Pages

Monday, April 30, 2007

So I guess this is not my year with Sports...Luck ain't siding me at all...

World Cup Cricket sucked and we were out in the very first round...then I started vesting all my hopes on my favorite MAVERICKS! And what did they do? Rather what are they doing? Loosing to eight ranked Golden State Warriors...Can you imagine? Really? The number one team that has 67 wins to it's credit during the regular season games is loosing to GSW...

That's all...All my entertainment for this year has come to an end...how sad can that be?

Anyways last weekend was fun. One day I totally lazed around the house and another day Giri, me and Rama spent four hours walking around The Byron Nelson Golf course trying to follow both Vijay Singh and Phil Mickelson. It was funny that for the first forty five minutes we were just trying to get our bearings around the course. It was not a super hot day in Dallas standards but it surely felt like our skin was burning.

Am not sure if it is really worth being in the Golf Course as opposed to watching it in the cozy of my living room...and if I might do it again...but the experience was totally worth it when Vijay and I rubbed shoulders...literally...

Anyways...this is Anu signing off, still sad after last night's MAVS defeat.

Friday, April 27, 2007

I still remember the days when I was kid wearing jean pants with elastic so that I would not have to deal with the difficulty of un-buttoning and then un-zipping before I had to attend the natures call...

That was almost 20 years ago...but today...once again I am wearing jeans with elastic to help my ever growing tummy...and memories from childhood past came rushing back to me...it is funny how things in life come back repeating in a cycle...again and again...

In case you are wondering I am talking about my maternity pants!

Shaka Laka Boom Boom (2007) - Hindi Movie Review

Ranking: 1.5/5

Cast: Bobby Deol, Upen Patel, Kangana Ranaut, Celina Jaitley
Director: Suneel Darshan
Music: Himesh Reshamiyya


Bobby Deol is a music director who lives in New York and has established himself with five consecutive hits all over the world. His music guru lives with him and he has a mentor in his music producer. The wife of the producer has an eye on Bobby and keeps throwing lustful hints around him all the time. While Bobby himself is in love with Kangana, a dancer. Celina is Bobby's friend and has a boy friend (Upen) in India who is a small time singer, composer and dancer trying to make it big.

Upen with the help of Celina makes it to NY and also makes it into the studio of Bobby whom he insults with no holds barred. Bobby knows that Upen is talented and is not very excited about his company thinking about signing a deal with him. He does everything in his power to break it off. To further irritate Bobby, Upen also steals Bobby's dream girl Kangana leaving both Bobby and Celina thirsting for revenge.

Is revenge really as sweet? Do you really want to know? I personally don't want anyone to go through the trouble of sitting through this boring venture...but if you choose to...do not blame me. The movie is not worth watching for so many reasons:

1) Bobby's acting. He should considering retiring from doing lead roles.
2) Upen is annoying and cannot act to save his life.
3) Himesh's music is repetitive and has nothing new to offer...B.O.R.I.N.G. Everytime a song pops up we are searching for the remote.
4) Story? What story? Where is it?
5) Screenplay sucks.

And if you find more...do feel free to add it on...

Stalin (2006) - Telugu Movie Review

Ranking: 2/5

Cast: Chiranjeevi, Trisha, Kushboo, Prakash Raj, Sharadha Urvasi
Director: A. R. Murugadoss
Music: Mani Sharma


Stalin, a role played by Chiru brings nothing in the form of story/direction/screenplay or action. It is the same old story of good vs. evil where the hero is invincible. Well what do you expect? It is a Chiru movie...

Stalin lives with his widowed mom and a couple of friends who hang around his house all the time. His sister Kushboo lives with her Punjabi husband and son in the same building as the heroine Trisha. Stalin's mom and sister are not in talking terms as she married out of religion and region, but Stalin keeps the family glued together.

Stalin apart from beating goos up also does a lot of social service. In the same line he starts a plan where he would ask everyone he helps not to thank him but to help three other people like he did. This way the goodness and helpful nature of people will spread. But to his dismay he notices that none of the people he helped are following his request.

Enter villain (Riaz Khan)...trying to be mean to some one in the street and Stalin bashes him up. Riaz being the son of a powerful minister Prakash Raj goes and whines to his daddy. His dad then takes it up as an insult and the tug-of-war starts between Stalin and Prakash's family where Riaz looses his life...and so many more drama situations take place...in the end the hero winning...of course all the people he helped also help three other people to show that the system worked...ya right!

All in all, a very average movie. Could have been done better by making it simple instead of making Chiru the larger than life image...uprooting trees and all that...What BS?!! I wish we could stop showing such nonsense in Indian movies all together...be it a Chiru movie or a Rajni movie.

There was a heroine in this movie...and somehow my review does not talk about her...hmm...well that shows what impression Trisha's role will have on you. Imagine a 21 year old girl dancing with a visibly old Chiru...I mean I cannot see any chemistry between them...and it just looks sick...like child molesting or something...I wish we would stop doing this too...why can't Chiru act with a heroine his age? Why does he need the hottest girl in town to be his heroine? Damn it!

Anyhoo...final verdict...Don't waste your time if you haven't seen it yet.

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

I will be completing my 16th week (4 months) next Monday (April 23rd, 2007). I still cannot imagine getting two good news on the same day...

Good News 1: Girish is not going to move away from Dallas...not as yet at least.
Good News 2: We are expecting!!!

Life has already changed and from what I see life will only change more. I have already cut down on drinking tea, eating sweets, dancing, partying, etc. But after October, I will be completely restrained to home. Thank god I had absolutely no morning sickness. Every morning I woke up dreading that this would be the day...but it has not happened until now...So I guess I escaped.

I cannot stop appreciating the part my husband is playing in helping me through with this process. He helps me cook, clean, and puts up with my endless hours of sleeping. But it is all worth it when you hear the heart beat of the baby or see the small peanut in a sonogram reading.

Are we going to know the sex of the baby? Well, I guess not because my darling wants it to be a surprise for us. And I don't mind a surprise now or later.

Will keep my blog updated with the latest and the greatest...

Love
Anu
(Mommy to be)

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Bomarillu (2006) - Telugu Movie Review

Ranking: 3/5


Cast: Siddarth, Genelia, Prakash Raj, Jayasudha, Kota Srinivasa Rao
Director: Bhaskar
Music: Devi Sri Prasad


This is a superhit movie but I have only ranked it 3/5 because I could not digest many of the things in the movie. I have a couple of questions:

1) Would any sane guy fall in love with a girl like Hasini whose mental development equals that of a 5 year old? I am sure the director wanted to make her look cute but did he have to make her look retarded to get that effect?

I have known friends who have been raised by single parent and none of them behave even remotely like this.

2) Does Siddhu fall in love with Hasini only to rebel against his father and for no other good reason?

Anyways getting to the story. Siddhu (Siddarth) is the son of a wealthy businessman (Prakash Raj) who is very interfering in his children's life not knowingly. He keeps his family on a tight leash but at the same time showers love and affection on them which keeps his family from rebelling on him outright. But Siddhu is different and he understands the difference between father love with freedom and fatherly love without freedom. Siddhu cannot even cut his hair or wear a shirt to his preference. His father interferes with everything.

To the extent of interfering with his son's marriage too. Siddhu at first likes the girl when he sees her but then realizes that the girl is also raised like him, dominated by her father which makes him run far away from her. His life is full of conflicts, on one side he wants to rebel his father and on the other he wants to do what is right. He keeps fighting his emotions everyday until he meets Hasini (Genelia) at a temple one day. He befriends her and they start falling in love with each other. Siddhu likes her childlike quality and her innocence along with her independence.

Trouble erupts when Siddhu's father finds out about their love. Siddhu requests his father to let Hasini stay with them for a week and if his father has a good reason for not liking her than he would marry the girl of his father's choice. His father accepts the deal and Hasini moves in after lying to her father about her whereabouts.

Does Hasini impress Siddhu's parents? Do Hasini and Siddhu get along well after living under the same roof for seven days? Ya ya ya...watch the movie...

The story is pretty simple. Through the movie I had the deja vu feeling. Siddarth is young and handsome and acts really well in most scenes. Though some of the scenes seem like a little overdone. Genelia, I guess did what the director asked her to do. Not much of a choice for her but pretty face indeed. She can still pass off more as a school kid than a college student. Prakash Raj does his usual stuff. It feels like he is the Amitabh Bachan of South. You can see him in pretty much every Tamil and Telugu movie.

The movie is worth one watch for sure. It carries the freshness element and the feel good factor which is always welcome when we are trying to get away from reality. Anyways enjoy write to me if you felt anything different from my view.

Wednesday, April 04, 2007

Honeymoon Travels (2007) - Hindi Movie Review

Ranking: 1.5/5

This movie is very similar to Just Married but only worse. There is no story...like they say in my language...the story has no head or tail. Bad acting, bad direction, bad story, bad casting make Honeymoon Travels a perfectly avoidable movie.

You just want to see one crappy movie...and not both of them...Just married is a better version of this genre for sure. So watch it if you want to but stay away from this one.

Just Married (2007) - Hindi Movie Review

Ranking: 3/5

Cast: Esha Deol, Mukul Dev, Fardin Khan, and so many more of them...
Director: Meghna Gulzar
Music: Pritam


The movie is about five couples who are on their honeymoon at Ooty and share the same hotel. All of them are pretty newly wed except for one who are celebrating their wedding anniversary. Together the couples take many tours and visit sites together in Ooty and get to know each other on a personable level. Slowly and steadily host of stories open up about each of them.

Abhay Sachdeva (Fardin) and Ritika Khanna (Esha): A two people bought together by the system of arranged marriage. Fardin is ready to work things out and open himself out to Esha but Esha is holding back causing a few tensions and confusions in their life.

Bikram Saluja and Perizaad Zorabian: Here with the love of his life and they seem to be totally head over heels in love with each other and are the envy of most other couples.

Kirron Kher and Satish Shah: Are here to celebrate their anniversary and always seem to be fighting each other in public. The fact is that they love each other a lot but their expression of it is just different.

Raj Zutshi and co: He has been out of the country for a long time and is living with his girlfriend of another nationality. He had proposed to her in the past but the offer was rejected...

Mukul Dev and Tarina Patel: Tarina is Mukul's sister's best friend and had an eternal crush on him eventually convinced him to marry her. But Mukul is unable to think of Tarina as anything but his sister's friend. They are working on trying to resolve their differences.

Of course towards the end of the movie everything ends well. Everyone is happy and so are you.

I saw this movie after I saw Honeymoon Travels Pvt. Ltd. They both have similar stories and I could compare and contrast them and finally decided that this was a better story. It is a slow entertainer so be in the mood to spend time wondering why the clock is not ticking faster.

Namastey London (2007) - Hindi Movie Review

Ranking: 1/5

Cast: Akshay Kumar, Katrina Kaif, Shashi Kapoor
Director: Vipul Amrutlal Shah
Music: Himesh Reshmaiyya


I will not spend writing a long review for this movie as there is nothing much to write anyways. In simple words, a really sorry story, bad acting, boring dialogues, too much mush, stereotypical, and so on and on.

Katrina is a second generation Desi Brit born and raised to believe that she was anything but Indian. Her father cons her into visiting India only to get married to Akshay Kumar by surprise (or shock). Katrina plays along in India and upon returning to London tells Akshay that she does not care too much for the wedding as she is making preparations to get married to her British rich boss.

Akki now tries all the tried and tested corny things to woo her back... Does he? If he did not then I would be surprised. Really really really...I mean seriously really...boring movie. If you can avoid it that will be better for your life as you would have saved 3 hours of monotony.

Poi (2007) - Tamil Movie Review

Ranking: 2.5/5

Cast: Uday Kiran, Prakash Raj, Vimala, Avinash
Director: K. Balachander
Music: Vidyasagar


The story is about how lies can have a domino effect and how a simple harmless lie may cascade into something really dangerous and life threatening. K.B. does really brilliant mega serials and as a veteran he is trying to adapt and compete with the younger generation of directors. He does fit in in some places but then there are others where he is grossly lacking. To his credit he is one of the best directors that Tamil movie ever had for the longest time with his active era extending from 1965 through early1990's. And this movie not to be outdone by his previous hits surely has the element that makes K.B's style of direction unique but it also sadly acts as the movies flaw and downfall.

Kamban (Uday Kiran) is the son of Valluvan (Avinash) a straightforward politician who will not bend laws even if it is to get his son out of jail when arrested for no fault of his. The opposition party take advantage of this and bail Kamban out and also publicly announce Kamban joining his father's opposition party. Kamban did not know any of this would happen and he did not want to hurt his father. To escape from the embarrassment Kamban escapes to Srilanka till everything cools down a bit.

In Lanka he meets Ganguly a Bengali immigrant whom he befriends and shares a room with. During a stroll on the beach his eye catches a diary with Tamil poems and starts liking the poet. the imaginary father he had created in his mind instigates him to fall in love with the author of the poems and Kamban takes it upon himself as a challenge to make Shilpa (Vimala) fall in love with him. But Vimala who is vacationing with her brother is a achiever and does not believe in wasting time in love.

What happens? Do things work out? Does the imaginary father or the imaginary fate (Prakash Raj) that Kamban creates in his brain win? What happens to Vimala? All to be seen in the later part of the movie.

The story is no doubt a family subject. It has elements of mother sentiment, love, husband-wife doubts, imaginary father and fate, father sentiment, annoying third wheel from Bombay who claims that he was in love with the heroine since she was in 5th or 6th standard, etc. It could have been a commercial movie hadn't there been too many slowing factors. As far as acting goes everyone seems to be on the good page but then the story itself lacked the speed and interest which was lost due to introduction of many unwanted characters. It is okay for one time watch although you might be asking yourself again and again why you are doing this to yourself. Uday Kiran was a promising young Telugu actor who landed himself into trouble after breaking the engagement with Chiru's daughter and now his break into the Tamil industry seems nothing but bleak.

Try it out and let me know if you feel otherwise.