Month: May 2016

Manjhi: Mountain Man – Nawazuddin Siddiqui is amazing as always

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I was at my local library looking for another film (Dookudu!), when I happened to see that Manjhi:  The Mountain Man was in the new release DVD section.  Our local movie theater had shown trailers for Manjhi for months, but it never came to the big screen in our town.

I absolutely love the acting of Nawazuddin Siddiqui.  He is consistently amazing in every movie I’ve seen him in.  Like Irrfan Khan, I’d bet he could make reading the phonebook a dramatic triumph.  Since half the movie has Nawaz acting only with himself and railing at his mountain, you need someone of Nawaz’s talents to pull it off.

Manjhi is based on the real life story of Dashrath Manjhi, who really did carve a road through a mountain with just a hammer and a chisel.  Dashrath’s wife had died from a fall, and died because it took so long to get her to medical care.  After her death Dashrath Manjki vowed to make a road through the mountain to allow for faster medical access for his remote village.  He worked at it for twenty-two years.  It sounds like a story that is so fantastical that it couldn’t even be real, but it is.

My favorite part of the movie was the first half which has the romantic story of Dashrath and his wife Phalguni (Radhika Apte).  Dashrath was born in a caste so low that they were the rat-eaters of the village.  There is a tyranical zamindar and his evil son who rule the village with an iron fist.  Dashrath runs away from home to escape being forced into lifelong bondage to the zamindar.  He returns to the village after some years working in the coal mines.

He falls in love with a village girl, and realizes that she was actually his child bride.  I just loved Nawaz and Radhika Apte and their scenes together.  Life is hard.  The Zamindar and his son are barbaric to the low caste villagers.  But Dhashrath and his wife carve out happiness together.

Tragedy strikes when a pregnant Phalguni falls from the mountain while pregnant with their second child.  Dhashrath carries her miles and miles to the closest hospital, but it isn’t soon enough to save her.  He is left with two children to raise alone, and at this point he goes a bit mad.  He vows to the mountain that he will break it.

The second half of the the film shows his struggles chipping away at the mountain all those years.  The filmmaker tries to insert some drama here, and it gets a bit metaphysical with visions of his wife talking to him, and soliloquy’s with the mountain.  Nawaz tries his best, but the script is not as good here.

Nawaz does not make Dhashrath a saint.  This is a man so obsessed that he leaves his children in the care of his drunk father to work on his mountain path.

The film is definitely worth seeing just for Nawazuddin Siddiqui’s performance.  Seeing him romance Radhika Apte in the first half of the film makes me anticipate the romantic comedy he’s filming right now even more.

Manjhi:  The Mountain Man was not quite as great as I’d hoped it would be, but I give it four stars out of five.

 

Green Room – A Taut Relentless Thriller

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I would highly recommend Green Room if you love intense thrillers.  Anton Yelchin and Alia Shawkat are members of a punk rock band.  They get a last minute gig at a club out in the boonies, and realize the owners are Neo-Nazi Skinheads when they arrive.  They just want to play the show and get the hell out of there.

One band member forgets their phone charging in the green room, and when they go back to get it, they discover a girl murdered on the floor.  They are then trapped in the Green Room while the people running the club figure out what to do with them.  And who owns the club?  Patrick Stewart in an absolutely chilling performance.

I saw this film at Sundance in January and I was not prepared for how relentless this film would be.  I was on the edge of my seat nearly the entire hour and a half of the film.

To give you a sense, this is what Patrick Stewart tweeted about reading the script the first time:

 

Four stars out of five.  The film is at times very gruesome, but it is a tense taut thriller.  Green Room is writer/director Jeremy Saulnier‘s third feature film.  I can’t wait to see what he does next!

Krrish 3 – Super Interesting With the Current Kangana/Hrithik News

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I watched Krrish 3 for the first time, and it it was super interesting with all the recent news about Kangana and Hrithik and the affair they may or may not have had.  At this point you can’t help but examine every scene with Hrithik and Kangana through that prism.

I don’t have a lot to say about Krrish 3.  I enjoyed Krrish and Koi… Mil Gaya was, well, kind of bizarre.

Krrish 3 is really a decent super hero movie.  The CGI was good.  Yes, there is liberal borrowing from Hollywood films like X-Men and Spiderman.  Hmmm.  A villain with a frog tongue, a villain with a rhino horn.  Gee, where have I seen that?  A villain who can change into any other person she touches.  Hmmm.

I am no Vivek Oberoi fan by any means, but I was actually impressed with him in Krrish 3.  His Kaal is sort of a Magneto villain crossed with Professor Xavier in a wheelchair.  He was quite good as a worthy antogonist for Krrish, and I liked that it being an Indian movie, we had family themes with his character.

Absolutely hated his costume, though.  It looked like a kid made it and slapped some tin foil on a football helmet.  Not cool enough.

It’s standard superhero fare, but for Indian cinema, that’s still saying quite something.  Definitely one that kids could enjoy.  Solid three stars out of five.

And, the extra bonus is that we get a great dance number with Priyanka and Hrithik!  Believe me, Batman vs. Superman could have used a nice song and dance to lighten the mood a bit.  (Zach Snyder, take note!

 

 

 

 

Nawaz Siddiqui in a Rom Com!

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I just heard from the BollyFools guys that Nawaz Siddiqui is currently filming a romantic comedy with Amy Jackson called Ali.  Really excited to hear that he’s getting to be a romantic lead.  He is obviously a fantastic dramatic actor, but he really showed his comedic skills in last year’s Bajrangi Bhaijaan.  Ali is directed by Sohail Khan.

Dookudu — Sometimes you just need a Mahesh Babu Telugu hero fix

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Yesterday, I decided I was totally in the mood for another Mahesh Babu movie.  Dookudu had been recommended to me as one of his best, and I tried to find a good copy online.  I ended up running to my local library which had a DVD copy.  (I love living in an area with a sizeable South Asian community!)  My library may not have many Telugu titles, but they have Dookudu!

This poster really shows you what Mahesh in Dookudu is all about.  Dookudu was translated as aggression, but also as daring.  And you can see Mahesh’s cop character is all about attitude.  Mahesh just oozes cool and bravado.  He has amazing presence on film, and looks great in all those slow motion action striding towards danger kind of scenes.

But after watching 1: Nenokkadine, I was hoping with another heroine, I’d get a better romantic subplot, and maybe a sweeter side to Mahesh, too.  And Dookudu gave that to me in spades.  Puppy dog eyed Mahesh!

He’s no Prabhas, who is still my favorite Telugu actor, but he does have that same ability to go from super cool action, to sweetness and comedy.

  

Dookudu is just a super entertaining mass entertainment movie.  The best Telugu films I find really excel at melding together great action, great villains, sweet romance, and comedy all rolled into one.  And while 1:  Nenokkadine felt like theses different parts of the film did not fit together well, here with Dookudu one flows into the other and the comedy gives you a respite from some pretty intense action and drama.

Dookudu at its heart is a revenge flick.  Prakash Raj plays the near saintly politician father of Mahesh (Ajay).  After our short intro to Prakash, we see him struck in a horrific car crash leaving young Ajay alone.  Cut to present day with adult Ajay, now a cop in Mumbai, with a cool introduction fight scene.

Ajay is on the hunt of Don Nayak played with supreme evilness by Sonu Sood.  He’s wearing an ascot for most of the movie, so you know he’s really evil!  One nice thing is that with Sonu Sood being 6’2″, Mahesh is also 6’1″ so their final battle truly feels like a fight of equals.

On a quest to find a weak link to Nayak’s empire, Ajay and his team follow Nayak’s brother to Istanbul.  There one of Ajay’s team tells him his fortune telling grandma says Ajay is about to meet the love of his life.  Ajay mistakes Prashanthi (the adorable Samantha Prabhu) for Nayak’s brother’s girlfriend, so from the beginning we have a hate-to-love romantic subplot.  Which is one of my favorite romantic tropes.

Ajay and his team capture Nayak’s brother which leads to the scene on the rooftops of Istanbul on the poster.  With Ajay’s foot on the gangster’s throat, gun pointed at his head while negotiating on the phone with Nayak.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZ7z66mVQc4

After some great Turkey scenery (so pretty!) and adorable romantic scenes with Prashanthi where Ajay continually puts his foot in his mouth, Ajay returns to India.  He then gets shocking news.  His father is waking up from a 14 year coma!  His father did NOT die!  Now, here is the part where the film evidently liberally borrows from the German film Goodbye Lenin (which I have not seen).  The doctors tell Ajay that his father should be protected from any bad news or distress so that he doesn’t go back into a coma.

So, Ajay has to get back the family home.  This is where the comedy uncles come in.  Telugu films seem to have a requirement that this guy, Brahmanandam Padma Sri, appear in every single film to provide comic relief.  He’s even shoe-horned into Magadheera for absolutely no reason at all.  (Thank God Rajamouli didn’t have to include him in Baahubali!)

Usually, I find the comedy uncle bits of Telugu films very annoying and totally unfunny.  In films like Darling, you can see Prabhas struggling to not crack up at his antics, and I just don’t get it.

But here, he’s woven into the plot as the current owner of the family mansion, that he rents out as a film set.  Ajay convinces him that they want to film a reality show with hidden cameras.  It’s all an elaborate ruse so that Ajay’s father (Prakash) will think nothing has changed, and that Ajay has taken his MLA seat and followed in his father’s footsteps.  Ajay and his team even produce fake television news shows and newspapers, which is from Goodbye Lenin.  A Telugu is now the prime minister of India, etc.!  Mahesh is great in all these comedy pieces, posing as a film producer, and a participant in a reality show.  His engagement to Prashanthi becomes part of the plan to keep his father happy.

Can you guess who caused his father’s car accident all those years ago?  Yeah, like I said, it’s a revenge flick.  The ways that Ajay crafts revenge on each person who harmed his father are actually quite clever, while keeping his father in the dark that he is now a cop.

I give Dookudu a solid four stars out of five.  Great action, great romance, and great fun.   Mahesh is absolutely fantastic in Dookudu, and Samantha Prabhu is great, too.  They have wonderful chemistry together.  The songs are not exceptional, but pretty good.  This one where the lyrics say “My heart is sacrificed on the altar of love”.  It’s kind of crazy with the faux Aztek costumes or whatever they are, but so colorful!

Yep.  I think I’ve convinced myself writing this up, that I’m going to need to own this one on DVD.  Because Mahesh in many colors of wedding finery!

 

 

 

New Poster for Dulquer Salmaan’s Kammattipaadam

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Dulquer Salmaan just posted this new poster for Kammattipaadam on his Facebook page.

You know what I love about these young Malayalam stars?  They put out a movie every couple of months!!  Just when I’m thinking — Gee, I wish there was a new Dulquer movie, there’s one about to come out!  May 20 is the release date in Kerala.  Hopefully we’ll get it in Chicago.

Here’s another poster with a different look:

 

Kammattipaadam, directed by national-award winner Rajeev Ravi.will evidently be a period drama.

 

 

Innale – a classic Malayalam film gem

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With strong recommendations from my Quora answer, and also Margaret of Don’tCalllItBollywood, I watched the Malayalam 1990 classic film Innale  [Yesterday] this weekend.  It’s available on ErosNow.com.

Margaret promised a cozy movie to watch, and it was.  This classic film gem, by director  P. Padmarajan came out in 1990.  It stars Shobana as the victim of a bus accident in a pouring rain storm.  She is found half dead on a river bank by some villagers who steal her bangles and jewelry before they take her to get help.

When she regains consciousness, she has no memory of her past, or even her name.  Sarath, the son of her doctor, is the hospital administrator and he calls her Maya for expediency.  She is the sole survivor of the accident, and it is presumed her family died in the accident.  She recognizes none of the photographs of the dead.  They post her picture in the paper, but only get imposters trying to claim her.

Sarath gives her the a guest cottage on his family property and a maid servant, and even sets her up with a teaching job at the local school.  And, he’s falling under young Maya’s spell.  At one point, Sarath is driving Maya and the Tracy Chapman song For My Lover was playing on the radio of the car.  It took me right back to that time in the late 80’s/early 90’s when she was so popular, and the song choice was particularly poignant.

T’d climb a mountain if I had to
And risk my life so I could have you
You, you, you…

….

For my lover for my lover

I follow my heart
And leave my head to ponder
Deep in this love
No man can shake

 

Shobana was absolutely luminous in this film.  She was the best actor in the whole film, and I was so impressed with her.  I’m very much looking forward to seeing her film Manichitrathazhu now, which also stars my second favorite actor of Innale – Suresh Gopi.

Jayaram as Sarath, the young man who falls for the amnesia victim Maya was fine, and sweet.  But after the interval we are introduced to Maya’s husband, returned from the US to try to find her.

Suresh Gopi as Dr. Narendran, Maya/Gauri’s bereft husband, had not very much screen time, but he was exceptionally good and has a deep impact.  We see his loneliness and grief, and a glimmer of hope that his wife may have survived the bus crash.  Through several flashbacks we see how happy he and his wife were in their brief marriage.

This is what Indian cinema does so well.  Set up for the audience these dilemmas.  We don’t know who to root for, as our heart is tugged both ways.  Maya is blissfully happy with Sarath, but we see how happy she was with Dr. Narendran in her past.  Suresh Gopi just broke my heart at the end of the film.

It’s like Kuch Kuch Hota Hai with Shahrukh and Salman in that final wedding scene.  So much crying!!

 

Or Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam with Aish, Salman and Ajay.  Team Ajay all the way!

 

I loved Innale, scratchy old film print and all.  Four stars out of five.  Suresh Gopi co-stars with Shobana in Manichitrathazhu , which makes me look forward to it even more.

Song of the Day – Dekho Na

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In Chicagoland, we’ve had a miserable week of cold rainy days.  Just relentlessly wet and dreary.  Rain has a much different connotation in Indian films!

Yet another rainy misty day today, and when Dekho Na played today on shuffle, I was thinking, “Hey, I didn’t even get any sexytimes with mullet-hair Aamir after all this rain!”

This song sequence is one of my all time favorites.