Vishal B. Nair

No Faith

2010-03-03T00:26:00.000+05:30

NO FAITH

Before you read ahead let me get one thing straight. I write/believe in the content below because I believe in it. Let me also assure that whatever you read below is my and only my opinion.

So here I go. I am a day dreamer. No!! I don’t go blank in the middle of a conversation and dream weird stuff. Its only when I sit idle or I am bored, I start thinking stuff & go like “what if” kind of scenarios.

Here I am sitting at a café waiting for my not so punctual friend sipping on my cappuccino when I see a group of friends pass by joking, slapping each other’s back and laughing out loud obviously enjoying each other’s company with no care for the world. Now they were just kids, my assumption is maybe 13 or 14 year olds. I didn’t get a closer look at all the boys. However there were 2 boys that caught my attention. They were walking merrily with arms around each other’s shoulder busy in some joyous conversation and completely oblivious to the rest of the group. What was so special about these to kids you ask? Well, one was a Muslim and the other a Hindu. One of them was wearing a Kufi (a small round white cap worn by Muslims) and the other kid had some Hindu Deity hanging on his silver chain around his neck. Let us jump time 10 years ahead and they are in a Communal Riot like situation. Do you think they will still be such good pals then or will they be out there trying to knife each other like savages? Now this made me wonder ‘’what if’’ this thing called “religion” was never found? Would the world have been a better place? Or the world would have been thrown in to chaos due to absence of faith? Then comes the most important question. What motivated man to divide people in the name of religion? Now I am sure after the last question above some of you already has a theory on why Religion exists. Hold that thought right there please. I want to hear it. Before that spend some time reading what I think below.

Let us for the sake of discussion consider Bombay a place where a lot of cavemen stayed together millions of years ago when there was no such thing called religion. Now this particular group obviously had an Alpha Male who was a leader of the said group. He had his rules and regulations established which must have been obviously followed blindly by the rest. As human tendency has it I am assuming someone must have rebelled against that Alpha male obviously not happy with rules and restrictions. The rebel is banished from Bombay as he could be a threat to the Alpha Male so the rebel with his small sect of followers migrates to, let us say, Nepal. He sets up camp there with new rules and regulations and becomes the Alpha Male there. So now we have 2 groups following to different set of rules which I shall call religion B and the former group religion A. Hence first rift between men takes place. What do you think was the reason here? You may have a few which again as I mentioned I would like to hear. What do I think the reason is? Power!! What does a man with Power want? More Power.

Let us jump back to our times now, every move a prominent person makes is analyzed by the so called High Priests of all the religions. We keep pointing fingers at each other saying that religion XYZ follows a particular path which is inhumane and then another group says religion ABC preaches inhumane stuff. Now for the record in my reading experience I have never come across any material that preaches violence in any particular religion or against any particular religion. So if you are going to tell me that a person A is a bad guy because he is a follower of religion ABC, I would say you are full of poop (trying not to get a R rating :p)

An individual resorts to violence in the name of religion because he has been brainwashed, blackmailed etc etc. you tell me as an individual what is going to motivate or compel you to commit suicide? What can give you enough courage to kill someone? Suicide: highest level of depression. To Kill: considering the person before you as a moral threat. Suicide cannot be justified on any level of understanding. However the killing factor comes in to play in cases of self-defense which can be justified up to a certain extent. Hence the suicide bombers or the people hacking each other in a communal riot are mostly influenced by someone at the higher top most level of the food chain promising something to make it worth the risk they take.

Coming back to the question whether all this could have been avoided if religion was never found? Maybe. Who knows? We will never find out. Why? Because finding of Religion/Faith was inevitable. The power hungry nature of us humans makes it inevitable. Man would have come up with something to divide and rule.
We all have our fixed circles in which we are known to hangout with. Think about the people you hang out with every day. Do they all belong to the same religion as you? Or do they belong to different religion? Is on particular religion always missing in your friend circle? Why? Have you never met a person with those particular religious beliefs? Or you did meet the person but chose to distance yourself as his religion or faith is not good enough for your circles?
Ask me the same question. I say yes. One particular religion is missing in our group. Why? I guess just like everyone else I have made up my mind about a particular religion and its followers. I have No Faith in human nature anymore. Religion has become the defining characteristic of an individual now. How do we change this? I have no bloody clue.

Kurbaan (2009)

2009-11-22T17:09:00.001+05:30

Kurbaan

Budget: $11,000,000

You all can label me as a KJo Hater. I don’t care. He is pathetic and there cannot be another side to it. How can you, as a film-maker/ producer/director or whatever contribution you are making in a movie, manage to mess up a good script? Now this could have been a good action movie by cutting down on the mushy stuff. But no! Of course not! How can an Indian not have a complicated love story in his life experience where he is trained to be an assassin/terrorist etc. So here we have Fanaa (Budget $878,938) (remember chocolate boy Aamir Khan and chocolate girl Kajol?) remade in to a 3 hour movie.

The movie starts off showing Ehsaan Khan (Saif) and Avantika Ahuja (Kareena) competing for a cab desperately and then ending up the same location, a college where they are professors. I thank the director for not showing them as college teens singing and dancing.

Twenty minutes into the movie you find it easy to predict the next twenty minutes and the excitement dies down after the supposed twist in the scene which was again predictable. I don’t believe that I heard oohs and aaahs in that scene which a 10 year old would have predicted. Some things to look forward to for us guys are Bebo going bareback up top. There! That’s the only thing we can look forward to.

Vivek Oberoi was surprisingly better than his previous roles (he gets to kiss Dia Mirza mannn!!!!!). He didn’t over act this time I mean. Kirron Kher in a serious role is good to watch the natural actor she is.

I wouldn’t rate the movie above 4.5 or 5 off 10. If we minus the extra mushy stuff the movie would have been watchable but 3 hours a little too much to bear. On top of it in the last 15 minutes during the climax the projector guy or whatever he is pauses the movie for 5 mins (I am sure he went on a loo break and didn’t want to miss the end), I mean what the hell was that man?

2012: The Movie

2009-11-15T18:23:00.002+05:30

This epic movie is Roland Emmerich's baby. This baby could have been as good as Godzilla, Independence day or The Day After Tomorrow. What happens? He screws it up with a lot of emotions, drama and god knows what superhero crap (pardon my language). The trailers had created so much anticipation in the audience but doesnt live upto it at all. Ok, yes the CG was good. But you cannot use it as an excuse to cover up the emotional mess that was shown.

The movie starts off with showing the sun emitting some microwaves thats causing the earth's crust to heat up rapidly. This is detected by an Indian in a copper mine where he claims that sometimes the temperature in the mine goes up to 120 deg F. I wonder how the NASA never found out about the heating up of the Earth's Core earlier than the Indian.

The time skips to another place where Mona Lisa is being replaced by a fake to protect it from the destruction that is about to take place. So its apparent here that some super powers know about the 2012 disaster about to take place and we assume that just like Mona Lisa other treasured items are being replaced as well.

Jumping ahead again to 2012 we see a divorced John Cusack who is a limo driver and an author go get his kids in a limo for a camping trip. His ex wife Amanda Peet married to a Plastic Surgeon Thomas McCarthy.

During the camping trip Cusack meets a crazy Woody Harrelson a radio host adressing Mayan predictions and adding to that the almost dried up lake on his camping spot makes Cusack suspicious even though the government scientist Adrian assures him all is fine.

Soon enough the frequency of earth quakes increase and our Cusack puts 2 and 2 together (was he a limo driver or a scientist) and concludes that the Crazy radio host was right. Then we see some crafts dodging fireballs, poisonous smoke, uprooted buildings, cars, trains all dodged by the surgeon (flying is part of surgeon's course) flying the plane expertly whereas on the other hand you see air force one succumbing to the natural disaster.

It becomes a little too heroic when you see people around you dying and the only ones surviving are these few characters start to end. How lucky can you really be when a wave, 35000 feet high is racing towards you. Somethings evade common sense completely.

The upside of the movie is the CG. the earth quakes, volcanic eruptions and yes the 35000 feet high wave coming from the ocean are all very scarily impressive and you are forced to think, man can fight all odds to survive or kill anything or anybody for power, but you cant and dont mess with mother nature because when she gets down to spanking there is no safe spot for you to be in.

This movie is watchable just due to the special effects but it doesnt even come close to The Day After Tomorrow let alone Independence Day. I rate it 5/10.

Aladin (2009)

2009-11-15T16:42:00.003+05:30

Aladin : Sujoy Ghosh

Budget: 50 cr

This movie produced, directed and written by Sujoy ghosh comes as a welcome change from the regular run around the trees. Yes its a love story as well but isnt almost every movie made in bollywood a love story?

Now Sujoy Ghosh has had a impressive stint with Jhankaar beats and Home Delivery. The former being something very down to earth for a movie freak to relate to and the latter, although an outright copy from a french movie still made a good impression. In Aladin the story was completely revamped to suit the Indian movie enthusiasts. Somehow I have a feeling that Sujoy very well knew that this movie will not be exactly appreciated by majority of the crowd. But as you know he went ahead and took the risk anyway. The result? - Surprisingly impressive.

Let me justify why I was impressed. We had 2 huge names playing strong characters. Amitabh Bachchan playing The Genie - Genius and our very own Sanjay Dutt plays The Ringmaster - An Ex-Genie. Now some of us may question why would a guy like Big B of such high calibre be in a kiddie movie prancing around playing magical pranks. The answer is playing a genie required screen presence. The audience need to feel the Aura he normally emits in any movie. The same logic was applied to Sanjay Dutt playing The Ring Master. He had this evil aura around him every time he came on the screen that was very impressive.

Now I believe that is not the only reason these two extraordinary people where requested to grace the characters with their names. I think it was the chemistry they shared in Kaante long back ago.

As I mentioned the story is completely revamped to suit the Indian audience as in the original cartoon movie Jaffer dupes Aladin into looking for the lamp whereas here Aladin was destined to have it.

The movie starts off normally in a city called Khwaish (fictional city ofcourse) showing Aladin (Ritiesh Deshmukh) a loser orphan being bullied by kids in school just because his name is Aladin. He is asked to rub fake lamps by the bullies everytime he is spotted. His miserable life continues to be the same when he enters college as well. Enter lady love Jasmine (Jacqueline Fernandez - OMG she is soo cute) a friendly US return. Ofcourse our protagonist falls in love with her on first sight. Aladin keeps making a fool of himself whenever she is around but somehow she finds it cute I guess.

At Alladin bday bash, held by Qasim (Sahil Khan - Lead bully) to impress Jasmine, Aladin is gifted yet another lamp this time by Jasmine from an antiques shop. Only this time its the real thing.

Enter Genius (Amitabh Bachchan) a cheerful lively genie who is eager to grant Aladin's 3 wishes and go on a vacation.

The rock-star Genius finds out its too late as our baddie The Ring Master (Sanjay Dutt an ex genie) is in town looking for the lamp as well.

We find out that The Ringmaster wants the lamp for himself to get back his powers from which he was exiled due to selfish reasons. The Ringmaster uses a mirror, he claims to be the Google in the magical world, and finds out that Aladin is destined to protect the lamp. And then we have the 2 genies display excellent martial art and war of words to defeat one another. Both the characters were played wonderfully by Big B and Sanju baba taking coolness and awesomeness to a new level.

The comedy/cheesy dialogues were well timed in the movie so yes there are a few good laughs for the audience as well.

Specially in the scene where The Ringmaster displays his joy rubbing the lamp and singing "Main dardi rub rub (rab rab) kardi" had us rolling on the floor laughing eventhough the whole darn movie theatre didnt find it funny. Sometimes I wonder if the Indian audience will ever grow out of KJo movies.

The special effects for good specially where Genius breaks the edge of a cliff diving down to save baby Aladin. When it comes to acting except the 2 genies none of them where impressive at all. Ritiesh needs to look for a new career soon if he doesnt do something about his pathetic acting skills. Jacqueline Fernandez, the Srilankan beauty, is just one film old and did a decent job. I fail to understand what actors like Ratna Patak, Victor Banerjee and Mita Vahisht were doing or thinking.

All in all I can easily rate it 8/10

Dev D

2009-02-07T14:29:00.001+05:30

The Movie started off good. showing a spoilt brat and a feisty girl getting along , problems with authority at home so he gets the boot to UK etc etc. True to the book so far. Humor was good as it was situational comedy and not intentional, which is what i prefer.

Abhay deol projected Devdas in a different light altogether. The modern devdas. Smoking, drinking, doping etc. Abhay deol convincingly played the character well, easy for the youth to relate to. Good amount of swearing involved. Yes it was required and so it was given an A certificate. At no point of time you will feel sorry for the protagonist though as you know the story he screwed up so he has to face it.

Mahi Gill an average looking Jat girl playing Parminder (Paro) lacks the charisma but i guess her feisty nature may help you overlook that.

Kalki Koechlin the girl with a french heritage, parents were hippies who came to india 38 years ago and then settled here, playing chandramukhi (Chanda) lacks that charisma too required to convert our own devdas to a responsible, good young man (read obedient cute little puppy).

Having said that, Anurag kashyap made this movie keeping in mind the youth today and incidents occurred in the recent past. So it becomes a little easy to watch and enjoy the movie or relate to it.

The end I liked it at first. Then it was pointed out that the end could have been better. The movie could have ended conveniently within 120 mins but it had to be dragged for another 30 mins for no obvious reasons, or for some reason i don't understand. So watch the movie as a pop corn flick before you start reading between the lines