W

Watched W movie this evening. It's a good movie. But didn't see anything new about W, except that he and his staff has to pray after every meeting.

Being a avid watcher of PBS frontline, I watched/read all about Cheney, Rumsfield, Wolfowitz & Rove. For me it's like watching a movie based on a novel which I read.

But, I've to say that Oliver Stone is back in form. I made a choice not to watch his last two movies Alexander and World Trade Center. I immensely liked his two president biographies, JFK(yeah, I was 22 then) and Nixon. He didn't take any liberties in script this time. Everything is factual and well documented. Stone potrayed issues between HW and W in very effective way. It's pretty much clear for all of us that W always looks up for God and Reagan for direction, rather than his old man. There's a clear angst in him to prove that he is better than his dad.

Colin Powell's role is well written. And movie clearly shows how Powell tried to stop W from going into war and how he failed. Casting is very good, specially Thandie Newton as Condi and Richard Dreyfuss as Cheney. Josh Brolin is amazing as W.

In a way this movie is like a Deja Vu. Back in '04 I was cheering for Fahrenheit 9/11. Movie made good money but failed to change the verdict. That movie addressed my angst against war in a a better way. W is the 4th movie this weekend in Box office collections. I hope, at least this movie will change few voter's minds.

As Oliver Stone said, Bush made an enormous impact on USA and whole world in the last eight years. We all know that it's not a good thing, but we've to live with it. (We can blame it on Karl Rove, Katherine, Harris, Ralph Nader ...). All the visitors of this blog knows me as a Bush basher. But last two years, my hatred and despise of Bush simmered down and increased on these 4 evil people. Cheney, Wolfowitz, Rumsfield and Rove.

Even though we can't blame Bush solely for the Iraq war, History wouldn't treat him right. All I can wish is that 4 evil people will be served justice.

Peace

Here's the Roger Ebert's review
Watch PBS coverage on Bush's war, on Frontline

Chintakayala Ravi - Movie review

Just watched chintakayala ravi. In simple words, this is a typical venky film. It's a routine film with good comedy. The audio wasn't an instant success, but the songs looked a lot better on screen.

Most of the film is shot in the US, almost the entire first half and half of the second half. The first half of the film is pretty good with nice comedy. The only real emotional/sentimental scenes are in the last 15 minutes of the first half. All the three songs are pretty good. They are not different from the usual venky style songs.

The second half of the movie moves at a fast pace initially and all the remaining 3 songs are over within the first 45 minutes. The last 30 minutes moves to India and is pretty predictable, but not as heavy as you would imagine. Overall, the second half is good too.

I somehow don't digg venky's get up so much. But on the whole, its a tailor made film for Venky and he is as usual at ease. Anushka and Mamata Mohandas are good. Jr.NTR's guest appearance is okay. He looked very good, and its nice to see venky and Jr.NTR on the screen together. Overall, chintakayala ravi is not a great movie, but it's a timepass movie, definitely worth a watch.

Ashta chemma - Movie review

Just got back from Ashta chemma. The promos looked very promising and though the movie might not be a great hit, it sure is a very good entertainer. Simple story, simple narration and a short(by indian standards) movie. The run time is close to 130 mins. All the artists/actors gave good performances. No big twists, the music is good, the songs could have been better. Both the heroes did good. Its hard to believe its their debut movie. Nani(Rambabu) and Srinivas(Anand) both were good, but Nani imitated Rajiv kanakala in many scenes, especially in his intro and the following scenes his dialogue delivery, modulation and action resembles Rajeev Kanakala. Swathi is cute. Bhargavi is okay (adequate hehe)

Overall, Ashta chemma is a time pass flick. A simple story with some good laughs.

Hare Ram - an exhibitor's view

There were two things on my mind that almost prevented me from watching Hare Ram. The first one is Kalyan Ram himself. Unlike many of his generation heroes, I always thought KR lacked the ease in front of camera. His boy next door look is his asset as well as a drawback. The second one is Harshavardhan, the guy that directed Vijayendravarma, who changed his name from Swarna Subbaro. But it is in fact, these two guys that make Hare Ram worth watching.

It is hard to go into the details of the movie without spoiling your experience. Unfortunately, many of the reviews have already done that. About the movie, all I can say is look out for Kalyan Ram, both as an actor and a producer. The movie might have many interesting twists and turns, but the biggest of them all is KR's performance. The scenes with Sudha and Chalapathi Rao at the start of the movie show the ease in his performance. His body language and dialogue delivery have improved a lot. It is always risky to play a double role. Since he is also the producer he must have known this and we can see the difference in both the roles. He put his heart and soul in this movie to come up with an extraordinary performance. This definitely is a turning point film for Kalyan Ram.

The next biggest asset for the movie is the director, Harshavardhan. I still cannot believe it is the same guy that directed Vijayendravarma. The direction is completely different. He seems to have worked hard on each and every scene. The picturization of some of the scenes is awesome. His screenplay is very good especially the flashback episode. The camera angles and close up shots used in some scenes are awesome. He maintained good tempo throughout the film and just when we things are a little slow there is a twist. He handled the climax very well. The last 20 minutes especially is very impressive.

Mickey J Meyer's music is big plus. My personal favorites are Pyar karma seeko na, Laalijo Laalijo and Sariga Padani. On the screen Jairam Jairam song is awesome. Look out for Priyamani in that song ;). The background music is good. Mickey J Meyer's music is different from all the others. His style resembles AR.Rehman, though the orchestration is different and with Hare Ram, he seems like he is here to stay. Mickey J Meyer and Harshavardan, both complemented each other well. Great music and lovely visuals. I cannot stress enough about the rap song Jairam Jairam.

As for the others, Priyamani was a good choice for the role. She was perfect. Just imagine what would have happened to Asadhyudu if she was the heroine in that movie. Some of the episodes involving Brahmanandam and Raghu babu are good and Ali's rain episode clicked well too. Kota as always gives a very good performance. It is sad that he is often ignored.

Overall, this is a very good film to watch and hats off to Kalyan Ram for daring to be different. He did say during the audio function that he will let the audience and fans speak after they watch the movie, and I am pretty sure the talk is unanimous. This movie should also be a good film to watch for all the wannabe directors and producers. But if there are any wannabe producers reading this and looking for a director, feel free to email me (just kidding…but seriously?!).

happy days works

I happened to watch the most hyped movie in the recent past last weekend. The first thing that surprised, shocked and irritated me was the ticket prices. The movie released at many other centers in the US a week before and the web world has been flooded with positive reviews ever since and that in turn let this exhibitor raise the ticket prices to $12 for everyone over 5 yrs old. Let me get back to the movie and save this rant on the ticket prices for another post.

There has been a lot of hype on Happy Days in the web world, most of it, I think, is because Sekhar Kammula knows how to use the major telugu portals to his advantage. He is a graduate student and like many of us knows the lifestyle of an NRI. The good thing though is, he backed up the hype with a feel good movie. Movies with a college background/theme should be dealt with delicately. The first turn off in these movies is the way the classroom episodes involving teachers and students is dealt with. Often our makers try to generate comedy using some vulgarity. 99% of the times the students make fun of the teachers to generate laughs. The other scenes where formula movie makers try to win the youth and mass audience is by choosing violent episodes between the college students in a very unnatural way. There is a thin line between the good and the bad in these movies and this is where Sekhar Kammula emerges as a winner.

Nostalgia is a funny word. It is a bittersweet memory of the past, but most of us tend to remember the good and ignore the bad. When I was in Intermediate, I always felt my school days were awesome. I felt I should have done somethings differently in intermediate while I was doing my engineering. After a semester in Masters, I always thought of the good times that I had while doing my B.Tech. Most of the times, I forgot those "night-outs" before exams and other tough times and I always remember and thought about those days when we won a cricket game or when we had fun at freshers party or when we went out on a fun trip or about those days when we friends just sat and talked crap all night. This is exactly what made Happy days a winner.

SK has chosen to ignore the real life politics of caste, religion and other minor preferences which all slowly become the cause of violence in college and also the cause of love and hate moving forward in life and that is what takes Happy Days away from the real world and makes it a feel-good film. The performances are wonderful, except for the tenglish accent of chandu. The scenes between Tyson and Shravanti are awesome and deserve a special mention. Both appu and rajesh are at ease and natural. On the whole each and every character has been cast perfectly by SK and the characterization is perfect. Mickey J Meyer's music is the soul of the film. He is the next A.R Rehman. The songs are brilliant and the background score fantastic.