Directed by Sriram Raghavan
Produced by Sriram Raghavan
Starring Dharmendra, Neil Mukesh, Rimi Sen, Vinay Pathak, Zakir Hussain, Ashwini Khalsekar, Govind Namdeo
Music by Shankar Ehsaan Loy

I usually don’t see many thrillers, but this was really good I must say. But this is certainly a great movie and very entertaining from start to finish.

Johnny Gaddaar is a story about a group of a group of people who are going to make a big deal. They were to share the profit from the deal but then one of them decides to take it all for him and then its all exiting and gripping. Neil Nitin Mukesh makes a great debut. The grandson of legendary singer Mukesh and son of singer Nitin Mukesh, Neil does a splendid job and impresses me a lot. Rimi Sen was also very good and This is the second time I really loved watching her. Dharmendra is really good here. I enjoyed watching him. He’s still pretty good and I really wish he comes on screen more often. Vinay Pathak is again very impressive and I’m a fan of this guy. Ashwini Kalsekar is another actress whom I believe should come more on the screen. She plays the role of Vinay Pathak’s wife. Rest of the cast was good. But Neil and Vinay Pathak were the ones who really left a mark.

The presentation is very good, the background score is really awesome. What I loved the most about the movie is the way and the style in which its all presented. A good pace, never bores you and always entertaining and consuming. The music, the story all mixes well and things are smooth in all parts of the movie. Superb cinematography, the screenplay and dialogues are awesome. It does what a movie of its genre should, I didn’t see Sriram Raghavan’s previous film Ek Hasina Thi, though, but this is really good. A great dedication to James Hadley Chase I believe.

Rating 9/10

Directed by Sajid Khan
Produced by Sajid Nadiadwala
Written by Sajid Khan
Starring Akshay Kumar, Fardeen Khan, Riteish Deshmukh, Vidya Balan, Boman Irani
Music by Shankar Mahadevan,Ehsaan Noorani,Loy Mendonsa
Distributed by Nadiadwala Grandson Entertainment, Eros Labs
Release date(s) August 24, 2007

Sajid Khan is a well known entertainer. We love his comical stuff, and its no wonder really that his first directorial movie had to be a comedy. It had 2 of the best comedy actors, Akshay Kumar and Ritesh Deshmukh. Does it live upto the expectations? Well I think so, especially as it was a first attempt at direction.

Its a story about 3 guys, Aroush (Akshay Kumar), Tanmay (Ritesh Deshmukh) and Al (Fardeen Khan). All 3 don’t believe in love and marriage and flirt and sleep around lot of gorgeous women. But suddenly their life change when they find a very young child at their doorsteps. They suddenly have to take care of the child and then suddenly the mother of the child appear and then they try to get the baby back.

Akshay Kumar just never fails, no matter what sort of role it is, no matter what sort of movie it is he is always flawless. He again gives a great performance in the movie. Ritesh is another actor I like in comic roles. Fardeen Khan isn’t really a comic role material but his innocent looks at certain looks make him decent enough. Here he is similar to the role he played in No Entry and is quite fine. Vidya Balan is very good. She’s really making her mark as a good actress. Boman Irani was as always pretty good at whatever he does. And yeah before I forget, the baby is very cute and lovely. Really adds to the charm of the whole movie package.

Music is good, the tracks Dholna, Heyy Babyy and Mast Kalandar are the best tracks from the movie. Overall its a good movie with lot of funny moments and offers great value of entertainment. I’m sure Sajid will mature enough as a director and should give us more to enjoy.

Rating 7/10

Bhool Bhulaiyaa
Directed by     Priyadarshan
Produced by     Bhushan Kumar, Krishan Kumar
Written by     Neeraj Vora, Madhu Muttam
Starring     Akshay Kumar, Vidya Balan, Amisha Patel, Shiny Ahuja, Vineeth
Music by     Pritam, Ranjit Barot
Cinematography     S. Thiru
Editing by     N. Gopalakrishnan, Arun Kumar
Distributed by     Eros International (U.S.); Super Cassettes Industries Ltd.
Release date(s)     October 12, 2007

Priyadarshan always manages to entertain you, even if its the same comedy genre with nearly the same stars, but we still love the movies he makes. Bhool Bhulaiyaa is no different. Its a very entertaining movie and gives a great mix of suspense, comedy and horror.

The story of the movie is about a haunted palace which is said to have some ghosts in it. Siddharth (Shiny Ahuja) and Avni(Vidya Balan) come to live in the palace and Avni opens the locked door which prevented the ghost to come out. Now that its out it causes some weird events inside the palace. Siddharth then calls his friend Aditya Shrivastav (Akshay Kumar) a psychologist. He then arrives and solves the real mystery about the haunted palace.

Acting wise its a good performance from Akhay Kumar again. Vidya Balan was good enough. Shiny Ahuja didn’t impress me much in comical scenes. Rest of the cast was good on their part. I felt Rajpal Yadav could have had a better role, or rather more of time on screen. Amisha Patel too didn’t have much to do, but did a good job for whatever role she had.

Not many songs in the movie, but the pick is of course the popular chart buster title track “Bhool Bhulaiyaa”. Rest of the songs are good too. Allah Hafiz and Labon Ko were the other tracks I liked in the movie. The background music was quite good in view of the stuff you need to scare you in horror movies. Cinematography was quite good. The overall presentation was also impressive. The story isn’t as predictable as one would expect initially and both the halves are interesting. So to sum it up its a good movie and you won’t be disappointed.

Rating 8.5/10

Om Shanti Om
Directed by Farah Khan
Produced by Gauri Khan
Written by Topper Alam, Abbas Tyrewala
Starring Shah Rukh Khan, Deepika Padukone, Shreyas Talpade, Arjun Rampal
Music by Vishal-Shekhar
Cinematography V. Manikandan
Editing by Shirish Kunder
Distributed by Red Chillies Entertainment, Eros Labs

I have not seen a movie recently being promoted at this level and so much being spent into publicity. Shah Rukh Khan himself has been at the forefront in this mega Diwali launch “Om Shanti Om”. Farah Khan and SRK have really done well in publicizing the movie and it has paid off very well. The movie is a hit…and its breaking the box office records.

Ok let me just summarize what the movie is…no not the story…but what the movie is…for what I feel its like a tribute to Hindi cinema, a tribute to SRK, its his film, its all about him in the movie, and yes Deepika Padukone does manage to grab attention but it still is a SRK film. But still its a great film mind you, SRK sells doesn’t he? So does this movie. Its a hit and has been breaking records all over the box offices, so it doesn’t come as a surprise. Because its a home production for SRK, Gauri Khan has produced the movie, publicity at this level was quite obvious, be it the “6-pack”, be it the debut of Deepika Padukone, be it the second movie of Farah Khan, or be it anything. It all paid off…and all the money spent has been well recovered.

So lets begin with the story, its about Om (SRK) working as a junior artist in the 70s and he is in love with the superstar Shanti (Deepika) and eventually meets her and then he dies saving her, he is then reincarnated and he gives justice to Deepika. I can’t shorten the story more than this, as its already known, the story, and if you don’t, then go and watch this, I don’t want to spoil it for you.

Its an entertaining movie, worth the money, and another great effort from Farah Khan. It does have some Farah Khan trademarks which reminded me of Main Hoon Na many times. Farah has definitely improved a lot, what I like most about her work is the level of attention she pays to small things. Her way to putting things into place is really good, the effects used in the movie during the shooting sequences with 70s scenes and the OSO scenes were blended very well, sets were great, it really takes you back to those 70s and the movie takes you back to the way movies were made in those days. Its a really good tribute to the Hindi cinema. It does have some similarity to Karz to some extent, but I don’t feel that it was anything like a copy. Its a different movie and both are good.

Acting wise SRK was great as always, this is easily among his best performances of late, very energetic and young. Deepika Padukone, gosh, she is beautiful, and she is here to stay, not just because of her looks but for her acting too. She is really impressive in the movie. She couldn’t have imagined for a better launch to her career than starring in a SRK movie directed by Farah Khan. Its a great launch and she should build on this by working on some more good films. Shreyas Talpade plays the role of SRK’s good friend, and he was pretty effective and good. Kiron Kher is becoming the Rakhi of today’s cinema. I mean she is the best woman to play the mom role these days. She was in Main Hoon Na too, and here too she is just as effective as she was in Main Hoon Na. Arjun Rampal plays the bad guy role and he did a fair enough job.

Overall its a great movie, good music, great presentation, and its entertaining. Farah…a job well done. SRK once again rules the box office and shows us why he is the King of Bollywood. Deepika’s debut is impressive. So in view of all this its definitely a must watch.

Rating 8.5/10

Read the music review of Om Shanti Om

Ratatouille
Directed by     Brad Bird, Jan Pinkava (Credited as co-director)
Produced by     Darla K. Anderson, John Lasseter, Brad Lewis
Written by     Brad Bird
Starring     Patton Oswalt, Lou Romano, Peter Sohn, Brad Garrett, Janeane Garofalo, Ian Holm, Brian Dennehy, Peter O’Toole
Music by     Michael Giacchino
Distributed by     Walt Disney Pictures

I love the way Pixar gives life to concepts like Ratatouille. The most important factor in any animated movie is that there should be a good story and an equally impressive set of characters who look realistic and believing. Ratatouille is another of the Pixar animated films and clearly among the best.

The movie revolves around a rat who loves to cook, and ever since he reads the phrase “Anyone can cook” he knows he’s got to cook. His idol Gusteau has influenced him enough for him to forget that he’s a rat who can’t cook. So he somehow gets to Gusteau’s famous restaurant. And he cooks a soup, and Linguini looks what the rat did. And from then on its a great ride on. Lots of interesting scenes and a great storyline unfolds. Its really a wonderfully created environment and you are really immersed in the virtual things in the movie. The relationship between the human and the rat is the main idea around the movie along with the phrase “Everyone can cook”

All the characters are very good, the rat Rémy and Linguini are both impressive. The storyline is good. The main thing was the animation, it was really very good. DreamWorks Animation also had a rats based movie last year, Flushed Away. But Ratatouille is a bit better than Flushed Away.

Overall I rate it as a pretty good movie, definitely among the best animated ones I’ve seen. Its a refreshing movie, not very complicated or anything, lovely animation. Just about perfect for a Pixar animation film.

Rating 8.5/10

Yes you heard it, the fourth installment in The Fast and The Furious series is coming to streets…errr…theaters, and most importantly the main characters, Vin Diesel and Paul Walker have confirmed their return. Not much is known about the rest of the stuff like who’s the director and what cars are in it, but then isn’t Vin Diesel and Paul Walker’s return good news enough? Can’t wait for more on this, so Watch this Space!

Directed by Michael Bay
Produced by Steven Spielberg (executive), Tom DeSanto, Don Murphy
Written by Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, John Rogers
Starring Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, Josh Duhamel, Tyrese Gibson,
Voices Peter Cullen, Hugo Weaving
Music by Steve Jablonsky
Cinematography Mitch Amundsen
Distributed by DreamWorks Pictures, Paramount Pictures, United International Pictures

When I saw the first teaser I knew it would be interesting, when I saw the theatrical trailer I was anticipating the release, and when I finally saw the movie I was awestruck. What a movie! Really awesome!

Permalink to this topic

I’m was on a trailer viewing spree today and landed up on “The Last Legion”. I was shocked to see Aishwarya Rai’s name there. I didn’t know Aishwarya has done such a hollywood film lately! And to my surprise she also features in the upcoming sequel to the 2006 box office hit The Pink Panther, The Pink Panther 2! Surprise Surprise, can’t understand how could such two important events miss my eye. Anyways better late than never. The Last Legion hasn’t got great reviews, but Aish did look good in the trailer. But I’m more interested in the latter project. Pink Panther is a famous name and Aish will definitely have a great time working in the movie. Big names like Steve Martin, Jean Reno (The Da Vinci Code, Godzilla, Mission: Impossible), Alfred Molina (Spider-Man 2, The Da Vinci Code) are also there in the movie. So she will definitely get some more attention in Hollywood. And even Celina Jaitley was offered this role and she reportedly turned it down. Hrithik Roshan was also offered a role for the movie in one of the roles. But even he didn’t take it up. Anyways back to Aish. I would really want to see how does she do in this comic role with Steve Martin.

Sources:Wikipedia

Quite an unusual name for a movie, I thought. But it does look quite impressive. As the name suggests, its based on prehistoric times. Its about a man who tries to save his tribe from extinction. He has to face huge mammoths, saber-toothed cats and some other tribes too.

Its directed by Roland Emmerich, the guy who made films like Universal Soldier, Independence Day, Godzilla and The Day After Tomorrow. So expect another good movie from Roland. The trailer shows some good scenes, special effects will be good, its a Roland Emmerich movie after all, overall the trailer does look pretty good and promising. So this movie also makes it to my plan to watch list.

The film is slated for a March 7, 2008 release.

Official site and trailer

AvP is coming back! And its promising. The sequel to 2004’s Alien vs. Predator is releasing on 25th December 2007, Christmas Day. Its not directed by Paul Anderson this time though. Brothers Strause are directing this one. I saw the trailer today and it really looks good to me. Now what I can figure out from the plot is this, the space ship lands on Earth, come aliens come out, predators are ofcourse there where the aliens are, and then some earthlings too who will shout, run, spill blood, cry for mercy and eventually win and remove the aliens and predators. So the aliens come, and some humans find themselves in the same area where the aliens landed, they get hunted and facehuggers hug them, and then the chestbursters come out. Its said that Predalien, a Alien/Predator hybrid, will also feature in the movie, as in the end of the prequel, Alien vs. Predator, an alien chestburster came out of the dead predator. So that would be interesting to watch. So I’m waiting for its release and will definitely like to watch it.

Watch the trailer on the Official Website. It requires age verification as its rated R for restricted.