Tag Archives: Shahid Kapoor

Padmaavat Movie Review: A Perfumed Gust of Regressive Flatulence

Directed by: Sanjay Leela Bhansali (the all-pervasive purveyor of aesthetic nonsense)

Starring: Deepika Padukone (the pristine princess), Ranveer Singh (the chicken loving, dirty faced psychotic tyrant), Shahid Kapoor (the clean faced paragon of Rajput valor and lack of practical sense)

Before I begin, let me say that in this review (to some it may seem an elaborate rant, but I need to give vent to my headache at spending big bucks for this movie), I may not make much effort to hide spoilers for 2 reasons – Firstly, as everyone knows the story from school history lessons or if you were not paying attention, I’m sure the Karni Sena would have ensured you now know everything there is to know;  Secondly, most who wanted to watch the film for whatever reasons would have already done so by now, and those who are yet to watch should be allowed to save their time and money.Continue reading “Padmaavat Movie Review: A Perfumed Gust of Regressive Flatulence”

The Case of Rangoon

Vishal Bhardwaj is probably one of the best directors we have in the Hindi Film Industry. His latest, Rangoon, just hit the theaters this past weekend, but on Monday morning, all we could talk about was the Oscars. Fairly so, because Rangoon had a dismal weekend at the Box Office collecting under 15 Crores across three days. The underwhelming response to the film is quite disappointing, especially to someone like me, who is an ardent (read almost blind) admirer of Bhardwaj. With the Oscars, our perennial obsession with Hollywood takes over and no matter how many awards they get wrong every year, our media and we, the people, crazily follow the ceremony with social media timelines getting spammed with every miniscule event occurring at the Kodak Theater. Incidentally, we don’t see such madness for any of our award shows, under the pretext that our award shows are shit because they always get them wrong and eventually the trophies are handed out to people who did not deserve it but lobbied enough to get one. But then Oscars are no different. If it isn’t lobbying, it could be something else but the end result is that the trophy does go to the non-deserving nominee quite often. If that were not the case, Spotlight would never win Best Picture over Mad Max:Fury Road in 2016 and Di Caprio would have gotten an Oscar much before his far-from-best performance in The Revenant.Continue reading “The Case of Rangoon”

Rangoon Movie Review: Bloody Hell of a Show

Vishal Bhardwaj! 2 words that are enough to grab the attention of anybody who possesses a deep, undying love for Bollywood, for he’s a film-maker whose brand of cinema may be rooted in a filmi duniya, but when he narrates a tale, it breaks almost every rule that Bollywood throws at it, right from the narrative, to the characters, to the music and almost everything else that he throws into his filmmaking process. After hitting a high note in his last outing, his adaptation of the Bard’s Hamlet, set in 90s Kashmir, the announcement of his next project being a period drama, set during the last days of the freedom struggle did create some buzz, and with him casting Saif and Shahid, 2 actors whose best performances have come under his direction, and the mercurial Kangna Ranaut, one might look forward to a spectacular cinematic experience. But is Rangoon the VB magnum opus that we’ve all been waiting for?Continue reading “Rangoon Movie Review: Bloody Hell of a Show”

Udta Punjab Movie Review: A Film That Flew for the Stars but got the Moon

Directed by: Abhishek Chaubey;   Written by: Sudip Sharma

Starring: Shahid Kapoor, Alia Bhatt, Kareena Kapoor, Diljit Dosanjh

Udta Punjab would go down as one of the most talked about movies from Bollywood even before it was actually screened, our own desi version of Passion of the Christ, if you will. So instead of delving on the entire saga from CBFC’s preposterous treatment of the film for so-called “profanities and mature content” (I didn’t know Udta Punjab was a pioneering film in this regard, but let’s stay politically correct, shall we) to the controversial leak at the time of release, let’s instead review the film itself for a change.Continue reading “Udta Punjab Movie Review: A Film That Flew for the Stars but got the Moon”

Udta Punjab Movie Review: Flight Of the Phoenix

udta-punjab-movie-poster-3There is nothing quite as entertaining as a good controversy. And if this controversy involves Bollywood and the Government, you can be sure of the news channels having their fill of this TRP fodder until the movie finally releases (Or if it does, in most cases). Abhishek Chaubey, who made most viewers sit up and take notice with a crackling debut in Ishqiya, and followed it up with Dedh Ishqiya, a sequel that outshone the original, moves away from the badlands of Uttar Pradesh into the lush green fields of Punjab, and shows us the underbelly of the drug mafia that seems to have eaten away at the Punjabi youth and in the process, drives away in the opposite direction of the Yash Chopra school of filmmaking. But, is Udta Punjab a piece of mediocre cinema trying to stay in the limelight through a never-ending stream of controversies, or is it truly that subversive piece of mainstream cinema that has the censor board frothing at the mouth?Continue reading “Udta Punjab Movie Review: Flight Of the Phoenix”

Udta Punjab Movie Review: The High of Coming Out of a Theater Feeling Low

So, who was scared/wary of Udta Punjab and its supposedly ‘damaging content’?

When I saw the film today, midst all the surround sound and fury, this question kept coming to my mind every now and then – like how ‘hurt’ keeps coming back to haunt fragile Indian sentiments. Because an hour into the film and you realize that it has nothing, absolutely nothing that can damage the reputation of Punjab or the dwellers of that state. More importantly, the film never ever glorifies substance abuse, it rather showcases horrors of addiction in such a naked, brutal manner that even an average cigarette smoker (cigarette that contains only tobacco and nothing else) would also be shaken.Continue reading “Udta Punjab Movie Review: The High of Coming Out of a Theater Feeling Low”

Shaandaar Movie Review: Shahid and Alia Shine, the Film Doesn’t

Shaandaar-2015-SoundCoverShaandaar has many things going right for it. Right from the word go. It is touted to be India’s first destination wedding film, the sets and the canvas look splendid, the songs are quirky and peppy, and most importantly, the film has a refreshing pairing of Shahid Kapoor and Alia Bhatt.Continue reading “Shaandaar Movie Review: Shahid and Alia Shine, the Film Doesn’t”

Average Bollywood Films: 2014

As mentioned in my previous article on the Best of Bollywood, this hasn’t been a good year. So much so that I cannot even find ten films to fit into the average bracket. There are a few films like Mardaani and Shaadi Ke Side Effects that lie in the netherworld between Good and Average, hence not included here. The rest are mentioned below in alphabetical order.Continue reading “Average Bollywood Films: 2014”