Movie in 2 mins: “Mere brother ki Dulhan” (My brother’s fiance)

I am not a big fan of romantic comedies/musicals and I try my best to avoid one, especially the Bollywood ones. Within the first few minutes, any sane person can guess the whole story, down to the very fine details - predictability. At times, I make exceptions and watch them, usually when I am with my friends.

Last Sunday was one such occasion. I was visiting some friends and they suddenly planned for this movie - Mere brother ki Dulhan (My brother’s fiance). The moment I heard the name of the movie, I guessed the storyline. But when I found that the protagonist is played by Imran Khan, I was a bit hopeful. After all, his movies made me laugh (most of the times).

As expected, the story line was very clear within the first 10 minutes. Like the name ‘suggests’, the hero will fall in love with his brother’s fiancé. Since it’s a romantic Hindi movie, there MUST (keyword here is MUST) be a happy ending. There I was, watching a movie which I always try to avoid, because it’s just a waste of time. Even then I thought there will be something different, something which is not so obvious about the movie.

What I didn’t realize was the movie was so full of clichés and songs, even beyond my ‘wildest imaginations’. Read the following ‘quick replay’ in a ‘problem-solution’ format and decide for yourself whether any of these events sounds familiar.

Starting problem: Hero’s brother wants hero’s help to get married and settle down.

Solution: Hero goes on ‘bride-hunting’ for his brother, ends up at his old acquaintance (heroine – who rocks in looks and character). Their families also agree on the alliance.

New problem: Heroine wants to enjoy the last few hours, how can she?

Solution: Hero saves the hour and they have a great time together.

New problem: They fall in love (Aha!). Now, how will they make hero’s brother call off the wedding without embarrassing themselves?

Solution: Get hero’s brother’s old girl friend to flirt with hero. Seeing this, hero’s brother gets jealous and decides to run away with his old girl friend.

New problem: How will the family avoid the embarrassment?

Solution: Family asks our hero to marry the heroine.

And this whole thing goes with a north Indian wedding setting in its backdrop, with a song every 5 minutes (literally).

And so the Bollywood proved me wrong, again. I thought no one will watch the same old ‘winning Indian romantic movie formula’ after some time. After this movie I said to myself, that time has yet to come.

p.s. I didn’t give a spoiler warning as there is nothing ‘unpredictable’ to spoil.

Movie Review: Transformers 2: Revenge towards the Audience

No, the title of this post (movie name) is not a typo, I mean it. It was revenge from Michael Bay, at least from my point of view. I would consider the film in the romantic comedy genre than action genre . I will give a max of 3.5-4 out of 10 for the move since the only thing I liked in the movie are the action sequences.
When the first movie (Transformers I) was announced back in 2007, I was thrilled since I used to be a fan of the transformers cartoon series. When I saw it in the silver screen, it felt great. All the cartoon characters came to life through the movie. And it was a great experience and the movie was above my expectations.
From what I have written so far, you might guess what my reaction was when they announced the sequel (Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen). From the day I read about it, I was waiting for the movie release date. And above all, most of the reviews seemed good and Wikipedia said this, “Revenge of the Fallen achieved the highest Wednesday opening gross in history, bringing in $62 million in North America alone and close to $100 million worldwide; this is also the second-highest opening day gross of all time, behind only The Dark Knight's $67.8 million.” (I know the crew created the wiki page, still) One of my friends told me that this is the first movie to become house full in all theatres at the same time in Singapore.
I couldn’t wait to watch the movie and I tried last weekend and I was not able to get the ticket. Finally I or we (some of my unfortunate friends who came for the movie upon my persuasion) made it to the show yesterday. We got only the second row seats from the front. Still I was thrilled to watch the movie.
Before even getting through halfway, my friends started looking at their watches, and wondering when this is going to end. I am a fan of transformers and even I felt that the time is not passing. I think Mr. Bay tried to make this movie everything for everyone. There was comedy and romance (I think so) and action. The comedy was ok, but the romance was pathetic, even worse than a 3rd rate Hindi movie (my dear Hindi film fans, please forgive me, I couldn’t get a more decent term to compare). I noticed one thing in particular, the heroine spend most of her time running in the screen in short tops - one of the oldest tricks in the book, just like putting a heroine in rain. But I have to admit that she is hot. The emotional scenes in the middle of a battle were suicidal. After some time even the remote possibility of an emotional scene made me sad thinking that I could have done something better with this time. and the movie turned out to be quite lengthy, 2 hrs and 30 mins of ________ (you fill in the blanks after you watch the movie)
I am not adding many spoilers, but here are some facts for you to think about before going for the movie,
1. More than half an hour of the movie is spend showing how the heroine and hero gets to a rendezvous point
2. In my opinion, never bring parents in to the middle of a military/robot fight, and have long scenes of emotions in between a fast paced action sequence
3. Don’t make too many robo-comedians
And so on..
All in all, the movie was much below my expectations. After the movie, my friends have told me to kiss goodbye to their share of the tickets which I bought for them.
Lesson learnt: No matter how great a director is or the reviews are, don’t risk buying someone else’s ticket for a movie you want to watch.
p.s. Guess what, Transformers 3 is coming, its listed in imdb. I wonder what they have in mind for that one.

Movie Review: The Man from Earth

Usually I don’t write movie reviews. I write only if they influence me somehow. And that is precisely one of the reason I want to write about this movie. I am almost sure that most of you haven’t heard even the name of this movie. Even I didn’t. I don’t know why I wanted to watch the movie, may be the imdb rating, its 8.2. And recently I got lucky to get a copy of this movie from one of my friends. Yesterday I thought about watching the movie.

Its not a flashy movie, I mean with all the new photographic equipments and all. It looks just like a documentary, so at first I was confused whether I want to continue with it. Then again, it’s had a duration of only 1hr 30mins (approx:). So I decided to go on with it. Also, its not an action or romance or horror or anything like that. But it’s a drama/thriller I would say.

The whole movie is just some people talking about an idea (if I may call it so). I am not sure how to explain it fully. You have to watch the movie. Let me give you an example, just think about the movie matrix (one of my all time favorites), without all the fancy stuff, just the part where Morpheus explaining to Neo what the matrix is, that it is just a computer generated world to keep the humans as slaves. And think about the whole movie as a discussion about that concept. And basically that’s it. A concept which you are not familiar, or another angle or a completely original idea (original to me) with which you are viewing the things as you know it. It will be amazing how everything you know, or you think you knew will change when we apply a completely new theory to it. When you come to know things which you thought are basis of the existence of something, turn out to be something else, what would you feel?

I believe I have said enough to ignite the curiosity in you. Now you just watch it.

[Spoilers Ahead]

Are you very sure that you want to read what the movie is about? I think you should watch it. Taking a decision on whether to write about the movie here was difficult for me and later I decided to give a warning and write about it.

Alright, here it is, just think, that if there was a man, a Cro-Magnon (pre-historic human being) who had the gift of not aging, who is living at the present. Not a re-incarnation. Just he was born in the prehistoric ages, he aged till may be some 30 years, and then never aged and he lived through all the history, watching all the milestones in the history. Some one who actually lived at the times of Egyptian Pharaohs, the time of Moses, who happened to meet Buddha, and who is actually a very prominent figure in the history (that is suspense, you have to watch the movie to know who it is), who holds some 15-20 graduate degrees in almost all the sciences and arts, who had all the time in the world to do whatever he wanted to do. Imagine how much knowledge he had over all these ages. Imagine all the dangers he had to survive to be in the present. Amazing concept isn’t it?

Once again, whatever I have written here is my own opinion. You can agree or disagree with it.