Mayank's Blog

There are couple of reasons why I pre-ordered Chetan Bhagat's latest - its price is less than a cup of decent coffee making it an impulse purchase and more importantly the book's claim that it is an "unlove story", whatever that means. Bhagat had pioneered the trend of bubblegum IIT college love stories targeted at teens and college-going population which inspired a generation of wannabe writers. But you can chew bubblegum only for so long. After some time you have to spit it out. With this book Bhagat threw away the bubblegum only for it to stick to his shoes. The story starts the same way as have Bhagat's previous books - in a college and more specifically in an IIT. For initial few chapters you would be forgiven if you think you have picked up one of Bhagat's previous works by mistake. Bhagat is still obsessed with fair skin, women's churidar kurta and how she arranges her hair. The English is still pedestrian which Bhagat justifies as t his is ho...

I have been fascinated by science fiction stories since my childhood. From Jules Verne's wonderful " Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea " to Andy Weir's " The Martian ", sci-fi books have never been boring. Till I read Robert Masello's " The Einstein Prophecy ". This book was suggested by the Kindle bookstore as number one popular book in sci-fi category. With a print volume of only 326 pages, I immediately bought it on my Kindle. The story is set in the World War II era with the Allied powers facing off the Axis powers. The story moves briskly at first with good description of the environment and the war situation. Our hero is a US military officer Lucas. Yes, despite the book's title Einstein is not a major player in the story. Also, he does not make a prophecy. Lucas is trying to find an ancient object which will allow Allied forces to defeat Germany. Apparently it is something so important that even Hitler is also looking f...

If you are going to watch a Mission Impossible movie for emotions, story and nice little subtleties then, and I hate to break this to you, you are at the wrong party! For the past 15 years, people go to theatres to watch Ethan Hunt do stuff that’s not humanly possible. Ethan not only does it but does it in style. As with other MI movies, Impossible Mission Force (IMF) main agent Ethan Hunt is entrusted with the task of saving the world. The only little twist in the story is the initiation of Ghost protocol, effectively ending any support to Ethan and his gang. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that Ethan eventually succeeds. But don’t blame yourself if you still get the chills when Ethan cries out, “Mission Accomplished!”. MI4 is full of action sequences, one better than the other. My favorite scene is when Tom Cruise (Ethan Hunt) jumps down the Burj Khalifa with little more than a fire hose to support him. The looming sandstorm in the background, in all its IMAX glory, makes...

There are some movies that take themselves seriously and then there are some that make a fool of themselves (think Dabangg) . Rockstar falls into neither of these categories and thus despite being a movie which could have a lot of potential finally ends up making a mess of itself. At a running time of nearly 3 hours, I have a lot to nitpick about the movie but  to be fair let’s list down some good things first. The music by A.R. Rahman is fabulous and fresh as ever. The songs reflect the pain, anguish and rebellious nature of a true rock star. Secondly, I was glad to see Ranbir Kapoor come out of his shell and really give the performance of his acting life till date. The (supposed) pain in his eyes looked as real as it could ever be. Now that niceties are over, lets get down to business. Despite sporting pouty lips and great body, Nargis Fakhri ended up being the biggest disappointment. Frankly, a mannequin would have acted better than her. She is such a disaster that in so...

Clearly the best movie of the Harry Potter series; it is also the most honest one. For once, the movie does not take “cinematic liberties” and make the original story a complete mess. It sets the tone of gloom and darkness from the first scene itself in which Hermione “obliviates” her parents. There is death and despair in the air as we miss the familiar surroundings of Hogwarts and the warmth of Dumbledore. Instead there is Nagini , writhing and hissing, as per Lord Voldemort’s will. Harry as the chosen one, Hermione and Ron take upon themselves the mission to find all the Horcruxes and destroy them and we follow their story as they continue on this dangerous mission. Daniel Radcliffe (Harry) has clearly matured as an actor, as was also displayed in his play Equus. Rupert Grint (Ron) is at his funny best. The icing on the cake is the restrained yet powerful performance by Emma Watson (Hermione). Probably with Hogwarts out of the picture, it was easier for her to stop acting bookish. ...

I am not a Salman Khan fan because of his excessive theatrics and silliness. So when the lights inside the theater dimmed , I just prayed to be able to sit through the movie. Boy, was I surprised and how!! Dabangg makes its intention pretty clear with the first scene itself - its not an "intellectual" movie. Its sole intention is to entertain and that it does through  large doses of Chulbul Pandey (played by Salman Khan). Chulbul, a corrupt cop with a golden heart, rules the badlands of Lalganj, Uttar Pradesh. He does so by fighting off tens of armed men through his sheer muscle power while dancing to a caller tune. It doesn't make any sense, and that's the beauty of it. Rajjo (played by débutante Sonakshi Sinha) is the love interest of Chulbul. He manages to romance her even while fighting off Cheddi Singh (played by Sonu Sood) and waiting for her drunkard father to die so that he could marry her. When her father finally commits suicide, Chulbul doesn't waste...

The only horror movie which scared me to my shits and left me disturbed for a week was " The Blair Witch Project ". The use of scenes shot through handycam throughout the movie gave it a very real feel and was its major USP for me. Then " Paranormal Activity " came along. It was a very good movie but failed to impress. But one thing that stood out again was the use of camera. When will we see such camera work in Bollywood, I wondered. Well, my wait was about to be over.

Abhay Deol, with movies like Dev D , Manorama Six Feet Under and Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye! to his credit, was a champion in bridging the divide between the so-called "art movies" (the ones characterised by likes of Smita Patil)  and the mainstream hindi cinema. Little did we know that he would come up with a movie like Road, Movie which will pull apart the two genres to eternity. Road, Movie is a perfect example of why we don't like art movies and why they are just meant for being displayed at film festivals and nothing more. Road, Movie , directed by Dev Benegal, starts with a sluggish pace, slows down in the middle, and finally sputters and huffs and puffs to reach its end - just like the vintage monster truck that Vishnu (Abhay Deol) drives throughout the movie. Vishnu does not want to sell the hair-oil that his father makes, so offers to drive the truck, together with the heavy-duty movie projectors that it carries to the museum. He journeys through the heat a...

A lot of water has flowed down the Thames since I last blogged. In the last two weeks, India-Pakistan "peace talks" began, Sachin broke the world records by scoring an ODI double century, Pranab Da presented the budget and Karthik Calling Karthik got released. Against better judgement and the reviews of critics, I decided to take the plunge and watch it. Q. If the producers of Karthik Calling Karthik ran out of money, what will be the movie called? A. Karthik Missed Calling Karthik. Pathetic joke, I know. But it seems the producers ran out of the ingredient which is so less used in Hindi movies - Story . If I would dare say, the movie was reduced to Karthik Blank Calling Karthik for the writer-director Vijay Lalwani seems to have lost the script half-way through the movie.

Ishqiya - the film is as intriguing as its tiltle. Although this movie is directed by debutant Abhishek Chaubey, it has shades of Vishal Bharadwaj all over it. The experience starts even before the first scene flashes, for the Disclaimer (the thing which says "All characters in this movie.... blah... blah...) is in Hinglish, the way people speak it in UP. Ishqiya takes you in the bad, gun-toting, caste-wars ridden world of the cow belt in no time. Our protagonists, Khalujaan (Naseeruddin Shah) and Babban (Arshad Warsi) take us on a Ibn-E-Batuta type journey. The little details in the movie are so beautifully captured that when the big road-side hoarding reads, "गोरखपुर विकास प्राधिकरण आपका स्वागत करता है", you feel you have really arrived in a world frozen in time with no bijli , paani or sadak . The choice of cuss-words is also unique with Chutiyam Sulphate slated to become the next buzz-word! To those who are wondering what Chutiyam Sulphate means, its deri...

Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay would be turning in his grave thinking why Bollywood could not make a movie on Byomkesh Bakshi , inarguably the most famous detective in the country. But Hollywood does not disappoint and makes a grand movie which turns Shelock Holmes from a detective to a hero who kicks, punches, jokes and of course solves mysteries. Sherlock Holmes is based on the London of 1891. As with movies set in past having mysteries and secrets ingrained in the story, this movie too carries a dark hue. The skies are black, so are the streets. The only thing which shines throughout the movie is the sheer brilliance of acting of Robert Downey Jr., playing Sherlock Holmes. He is very well supported by Jude Law (playing Dr. Watson) with much "bromance" between them leading to speculations whether Sherlock Holmes is gay !

We all have heard about Google Wave.  We all want invites for it. Some us  got them and excitedly opened up the Google Wave. 10 minutes into it most us are bored. We don't know what to do with it. So we turn to the really long video of Wave (80 mins) and due to the slow internet connection, we give up that too and finally shutdown the browser. MTV even joked about the video that it was so long, may be Ashutosh Gowariker has directed it!! This is my attempt at demystifying the Google Wave. I have tried to include some pictures so that it is clearer. Before we begin, let me tell you that Google Wave is still a preview version so it is buggy and crashes often. OK, enough of gyaan , let's begin...

As I had written earlier I was in the process of shifting my home to somewhere near my office. Finally, I managed to do it and was peacefully nestled in my new home. Everything was going at its normal pace (meaning boring), till yesterday while in office, I received a call from my new roommate asking whether I wanted to watch " Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani ". I couldn't remember the name of the last movie that I had seen in a theater, so I figured that may be its time to watch a movie. Also, the title and promos of the movie looked interesting. Plus, people comparing it to " Andaz Apna Apna ", (directed by the same man who has directed this - Rajkumar Santoshi) finally pushed me over the edge. We went to E-Square, Pimpri for the 9.45PM show with high expectations. The movie begins in a fictional town by the name "Wellington" (which is basically Ooty where the movie was primarily shot). A reporter enters into an empty town, and wonders where the people...