Paathshaala Expert Reviews

I will be doing a review of the Badmaash Company album but today it's all Paathshaala!

It released today and unfortunately doesn't seem to have gone down too well with the critics. These reviews aren't my own but none have gone above a three which worries me. I haven't seen it yet but most reviews are blaming the screenplay, saying it's weak, but all have praised the acting of all three main leads.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/moviereview/5812701.cms
Times of India says:
The film does slog somewhat, specially in the second half and tends to lose momentum due to a loose script and an unimaginative screenplay. Shahid Kapoor underplays his underwritten role as does Nana Patekar.
http://spicezee.zeenews.com/articles/story58900.htm
Spicezee says:
With its realistic setting, ‘Paathshaala’ touches at multifarious levels. Albeit the movie has its sparks of brilliance, yet a derivative screenplay might mar the Box Office success of ‘Paathshaala`.

http://www.ganpatinews.com/2010/04/16/paathshaala-review-watch-for-serious-viewing-25-74261
Ganpati News says:
Nana presents his role cynically. Shahid works superbly. Ayesha looks natural, as usual. Amongst the excess of teachers & students, Sushant Singh seems well, Sushmita Mukherjee is cooperative and Saurabh Shukla is so good, you begin hating him for his disgusting behaviour

http://www.india-forums.com/bollywood/article.asp?id=13939
India Forums say:
What's with the screenplay? There's a scene where Shahid comes hopping, no jumping, no wait jiggying…ugh comes in a obscure form of movement never witnessed in reality and then stops to look at the kids with loving eyes. Err…what was the point of that?

http://movies.rediff.com/review/2010/apr/16/review-paathshaala.htm
Rediff says:
Everything about the film is one-dimensional. The school itself is a set and looks like a cardboard cut-out. The characters are all good or all bad; there are no shades of grey.

This has all depressed me. I was really looking forward to this film from the moment I saw the trailer, it's a shame it all went so wrong... of course I'm still going to watch it.

New Paathshaala Videos!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jv4zmF4kjdY&feature=channel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExY2jp1qAx4

I'm sorry I couldn't embed these, eros wouldn't let me...

Enjoy!

p.s. the puppy scene looks very cute and touching whatsay?

What Got Me Into Bollywood

I was born in and live in India, so it may come as a surprise that something needed to get me interested in Bollywood, considering I was born watching films and will die watching films…

I had read stories before of how people got interested, normally by non-desis and they interested me. I’m following on from veracious’ and Filmi Girl’s posts about this topic, they have some pretty interesting stories to tell.

I had been watching Bollywood films for 16 years of my life before I paid any proper attention to it. This was mainly because it was no more than a timepass, albeit a pretty boring one. My parents watch the old, Raj Kapoor time films and they never interested me, but I didn’t bother going to look for newer ones.

Then one day I was at my friend’s house and we watched Chup Chup Ke… this is going to sound mad, but I instantly loved Shahid Kapoor, so I could credit him for my introduction to Bollywood.

Like Filmi Girl, I always find myself siding for the underdog, Jai was that underdog. He was a destitute but ambitious guy who’s been pushed around by others far more than he deserves, I felt for him. I loved him.

Later, I went on the lookout for news about him on the internet, of course its never that easy to find everything about a star you want to know, so I browsed through articles, clicking on anything that sounded interesting, slowly I built up a foundation of other actors, actresses, directors, singers and so on. Some interested me, I wanted to know more so I’d go and buy one of their films, or if they were pretty old, have a look through my parents’ collections. I still don’t know as much as I’d like to but I seem to know enough to understand news articles and know why there is bias.

While I was on the net, I came across Bollywhat and I read comments on the forums about how Bollywood has helped people, some were touching a lot of them mentioned that it made them grow closer to their families which is sweet. I always think family is important as well as true friends, so I quite like KJo films, they are pretty good for escapism. Not that a little reality hurts.

A lot of people criticise Bollywood for its escapist nature… In all honesty, if I wanted reality, I’d read a newspaper (which I do)! Hollywood is fine if you want a break from Bollywood but I wouldn’t want to watch it as often as I do Bollywood, I think the opposite could be said for Hollywood lovers, they should try out Bollywood when they want a break from reality. Neither is better or worse, just depends on your tastes.

I personally like underdog heroes, independent heroines, cruel villains, strong plotlines and plenty of comedy or a poignant film, either is fine.

Comparisons: Mean Girls vs. Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging

I saw both of these back to back recently and they are both pretty similar except one I enjoyed far more than the other.

Both are chick flicks, which put me off them right from the beginning, but when I saw no other option (I was at someone else’s house) I thought I’d go ahead.

Both are coming of age stories and have, on one level a pretty similar plot. Both have the spoilt girl turning her life around idea near the end but when it comes to characters, Mean Girls wins straight out, like it does in nearly all of the categories. At least the viewer likes Cady at the beginning for her simplicity, I just felt Georgia was annoying, immature and trying to grow up too fast. The Mean Girls’ characters are also more developed, there are girls like Regina who praise you to your face and then bitch behind your back, however I doubt there are such stupid cronies anywhere in the world. The mean girl from Angus, Thongs… is pretty stereotypical and has hardly been given any thought. Also I wonder why Georgia would want Robbie when he manages to prove he is pretty darn stupid, he sees Lindsay hit Georgia and a couple of kind words from her make him forget all that! Of course there is the obvious ‘it’s pretty obvious I’m stalking you’ but lets ignore that. In Mean Girls, Aaron proves his common sense by seeing through Cady’s facade.

Mean Girls really did make me laugh out loud a couple of times which I wasn’t expecting and was far more than Angus managed to do. The only place I came close to smiling was when she said

“Yeah, I’m gutted”

Anyone who’s seen it, knows what I’m talking about. However, in Mean Girls, not only did I like the idea of confessing all the things that hurt you and you have a problem with, I couldn’t help but laugh when that random girl came on and started to talk and she wasn’t even from that school. I would put spoiler alert but it really isn’t a spoiler.

The acting was good in both films, I liked the friends circle in Angus (although why they named it the ‘Ace Gang’ I’ll never know) even if the only things they talked about were their looks and boys. I also liked the two different groups of friends Cady has in Mean Girls. Performances were excellent all round.

In general Mean Girls wins hands down, Angus isn’t even worth a watch in my opinion!

Dil Se Movie Review

I started watching this knowing nothing about it, I didn’t have a clue what to expect. I knew Shahrukh Khan was in it and I thought Kajol was in it too, my bad. I guessed that it had a serious tone from the way people spoke of it on forums but didn’t know the theme… Of course I was in for quite a surprise!

Pros

-The first pleasant surprise came when I saw Mani Ratnam was the director, that is always a sign of a good movie. Although I’m not a huge fan of Ram Gopal Verma’s work, I love his sarcastic blogging, the kind of attitude you can only have if you’re famous.

-The plot, not the kind that will lose you if you’re paying attention but it can if you leave your brain at the door.

-The acting, especially by Manisha Koirala, was top notch for most parts. I felt there was a little hamming coming from Shahrukh but overall he shone in the emotionally charged bits. Manisha is like a supernova, an amazing star while she was around but had to die out soon, I thought she was superb in this.

-When AR Rahman and Gulzar are combined the music has to be good, and it didn’t disappoint. I found myself singing along to Chaiyyan Chaiyyan, but one question, who was the girl dancing in it meant to be? Was it Manisha? I couldn’t tell.

 

Cons

-The major plothole I could find… why did the Indian soldiers do what they did? I don’t want to say anymore and give the game away but anyone who’s seen i knows what I mean. The thing is, none of those questions near the end would arouse if it hadn't happened. At the beginning the locals were complaining about how they had been ignored because of how powerless they are, but they never mentioned the shootings did they? So why did it happen? No country shoots its own innocent civilians unless some psycho like Hitler is in charge and that wasn’t the case in India.

- Manisha seems to constantly have too much make up on in the first half which was annoying the hell out of me.

-Preity lookd pretty bad compared to what she looks like now, her teeth looked liked she had been chewing paan for the last five days and in general, her chracter hit me more as annoying than bubbly

-I liked the songs but hated the cinematography in some of them, I can understand and appreciate they were trying to try out something new but it looked ok at first but more and more cheesy as time went on.

 

Overall: I’d say the pros outnumber the cons and so its definitely a good film

Rating: 4/5

Decoding Posters a.k.a. Copying Aspi

All credit for the idea must go to Aspi who first thought of the idea of decoding a poster before the movie is out to see what clues it gave about the plot, characters and setting. I hope he forgives me for copying him… Here’s the link to the original idea.

Badmaash Company

The film I am looking forward to the most…

Here we can see Shahid and Anuskha are the couple but Shahid is bigger than the other three suggesting he’s the main character. Chang is holding a bag of money, probably what they’re after or maybe what they already have, seen as how glitzy all their costumes are. It is set in a city as we can see from the post chandelier and gold background. The tagline suggests the money in Chang’s hand probably wasn’t earned in an honest way. Anuskha wearing silver where everyone else is wearing black may be marking her out as different, possibly purer and less guilty. Anyone got any other ideas?

Rajneeti

We can see immediately its about politics from the garlands and Katrina in full length clothing, not to mention the tagline. They all look pretty photoshopped which could be suggesting none of them fit into the world of politics. While all of are wearing traditional Indian clothes, Ranbir is in a suit suggesting he’s the odd one out and maybe even from abroad, also while others are looking in different directions, he’ds looking at us, maybe because he’s going to be the one who reaches the general public, i.e. us.

Jaane Kahan Se Aayi Hai

This is a film aimed at the youth which can be seen from the young actors and casual clothes. It has something to do with aliens, seen from the spaceship above Ritesh’s head and the ‘out of this world’ bit in the tagline but this is probably not that important considering. There a love triangle within in the plot which is far more important than the alien angle.

That’s it for today guys!

April Fool’s

Well thank God Shahid has denied that previous story on twitter!

Hahahaha not gettin hitched all check da date mornin all have a fun day its a hot day b cool :)

As big a fan I am, I wish he'd spell properly!

Also, the Zoom article about Shahid and Anuskha turns out to just be Shahid acting... or so his publicist says.

Here's a video to lighten the mood:

It is absolutely hilarious! I’d say a bit more but I don’t want to give the game away!

Oh what the hell! *SPOILER* I thought they were trying to trick Shahid all along, poor girl! All of them acted pretty well *SPOILER*

April Fool's

I hadn't realised this had been saved as a draft ages ago so I thought I'd publish it anyway!

Well thank God Shahid has denied that previous story on twitter!



Hahahaha not gettin hitched all check da date mornin all have a fun day its a hot day b cool :)



As big a fan I am, I wish he'd spell properly!



Here's a video to lighten the mood:

Shahid's marriage...

I just came across this article and I just can't believe it!

Shahid Kapur, the handsome hunk of bollywood who dated Priyanka Chopra for quite some time after their super hit flick Visahl Bhardwaj’s ‘Kaminey’, is all set to marry a Mumbai based fashion designer chosen by his parents in December this year. Though the union has been finalized by two families but Shahid Kapur and the girl had already hit it off and were going out with each for a while. Recently, Shahid Kapur was seen with the girl at a restaurant having dinner and spending almost five hours, quite unaware of the surroundings in the vicinity. Sources close to Shahid Kapur’s family say that the girl belonged to a reputed business family of Mumbai and they had met at a family function recently. Their families came into picture only after seeing them taking interest in each other. In fact, Shahid Kapur was so besotted with the girl that he would end his shootings on time and would go for long drive with his dream girl as many times as possible. The buzz doing the rounds in the industry is that Shahid Kapur and the girl would get engaged in October this year and then would take the final plunge in the month of December.
Shahid Kapur was earlier linked with sizzling hot bollywood babe Priyanka Chopra, especially after they worked together in ‘Kaminey’, but it seems to have fizzled out. In any case, the relationship between Shahid Kapur and Priyanka Chopra had never been consistent and there were always rumors of split.Now, by agreeing to get engaged with this fashion designer girl chosen by his family, Shahid Kapur seems to have put all the speculations in this regard to rest.
Shahid’s new relationship has come to light at a time when his another ex Sania Mirza announced plans to marry suave Pakistani cricketer Shoaib Malik. They are going to marry in April and will shift their base to Dubai after that.Perhaps, Shahid Kapur did not want to be left out and so went for his own marriage, what say??

Do you think this might be a joke by Stardust?? I mean, consider the date!