[Movie] Bangalore Days- Malayalam

Movie: Bangalore Days
Language: Malayalam
Director: Anjali menon
Cast: Dulquer Salmaan, Nazriya Nazim, Nivin Pauly, Fahadh Faasil, Parvathy menon....
Rating: 6/5

The colors as morning breaks come shining through a glass painting.... you have three best buddies.... An RJ who is always chirpy and positive on air every single day...A girl tries a ciggie, takes a puff for the first time just before her marriage because she is tensed about the whole shindig.... And then there are these good looking actors strutting about on the big screen.. Am sure this has got you feeling high enough.. So how can a movie with all these flavours be anything but amazing?! Well, that is Bangalore Days for you.

Das (Fahaad) prefers his little private space, Ajju (Dulquer) is a rebel, Kuttan (Nivin who doubles as a narrator) is  quite shy, Divya (Nazriya) is a simple fickle minded girl while Sarah(Parvathy) is quite independent with an attitude to boot. So, what is it they all have in common? Well, there are strings that connect them all beautifully. 
 

We have  Divya who learns about Das’s past which has her reaching out to help him... On the other hand we have Sarah who slowly but surely is attracted to Ajju, but her mom just kicks him to the curb with a few sharp questions.  And then you have Kuttan who realises his girlfriend is not too serious about their relationship, all he does is walks away. Each of these form such beautiful moments in the movie!

Sprinkle in some phenomenal music, choreography and editing, and you have a movie that has you engaged every single minute. None of the actors do over the top drama or have you tearing your hair out..  The nuances of relationships, human beings, personalities and life has been showcased so perfectly by Director Anjali menon.. Just pray this movie doesnt catch the eye of a director from another state and they get the urge to remake it... 

The wedding song...  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WS4Mev_vRAc

Get your Tamil right...

I havent been this hopping mad ever. Actually, wait, the 1st time was when I endured Chennai Express. I could NOT sit through the movie, no matter how skimpy Deepiga's outfits where.. Yes, I know I have misspelt her name but I have done that intentionally!! Why cant I? When you can happily go about walking all over our beautiful Tamizh, I shall mess up your names! Gah.. 

How dare you show Dudhsagar lake and pass it off as a Village in Tamil Nadu? Call me next time you lose your way towards Tamil Nadu.

How dare you create a fake village in God knows where and make it look all cute and prim and proper and get people to assume that is how people lived..

How dare you mix up religions and create a temple with a God from a different sub case and a priest from another and assume my thatha would let that slide 

How dare you show a tradition that does not even exist - guy carrying a girl up the temple and make it seem like they are the most LOVING couple!! blah.. 

How dare the Deepiga keep saying "Bokwas" and make it look like that is how we talk!! Hullo, come have a conversation with me- i shall dazzle you with my tamil, hindi and english.. 

Phew!! Just when I thought I was done picking out all the bones from this torture of a movie, there came another one... 2 States.

I am not a fan of Chetan Bhagat, he should have stopped after five point someone!! No, did he listen to us? No, he went on to do few more things with pages inbetween [ I refuse to call them books] and am sure he scribbled knowing some director somewhere will lap em up and he would go on to become the next Shakepeare!! Bleddy Hell... 

So, there is this thing with pages in it called 2 states that got lapped up and made into a movie-- starring the dead pan Arjun kapoor and the pretty yet dumb Alia bhatt. He is a north indian boy and she  is a south indian girl. That is all.. There is nothing south indian about her or the entire set in " so called Chennai"

What surprised me was that Ananya [ Aalia] speaks beautiful Hindi while her tamizh is very fudged up.. And she is said to have grown up in Chennai all her life.. Next time call me, I shall come tutor actors in Tamil.. Hindi too if required! 

The boy lands in Chennai, they show the airport and he gets into an auto- FYI there are no autos inside the airport [get your facts straight], he then goes down the city, crossed the Chennai central [ almost telling the viewers - see how correct we are in details] and then suddenly next turn is into Pondicherry lanes [ the yellow wall and tall grey windows and narrow lanes that are so unique to Pondicherry]

The roads are filled with kolams, really? Not in the middle of the day!!  And not all of us put elaborate kolams outside our home daily... 

The house has a courtyard in the center and the lady of the house loves to sing.. how typical, right? Except here she is turned down by all the bhagavathars... [no explanations offered] and suddenly one day Arjun organises her show at his office function and she sings like a Nightingale!! Really?? wtf.. 

Again, the generalisations that Amrita Singh spews on the "Madarasis" is just so steriotypical and so 1940s!!! And we Tamilians do speak beautiful English, in case you did not know!! 

Well, I can go on and on... But am tired and fed up.!! All I wanna say is = Next time you Bollywood folks decide to make a movie set in TN or if the character is a Tamilian, call me for some insights!! I promise you- the movie will fare better~ 

At the movies...

I have written about how people can be annoying in the movie theater- especially those who get on their phones and just don’t hang up. Today, I had a different kind of experience. There was a mom with her son and a daughter and her mom in the row behind mine. The movie began, the little one kept asking the mom in tamil what was happening and then the lights came on to indicate interval. I felt a jolt on my seat and turned back to see the kid jumping up and down near her mom. And then suddenly the boy sitting on the other side, few seats away from mine [behind my row] started throwing up. He threw up nonstop for a while. Instead of giving him water or something to drink, the mom kept shouting at him. And then she decided to take him to the loo, before which he threw up again down the aisle..

The grandmother swished her saree for a few mins in the air knocking off any vomit on her saree and sat back with the girl. The mom and son came back, the son sitting next to the gramma and no sooner had he sat down did she begin scolding him – Enna sapta, enna panina.. ippadiya panradhu, konjam kooda eppadi nadanthukkanum therila, naaye shaniyan [ what did you eat? What did you do? Is this how you behave, no manners at all.. curse words]… I was quite appalled.. The gramma kept at it… The child looked about 6-7yrs of age and ready to cry. Poor thing! The gramma then gave him a plastic bag and said he was to quietly vomit in that and not trouble them.

What is wrong with people? The child’s eyes were red- he could have been running a temperature or had a bad stomach.. the Movie was more important than your child’s health? Amidst the children who scream and shout, this upset me the most~~ 

[Movie] Queen experience

Disclaimer- This is not exactly a review, but more of my experience while watching Queen... If you want a review, well you gonna have to purchase a ticket and go watch the movie~~! 

Sneak peek- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFeV6VyVFmQ

There I was sitting with 2 friends on one side and a guy on the other side who'd come with his girfriend [ how do I know, cos she told someone on the phone that she was at the movie with her boyfriend, yes she spelt it out.. lol]...  Anyways, we had reached our seats just as the movie was beginning, and it was the Mehndi scene. London thumakda song was just starting as we got comfortable.... Rani's[Kangana] mind voice was running with various dialogues about "how pretty the sign that said Rani weds vijay was, and how her mom had said she was going to change into a saree but hadnt, and her brother Chintu had her phone to take pictures so she could upload them on facebook but he was missing and finally about how Vijay had changed since his London sojourn] And then as the movie progressed, the Cafe coffee day scene had the people on either side gasping and the guy on my right even uttered a swear word [ How the eff can he do that to her, he has changed but she hasnt he says.. bleddy @#%#% were his exact words before the girl shushed him]... 

As the movie progressed, I noticed most people in the theater were quite silent, either contemplating Rani move- whether she would go ahead with her Paris- Amsterdam trip or succumb and resume normal boring life... There were a few who clapped aloud when she announces at the dining table her decision to go on her honeymoon alone... There were about 3 elderly North indian women in the row behind who said "acchi baat hui" [this is a good thing] when she hops on the flight and zooms away to Paris.  

Later on, as Rani checks into her room, and hears a sudden sound, the guy next to me couldnt control his chuckles, and the girl chimed in as well.. And thn when Rani goes to the balcony and sees Vijayalakshmi (Lisa Haydon) was the 1st time, there was a gasp in the theater- mainly for what she was wearing... This very audience laughed their brains out when Rani makes those  kissy faces before kissing the hot Italian crush after the Sailing boat food challenge scene...

And when Vijay [Rajkummar Rao] is constantly calling her, telling her he loves her, one of the elderly women actually muttered " nahin jao, chod do use" [dont go, leave him]. Heck, I was amazed at the audiece and how involved they were with the movie. When in Amsterdam, Rani goes to the room and discovers 2 guys already there, the guy next to me "woah, is that what a hostel is like?" and another lady behind me said "haan, my son no told me this is how he stayed when he went to Europe for a holiday], the man next to her said "Amsterdam is such a beautiful country, mazaa aaya"... ;)  

Everytime Vijay made an attempt to reconnect with her, and the scene where she asks him to come to a cafe [after telling her roommate/friends that she cant make it to the concert], the entire hall was up in claps when the waiter brings her mint tea, addresses her by name and she swavely just shrugs off Vijay and heads off to the concert. My friends and the guy on other side commented [Vijay looks like a monkey, such a loser]  

The women laughed when Vijaylakshmi gave Rani a makeover,  including grabbing her boobs and her ass... The guys enjoyed the scene when they go to Sex store and Rani buys gifts for her families without realising what they were.  It was a howlarious moment when during the initial scenes Rani pours her heart out to everyone at the bar and then suddenly is alert on hearing a hindi tune.  

It was amazing to see the entire audience [ across ages] react, and be so completely tuned in to Rani and her actions~!! 

[Movie] Hasee Toh Phasee

The movie opens with a bunch of people screaming and trying to open a door in a Chawl in mumbai, and a man comes up the staircase and is told it is his daughter who did the prank. He calls her aside, doesnt chide or scold her but tells her to open the door and finish what she started and they high 5. On the other hand there is another family, the dad is a cop and his 2nd son Nikhil [Siddharth Malhotra] is a naughty kid- who they lock in a room and go to watch a movie, but he doesnt stay locked in, he is out and watching the movie from the other side of the screen in no time.

Producers: Vikas Bahl, Hiroo Johar, Anurag Kashyap, Karan Johar

Production companies: Dharma Productions, Phantom Productions

Cast: Parineeti Chopra,Sidharth Malhotra,Adah Sharma

Hasee Toh Phasee is quite the entertainer, it was such a feel good movie that we walked out of the theater smiling, recollecting the quirky moments.  Coming back to the movie, the 1st time Nikhil and Meetha [Parineeti Chopra] meet is when Nikhil is passing by a house when he spots a tomboyish girl trying to escape through the barbed wires. He helps her escape and as she is fleeing the place, she says "Socho, mein idea hoti aur tum technology, humari patang kya mast udti na?”   

Now, the main plot of the movie is not a new one, it is about a guy and girl all set to get married, when the guy falls in love with another girl in the process only to go after her on his wedding day. But the way it has been taken, the approach, the characters - that is what sets this movie apart.  

Meetha is a daddy's girl [daddy's role played by Manoj Joshi], a girl who runs away because she dint get what she wanted from her dad. Her uncle is constantly yelling at her [she has short hair, wears T-shirt and trousers, is spoilt, too independent, etc etc]. She hails from a traditional Gujarati family that doesnt understand her, nor do they encourage her brilliance.  She disappears on the eve of her oldest sister's marriage only to reappear after 7 years for her 2nd sister's wedding. Infact, Karishma (Adah Sharma), her sister invites her for the wedding  but introduces her as a guest to Nikhil. It is only later that he discovers the relation, the background and Meetha as a person. 

The story is all about Nikhil and Karishma's wedding, the families preparing for it, Nikhil perpetually in need o money, Karishma constantly angry with him, and the rest of the family adding to the chaos in their own little way. Nikhil and Karishma have had a crazy relationship, she has threatened to break it off numerous times, but he holds on to the relationship saying "I know her, I love her, who is to say the next girl will be the perfect one?" 

Meetha is an oddball, she has the wildest twitches and habits, she speaks a million words a second, she drinks gallons of water and popped a dozen pills periodically. Nikhil ends up picking her up, finding her accomodation, retrieving her from the dump and putting her up at his house, driving her around, and various other adventures. During these times he learns about her, realises she is not a bad cookie, but just a misunderstood cookie. And as they discover each other, romance blossoms. On the evening of a family gathering, Meetha tags along with Nikhil for she wants to meet her dad [ hasnt seen him in 7yrs] but is told he is angry and might have another heart attack, and so he whisks her away. But then the car breaks down, and she instantly solves the issue. That evening, she shares her entire life story with Nikhil, showing off the ball that bounces like crazy, that could one day provide power for an entire apartment complex. 

Her stares, quirks, sharp dialogues, her twinkling eyes, sudden bursts of chinese, tooth paste eating, chocolate stealing habits are just amazing. Infact, she is the highlight of the movie and Parineeti has acted brilliantly, essaying the role to the dot.  Nikhil is so drawn to her that by the end of the movie he is all set to help her find the money she needs even though it is not the acceptable path. And as expected, the movie does end with a happy ending. 

It is a must watch for anyone who needs a good laugh, or wants to hold on to the belief that love does exist. Such a rib tickling, sweet, endearing, feel good, warm fuzzy movie that was.  And then ofcourse, Siddharth looks good, so does Parineeti [there is also certain cuteness in her]

Overal rating - 4.5/5 [ the .5 less because some scenes I felt were unnecessary, just as some characters were...]