So I am tempted to hold the director responsible for this fiasco — the role would have been better played by a 13-year old made to old older. A six-feet tall Amitabh Bachchan is just creepy : victims of progeria seldom grow taller than 4 feet.

Meanwhile, I haven’t seen too many people sharing my views except for @Movie_Goer on Twitter, a regular reader who used to write at a blog – now defunct — and has now moved on solely to Twitter. She says and I quote :

The following people have not liked Paa either : http://twitter.com/moifightclub ; http://twitter.com/Suderbuzz ; http://twitter.com/annavetticad

So it’s like an esoteric society now.

*****

On a lighter note, I had tweeted this annoyed by reactions to Paa :

What is wrong with the world ?

@Movie_Goer replies : I think majority of the world is Paa-gal.

Word is out that an international version of Paa is coming soon, while leaders are at Copenhagen thinking climate change is the next big threat to all.

I can come up with many such lame jokes, but I’ll spare you — as long as you don’t rave about Paa.

I’ve been eagerly awaiting rockstar Himesh Reshammiya’s latest movie, Radio, for a long time now. First release after Karzzz, two voices of Himesh, one newcomer actress, actress Shehnaz Treasurywala, Himesh’s music, Himesh’s acting — it was going to be the perfect movie. But as history shows us, having all the bad pieces does not a bad movie make. With a very heavy heart, I must tell you Radio is a huge letdown. The movie was never expected to be great in the literal sense — I hope you already know that — and it lives upto that.

But that’s about it. I expected to derive plenty of guilty pleasure. Radio does miserably at that metric — so much that I had to struggle to watch the entire movie. AND I saw Paa yesterday. Life isn’t worth living now-a-days, I tell you.

I don’t know if I was expecting too much after Karzzzz, but he himself is to blame for setting the bar so high. Radio has some corny lines and laughable metaphors, but they’re all over in the first 10 mins. After that, what you’re left with is a movie that is a neither here nor there.

To be fair to Radio, it has some of the nasal singing, and songs he composes in 4 notes. Mind you, these are not to be confused with songs composed in 3-note ragas by maestros like Illayaraja. But the fun ends there.

Where are the cheesy lines that made you who you are today, Himesbhai ? Where is the, “Jab tum kiss karti ho, to apni aankhen band karti ho.” ?

Where is the ham-acting (I can recall just one such instance) that we so adore ?

Why spoil the fun with that surgery of yours ? After all, we have to endure your non-nasal voice !

Shehnaz Treasurywala acts coy initially; she doesn’t take it to extreme levels of over-acting though. The newcomer Sonal Sehgal is not outright pathetic. The balding Himesbhai had a hair transplant, so nothing to laugh there either. The script is so ridiculous that it left no space for side characters that could be filled with bad actors.

Seriously, how hard is it to give us a bad movie ?

We wait for more than a year, and this is what we get ? You are answerable to your fans, Himesbhai !

After watching Paa and Radio, I’ll have to go with Paa for being a better movie. Atleast it made me laugh at its intended and unintended jokes.

P.S. : Greatbong has reviewed it here. I’m glad atleast someone enjoyed it.

Image courtesy in.com.

Avoid. Er, not this review; the movie.

This review is going to be extremely offensive and in bad taste, and I take responsibility for it. Heck, I’ll apologize right now.

1. First things first. The movie needs to be called Maa and not Paa — if it had to be made at all i.e. Did the director go through the script even once before deciding the title ? Oh wait, the director is the writer; maybe he’s also a politician — which is why he has no common sense (you’ll have to see the movie to get this jab; but you still shouldn’t see the movie).

2. The movie begins in an innovative way : Jaya Bachchan announces the cast and crew — which I’m perfectly fine with. Her unintelligible expressions — I’m not. We need subtitles when Jaya Bachchan acts. Seriously.

3. The casting — Amitabh Bachchan as Auro ? Sure, you think he’s a legendary actor, but progeria inflicted children do not grow upto 6 feet tall — merely their body ages quickly. Don’t believe me ? Go look it up. The part should have been played by someone far shorter.

Maybe Aamir Khan. Boom !

4. Abhishek Bachchan can’t act. Amitabh Bachchan tries to act : he is not agile as a kid — something the role demands. And is it me or does his modulated voice sound like a squeaky Naseeruddin Shah ?

If you want to praise Amitabh Bachchan just for playing a 13-year old, do it on your private property. I think it is fair that his is judged just for his acting, and I’m sorry but he does not do too well. If you think I’m being pompous, please watch Christoph Waltz in Inglourious Basterds (from the top of my head) to form a mental bar for acting.

The part of Auro should probably have been played by a child actor who is made to look older, not an old man made to young younger. But since we’re obsessed with our stars, Amitabh Bachchan gets ‘the role of his lifetime’.

5. Abhishek Bachchan’s son in the movie is born with progeria due to genetic defect. This was expected. If a gene can deteriorate so much from Amitabh to Abhishek, Abhishek’s son is bound to be defective. Boom !

6. This movie will, sadly, give ideas to older stars to play younger characters without being mocked. Get ready for the next Aamir movie where he plays a college student, again, but this time around, he has progeria — so it’s okay.

7. R. Balki’s previous movie, Cheeni Kum was known for witty dialogues, and being an overall laborious movie. This is similar. The witty lines are intermittent, but there; some of the jokes like a girl following Auro are hilarious; snippets of Auro’s character are written perfectly from a 13-year old’s perspective; but the script just drags on and on and on — pointlessly, most of the time. By the end, I wanted Auro to die so the movie would end. Boom !

8. The only saving grace is Vidya Balan. Her character is one of the better scripted ones (along with the grandmom’s) and it is very well acted. Pity that she was forced to (symbolically) marry Abhishek in the end at Auro’s insistence. I wish she had not agreed — it would’ve been consistent with her character, and let’s face it, kids are stupid anyway. Boom !

9. Auro paints a globe entirely white as his vision for India, and wins a prize for his noble thoughts. Yeah whatever. But you can’t paint and call oceans a part of India !

This also reinforces point 8, by the way.

10. R. Balki is a master at creating annoying child characters — they were there in Cheeni Kum, they are there here. Just for your future reference, here are the kinds of child characters you can write : dumb (child characters in the 70s), innocent (Taare Zameen Par), smart (Tahaan), over-smart (Kuch Kuch Hota Hai), super-duper-duper smart at which point they annoy. The last category can be found in Cheeni Kum and Paa.

11. Paa teaches us one important thing — no good can ever come from having sex with Abhishek Bachchan. Boom !

12. But arguably the most important lesson Paa teaches — always always ALWAYS wear a condom and practice safe sex. Else’s you’ll have to endure movies like Paa. Boom !

So conclusion — don’t watch Paa. It is not entertaining; not even in a guilty pleasure way like Blue. I am astonished at the positive reviews the movie is garnering. But I think I can explain it in another post that will come up shortly.

P.S. : Oh, and I’ve tried to keep it restrained in the post.

P.S. 2 : If you are a new visitor, please think about subscribing to the content — if you liked it.

It is hard to come across a sentence involving Anu Malik that isn’t preceded or succeeded by plagiarism. I too have done that in the past. It is easy for us sitting at a vantage point and unconditionally poke fun. But for once, I’d like to credit the music director for one soundtrack that is arguably his absolute best : Refugee.

Until last week, I had just heard the most popular track — Panchi Nadiyan — which I think is a very good track. I had fleeting listens to the other tracks in the past, but never really thought much of them. While I was travelling last week, I heard the other songs of Refugee closely and I’m thoroughly impressed.

It is tough to point out the best track in the album. It has to be a close call between Panchi Nadiyan, Raat Ki Hatheli Par, Aisa Lagta Hai and Mere Humsafar. The lyrics by Javed Akhtar superbly complement the music and I think he has only gone south after this film’s release in 2000.

The strongest link in the entire album is the melody. Malik has gone beyond creating obvious tunes and riffs to explore the possibilities of longer melodic constructs. Udit Narayan is in superb form and while Alka Yagnik usually annoys me, she is fairly good in this album. Sonu Nigam was at his peak around that time, and it shows.

As far as I know, none of the songs of Refugee have been blatantly plagiarized. So it is a well deserved National Award for Anu Malik and a superb effort — I’ll concede that. Malik  has himself to blame for biasing our views. If he hadn’t been such a blatant lifter of tunes, he wouldn’t have to defend every new album of his as awe-riginal in interviews — although I’m not sure if he would’ve been around for as long if he hadn’t pleased his directors and producers by not providing those tracks.

But I have my complaints.

For one, the use of the verse and chorus tunes in musical interludes. This is one most obvious difference between the better music directors like A.R. Rahman, Shankar-Ehsaan-Lo, Amit Trivedi, etc. and the lesser ones like Jatin-Lalit, Nadeem-Shravan and Anu Malik. A song loses out on creativity by using the main tune played on different instruments in interludes — and it is one of the things that annoys me most.

Second, is the obvious arrangement. Malik and his like need to think out of the box when it comes to arrangement. Until that, they can never provide a different sound and will have to rely on melody. Rahman stormed into the industry with both strong arrangements and melody. It is no wonder that others still find it tough to catch up with him.

Anu Malik can be good if he wants, and Refugee only proves it. He is talented too, but then anyone whose name is placed next to Abhishek Bachchan in the credits of a movie directly seems talented.

And I’m back at the vantage point.

I was late watching this Pixar movie too. I usually cannot get myself to watch animated movies, which is strange as I haven’t hated any. The last one I saw in this genre was WALL.E, which was overrated in my opinion.

Back to Up, I loved its simple plot, the execution, the adorable characters and almost every aspect of it. If you haven’t already seen it, don’t miss it. Everything is kept very simple and linear, but done perfectly. Animation is top-notch, as is expected of Pixar.

May I add that ‘actors’ like Upen Patel would do well learning acting from the animated characters.

If the Mayans predicted the world would end in 2012, how didn’t they predict that such an annoying movie would be made based on their prediction ?

You get the idea, right ?

The director Roland Emmerich should’ve really stopped making disaster movies after Independence Day. Cliches galore (is that a cliche too ?), the movie borrows from half a dozen disaster movie scenes and doesn’t even try to make any sense. Lesser said about the acting, the better. I have no idea what John Cusack is doing in this movie. I believed he was a respectable actor.

Just avoid the movie. Period.

Borrowing a line from one of my favourite bloggers, I’ll say :

Saala aisa picture banayega to world end nahi hoga to kya hoga ! (If you make such a terrible movie, the world is bound to end)