Movie Review of Slum Dog Millionaire

Movie Review of Slum Dog Millionaire

Story of rags to riches; Engaging Movie with bit of slow start; Wonderful direction by Danny Boyle... He gets it amazingly right - lovely casting; his preference for modern music instead of western classical for background score; effective use of the slum background; action scenes vs dialogue scenes mix;

Plus points:

a. 20 minutes of Jamal winning the KBC show;
b. Rahman's brilliant score
c. city of god type screen play - oscillates between past & present;
d. Well shot movie considering the crowded locales

Minus points:

a. Masala movie
b. Does not give you positive feeling when you walk out of cinemas
c. Joins countless movies which end with railway station climax

Final conclusion:

Surprising to notice 10 Oscar nominations for this movie. May be, the hollywood folks are tired of their adventures (batman types, saviour of the world stories) and looking out.

Some debates are going on whether this movie is a poverty porn, portrays India in poor light etc... My take: You folks should have made all the noise when most of yash raj movies were made in US, UK but speaks Hindi, wears skimpy, transparant clothes etc but preaches Indian tradition ! If that cant be bad, this cant be also bad ! If that is not fake, neither Slum Dog is fake !

Just go out and enjoy western interpretation of Indian life.

Movie Review of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Movie Review of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Some basic facts - this is not a mystery or action movie; around 155m in duration;

Benjamin is the principal character of the movie - born old and ages backward toward childhood; so an epic story spans over some 70 years of life of a human (so an epic) which any of experience on daily basis. It has got love, action and loads of emotions! One can say, it is similar to Forest Gump type of movie.

Brad Pitt's real face comes alive around 106th minute !

Over all a brilliant movie - you end up liking the movie due to effective action of Pitt and Cate Blanchett. The narrative style of the movie is innovative - example the accident scene; Some small episodes of the movie is portrayed brilliantly - like return of Benjamin Sr; lady in red; natural words in greeting cards;

Dont miss this movie if you love emotions !!!

By the way, this movie is nominated for 13 Oscars... All the very best.

Slum Dog Bags 10 Oscar Nominations

Slumdog Millionaire bagged 10 Oscar nominations at the 81st annual Academy Awards... For Best Film, Best Adapted Screenplay (Simon Beaufoy), Best Director (Danny Boyle, Best Original Score (A R Rahman), Best Song (Jai Ho and O Saya), Best Sound Editing (Tom Sayers), Best Sound Mixing (Ian Tapp, Richard Pryke and Resul Pookutty), Best Cinematography (Anthony Dod Mantle) and Best Film Editing (Chris Dickens).

Best Picture nominees are - The curious case of Benjamin Button, Frost / Nixon, Milk, The Reader & Slum Dog Millionaire.

A R Rahman., most likely to bag the Oscars !

Song on Kosu-k-kadi, mosquito bite

After all, i live in India, mosquitoes every where... I got disturbed from my sleep when some mosquitoes trying to pin me down... i didnt get my sleep back immediately., so when i was playing my music player - i got masakali from delhi 6 ! Immediately, my creative brain went running !!! There you go....

Kosu-k-kadi kosu-k-kadi yappa sema kadi sema kadi
hey Kosu-k-kadi kosu-k-kadi yappa sema kadi sema kadi

night fulla parandhu parandhu
naan enna solla en ratham adhukku romba pidikkum
fan-u wast-u, agarbathi-wast-u
summa unnnnnnnngunu parandhu veratti adhu pudumgum
naan patt-nnu poda, adhu merandu oda
yen adi enakkey romba valikkum

hey Kosu-k-kadi kosu-k-kadi yappa sema kadi sema kadi
night fulla parandhu parandhu ennai kadikkum

Bangalorians... dont laugh at chennaites... pls substitute naai-k-kadi and sing the same song !!!

Music Review of Dev D

Album: Dev D
Music By: Amit Trivedi
Over all Rating: Must Listen

What do you expect one music CD? Good music, decent variety - right?

You get 18 songs which engages you for 61 minutes !!! All decent tunes, some are damn good, enchanting & engaging !

Director Anurag Kashyap deserves a pat for being different !
What else you want - Go for it !
My special kudos to Music Directors Amit Trivedi ! Great work indeed !

Dev D Music spans across various musical forms as listed below:-

Regular - yahi meri zindagi, ranjhana, saali khushi;
Western / fusion - aankh macholi, Duniya, ek hulchal si, pardesi;
Folk - dhol yaara dhol;
Punjabi - hiknaal, mahi ninnu, mahi ninnu (sad version);
Heavy metal, Band - emosonal attyachar & attyachar, nayan tarse;
Hindustani - paayaliya;
Instrumental - dev chanda themes 1 & 2;
Broadway'ish - Dil Mein Jaagi;

Music Review of Delhi-6

Album - Delhi-6; Dilli-6
Music By - A R Rahman
Over all Rating - Must Listen

1) Aarti (Tumre Bhavan Mein) By Rekha Bharadwaj, Kishori Gowariker, Shraddha Pandit, Sujata Majumdar - 4/5 - Brief Bhajan; humming ending enhances the spiritual mood of the song;

2) Arziyan (Maula) By Javed Ali, Kailash Kher - 4/5 - Lenghthiest song of Rahman - 8.42 min !!! Qawwali song for ghar aaya situation; Wonderful singing by Javed and Kailash; Basic instruments and simple orchestration of a typical Qawwali song. Wonder what the director could have reacted to the length of the song!

3) Bhor Bhaye By Shreya Ghosal, Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, Gujri Todi 4/5 - Brief traditional hindustani variety song; shreya's show all the way;

4) Delhi 6 By Blaaze, Benny Dayal, Vivinenne Pocha, Tanvi, Claire - 4.5/5 - Hip hop variety song; husky singing by ladies; Catchy tune gets addictive when played multiple times.

5) Dil Gira Dafatan By Ash King, Backing Chinmayee - 4/5 - Soothing song, finely sung by Ash King; sweetly supported by chinmayee. Fine use of guitar with typical rahman way of music arrangements; Sudden burst of rhythm takes you by surprise between 2:24 to 3:00;

6) Genda Phool By Rekha Bharadwaj, Shraddha Pandit, Sujata Majumdar - 4.5/5 - Brief Folk song with techno beats in background; I could not resist imagining Madhu Bala on the screen ! 2.08 to end captures the natural background.

7) Hey Kaala Bandar By Karthik, Naresh, Srinivas, Bony Chakravarthy - 4/5 - Fast techno song with Rap interludes thrown in between, goes easy with a wonderful mediteranian interlude in between;

8) Masakali By Mohit Chouhan - 5/5 - catchy rustic tune; Amazingly good singing by Mohit; rhythemic lyrics, good use of alliteration by Prasoon Joshi; Different orchestration, different instruments used by Rahman - second stanza music is damn good especially;

9) Rehna Tu By A R Rahman, Benny Dayal, Tanvi - 5/5 - soft melody; as silky as satin; carnatic finish takes you to heaven; Song sung by Rahman never fails to impress - he manages to seduce us this time too.

After thoughts

Unbelievably good stuff by Rahman - a never before like album. Increased expectation on the movie considerably. Rahman breaks the tradition of pallavi-music-Charanam 1 -pallavi-music-Charanam 2 stuff in Rehna Tu and Dil Giri Dafatan and re-arranged it such a way to create further interest in listening.

I feel One thing for sure after listening to Jodhaa Akbar, Jaane Tu, Slum Dog & Delhi 6 - insha allah, Rahman will take the music to next level unlike many of the past greats failed to do;

Economics of Chennai Book Fair

I didn't like the book fair this year. No one have patience, energy to visit around 585 stalls. Even if some one wants to, it would take them 5-6 hours. So, it is a waste of time for consumers.

Here, I go in understanding the economics of Chennai book fair …

Stall Rent – last year, this year	60,000	77,000
No of Stalls – last year, this year	450	600
Total Rental collection (A * B)	Rs. 2.7 Cr	Rs. 4.62 Cr
Visitors per year	1m	1m
Avg sale per head	Rs. 250	Rs. 350
Total billing	Rs. 2.5 Cr	Rs. 3.5 Cr

 

The publishers must make atleast 3 times of rent to make his 10 days of stint worthwhile. So, every publisher must make around 2.3 Lacs of sale of books in 10 days amounting to average of 23k sale per day. How many publishers would have achieved this? May be 25 or so !!!

The organizers must bring down the number of stalls for sure. They should simply retain the top 25 publishers and should conduct lottery for others so as to restrict the stalls to 300 or so. The publishers also should have a section for new releases inside stalls. The visitors would be wondering to spot familiar, popular books always L

Looks like the organizers are making good profits than participants !!!