Category: Movies

Kana Kandein (Tamil) (Title Translation: “Had a dream” or “I dreamed”)
Starring: Srikanth, Gopika, Vivek and others

The story revolves around the life a young man, Chemistry Ph.D from Anna University, striving to develop his Ph.D thesis into a product/service that will help transform the lives of the common man. The problem he is trying to solve (for the benefit of Silicon Valley types!) is the water problem in Madras. De-salination is the solution according to him. The secret sauce? He has developed his own formula for how to do this at a low cost! He needs investment to realize this dream. And guess what, there are investors interested in buying him out. Start-up ideas storm Kollywood or what? Well, in case you thought this was a Silicon Valley thriller, wait till you read the rest.

A childhood sweet heart is thrown into the mix. Then there is living together and pre-marital sex (and no Khusboo is not the heroine!) thrown in. Of course, there are a few duets and one cabaret type (“club dance” as it was known in the past!) song. There is some cool tech stuff — computers of course, cameras that record all activities in an office, content stored on hard drives to be copied on to CDs by the hero etc. etc. Then, there is Vivek with his standard comedy (I have seen this guy in a few films, and he seems to do the same thing in every film — friend of the hero, generally hangs out, cracks a few jokes, imitates a few people famous personalities, gets into trouble with his spouse after BS-ing her etc. etc) that does produce a few laughs but is a highly modularized plug-in for the film. His entire part could have been cut and paste in another film with little damage to either film!

Last but not the least, there is a villain too. Prithviraj (son of the late mallu movie star, Sukumaran), a Malayalam movie import plays the role of the villain. He has a strong mallu accent and plenty of English dialogues thrown in to make his life easier. He plays a fixer/financier in the film who tampers with contracts and makes life miserable for his clients. He does the same to the hero and ends up in a few stunts sequences until good prevails over evil in a grande finale as always!

Firstly, hats off to the movie makers for coming up with a “different” idea for the film. In the midst of the boom happening in India, this theme is certainly apt for the times. But the movie makers didn’t want to focus exclusively on this core idea but instead chose to be “all things to all people” clearly with an eye on the box office. Nevertheless, the movie is certainly watchable. Vidyasar’s music in this film is pretty average. All the actors do justice to their roles.

The basic premise of the movie is that a ghost can take a human form, talk, dance, make love and have kids! If you can buy that, then the rest of the movie is something you might want to proceed with. I saw the entire movie although the basic premise sounded radically stupid to me. It appears as though the movie maker (Shahrukh himself) was looking to turn a money spinner by throwing together a formula film. Top stars, beautiful locales, great color set in gorgeous Rajasthan, a few songs and there you have it — a certain hit. Wrong!

Barring the beautiful scenes, this movie has nothing to offer. The songs were a big let down. After MM Kreem’s melodious numbers in Jism, this performance was sub-standard. Shahrukh and Rani handle their roles with ease like they always do. Amitabh shows up towards the end (show me a movie he doesn’t appear in these days, please, I’m serious), but nothing to get excited about.

Hero and heroine get married. Hero goes away on work for a long period of time. An identical ghost takes his place. The real husband returns. Meanwhile, the ghost and the heroine are greatly in love and expecting a baby, of course! The ghost is finally exposed and leaves only to re-appear within the hero’s actual human form (oh-oh, sorry, if I broke the suspense!).

I was just done cribbing about the movie and I heard that it was India’s choice for the Oscars!

If you are looking for a good movie to take your kid(s) (5 years and older) to, I recommend Charlie and the Chocolate factory. Very nicely made movie. The sets are great and Johnny Depp and the other actors have done a fine job. One can’t help notice Johnny Depp’s Michael Jackson-like potrayal of Willie Wonka. I haven’t seen the original movie from the early seventies(?) so I can’t give you a relative view.

I am sure there has to be a better performance than Saif Ali Khan in Hum Tum. I think he acted well in the movie, but I don’t think it was so great that it deserved the national award. Surely, there has to have been a better performance. SRK in Veer Zaara was certainly impressive, if the idea was to pick a commercial cinema. Mommy’s present perhaps? 🙂

Indian movie film makers have now resorted to the easy way out. Simply remake old movies! Inspired by the success of Devadas, follow other remakes such as Parineeta (apparently already made twice), Paheli (original appeared in the early 70s), and in the works is the remake of Don! Since I have not seen the earlier versions or read the book, I was pretty open minded about Parineeta.

Like most Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s movies (1947, Kareeb, Munnabhai, Mission Kashmir etc.), this one is a made with a lot of attention to detail. The music is excellent and blends perfectly with the film. The sets are very impressive and the overall quality of the movie making is excellent. Newcomer Vidya Balan has put in a very creditable performance and is an excellent choice for the role. Saif Ali Khan, gradually emerging as a commercially viable romantic hero (Hum Tum, Kal ho Na Ho and now Parineeta), has put in a good performance as well. Sanjay Dutt (a fixture in Vidhu Vinod Chopra films) appears to have gained weight and aged significantly. The rest of the cast does their part.

The storyline as such is nothing new or for that matter earth shattering (as made out by some reviews and other movie promos). Typical stuff — childhood friendship, grows into romance, some misunderstanding, love triangle develops, hero agrees to marry another girl (small role by Diya Mirza), realizes his mistake, melodrama ensues, and the couple come together. Someone has to be a villain. In this case its the hero’s Dad. Saif plays the hero, Sanjay Dutt completes the love triangle, while Raima Sen helps fix the traingle. Rekha appears in a dance number to enhance the star power. The strength of the movie lies in the treatment of the none too new plot, the excellent music and the overall production quality.

If you are the type who generally enjoys commercial romantic films, this movie is a very safe bet.

The Government of India plans to ban smoking in films and TV!! While I certainly agree with the theory that celebreties smoking on screen do influence young kids, I think its absolutely ridiculous to impose a ban of this kind. Why not attack the source, the tobacco companies! Increase the taxes, limit availability, restrict the sales, educate people on the negative effects of smoking etc etc. Movies are a medium of mass communication and should be allowed reasonable creative freedom as long as it is within the norms of decency (for which the censor board is already in place).

p.s: The Health Minister, Anbumani Ramadoss is from the anti-Rajnikanth (Tamil superstar know for his cigarrette flicks!) camp and this might have something to do with it?