"Greeku Veerudu" Telugu Film Review

"Greeku Veerudu" is a rehash of past films and despite  familiar tweaks, is going to be a forgettable film of Nagarjuna. Nag is a vagabond businessman in America who only believes in living life without commitments and value for relationships. His philistine ways land him in a financial mess, and he suddenly gets a missed call from his native place in AP to let his ailing grandmother catch last glimpses of him. He takes off with Nayanatara who happens to be his bete noire's (Aashish Vidyarthi) sister. The sparks fly and Nag ropes her in to play his wife. The family bonds with him and he makes amends with some familiar drama. I have never seen a film where a director (Dasaradh) has cannibalised so many of his own films  - "Sambaram", "Santosham", "Mr.Perfect" in order to create an umpteenth version of sentimental, sick family drama. He has remixed a few of scenes of "Athadu" and "Manmadhudu". The travails of the film do not end there and I will spare you the onslaught I faced for 150 minutes with a feeble mention of the tortures inflicted.

They used what is called "Demat" (sounds like a Stock Exchange term) technology to shoot sequences in US - New York and San Francisco. But what I noticed in credits is a mere mention of Zurich Airport whereas most of the American shots are all floor-adjusted in a clearly visible frame looking out of sync. For example, the Statue of Liberty is shown as a fixed shot but it looks dangerously similar to our own Tank Bund Buddha statue. NASA space centre is shown with graphics like you are floating in Birla Planetorium. Entire sequences are shown with backgrounds suggesting Europe (must be in Switzerland) but the background is meant to be in the US. It is obvious that producer of Kamakshi Movies - good friend of Nag - has cut corners with everything to give the sloppiest film of his career. Despite his 800-calorie diet and botox injections, Nag looks woefully old like never before in this movie which has an oft-beat role of lover boy-turns-saint. His body language also looks inept - in some scenes with Nayanatara and K.Vishwanath, he doesn't know what to do with his hands - the typical dilemma of a public speaker. Comedy with MS Narayana and Brahmanandam is inspid because Dasaradh uses an over-familiar terrain to crack lewd jokes and cheap tricks with Kovai Sarala in remix of blockbuster duets. When a director is overawed by the starcast and a Superstar, he will get a performance worthy of rotten tomatoes. Thats the bane of this film - something that fan-serving websites and star-struck reviewers will never accept. Watch it if you are a hardcore fan  - atleast there are a few good songs and one by S.P.B in which he creates new steps. For others, including Nayanatara and Kota and Brahmanandam and MS Narayana and Aashish Vidyarthi, this is not going to be a film to remember. Thaman SS scores a few good songs but seven songs will breed contempt in a film elongated with needless sequences, lazy shots, cheap photography and deadpan dialogues. It should be a below-average film that deserves no better than 2 out of 5.

"Bombay Talkies" Hindi Film Review

"Bombay Talkies" is the name of the latest film co-produced by India's youthful new-age directors: Dibakar Banerjee, Anurag Kashyap, Karan Johar and Zoya Akhtar. As the name suggests, it is meant to be an eulogy on Bollywood's century-old idioms. With the exception of Karan Johar, and to some extent, Zoya Akhtar, the other two are one of the two brilliant filmmakers who have sought new ground in bringing in realistic and hard-hitting story-telling with a rare irreverence to old norms while trying to achieve youthful yet compelling emotional connect with the audiences. The producers have selected the most apt title for a film which has four different tales rendered by these four directors - Karan, Dibanker, Zoya and Anurag with half-hour slots each in a total running time of 127 minutes (which includes the four-minute tobacco ad pre-and post interval and a gaudy "Om Shanti Om" style medley of Bollywood boys and girls - from Aamir to SRK to Ranbir and Kareena and Vidya Balan). Originally, Bombay Talkies was founded in 1934 by the First Lady of Indian Cinema - Devika Rani and her first husband Himanshu Rai. They went on to make many films which had an impact on the development of early Indian Cinema. Bombay Talkies became an icon for the arrival of Indian Cinema and subsequently, we all know how Mani Ratnam started his own Madras Talkies as a motif for South Indian Cinema.

Back to "Bombay Talkies" the movie. The four films are directed individually by the four talents above, with their respective name splashed on the screen when their film starts with a 15 second blackout separating one from another to indicate the end of one film and the beginning of the other. That way, the format is a little different from "Darna Mana Hai" where the stories lead upto the climactic story ending. That makes this a winning collaboration with a must-watch tag. What makes the four stories watchable is the bench-strength use of promising technicians like Amit Trivedi who scored thrilling music for all the four stories, inter-mixing the need to elevate the many moods essayed in each director's short story with impressive repertoire of folk music, playback, instrumentation from everyday rhythms and purcussions. Anyone who has long spotted Amit Trivedi from the time he debuted on MTV Unplugged till "DevD" OST got released will vouch that Amit Trivedi is the most-dazzling find amongst the current crop of Bollywood music composers. His music is rich, varied and culturally resonating with the heartbeats of Hindi heartland music, no wonder he still hasn't got the call from masala-oriented South film producers. 

How are the four stories? Are they real? Yes. Credible? Yes. Evocative? Yes, again. 

First story is an explicit take on Indian Male homosexuality directed by Karan Johar (what else where you expecting?). Randeep Hooda and Rani Mukherjee live their own lives in different cubicle nations within the media industry. They are almost sex-less and live a boring civil life until their frustrations surface with the entry of an intern at Rani's office. This young lad is a self-confessed Gay and he gets cosy with Rani in a platonic way only to get cosier with her husband in a plutonic way. Karan seems deft in handling the emerging theme of homosexuality and its repurcussions in conservative Indian families. The gay abandon with which Karan revels in re-creating the sexual preferences of an emerging male order makes it a subtle watch with some hummable music remixed of the old sixties by Amit Trivedi. That room, that music room of old LP records and audios owned by Randeep Hooda in the film must be any music lover's delight - it must belong to one of them - Anurag Kashyap, Producer Viacom's Raghav Behl or Farhan Akhtar, Zoya's sibling.

The second story is the most brilliant of the short films, directed by Dibaker Banerjee. It shows an in-form Nawazuddin Siddiqui as a go-nowhere dweller of a certain chawl in Mumbai, with a bed-ridden daughter who is tired of dad's old stories and a wife who juggles many jobs in three shifts. As if to make a statement on Ponzi schemes, Dibaker introduces EMU farming which has caught on with India's aspiring middle-class. One day, our Mumbai householder goes for the job of a Security Guard, misses it by a whisker and lands himself in a crowd watching Ranbir Kapoor's latest shoot. He gets a rare call from the film's Assistant Directors to enact a two-second scene - to bump into Ranbir from the other end, engrossed holding a newspaper. He exults at the opportunity and gets ten minutes to rehearse in a solitary set away from the din where he works himself up to do the role. In that interlude, he imagines having  an intense conversation with his theatre-obsessed father - brilliantly played by Sadashiv Amrapurkar - who was always pushing him to get to the basics of life. Then the shot readied, improvisations done, Nawaz goes home in a trance forgetting the small change, and the bottle of water earned as a perk for the brief role. He goes home, re-enacts the day's exciting proceedings to his daughter and wife, in a majestic  narrative without words and only flute music in background. This is the best story and my research tells that this is based on one of Satyajit Ray's famous short stories. 

The last two stories are more effusive of the magic spell of Bollywood on India's youth and children. Zoya's story is about a young boy whose father drives him to football but the boy loves the dances of Bollywood. He eulogies Katrina Kaif and becomes her in dreams and in daylight as he pursues dancing to the point of raising money for his sister. The end is filmy with sibling love and dream coming true but this is the only story which has an item song, if you can call that of Katrina's onscreen and off-screen presence in the film. The last story by the nonchalant Anurag Kashyapa is about a father (Sudheer Pandey) and son (Vineet Singh). The father's wish is to send the son with an heirloom bottle of "Murabba" (a kind of a ladoo made of sweet pumpkin) to Bollywood's Badshah's house - Prateeksha - the home of Amitabh Bachchan for a bite by the legendary actor so he can die in peace, something his father did with Yousuf Khan a.k.a Dilip Kumar. The saga is all about the days of wait and exasperation by the youth from Allahabad as he encounters many others who live on a pail of water in order to shake hands with Bollywood's glitterati. It is a pithy take by Anurag to capture the timeless appeal of Bollywood's icons. There's a sweet ending with a twist in the tale but Anurag handles it well with  raunchy wit.

On the whole, all the four stories have their signature styles of their creators who are in between their swinging and cutting-edge form. Undoubtedly, my take is that the honors go the four in this pecking order: Dibaker, Anurag, Zoya and Karan. What spoils the party in the end as we are about to applaud a rare ensemble of a talented foursome is a loud reprise to the ruling Divas of Bollywood in their audacious dream costumes - as I said from Kapoors to Khans. This must have been some producer's silly idea to endear an otherwise charming junction of upmarket, mofussil and fairy tales to the front-benchers who whistle at sighting each of the two generations of glitterati including Sridevi, Juhi and Madhuri. A great, watchable experiment and hopefully, Viacom should make it viable for more coming in this direction of sterotype-smashing cinema. 4 out of 5 for "Bombay Talkies". But I wonder why, U/A for a film that starts off the first story with hair-raising homosexuality. Maybe India will be the 15th nation in the world to endorse same-sex marriage now that the Censors have no objection to it.

"Shadow" Film Review (Telugu)

"Shadow" is one of the most-publicised films of Victory Venkatesh. The publicity was imperative because in an era of fast-changing tastes of the audience, Venkatesh has fallen way behind both in terms of recent content and record. His films were becoming monotonous and shallow - the same family drama, trump-like character played by Venky, out to sacrifice his lover at the altar of marriage with another, and then the banal ending sometimes happy and sometimes sad - he even slashed his tongue in a film. No wonder, for the last year's Sankranti, his "Bodyguard" became a washout and couldn't stand the onslaught of "Businessman". Earlier in 2013, he co-starred with Mahesh Babu in "SVSC" which became a classic hit re-starting the trend in multistarrers. But his market-cap was clearly on the wane, he got paid a mere Rs.3 crores for the blockbuster while his co-star walked away with Rs.8.5 crs. (which was more than the satellite rights earned for the entire film Rs.7 crs. won by Gemini TV). Venky and Nagarjuna, who entered Tollywood a good decade or so after Megastar Chiranjeevi never could reach the dizzy heights of either Chiranjeevi or afterwards the range of box-office collections achieved by the likes of Mahesh Babu, Prabhas, Ramcharan and Allu Arjun. Venky and Nag might have touched a bare Rs.30 crs. if you count all the multiplex price collections and openings overseas. 

Why am I plodding on such long preface in a film review of "Shadow"? Thats because, given such a background, Venkatesh tries to don a different role in every sense. It has a negative shade but is positively highlighted in a manner that fits his body language and persona. "Shadow" directed by Meher Ramesh ("Billa" fame) shows Venky in a dashing new Avatar that could be lapped up by his thick-like audiences. It shows him as a multi-masked hero who  comes in different getups to finish off each villain responsible for the killing of his father Nagababu. Each time, he uses a different manner of slaying the villains from Shinde to Aditya Pancholi. How does he do it? By tail-gating Srikanth, a cop who almost nabs the villain only to pip him at the post.  Quite a fast-paced narration and gripping story with a few pointless excursions into comedy that sucks and a passable light-hearted love track with Tapsi. On the whole, what sustains the film is a commanding narrative with an occasional comedy by MS Narayana to give relief. Venkatesh, contrary to what the press and twitterati lambast, is quite good in the many costumes and hairdos. He remains the same rugged, tough-looking Venky of the earlier years, even if age catches up with him. A dignified swagger, controlled heroism, and stunning stunts make Venky a treat to watch. The composer of the season, SS Thaman scores peppy and trendy music including a haunting BGM  that uplifts the film and moves the narration. Picturisation of the songs and choreography by Raju Sundaram is quite a treat to watch. Srikanth and Tapsi hold their own in a film which tries to show Venky in his full-blooded range in all frames. Aditya Pancholi is an impactful villain whose dubbing lets his screen presence down. MS Narayana gets a few laughs with Krishna Bhagwan though he gets repetitive later. His jibes at casteism by commentating on a character called KammaReddy KapuRaju is hilarious.  Meher Ramesh's strengths are in slick direction, moving narrative and good editing (unlike in "Shakti"). He seems at home in shooting sequences in Malaysia, maybe he bootstraps the film's budget with grants from Malaysian Government to promote tourism. What bores the film is the insincere characterisation of Venky as "Chanti" before interval. 

Every actor goes through a hump in a career that gets truncated by invasions from nextgen of actors. Venkatesh, who has had an amazing run of box-office successes has given some of the most-watched Telly films in Tollywood with a selection of themes that appeals to family audiences and loyal audiences. There have been worse films in the past but "Shadow" is definitely worth a watch as I found it slick, riveting and different from the last five films done by Venky. It is not as bad as many reviewers have rubbished it to be. I am a fan of Tollywood, not a fan of Venkatesh and feel that everybody deserves a second-chance  and change of image - whether it is Balayya, Chiranjeevi, Mahesh, NTR Jr. or Prabhas or Nagarjuna. An actor like Venkatesh  deserves better reviews for "Shadow". It was a paisa vasool for all of us who watched the film. 3.25/5 it deserves.

Shakuntala Devi R.I.P

One of the many, many books written by the legendary Shakuntala Devi. I have a good collection of her books - including those gifted by my dad as part of my growing up years. We were made to attend one of her public programs of Memory Unlimited and numbers to the right of "Pi". For us and those in the 80s, Shakuntala Devi was a brainiac phenomenon that deserved to be widely feted in modern times. She was the original App in Mathematics before the world knew how Apps worked. I hope her legacy lives on and every child in India imbibes her fondness for Mathematics. I hope we make a film based on her life almost like that on Srinivas Ramanujam. According to Mint Columnist Dilip D'Souza, Shakuntala Devi's personal life was also interesting - she had a homosexual husband, her marriage ended in 1979 and she wrote a book on that too: "The World of Homosexuals". Her last book which is pictured here is : "In the wonderland of numbers". R.I.P.

"Badshah" film review (Telugu)

Badshah" heralds the second big season of Tollywood with a swooshing sound of big-scale entertainment in the school of direction of Sreenu Vaitla and his style of family values - atleast four villains and seven side-kicks, a bigger family of character actors, a hero who is never bigamous, a heroine who falls for the hero easily only to be beguiled, an epic, almost explosive spraying of comedy scenes usually inter-linked with the story by the one and only Brahmanandam. This pattern of film-making has been remarkably patented by Sreenu Vaitla especially from the film "Ready" till "Dookudu". Each time, the under-currents were the same only the backdrop changed.  

In "Badshah", he tries to salvage NTR Jr.'s chequered career so far to give him a new cut-out which may go down well with his fans. He lets him keep the reel name his grandfather gave him - N.T.Rama Rao and weaves plenty of screenplay twists to make a career-high for him although it appears tedious at times. 

160 minutes should be an editor's delight but hardly a viewer's delight. Since the editors must have gone napping and Sreenu Vaitla makes films in the conventional three-act format, he cannot get to the main point without moving linearly from the previous watermarks in the frames he releases for us to make a sense of all the drama and melodrama. He needs something different everytime to make audiences drool over his largely endearing universal brand of entertainment, so this time he gives NTR switch into two variations: One, as a police officer who infiltrates a mafia from Italy to Macau and later, as a wedding planner in India who spoils the party for his lover about to marry someone else. Lot of characters get thrown in to pad up the whole storyline till the end - collapsing all the elements and the emotional highs and lows Sreenu Vaitla wants us to experience including some meaningless and boring stunts - the worst in NTR's films. 

Is the film watchable? For a large part yes and thats because of the devastating comedy scenes between MS Narayana and NTR and Kajol in the first half and later, between Brahmanandam and Nazar and MS Narayana in the second half. If you thought "Dookudu" was the ultimate in Brahmanandam comedy, seriously, watch "Badshah". Brahmanandam steals the thunder yet again in one of his most boisterous performances till date. MS Narayana, Vennela Kishore and Nazar too add to the outstanding comedy track in the film which are the sole highlight of the film. Kajol Agarwal is fading out fast and probably getting burnt out with her ho-hum expressions. NTR Jr. gets his best shot at dialogue delivery in just one or two scenes and excels in dance sequences. His Telangana accent is better than the slick expressions as a Mafia Don. Like many heroes hungry for box-office success in the past, NTR Jr. pulls out all the stops to make himself count amongst the contenders for the top slot. He ropes in the best comedy duo Brahmi and MSN to sizzle with their rapturous chemistry, a vintage medley of old NTR clubsongs (, and some splendid locations to give audience the variety even though the story itself is not that novel and an in-form SS Thaman to score trendy music (though forgettable). He even ropes in two stars and a superstar to bring him  luck - Actors Siddharth and Navdeep in brief roles and Mahesh Babu to give the commentary. Sreenu Vaitla does a clean job in his KV Reddy style of film-making  - a rollercoaster ride of emotions but lags at a lot of places. Writers Gopi Mohan and Kona Venkat give some memorable lines. Sreenu Vaitla should know that every director who relies on excessive screenplay and comedy without variety hits a glass ceiling one day. It happened with great directors of comedy genre like Jandhyala, EVV, Krishna Reddy, Siva Nageshwar Rao and Mouli. "Badshah" may be a paisa vasool film for now but if Sreenu Vaitla doesn't re-invent himself, he is a few films away from becoming ad nauseum. NTR Jr. should relax if this film becomes a hit for all the sweat equity - it is not his sweat but so what it nudges him to better days still. I rate it 3.5 on 5 for the hilarity of Brahmanandam.

Railway Budget 2013

Congress got to present its first Railway Budget in a while. It looks neat given the constraints. I am not too keyed up about the cosmetic announcements like new trains and wi-fi facilities in select trains (as long as I dont travel in them). But I notice a distinct change in reformist measures:


One, Operating Ratio is lowered from 96% to 88% which means this will ease off the fiscal deficit for FY 2014. Its a sign of increasing efficiency and rationalising unnecessary expenditure.

Two, for the first time, freight traffic is linked to fuel price hikes. This means you can't rule out future price hikes as and when fuel prices go up. Its a courageous decisionn that will again bear out favorably on deficit concerns.

Lastly, some steps are taken to increase financial management best practices in the 1.4 million odd workforce organisation, ensure those who retire midlife get recouped materially and improve the safety record of Railways overal. These are all welcome changes and must be appreciated despite our continuing cynicism aggainst a corrupt regime.

The British have laid 95 per cent of the Railway lines we use in the country - and for many years, Railway Budgets (including Congress) became titular exercises filling the pink paper stories. After a long time, I find some steam in the engines. Look beneath and there are strategic gems as well here and there: Arunachal Pradesh is being reined into Railroad network in order to thwart the ambitious Chinese staking claim on its sovereignity. Also, we should not infer too much from this thing called Railway Budget. The total expenditure is to the tune of Rs.140,000 crores, while our GDP is around Rs.80 lac crores - so Railway Budget is just 1.6/80 = 2 per cent or less than 10 per cent of our GDP.As I keep saying, the Congress may be a bunch of rogues but every tough economic decision are taken by them first before others can take credit. Over now to the Economic Survey 2013 - for the first time, penned by Raghuram Rajan, the masterly author of "Faultlines" arguably, the best book on the Crisis. See you tomorrow.

Happy Birthday, Abe Lincoln!

It is Lincoln's birthday today and the man who was the first one to be called Mr.President, created dollar and united the states of America was better known for values, integrity and leadership. Here is his most famous letter to his son's teacher, reproduced on his birthday. It is my favorite, like Kipling's "If" poem, never felt bored re-reading it. It can be administered for "girls" too, my girls!




Dear Teacher,



He will have to learn, I know, that all men are not just, all men are not true.



But teach him also that for every scoundrel there is a hero.

That for every selfish politician, there is a dedicated leader.

Teach him that for every enemy there is a friend.

Steer him away from envy, if you can.

Teach him the secret of quiet laughter.



Let him learn early that the bullies are the easiest to lick.

Teach him, if you can, the wonder of books.

But also give him quiet time to ponder the eternal mystery of birds in the sky,

bees in the sun, and the flowers on a green hillside.



In the school teach him it is far honorable to fail than to cheat.

Teach him to have faith in his own ideas even if everyone tells him they are wrong.

Teach him to be gentle with gentle people and tough with the tough.



Try to give my son the strength not to follow the crowd when everyone is getting on the band wagon.

Teach him to listen to all men.

But teach him also to filter all he hears on a screen of truth and take only the good that comes through.



Teach him if you can, how to laugh when he is sad.

Teach him there is no shame in tears.

Teach him to scoff at cynics and to beware of too much sweetness.

Teach him to sell his brawn and brain to the highest bidders but never to put a price-tag on his heart and soul.



Teach him to close his ears to a howling mob and to stand and fight if he thinks he’s right.

Treat him gently, but do not cuddle him because only the test of fire makes fine steel.



Let him have the courage to be impatient.

Let him have the patience to be brave.

Teach him always to have sublime faith in himself because then he will have sublime faith in mankind.



This is a big order, but see what you can do.

He is such a fine fellow, my son!