This is not an outrightly funny video but then this is something which I could relate to. I could't stop laughing. These are songs which I listened to growing up. Hopefully you will find this interesting as well. Binge on!
This year there have been very few good movies that have left a lasting impression. Pink was my favourite movie of the year. But Bollywood was not the space to look out for. The one category that has boomed last year is web series. YouTube is an amazing platform and people like TVF are doing phenomenal work out there. Their content is well thought of and they know the pulse of the audience, especially the youth. Not only the content but even their product placements are subtle but at the same time leave a lasting impression. A win-win situation for both the advertiser and the content creator. AIB on the other hand is focussed specifically on the youth and they have still not delved into series creation yet. But even their content is top-notch. Following these two major players in this segment, there has been a wave of new content creators. Even the likes of YRF have started creating content in this space. The best part is all of them are free! I am starting with the lesser known ones. Here is my list! Binge on!!
0. Humorously yours by TVF : My current favorite.
1. Baked by ScoopWhoop:
Season 1
Season 2
2. Official Chukyagiri by Arre
3. Bang Baaja Baraat by YRF
4. Life Sahi Hai by the makers of Pyaar ka Punchnama
5. Little things by Dice media.
6. Girl in the city
7. I don't watch TV by Arre
8. Ladies Room
9. Love Shots by YRF
10. Man's world by YRF
11. Chinese Bhasad
12. Tripling by TVF
13. Pitchers by TVF
14. Permanent Roommates by TVF
15. The Trip
Bonus: Check out Biswa's YouTube channel. He will have you in splits.
Ventilator is a marathi movie directed by Rajesh Mapuskar. He is the same director who gave us Ferrari Ki Sawaari starring Sharman Joshi. Although it wasn't a box office hit , it was a very well made film and touching film. The title , the ensemble cast and the trailer were good enough reasons to catch this one in the theatres. So is this movie good enough or you would need a ventilator at the end of this one ? Read on to find out.
One of the senior members of the Kamerkar family, Gajanan Kamerkar slips into coma due to brain hemorrhage and is kept on life support (a ventilator!). The entire Kamerkar joint family rushes to Mumbai to meet him, some for genuine reason while others for vested interests. This happens on the backdrop of the Ganesh festival, which the family was eager to celebrate together until this happened. The family tree is pretty huge and each of them has a backstory, which the director brilliantly stitches together.
I dont remember we have had a movie in Marathi cinema or even Bollywood highlighting the Father - Son relationship. Maa-centric emotional dramas have always been the preferred flavor which reflects what actually happens in real life as well. And that is something which Rajesh Mapuskar has shown so well in this movie. Be it the differences between Jitendra Joshi and his ailing father or Ashutosh and his. There is a line in the movie which says " There are many things that remain unsaid in a Father -Son relationship", which is so true. The male sex is never known to be vocal and emotional and when there are two of them that is what you expect.
The cast and the casting is simply brilliant. There are so many characters in the plot, all of them being played by veteran actors. It's the directors brilliance that each one of them is allocated a role which does full justice to their talent. Be it the cameos by Viju Khote and Boman Irani or Sulbha Arya and Achyut Potdar in the lead, it's a pleasure watching each of them. There is so much of attention to detail in the casting. Notice how the each father-son duo has such close facial resemblance. Talking of attention to detail, the medical student in me couldn't help noticing a copy of Clinical Neuroanatomy by Vishram Singh in the hands of Gaja kaka's granddaughter's hands (who is a medical student), when she visits him in the ICU. Each relationship is handled so well and each charachter is given its due and you tend to remember each one at the end of the movie, which is the USP of the movie. It's a herculean task when you have around 100 odd characters to deal with, each of them being such great actors. Not even a single charachter is wasted. The plot, characters and incidents which unfold seem so believable. Kudos to the director for this! Casting Ashutosh Gowariker especially was a master stroke and the director doesn't disappoint! How many of us remember him from Kabhi Haa Kabhi Naa?
The movie will make you laugh throughout and make you cry as well. In the end of the movie Ashutosh realises how he has not treated his father well, he goes behind him after he has left the hospital, finds him returning back home in a BEST bus, sits besides him, nudges him and both exchange a smile. This was the best scene for me in the movie. So much said with no dialogues! Brilliant.
In short it's a movie you should watch. Especially with your entire family. Ja re Ja sare ja!
P.S.: Few days before the release , my Facebook feed was flooded with this Priyanka Chopra video. I did not understand why did they got her to sing this, that until I realised that the movie is produced by her. To be honest her singing and pronunciation are horrible and secondly it takes away the attention from what's good about the movie. The male version which plays in the film is more apt and way better than her version.
The trailer of the movie was pretty interesting and it seemed like a "hatke" movie , as most of the movies associated with Shoojit Sircar are (Yahaan, Madras Cafe , Piku, and Vicky Donor). Although it's directed by debutant Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury, Shoojit Sirkar contributes to the story. Plus it has Amitabh Bachchan in the lead. Are these reasons enough good enough or are there way better reasons to watch this one ? Read on to find out.
To answer the above question in short: You MUST watch it. For the rest read on.
For the uninitiated let's start with the plot. Three girls (played by Taapsee Pannu, Kirti Kulhari and Andrea Tariang) meet three boys meet at a rock concert after which they end up in a room where one of the boys (played by Angad Bedi) tries to Taapsee. Taapsee in self defense hits Angad and he gets seriously injured. Angad being a close acquaintance of influential politician files a case against her when these girls approach the police. What follows is an intense courtroom drama where Amitabh Bachchan and Piyush Mishra try to defend their clients.
First and foremost it's a no nonsense film. There is no time wasted in building the plot. There is no side track. There is no romantic angle. There is no flashback scene, where the lead actors song and dance around. There are no songs which randomly pop-in to annoy you. There is no filler comedian who would make the courtroom proceedings funny. Every scene, every frame and every word uttered by the character has relevance to the movie. And in Mr Bachchan's case even his silence is relevant (more on that later). The movie dives into the plot right from the start. I like the way the narrative moves forward without actual showing what happened , the director builds up the sequence of events as we move forward. He does show what happened and for that you need to sit through the end credits of the movie. Another reason to wait till the end is this poem narrated by Amitabh Bachchan.
Amitabh Bachchan is the star of the film. He gets better with every movie and never fails to surprise you. In the movie Piku, his face has so many expressions in every frame and here he says so much with his blank look throughout. No wonder he is the undoubted Shahenshah! His courtroom antics are stellar. The scene where he cross questions a lady police officer is superb., reminds me of the movie Aitraaz where Paresh Rawal questions Akshay Kumar. But the difference is that Paresh Rawal plays a chirpy lawyer while Amitabh's character has this calmness about him. He gets the best dialogues of the movie and does full justice to them. The best one being , " Humare yaha ghari ki sui ladki ka character decide karti hai" ( The hands of the clock decide the character of a girl in India). The rest of the cast is good as well. The only one thing I wished was different was Piyush Mishra's casting. I am huge fan of his narration in Gangs of Wasseypur but he is becoming way too monotonous with his diction in the recent movies.
Through dialogues the director puts forth the condition of girls and women in India, the way the society judges them, stereotypes them. The title is also probably a reference to the same stereotyping. Also he talks about how the North-east Indian community is discriminated in most parts of the country. I liked one particular scene, where during the courtroom proceedings Piyush Mishra makes Tapsee uncomfortable about something she said and when she hesitates to talk, her father is seen leaving his seat.
The movie is a brave attempt by the director, where he puts forth his point unadulterated. Otherwise Indian movie makers have to often sugar coat the message they want to convey with stars, songs and all kind of melodrama. They have to put in all the masala to make the film "commercially viable" they say. I believe if a movie has good and meaningful content, that would itself make it commercially viable. And that's what Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury does with Pink! Kudos to the director and his team!
The best plans are the ones you don't plan! I had to attend a conference in Thane and a day prior I checked if there is something to do after that. There were lots of good movies but then it had been ages since I had seen a Marathi play. Unfortunately (or I can now say fortunately retrospectively), the only play I could watch was called Code Mantra. A Google search showed up results for a Gujju play by the same play but there were no reviews of the Marathi play (Now there would be one :) ;)). I wasn't that keen cause "Ek Sunday ki keemat tum kya jano Ramesh babu." and I wanted to invest my time wisely. But I thought I would take the chance. And I am glad that I did. Read on to find out more! As I mentioned earlier this is Marathi adaptation of the Gujju play by the same name, which is based on the book A Few Good Men by Aaron Sorkin. It's a courtroom drama based on death of a young commander in the Indian Army and the circumstances which lead to that. I would not delve into further details as that's for you to find out. The play stars Mukta Barve and Ajay Purkar in lead roles. Both of them are flawless. The penultimate scene of the play is simply superb. The arguments by Mukta and the counter arguments by Ajay Purkar are not only well written but very well executed by the director and acted superbly by these two. The supporting cast is also good. The other thing that stands out is the set and the background music. This is touted as one of the costliest plays on stage and the set design is great. Lots of efforts have gone into the backdrops and considering that there are no blackouts in the play, even more thought has gone into the planning. The lack of a blackout doesn't hurt you. Except for one or two places the transitions are quite smooth. The background score by Sachin-Jigar is excellent. The lead actor, Ajay Purkar summed up the play in the best possible way when he said that they intended to give a cinematic experience on stage, and they did succeed quite well in that! There is not even a single dull moment and it keeps you engaged all through. The play received a standing ovation at Gadkari Rangayatan, Thane which it deserved. What was heartwarming that Mukta Barve introduced the ENTIRE team at the end of the play. That was a nice gesture, especially for the backstage artists who never get to see the limelight but are the real backbone of any event. Highly recommended!
The entire team on stage and the standing ovation!
P.S. I know the quality of that photo isn't that great! Better click next time :) P.P.S. There is a twist in the tale in the end and that makes the court proceedings even more interesting !
Poster Girl is a sequel to the marathi movie Poster Boyz releases in.. Directed by the same director i.e. Samir Patil, it's technically not a sequel as they don't have any plot continuity. The first part dealt with the novel topic of awareness and misconceptions about vasectomies in the rural male population. It was a nice concept and pretty well executed. Does the second part deliver as the first one? Read on to find out.
The plot is based in a small village in western Maharashtra called Paragao-Tekawde, ill-famous for female feticide to such an extent that there are no girls in the village. So much so that even the Vitthal temple lacks the Rukhmai idol as its companion. Given this situation the village is full of (in)eligible bachelors who haven't seen a young girl since ages. That explains the social awkwardness towards the opposite sex in these boys/men. In comes Rupali (Sonalee Kulkarni) and the village goes bezerk. All the men in the men try to woo her with their own quirky ways. The plot goes well until the interval after which the director tries to highlight another issue drifting from the original plotline. Although he does manage to present it well, he should have skipped that part and focused on one point.
Sonalee as the poster girl is perfect! The five (in) eligible bachelors played by Jitendra Joshi, Aniket Vishwasrao, Sandeep Pathak , Siddharth Menon , Akshay Tanksale act well. The support cast in the form of Hrishikesh Joshi, Vaibhav Mangle are good too. The movie is produced by Viacom , hence the production value is good too. The songs by Amit-Raj are nice, especially the DJ song.
Overall it's definitely a one time watch.
P.S. Eagerly waiting for Nagraj Manjule's Sairat. Although Fandry won lot of critical acclaim it failed to connect to the masses. Hopefully this one is different in this regard.
