Review of Attarintiki Daaredi (Rating 4/5)

Yet another rip-roaring comedy (like Dookudu).    starring the main stream super star/ `Power star Pawan Kalyan, I am so scarred of Pawan Kalyan and his brand of over the top over-acting and meaningless movies which still manage to make huge money at box office thanks to his crazy fans.       Even I avoided seeing his super-duper hit GABBAR SINGH (remake of Dabang) and caught up only on TV in which he did a decent job.   But I must admit that, despite his larger than life action hero image, he took a great risk of acting in an out and out family entertainer and it paid rich dividends by his pulling the trick which Mahesh Babu and Vakatesh failed in Seetamma Vakitlo….

All the credit for taking up such risky venture and making such clean family entertainer should go to the Director Trivikram Srinivas.     May be it is only the second time and after more than 50 years after release of `Gundamma Katha’ that a movie starring mainline super stars (hero and heroines)  is named after another female character - `Atta’ in this case He once again proved that movie making is a director’s medium and if the actors/star howsoever star status value they enjoy, if they have surrender themselves to the directors they can do wonders.       Kudos to the director that he converted a simple story without much twists and turns into a healthy comedy of 3 hours duration with humour sprinkled almost in every frame without affecting the main flow of the movie and at the end you feel like asking for more.   With this movie, it is once again proved that no one can beat Telugu film industry in making comedy movies – even with main line super stars.

To the best of my recollection, it is for the first time in his 15 years film career we see Pawan Kalyan putting up such a restrained performance, pulled off comedy extremely well and could even emote a bit in the climax.    For Pawan kalyan, it is a risk of life time which he took and it paid off and it could be a game changer for him.    It should go to his credit that with two nephews (Allur ARjun and Ram Charan Teja) ruling the top rung, he still holds his stardom and fan following base.    Choosing such movies and doing some restrained acting will be like doing the balancing act and prolong his career.     There has been manageable dose of his brand of action scenes (finishing off the task in few seconds), just to satisfy his fans but focus was not action scenes.     Pawan’s face was looking very chubby, he should do something for the same, but for that he was looking as fit as he ever looks.  

Praneeta with her lightened up and lively face was good and stole the thunder from Samanta though her role was not well defined and confusing and has less footage than Samanta.   

Samanta picked up post intermission but bit overshadowed in this movie.     Nadhiya (whom I am seeing for the first time) did a very decent job in the pivotal role of `Atta’ on whom the movie is named after.    MSN and his side kicks and Ali did brilliant act and are instrumental is making the movie so lively.     During the interval I was wondering that it is one of the rare movies by a top star without Branhmanandam featuring in it.    But almost towards the end Brahmanandam makes a grand entry and puts the screen on fire with a nonstop comedy specially the 10-12 minutes duration `Gautam Ahalya’ skit.  

I always had serious reservation in Hindi actors doing the heroin, character actor and villain roles in Telugu films.   With their restricted expressions due to lack of understanding of the language and horrible lip sync they make a mockery of themselves.    But it has become fashionable and every top star from Chiranjeevi Najurjuna those days to NTR clan and Chiranjeevi clan these days demanding for Hindi heroins and villains as a result of which in the last 2 decades the Telugu film industry has not produced a single top ranking Telugu speaking heroin, villain or character actor after Jaya Prada, Jaya Sudha and Kota Srinivas.   Most of them, who are unemployed in Hindi film industry like Mukesh Rishi, Sharad Saxena, Ashish Vidharthi, Anupam Kher, Paresh Rawal, Jakhie Sheroff are lapped up for reasons best known to the producers.    A rare exception to this being  Amrish Puri essaying main villain role in `Jagadeka Veerudu Atiloka Sundari’ brilliantly and doing his own dubbing.   After this many years Bomman Irani making his debut in Telugu movie did a fantastic job.     Besides putting a very decent performance he did good job of lip syncing the dialogues and was not looking out of place.

DSP (Devi Sri Prasad) once again came out with a chart-busting music with almost all songs being hit and further consolidated number one position.   He did a cameo playing sexaphone in one of the duets and he has good screen presence.  Pawan Kalyan's  first singing experiment also gone well with fans.  

It is going to be a feast for PK’s fans after long wait for the release which was held up due to Telengana issue and even those who are not PK’s fans like me too will enjoy this movie.   There were about 15 shows in different parts of Delhi and theaters were jam packed on Sunday.   After a very long time I saw such a frenzy created by fans – whistling, shouting and yelling at every dialogue, dance and fight of their favourite star PK.  The movie no doubt is going to be a super duper hit and further consolidated PK’s position post Gabbar Singh’ and again open up heated discussion who is No. 1 Pawan Kalyan or Mahesh Babu.  

I am sure Hindi producers will be queuing up for remake rights and Salmaan or an Akhay or even a Sharukh (after the hit of Chennai express) will love to feature in the remake.   But unlike in Telugu film industry, lack of star comedians in Hindi films now like yesteryear Mehmood, Omprakash and Jony Walker  will hurt such propositions.  

s. Prabhakar

30.9.2013

REVIEW OF ZANJEER (2013)

I would like to start the review with two disclaimers.   I am not a big and diehard fan of Ram Charan Teja (RCT) but I have been seeing all his Telugu movies (about 6 movies till date) as I have been watching all most all movies coming out of the stable of Chirajeevi clan (comprising of Chiranjeevi, his brother Pawan Kanyan, his son RCT and nephew Allu Arjun) as average Andhra movie goer has no option but to fall back on either Chiru clan NTR clan or ANR clan.      I do not consider original Zanjeer to be iconic or a cult movie.    It is one of the commercially successful movie of 70s as any of the super duper masala commercial successes.    It has become a `Land Mark’ movie because it was a major success for lot of people like Prakash Mehra, Salim-Javed duo till they separated and most importantly to Amitabh Bachan and all of them had fairly long stint.    As far as angry Youngman tag goes more than Zanjeer, it was Deewar and Trishul which established him as an Angry young man.  

 

Ever since the remake of Zanjeer was announced, I was wondering why they decided to do so and why RCT decided to debut in Hindi with this remake.     In his short career in Telugu industry `Maghadeera’ was his best movie till date which re-written the Telugu movie history by breaking all collection records and it would have been a safe bet to launch him in Hindi industry.    May be he, his father and producers might have thought that they can encash curiosity value but they seems to have not factored the heavy expectation of comparison with the original and comparing RCT’s performance with Amitabh’s performance.    If the producers wanted to make an action movie why should call it remake of Zanjeer when there is hardly anything common except villain killing hero’s father in childhood (which theme might have been used and re-used thousands of time before and after Zanjeer), few characters being named Sher Khan, Teja and Mona darling.      What baffles me is that at a time when most of the super hit action movies made in Telugu and Tamil are being re-made into Hindi (about 14 movies at the last count) and resurrecting the careers of many stars and joining the Rs. 100 crores plus club  like Salman Khan (Wanted and Ready), AK (Rowdy Rathore), Gajani (Amir Khan), RCT should have opted for some masala action Telugu movie for remake.   Compared to him, his father chose better movie in `Prathiband' for his debut followed by `Aaj Ka Gundaraaj' both doing well at Box office and pulled curtains on his Hindi film career after much hyped `Gentleman' flopped. 

Coming to the movie,  thankfully it was not a carbon copy of the original movie and rewritten keeping it more contemporary using oil mafia as a backdrop with lot of action sprinkled which RCT has assigned very well, but the movie did not give scope for showcasing his dancing skills, if one keeps comparison aide, he made a decent debut and nothing better can be expected of him.    He need to do something to improve his tanned skin, protruding chin, and stiff walking style. Thankfully Sher Khan role has been shortened because of Sanjay Dutt going back to jail. Even in this shortened version also he was looking so jaded, immobile in action scenes and absolutely out of place and made Pran turn in his grave.   Priyanka did a good job as bubbling girl and Prakash Raj as usual stole the thunder along with Gill in his humorous villain role and he is the sole saving grace of the movie.

The confrontation scenes between RCT and Prakash Raj have been well conceived and well enacted.   The two constables who did sidekicks of RCT did a good job.   Music has been a big letdown, not even a song is hummable, the original had two super duper songs `Yaarihai Iman mera’ and `Deewane hai Deewan ko na ghar chahiye’.    `Star Power’ the one thing which helped Chiranjeevi clan including RCT in having bumper openings for even an mediocre  movie and make them super hits, will work against RCT in Hindi due to lack of it as far as Hindi industry is concerned.  

It is irony that in an article appearing in today's paper RCT says that his `Maghadhera' cannot be and should not be remade in Hindi because it is not easy to re-create the magic unless the same team comes together, but he and his producers have not realised that the same thing applies to Zanjeer and many other such movies.   With Zanjeer it is curtains to RCT career in Hindi for the time being and he better concentrate in Telugu film industry where he is one of the front runners.     Better Mahesh Babu watch out who too, accordingly to me, taking great risk by remaking his Telugu hit `Businessman’ and letting go away the opportunity to remake a bankable `Pokiri’ (which Salman khan did as Wanted).    But compared to Ram Charan, Mahesh Babu, being tall, fair and very handsome work in his favour.

  

  

S. Prabhakar

8.9.13

INDIAN IDOL - 2013 - REVIEW

Anjana Padmanabhan

The popular and successful first `Indian Idol Junior 2013' by Sony has come to an end with Anjana Padmanabhan from Mangalore winning pipping favorite Debanjana at the post.   Thought i felt Debanjana was more consistent, Anjana has picked up extremely well in the last 6-7 episodes and both the songs she chose and sung in the finals on last Saturday (Mujhe aajmane ki koshish na kar from `Loafar' and `ek pyaar ka nagma hai' from Shor) were simply outstanding.    Unlike  Andhra boy `Karunya' who despite being the outstanding singer on the block in Indian idol-2 cold not win because decision was based purely on the basis of public votes and Sony channel was not transmitted by local cable guys those days in AP and other South Indian states, the duel marking system of Judges awarding marks and voting by public and Sony now being available in all South Indian states through various dish companies might have worked in favour of Anjana.       

Debanja

After initial rounds they shortlisted 10 participants and then added Sughandha as wild card entry.    Though there is no dearth of talent among the aspirants who turned up atleast 3-4 (like Aryan, Akash and Sankalp) of the top 11 are no great shakes and one after the other they exited without putting up any real contest.     But for sure the top 6 did a great job and by their efforts the show picked up very well mid way through.

The youngest participant 8 years old Sughandha (who looked much younger to her age because of her tender frame) was given a very long rope and judges and voters might not have realized the fact that the age gap between her and Sonakshi, who was eliminated before her though more talented than her, was 10 (just 2 years older) so was Anjana.  In reality show after reality show such indiscreet voting pattern is observed. 

Other than the participating singers, it is the orchestra team who did a great job, specially the guitarist and two key board players.   For most of the songs they recreated the music very close to the original and their live orchestration lifted the spirits of the show.   The presenters are big letdown, Karan choosing to be funny and making fun of himself most of the time and the better covered up Mandira has right through been out of place.

Coming to judges, who are very important and play critical role, in most of the reality shows it appears that judges are given a role to play and from beginning to end they religiously follow that pattern.     All the judges of Indian Idol junior viz., Vishal, Shekar and Shreya are nice and sweet and it appears they are asked to remain so.    But as per me the role of judges in such reality shows, specially in case of junior championship should be that of a guide, mentor without being too critical or harsh with the participants.    But what I saw in this programme is right through all the judges have nothing but to say `repetitively how good the participants are,  the participants baffled them and they are ready for play back singing’.      But even for a layman’s ears like mine, many of the participants out of the top 10 and even top 5 were making some mistakes in their landing notes, in going to low pitches.   Honestly, even in the first finals on Saturday, I found the performance of Nivesh (in presenting Patthar ke sanam and Mein shayarat to nahi) and Anmol (in presenting Patta Patta Boota Boota) not upto the mark and judges did not point out any flaws.    It came as a great surprise that throughout the entire series none of the judges used headphones which helps them in catching technical glitches in singing.   Pointing out such finer technical points and guiding them how to overcome would have helped the younger participants rather than going overboard in praising the participating and many times patting their own backs in identifying such great talents and saying that they are truly blessed to be listening to such rare talent, which is extending kindness too much.   Amongst all the participants I found Debanajana, Anjana and Sonakshi rendering to be near to perfection.

SP Balasubramanyam, among other programmes in various languages, judges a Telugu singing talent show `PADUTA TEEYAGA’ in E-TV for the last 16 years.    Whether it was 16 years back when he was very busy with playback singing assignments in 5 languages or now when he is relatively free, he gave his 100%.   He keeps the lyrics of all the songs to be sung by the participants with him, most of the time uses head phone and while singing keep noting on the copy of the lyrics when and where the participants are flawing.   Immediately after the participants finish singing after giving encouraging and motivating remarks then he starts pointing out the flaws in singing – in pronouncing words, in singing styles, in mukhadas, antraas and landing notes – then he sings and shows how it is to be sung and then make the singer sing in proper style and ends by assuring that they have not done any crime and every one learns by committing mistakes only.    He adds lot of humour and gives lot of historical information about the song, music director, singers and what went in making the song.    

SP Balasubramanian

He never uses to words `winner’ and `loser’ in the programme, never allows anyone to cry or show any other emotions and never lead the participants in the garden path that they are ready for play-back singing,  instead he says it simply a singing competition and life does not come to an end if one doesn’t win it.    Many times he gives his own example that in his younger days in many singing competitions he stood 2^nd or even 3^rd and did his Engineering.   It is destiny that he became play back singers and went on to sing 40,000 songs and won national award in 3 langues.    That is the reason this vintage programme is most popular programme even after 16 years unbroken telecasting.  The audience not only looks forward for the singers singing but how SPB analysis and what tips he gives to the participants.     How I wish the various Hindi channels, specially Sony follow this pattern and brief their judges to do the role of mentors.    Unnecessary creation of hype and proving that the quality of participants and their programme is superior to others doesn’t serve any purpose and doesn’t help the young talent to hone their skills.

It is worth noting that in the 2nd Indian Idol Karunya was most favourite and ended up as runner up, 5th Indian Idol title was won by Sree Ram and both were from Andhra Pradesh and the First Indian Idol - Junior Anjana Pandmanabhan is from Karnataka but still Indian Idol auditions are not held in any of the South India states.     Hope Sony TV and other rival channels note this and hold auditions in South Indian states specially in AP and Karnataka.

S. Prabhakar

1.9.2013

UNRELIABLE CHICKEN-HEARTED MALE (BOY) FRIENDS

One common thing in the three unfortunate rape cases that have happened recently in three metro cities, Delhi (Nirbhay case), Bangalore (Infosys campus) and Mumbai (photo journalist case), was that in all the three cases the girls were with their male friends and in none of the three incidents it appears that the macho man have not done much to protect the young girl with whom they were moving.      Either they were tied or got a small bashing by which they kept quiet and it appears they did not do much to save the girl before the unfortunate incident or even after the ghastly act was over.      

  In the recent Mumbai incident it was reported that the victim and accompanying male were taken to the nearby railway station and put in a train.     Understandably the girl must have been great trauma and  was not in a position to re-group herself so soon but what made the male friend not to raise alarm at the station or enroute and get them arrested and grapple with atleast one or two and pin them down.   If I am not mistaken they were not in possession of knives or fire arms.    I am more than sure that if these girls were with their old and weak father or a brother they would have put a far higher degree of resistance to save the girl.

So my advice to all young girls, especially those going out late in the evening/night or to seclude places or parks or  abandoned monuments to  be conscious of the fact that the boy/male accompanying you is going to run away or comfortably get pinned down without much resistance and you need to fend yourself or become pray.    Whatever packs (4, 6 or 8) he must be flexing are cosmetic or steroid driven, neither he has the guts or macho-ness to put stiff resistance in a bit to save the girl.     It is only in the reel life that our hero bashes up 10 to 20 goons to save his heroin, but in the real life, unfortunately, it is a different ball game.   

It is unreasonable to expect the Police to be everywhere, considering our population and short staffed and ill equipped police force.  Added to this, police is used less for policing and more for security services for VIP and VVIPs and crowd control for various procession and Dharnaas which take place on a daily basis. But unfortunately they are used as the fall guys whenever such incidents happen.      If police try to be pro-active and shoo away young girls and boys from parks and seclude places they are blamed for doing morale policing.    Is it possible for the police to appear wherever and whenever you want them. 

Girls should also take stock of the very unsafe environment in which we

are living and spend some time, effort and money in learning self defense techniques.      No doubt it may be difficult to take on 5-6 guys at a time but in many rape cases in is only one or two persons who commit the crime and in such cases girls can definitely bash the guy (s) or atleast put great resistance and create lot of noise by which the attackers  may lose patience or get scared off  and run away or some help can come in by the commotion created.     Last week `Headline Today’ called in some experts (mostly girls) in one of the their special programmes and showed very simple techniques of how to combat such perpetrators.   They also exhibited some very sensitive zones in the body which can be targeted without using much force and if done so even able bodied men can also be disarmed easily.    Delhi Police organizes so many workshops on self defense techniques.       Young girls spend so much of time on FB, internet, gym (to be in good shape looks wise) and dance classes.    Why not spend some time for something which can save their honour and life.

S. Prabhakar

25.8.2013

Chennai express – as bad as a journey in an Indian Railways train)

(don’t worry if your Wait listed ticket doesn't get confirmed)

Rohit Shetty wanted to make a Hindi movie and ended making a Tamil Movie, without written subtitles What a fall for Rohit Sheetty from Goolmaal (2006) to Chennai Express (2013).    From the effortless rib tickling comedy Goolmall, with great repetitive value, to a laboured effort to make a ketch up comedy which is very ridiculous, if not offensive, to Tamilians/South Indians.    Rohit Shetty made very successful straight Hindi movies followed by remake of Tamil movie Singam and now seems to have confused whether to make a straight Hindi movie or a remake and ended up making a Tamil movie with Sharukh khan who mouths funny dialogues in Tamil and serious dialogues in Hindi and the villain gives a blank expression to both.

Nothing to write about the story (as a matter of fact none of Rohit Shetty movies ever had  any strong story line, and in this aspect Rohit Shetty has almost become Manmohan Desai of these times), but unlike other Rohit Shetty’s earlier movies neither comedy was good nor the action scenes.   Casting used to be the strong point in Rohit Sheety’s movies with so many stars being given a well defined role and even side kicks putting their best.  I still remember Sidharth doing a tiny comedy scene, may be at the most in 3-4 frames in Goolmall making unsuccessful attempt to kills Ajay devgan and his friends and generating such a humour.   He is now a regular in Comedy show in Sony for many years.   In Chennai express casting is disastrous staring from Sharukh who looks old and jaded (thankfully he was introduced as 40 yrs and Deepika pokes him to be 50), followed by one time small time Tamil hero and character actor Sathyaraj, who seems to be overawed by the presence of Sharukh and the fact that he is acting in a Hindi movie to such an extent that in the entire movie has one expression only.    I see atleast 100 South Indian movies a year (predominantly telugu movies) but never seen such ugly looking hunch man of a villain.   Considering that in every second movie the villain has atleast 20-30 hunch man (many of them now acquired celebrity status like Samba in Sholay), Rohit might have had far better choice and should kick his casting director in his back and throw him in the air as one of the many cars he does.      The only saving grace of the movie has been Deepika Padukone, who did a great job, which might have compelled the producer and director to give her top billing ahead of Shrakh himself and Nikitin Dheer as Tangabali, who has imposing personality.     Sharukh continues with his adulation with Rajni Sir and kept people guessing when Rajni Sir will make a grand entry for a small cameo like in Ra.one (since Sharukh gave a big thanks in the credits to him), but this time he only used his photos from Robo for end-credit song, which should thrill the average Tamil movie goer in TN.

The unpardonable thing in the movie is to try to create humour by the ridiculous way Hindi is spoken (haven’t the producer realized that there is a over-kill of it already).    I started learning Hindi when I was 17 years, but honestly I was never so bad or seen any one so horrible as Deepika has been depicted  saying `thi’ for a male (no doubt non-hindi speaking people have problem in making out when to use `tha’ and when `thi’ – like I still don’t now why it is `need lutha hai, chain looti hai’  in the famous Hindi song `Ek na ek din kahani banegi’ when both of things of third gender).    Banking on such silly things to generate humour is an exhibition of bankruptcy of ideas and writing skills.    Come to think of what our Censor Board and `Amma’ Jayalalita were doing for such things.     I recall that producer of `Aja Nachle’ was forced to drop `Mochi’ word from a song and producer of `Billu Barbar’ was forced to drop the word `Barbar’ from the title because a section of people took offence to it.    Some small fringe Muslim group made the life of Kamal Hassan miserable and our `Amma’ forcefully stopped the release of Vishwaroopam in TN.   But it appears that she has gone into slumber and not bothered about Tamil language and Tamilians being so ridiculed since no minority community is involved.     This year there was a Telugu movie `Denikaina Ready’ in which a Muslim boy impersonates as a Brahmin Pundit who conducts Homam/ Yagnas and the entire movie was nothing but ridiculing `dhoti wearing pandits’ and no amount of protests by Brahmin groups could make Government to act and the movie had a smooth sail.    Such things do not anger me but I feel pity that Religion, region, language are ridiculed to generate comedy and the worst part is that it is done in a crass manner.    How I wish these superstars have the ability or if not the ability but atleast the capability to imitate `late Mehmood’ whose comedy (including his hyderabadi dialect) used to be so enjoyable.   I can see his Padosan any number of times without being offended a wee bit for his brilliant portrayal of South Indian dance master, which still serves as a bench mark, to such an extent that Amitabh has imitated it in one of the Manmohan Desai Movies and had the humility to admit that he imitated his good old friend Mehmood.

  

Going by the popularity of Deepika and Sharukh and with 3500 prints being bombarding the theaters, the commercial success of the movie is assured and its entry into 100 crores club may be assured,  but it doesn’t take away the fact that it can be counted as one of the worst movies made by Rohit very close to Bol Bachan.     He should take a break and re-group himself to make straight Hindi movies or go back to his original roots (of Karnataka) and make South Indian movies (where mindless action movies sell) but for God’s sake do not make such movies as Chennai Express, which is not less ridiculous than Sharukh eating noodles with curd in Ra.one.     Sharukh should re-think about re-positioning himself, he cannot carry the `lover boy’ image anymore and he is just not cut out for action movies, he looks so off-colour in action scenes, more specially when he pits himself against a 6 footer like Dheer.  

S. Prabhakar

11.8.2013

SACHIN - REALISE THE TIME HAS COME TO SAY GOOD-BYE

Couple of days back In the morning Sachin cuts birthday cake, announces, age is no factor, thereby indicating that he will go on and on and let himself slipping down the ladder till he reaches the rock bottom, and in the evening after facing few deliveries gets knocked `neck and crop’ by Sunil Naraine in the process gets off balances falls in front on all his four – what a pathetic sight.      There was a time when bowlers used to keep the ball by which they used to discuss Sachin as souvenir, since it used to be such a hard task breaking through his defense and for the last one year or so, one need not wait for a long time between his coming to the crease and talking a long walk back giving the scorers a well deserved rest from moving the score board.      Hardly anyone can remember when he survived more than 20 balls in an IPL match.   

It happens in the life of many celebrities that they just cannot leave the ark light and retire gracefully and keep making `ass of themselves’.    We have seen Mike Tyson participating in many exhibition matches and keep getting trashed and earning millions of dollar in the process, but falling from the grace of one time knocking out opponents in couple of minutes ever before audience could properly settle down in their seat.      Rajesh Khanna acted in many insignificant Z grade movies for many years and made mockery of him in many award functions craving for and demanding recognition.   

   

Even for an ardent fan of Sachin, my memory of his smash bulking innings and sending shivers down the spine of bowler like MaC Graft and Shane Warne is getting eclipsed by such below par performance and ridiculously easy dismissals.   Sachin, now that Birthday parties have settled down, wake up, mature and bow out graceful.

S. Prabhakar

26.4.13

MY FAVOURITE FIVE


 BEN-HUR – English
(William Wyler)

Ben Hur the 1959 epic masterpiece historical drama was set in ancient Rome stars Charlton Heston in the title role of a rebellious Israelite Jew who takes on the Roman Empire during the time of Christ.   

With largest sets ever built for a movie, the film was the most expensive ever made at that time. The movies contains the most famous and breathe taking action sequence of all times, the nine minutes chariot race which could not ever be recreated and has no match even in this digital age.       Apart from this the forts under construction, the battle ships, their rowing and ultimately destruction all were picturised in a grand manner.   

It won a record breaking 11 Oscars, including Best Picture, Director, Actor, Supporting Actor, Cinematography, art direction, special effects, which record it held upto 38 years when it was equaled by Titanic in 1997.    Even after six decades, one could enjoy this movie and awe struck by the magnitude and grandeur of the movie

MUGHAL-E-AZAM – Hindi
(K. Asif)

Mughal-e-Azam, the all the time super hit epic, directed by K. Asif, which was in the making for decades and ran into huge financial crisis while under production, was ultimately released 1960.   It featured Prithviraj Kapoor as Akbar, Dilip Kumar as Salim and Madhubala as Anarkali,  all of whom put up their best act together to make it memorable and all time great Hindi/Indian movie.     The confrontation scenes and dialogues between Prithviraj and Dilip Kumar were a treat to watch and cassettes and CD of the dialogues are still in great demand.   The story revolves around the love of Salim for Anarkali, which is disapproved by Akbar leading to the war of words and actual war.      No effort was spared in making this masterpiece and despite mounting budget, to such an extent that the sets built for the famous song sequence ‘Pyaar kiya to darna kya’ has costed as much as making a movie at that time.    

But the labour of love has not disappointed the producer and director, as the movie broke all records and was the highest grosser for many years to come and ranks in top 10 Hindi/Indian movies of any person.  

  

DAANA VEERA SOORA KARNA – Telugu

(N.T. Rama Rao)

DVS Karna, the 1977 Telugu mythological movie was produced, directed and acted by the legendary Nandamuri Taraka Rama Rao (NTR).    Taking few episodes from Mahabharat, this story of DVS karna was woven which was an experimental effort of NTR to depict the character of Durvodhan in a non-negative manner.       It was first and probably the only movie in which Duryodhan was shown as intelligent, logical, shrewd, good strategist, administrator and Ruler.     In the confrontations with Krishna, he logically explains why he doesn’t want to give any land to Pandavas and justifies all his acts and deeds.   Many felt that the movie should have been named after Duryodhan rather than Karna.    

NTR, the multi talented legendary star of Telugu film industry, who mastered in essaying mythological characters, has made a great experiment and took great risk of essaying three different mythological roles of Krishn, Karn and Duryovhan in this movie and it is a tribute to his talent that he has pulled off brilliant performance specially in the role of Durvodhan.    The Dialogue penned by Kodaveeti Venkatakavi have been delivered by NTR in his typical `pure chaste Telugu (gradhikam) style which floored one and all and till date remain as bench mark.    For the first time dialogues of a Telugu movie were released in audio cassettes and till date they are in great demand.   Besides the three roles he produced and directed the movie as well.    

With a running time of 4 hours and 17 minutes it is the longest Indian movie and out of this NTR is there for 4 hours length of the movie which too is a world record and to hold the interest and attention of audience for such long time is no less an achievement

Though made at a shoe string budget of Rs. 10 lakhs in record 43 days to beat Krishna who making Kurukhestra with almost similar theme, it was a massive commercial hit collecting Rs, 2 cores.   It remains a jewel in the crowded crown of NTR.

SHOLAY – Hindi

(Ramesh Sippy)

Sholay – the 1975 all time record breaking blockbuster was produced by GP Sippy and Directed by his son Ramesh Sippy.   The  simple story of retired police officer hiring two petty thieves to catch the dreaded dacoit Gabbar Singh has heavily barrowed from many western movies and Hindi movie `Mera Gaon Mera Desh’.      But the biggest congregation of stars, well defined roles to each and every character, best performances put in by all actors, whatever may be the length of their characters, highest production values, never seen technical fineness, elaborately mounted action scenes with the help of Hollywood technicians, great music by RD Burman all worked in making it as biggest blockbuster of all times.     

It was the first Indiann film presented in 70 mm and six track stereophonic soundtracks.    The Hollywood technicians engaged did a great job in mounting action scenes in a grand scale specially the train chase scene which could not be re-created till date even by movie with bigger budgets.    

Though there were so many stories of various alternative stars considered for various characters including Danny for Gabbar Singh, the stars ultimately selected suited the roles to the T, specially Amjad Khan as Gabbar Singh.

Sholay broke all records with Golden Jubilees in 60 centers, Silver Jubilee in 100 centers and an unbelievable 5 years run in a Mumbai Theater.   By many counts, Sholay still remains as the most successful movie of all times in India

ENTER THE DRAGON – English

(Robert Clouse)

Enter the Dragon, 1973, Bruce Lee starrer directed by Robert Clouse, is Hong Kong martial arts action film produced by Hollywood’s Warner Brothers in association with Golden Harvest (which later made many martial art movies with Jakie Chan)

Enter the Dragon is probably the first Hollywood movie, which is purely based on martial arts, which catapulted Bruce Lee to a cult figure, but alas he died a week before the release of the movie and could not live to see what a blazing trial he left behind.  

   

The never-before-seen elaborately mounted action scenes using slow motion and Chinese martial arts and the immortalization by legendary Brucee Lee have been lapped up by audience all over the world and not only Enter the Dragon was a huge success all over the world but also made the way to hundreds of Chinese/Hong kong/Hollywood martial arts movies to follow even till date.     Jakie Chan, who was one of the stuntmen who worked in this movie, went on to become another cult figure after Burce Lee in martial arts action movies

A movie which tops the list of action movies of any person, is still popular with Seattleite channels, which show this movie very often.

Those that almost made

• Gone with the Wind – Victor Fleming
• Guns of Navarone – J. Lee Thomson, Alexander Mackndrick
• Gundamma katha – Telugu – Kamalakara Kameswara Rao
• Pushpak – Silent movie – Singeetam Srinivasa Rao
• Mera Naam Jokar – Raj kapoor

S. PRABHAKAR