ABCD2 , Aga Bai Arechya 2 and Timepass 2!

       In general Bollywood is not that great when it comes to sequels , especially when the sequels are a continuation of the first part. The main reason maybe that most of the times the sequences is an after thought , the producers hoping to cash in on the success of the first part. But then it's like a double edged sword as people have even higher expectations from the second part. These three  movies are no different and they are not worth separate posts. Also," I reveal too much of the story in the post " was a complain from one of my readers ( who is responsible for 33% of the page views of this website; the other 66% comes from my own page visits.) , so I am trying to keep this as short as possible.

        ABCD , the first part was a nice movie with a decent plot and fresh cast. The storyline was complimented by some great dances and superb music. ABCD 2 tries the opposite. The dances are superb and story line is not even close to complimentary. You can't substitute the main ingredients of a dish with garnishing stuff and expect the dish to taste good. So it's a good movie which you can watch it in the theaters for the dances , but don't go expecting a story 

        Aga Bai Arechya 2 is a major disappointment. It looks more of a desperate comeback attempt by Kedar Shinde et al (the team which gave us Sahi re Sahi ). The first part had a brilliant concept , although it was a rip off of the English movie 'What women want'.And the other major highlight of the movie was Ajay-Atul's music. The problem with the sequel is that it lacks both of these. The basic concept isn't innovative enough to get your attention. To add to it the not so great direction and dialogues. You can avoid this one. Also a sincere request to Bharat Jadhav (and Makrand Anaspure) to please retire from all forms of acting. We are thoroughly bored of your monotony. 

        The last one is Timepass 2 and amongst the three, this one is probably the best one. The first part was excellent. It had novel sequences (especially the one in the library ), a fresh cast and some witty dialogues. Tp2 is good but then the grown up Dagdu and Paraju can't match their younger counterparts. Also their adolescent love story was much more enjoyable and was something that one could relate too. The dialogues are good except when they repeat the exact same ones in the same situation from part one (Naya nahi hai wah). But it's entertaining and definitely a one time watch. 

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Good Will Hunting!!

I know this is an old movie and most of you must have already seen this. But then this is for people who haven't watched it yet. I had heard about this one some time ago and actually forgotten until one of my friends suggested this one. And what better time to watch this than a lazy day when the Mumbai rains make it impossible for you to get out of your room.

The movie is about a young self made genius Will Hunting played by Matt Damon working as a janitor in the MIT , a professor who finds this genius and wants to shape his life as HE wants to and the therapist Dr. Sean Maguire, played by Robbin Williams who helps him to decide what he (as in Will himself) wants to do.

The conversations between Will and his therapist are excellent and are the essence of the movie. Along with that there are many other sub plots , like how in spite of being a genius in other aspects Will is poor with inter-personal relationships, including his love interest; the old time rivalry between Dr Sean and the mathematics professor; how the professor wants the kid to be more like him rather than allowing him to chase what he actually wants to do with his life; his relations with his friends. My personal favorite quote from the movie is when Will's best friend is trying to convince him to utilize his talent instead of wasting it doing labor jobs:

"Alright. No. No no. Fuck you. You don't owe it to yourself. You owe it to me. 'Cause tomorrow I'm gonna wake up and I'll be fifty and I'll still be doing this shit. And that's all right, that's fine. I mean, you're sittin' on a winning lottery ticket and you're too much of a pussy to cash it in. And that's bullshit `cause I'd do anything to fuckin' have what you got! So would any of these fuckin' guys. It'd be an insult to us if you're still here in twenty years. Hanging around here is a fuckin' waste of your time. Every day I come by to pick you up. And we go out we have a few drinks, and a few laughs and it's great. But you know what the best part of my day is? It's for about ten seconds from when I pull up to the curb to when I get to your door. Because I think maybe I'll get up there and I'll knock on the door and you won't be there. No goodbye, no see you later, no nothing. Just left. I don't know much, but I know that."

Do watch this one if you haven't. You can catch the full length movie on YouTube.

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Dil Dhadakne Do..

I know this comes in a bit late. Most of you must have already watched this one or planned to skip it. The former can let me know if you agree and the latter can decide whether they can catch this on a DVD once it arrives.

 I did not get a lot of positive reviews for this one ( that being one of the prime reason for delaying watching it). The main complaint being the length of the movie. For a movie running for almost 3hrs the pace was not fast enough to keep me glued to my seat (and away from the fast forward  button )

The other thing which I didn't like was the narration by their family dog (Aamir Khan voiceover). Its a novel concept and I did like it in the beginning but as the movie progressed it seemed irritating. The dog stating the obvious at times and narrating incidents which are being shown right there. Like an audio subtitle. There is a scene where the dog just looks towards,  Ranbir and Anushka as they meet the first time. That's hilarious. But then he goes on to explain how they are now thinking about each other etc etc. Also Zoya narrates human emotions and how we react to incidents in life from his perspective. Remember school days when we used to watch Wild safari on Discovery (dubbed in the funniest hindi accent. " Ab nar khana dhoondhne ke liye jungle mein jata hai aur mada apne bachon ko sambhalti hai"). Pluto gives the same feeling. The movie is like a human documentary for the dog world.

But keeping those two things aside, the movie is really nice and is definitely a one time watch. The one liners are hilarious. The stereotype characters chosen are quite believable, like the uncle who uses an extra "s" after every English word, Priyanka's mother in law who is a hypochondriac with n number of diseases. Each couple in the movie is different and has a different agenda, But the solution for all their problems is being vocal about one's thought. This is the central theme of the story and is summed up really well by Zoya ( via Pluto, the dog) at the end of the movie. Of course the actual end of the movie is vague. It feels that they kept on making it until they realised its been more than 170min.

Anil Kapoor and Ranveer Singh are the stars of the movie. Rest all are supportive. Music is not that great.

All in all it's a good movie but flawed in its presentation.

Zoya did get her Luck by chance Doobara, but definitely not the third time ;) !

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Ashi Hi Banva Banvi- Revisited!

Recently I had too many references to this movie from one of my friends and I didn't get them most of them. Although this is one of the most successful movies of OUR times (I guess when you are beyond 25years you can start using these generation related phrases), I didn't remember much of this movie. I knew what the cast was and what the plot was but the jokes seemed unfamiliar so I had to revisit this one. In OUR times our sources of entertainment were limited, most popular being the weekend night movie on DD national (which went on till 1-2 given the number of ads it had including the famous Nirma, Vicco wala ads). Marathi movies had the typical combination of Ashok Saraf and Laxmikant Berde. Throw in their real time wifes Nivedita Saraf and Priya Arun as the female leads and Nilu Phule as villain and that was the prototype Marathi movie of OUR times. And trust me they were funny. And still are , this one being no different

The movie is directed by Sachin himself.  Its about four young guys from Kolhapur trying to find a place to live in the city of Pune, the things that they have to go through to find it and the comedy of errors that follows the series of "Banava Banvi" that they do. Its hilarious. The comic timing of all the characters is impeccable, especially Ashok Saraf , Laxya and Sachin. The supporting actors also nice , my favorite being Sudhir Joshi as the land lord.  The climax scene will surely leave you in splits.

All in all with such a fantastic cast, this is a superb movie and definitely worth the watch even today. You can watch the full movie here , thanks to YouTube:

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