Watch ‘Kites’ just for Barbara!

Kites Official Poster Watch Kites just for Barbara!Kites was Anurag Basu-Rakesh Roshan team’s miserable attempt to make a highly melodramatic Hindi movie into something that resembled a Hollywood movie.

The movie is only worth the scenes where they show Barbara Mori and her tantalizing curves and smiles. Its sort of a disappointer if you’re a Hrithik Roshan fan. Remember Dhoom 2 and how Hrithik got the whole audience spell bound with his amazing moves and ‘acting’. This movie promises nothing. The only fast paced song in the movie looks like Saroj Khan’s version of B-boying gone horribly wrong!

So then one would wonder why it has got 86% ‘fresh’ rating at Rotten Tomatoes and the fact that almost all the critics have gone at length to praise this film bar a few. Did i write something just now that makes me look like a complete mental? I didn’t check my cynicism at the door when i went for the movie. In fact i never really had any. But i left the movie with two bags full!

The storyline for the movie, is one that has been written, re-written, taken and re-taken many times in Bollywood. Tweak the characters a bit here and there, redefine who is going to play the villain this time and rewrite the ending to be a bit too dramatic and we have a new Hindi movie.

The hero, J (god knows what his name in full is.might be Jackass) is a dance teacher and marries immigrant women to get them green cards (ya like officers in the US are dumb enough not to spot that). When the rich daughter of the villain falls for J, he decides to marry her for the money. But he then discovers that the lady who is marrying his brother-in-law was one of the ladies he had married for the green card thingie. Enter the heroin Natasha a.k.a Linda. Rest is predictable movie stuff. Chases, explosions that are very typical to Bollywood films, gun fires, a badly taken Mexican Stand-off, love scenes, sacrifices etc. etc.

I’m not saying that similar storyline has not been copied elsewhere. It has been. But they all try to add a little something that makes the movie worth watching. Road Trip and Euro Trip both revolve round the same story line. But the story develops in its own unique way in both the movies. Kites simply fail to do so.

Wait a second, on second thought, i really understand why Kites did well in the overseas market and not in India.

Imagine that you have been having dosas all through your life. You have had masala dosa, pain dosa, ghee dosa, egg dosa, plain dosa, paper dosa, ragi dosa, set dosa and even something called as the freaking American chopsuey dosa. To get rid of this, you decide to travel to the US to try new food items. Then one fine day your friend tells you that he has found out an excellent place where you get amazing lip-smacking food. You are elated and you cant wait to eat something else. You dream of all the new variety of food that you are about to taste. But much to your dismay your friend takes you to Dosa Plaza! How about that uhh? Now thats exactly how i felt when i saw the movie.

Now if you were originally from the US and had no idea how dosas taste like, you will for sure enjoy the dosa. If even you ordered a Mexican Roast Dosa (WTF!!!)

The only thing that the movie offers the audience is the perfect figure of Barbara Mori. (she has one of the best figures in the industry) and the enviable chemistry between her and Hrithik. As my wife put it as we left the theater, “what an amazing lust between the actors…”

For Barbara, who felt bad as the movie did bad in India, lets watch the movie….

For Barbara!

Top 10 Hindi Movies of 2009

I’m no film critic, but i sure can realize if a movie is worth the 3hrs in the theater. 2009 had seen its share of good and worse Hindi movies (the ones that i know about).

The year started of with Chandni Chowk To China, the movie that took slapstick comedy to even lower depths. It made me realize that the torture that i had to endure came close to the torture of watching a movie by a great South Indian Movie Hero 4 years ago.

But i have reasons to rejoice. The year is ending with 3 Idiots.

10 Worst Hindi movies of 2009

10. Chandni Chowk To China

9. 8 x 10 Tasveer

8. Aa Dekhen Zara

7. What’s Your Raashee?

6. London Dreams

5. Kambakkht Ishq

4. Jashnn

3. De Dana Dan

2. Luck

1. Dil Bole Hadippa!

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10 Best Hindi Entertainers of 2009

Now these are the ones that i was happy about spending 3hrs watching the movie. They had some twist in them.

10. Quick Gun Murugun

9. Aloo Chaat

8. Delhi-6

7. Rocket Singh: Salesman of the Year

6. New York

5. Love Aaj kal

4. Dev.D

3. Wake Up Sid

2. Kaminey

1. 3 Idiots

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Looking back at 2009, i’m a firm believer that the years to come we will see better hindi movies and some very great entertainers.

Wanted7 Top 10 Hindi Movies of 2009A special mention about the movie Wanted. I haven’t seen the movie. But the tamil version of that movie, Pokkiri, is one of my favorite. I will put it at zeroth position in the worst list if Wanted doesn’t do justice to Pokkiri.

Pokkiri poster Top 10 Hindi Movies of 2009

2 Week Movie Marathon

Since the accident i had and my right-hand was confined to a cast, i was totally at home. During that time my entertainment providers were Star Movies and HBO. Now that the cast has come off the first thing to do is to take a list of movies that i saw during that last two weeks.

A special mention about the movie Death Proof. I saw the movie end to end and i had a feeling like, the sort of moving angles and shots looked very familiar. Well i wasn’t surprised to find that the movie was one by Quentin Tarantino. His signature takes were there all along the movie and its a great watch.

I agree that these are all English movies. Of all the movies in other languages, that was aired, only a few was really worth watching. The best of the lot was these two -

Malayalam

Kilukkam

Oru Vadakkan Veeragatha

Kilukkam 2 Week Movie Marathon Film%5CFilm370 2 Week Movie Marathon
(couldn’t get a better poster for this movie)

icon smile 2 Week Movie Marathon

[pic courtesy : wikipedia]

Things i noticed in 3 days in God’s Own Country (Kerala)

kerala alleppey2 Things i noticed in 3 days in Gods Own Country (Kerala)There is no point in me saying – ‘most part of my life i have been a mallu’. It doesnt really make any sense. I’m a mallu and i’m damn proud of it. But over the last 4 years i have stayed more in the garden city (Bangalore, you jack-ass!!!), than at my home town Kayamkulam (we proudly say that we are from the place of Kerala’s most famed highwayman Kayamkulam Kochunni). So now i’m not a Kannadiga (yet), but has been away from home for quite long enough to notice the subtle things about my place, that i wouldnt have noticed otherwise.

1. The Beef Curry – If you are in Kerala, just drop into any of the road side hotels (as with all places, just look at the cleanliness part a bit before you settle down), order yourslef a plat of beef-curry or beef-fry with porota. Its one of the best combination of food and if have made the choice of place correct then 4 porota and a plate of hot beef-curry wont cost you more than 50bucks

2. Guys on bike – Ok here i’m talking about guys between 20-25 years. These jackasses dont know how to ride a bike and if i was here i would have ended up just like them. They start the bike, both feet are off the ground and its 10secs of front-wheel wobbling before they pick up speed and then later their balance. If anything fails in between then back to square one. They have been the biggest headache for me while driving.

3. KSRTC SuperFast Buses – The only thing red in the place other than the menacing CPM politicos are the state run public transport buses – The KSRTC. Starting their fleet from Ordinary, Ordinary Fast, Venad (white and blue), Limited Stop, Fast Passenger, Limited Stop Fast Passenger, Super Fast, Super Express (green in color) and the luxury Volvo (white). The best in line i say are the Super Fast buses. People prefer them for journey that lasts up to 6hrs because the buses make their own rules and the drivers, at any given point, are trying to do an F1 qualifier.

4. Auto Drivers in Trivandrum and Alappey – The best auto drivers are from Kozhikodu. That i dont know. But from what i know the best auto drivers are from Trivandrum and Alappey, they might ask for more, but ask them to go via meter, most of them will kindly oblige.

5. The choice of news – We prefer the local news of murder/rape/smuggling/hawala/suicide/accident/bribery/raid more than what goes on with the nation. I said we ‘prefer’, just that other news takes a backseat. We still have time to discuss about other things after we are done with the daily news analysis. After the Paul-Murder that filled the news, Sex-racket in Cochin is gaining momentum. And if not that then we will find something else.

6. Public Holidays, Celebrations and Hartal – Someone banned ‘bandh’ couple of years back and ever since its ‘hartal’ for everything. Last year my mom told me that there were 52 un-official holidays, thanks to the hartals. Hartals are treated a bit differently. The whole family is together, some good movie will be aired on tv, so it basically ends up having a semi-festive feeling about it. Hinduism, Christianity and Islam 3 major religions and hence we have 3 major festive seasons – Onam, Christam and Ramzan. Hinduism is not strict like its outside the state. The fact that has been proved with almost everyone having Beef (the meat of cow tastes better than the ox icon wink Things i noticed in 3 days in Gods Own Country (Kerala) )

and i love it in here …