"Rock On"-It Does Rock..!

Rock on, EXCEL's latest production who’ve given some gems like DCH and Lakshya, have the produced a rocking movie with their latest venture.

Director: Abhishek Kapoor
Cast: Farhan Akhtar, Arjun Rampal, Purab Kohli, Luke Kenny

In a nutshell-Rock On is about fourtalented musicians: Adi,K.D,Joe n Rob.isfour friends come together to form a band named. Their dream is to make Magik the biggest band the country has ever seen, but something happens in between and they couldnt make it and due to a misunderstanding they part. A decade later, they come together and continue from where they left off.Rock On! is about relationships, dreams, failures, fate and life of this four friends.

The movies theme, and screenplay reminds you of DCH with friends having fun, fighting over misunderstanding, and finally making up but Rock on doesn’t have a story as good as DCH. DCH was a classic.Its rather a kind of a mix between Jhankaar beats, and DCH. On the upside, the musical theme of the film is ably supported by Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy's rocking score with amateurish lyrics and a husky voice of Fahran Akhtar is a real crowd pullar.

You have to watch the film to see how intelligently and sensitively the songs have been used for special moments, when words would never be adequate. There is a scene when Aditya's wife Sakshi comes back to her estranged husband, only to see him jamming once again with his rocker friends. It is a special moment, because for the first time in four years, she sees him smile, for the first time, he actually has let his guard down and welcomes her into his life, inviting her on his journey. She watches, smiling, as her husband sings with his old friends, the musician in him shining through the facade of a cut and dry investment banker for the very first time. And that's when one of the most beautiful love ballads in the film Yeh Tumhari Meri Baatein takes over.

The weak points are loose script on predictable lines with very little surprises. And does not have strong enough reason for Aditya to break up with his then girlfriend.Dont you think so?

Acting by Fahran Akhtar is impressive as a rock star. Purab Kohli sizzles with his funny antics,has got a good screen and has totally done justice to his role. Luke is fine. Arjun Rampal suits his character with expressionless straight face, and long hair guitarist. Sahana Goswami has portrayed a vulnerable wife and egoistic/possessive girlfriend’s role very well, and pretty Prachi Desai has carried her role quite graciously.The movie has got good music which is what rocks it. It reignited my passion for playing guitar once again.So if you havent watched it yet,go for it guys!(along with your buddies)

Rating:4/5

"GOYA IN BORDEAUX"-a staggeringly beautiful excursion into a great artists life!

Director: Carlos Saura
Cast: Francisco Rabal, Eulalia Ramon, Dafne Fernandez, Maribel.
Language: Spanish, with English subtitles

Anyone who wanders into Carlos Saura's "Goya in Bordeaux" without knowing something about the eminent Spanish painter Francisco Goya is bound to be a bit perplexed by this sumptuous movie biography, because it assumes considerable knowledge of his life and times.But, with even a little of the familiarity it demands, the movie is something special: a staggeringly beautiful excursion into the sensibility of an artist whose disillusionment with mankind, dark subject matter and break with artistic traditions made him the first truly modern painter.

It takes place in 1828, as Goya (Francisco Rabal) is 82 and near death, living with the last of his lovers (Eulalia Ramon) and their young daughter (Dafne Fernandez) in Bordeaux, France -- in pleasant financial circumstances but in bitter exile from the Spanish regime that he loathes.Bedridden and deaf since the age of 45, Goya spends the first part of the movie walking the nearby streets, refusing to take his medicine, bantering with his daughter, occasionally drinking with fellow liberal Spanish exiles and painting the bizarre, grotesque paintings of his later style on every bare wall of the house.
Gradually, however, the film begins to dwell on Goya's interior life. Soon, he's wandering through his past, often in dialogue with his younger self; and we follow his artistic development, his rising contempt for the human species and his great love affair with the Duchess .
The film gets increasingly surreal, often using painted theatrical backgrounds in flashbacks and re-creating some of Goya's most famous paintings -- his anti-war "Third of May, 1808," satiric "Family of Charles IV" and full-frontal "Nude Maja" -- in an explosion of color, pulsating music and stylized .

Another highlight of the movie is the moving interpretations of his "Visions of War" series. The reenacted scenes of Napoleon’s invasion of Spain capture the essence of his pain for his countrymen as Goya’s role as witness to history.

The triumph of this movie belongs to the inspired collaboration of two of the greatest technicians in postwar movie history: French art director Pierre-Louis Thevenet ("El Cid," "Patton," "The Fall of the Roman Empire") and Italian cinematographer Vittorio Storaro ("Dick Tracy," "The Last Emperor," "Apocalypse Now")

With Goya in Bordeaux, Saura has a crafted an exquisite movie where the art of biography becomes art itself.

"W.A..L.L-E"-poetic and simply beautiful!

Pixar films has made an yet an another success, after The Incredibles,Cars, Ratatouille, an amazing master piece in animation by Academy Award-winning writer-director Andrew Stanton of Finding Nemo.

Movie Details-

Directed by:Andrew Stanton
Starring:Fred Willard, John Ratzenberger, Kathy Najimy, Sigourney Weaver.

"Wall-E" is one of the best animated movies to be released in a very long time. At times it manages to be almost poetic and lyrically beautiful in its exploration of the all too familiar subject of love.As expected from Pixar Animation Studios, the movie is dazzlingly beautiful in its animation, but it's also sublimely anchored in the central love story. The emotional arc of the story unfolds as gently as flower petals.

Synopsis:
Wall-E is a robot left behind by humans to clean up earth in the far future where there is no life at all. Wall-E goes about the task of meticulously arranging the heaps of scraps in the shape of skyscrapers. He also collects remnants of the life lived by humans and tries to make some emotional connection with all that has been long lost. But his life changes entirely when a sleek, more advanced female robot named Eve is assigned to search for life on earth.

For hundreds of years, WALL-E (Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class) has been taking out the trash, and collecting precious knick-knacks in order to stave off the boredom of his dreary routine. Little does WALL-E realize that he has recently stumbled onto a secret that could save planet Earth, and once again make the ravaged planet safe for all humankind. When highly advanced search robot EVE makes friends with WALL-E and realizes the value of his remarkable discovery, she excitedly races back to let the humans know that there’s hope for their home planet after all. But after centuries alone in the world, WALL-E can’t stand the thought of losing the only friend he’s ever known, and eagerly follows her into the deepest reaches of space on the adventure of a lifetime. Along the way, the friendly trash-collecting robot who has always known what he was made for gradually begins to understand what he was meant for. Finding Nemo director Andrew Stanton returns to the helm for this family-friendly sci-fi adventure.



Rating:4.5/5

Official Website:http://disney.go.com/disneypictures/wall-e/

"A WEDNESDAY"-the birth of another great film maker!

Movie Details-

Genre:Thriller / Action
Language:Hindi
Released:Sep 5, 2008
Director:Neeraj Pandey

Debutant Neeraj Pandey’s beautifully crafted debut film is a masterpiece and I recommend everyone to watch it in their favourite theatre.An extraordinary,soul touching and best critic award deserving movie of the year "A Wednesday", are among the best - and bravest - films to come out in.A Wednesday tells the story of certain events that take place between 2 and 6 pm on a Wednesday in Mumbai.

Synopsis-

Prakash Rathod (Anupam Kher) , the Commissioner of Police, Mumbai received a call requires the release of four militants rather than information on the bombs that man has planted in different parts of Mumbai. At first, Prakash suspect that this is a crank call, but their doubts are removed, when actually has a bomb at the police station right in front of his police headquarters. Prakash Rathod is not the type to leave easily. The team will have their best men together and taps all of its resources. The even hires a young hacker to help his team to track conversations and also the location of the anonymous caller.The passage of time, but no concrete results are clear. Finally, Prakash Rathod decides to extradite militant groups to call anonymously. Then events take a strange turn. Expect the unexpected on "A Wednesday". From the drafting point of view to the completion of written material, writer-director NeerajPandey has never been-there-seen-that route again.

What i see as +'s of the movie-

• No sub-plots, no adverse Masala, no unnecessary tracks.
  
• Neeraj knows the art of story telling,a brilliant screenplay.


• Its not a conventional Bollywood movie because there is no hero. There is only a cast.


• Very well edited by Shree Narayan Singh.


• Nasseruddin Shah's perfomance leaves an everlasting impact.

Conclusion-

I am proud of new guys like Neeraj, Sriram Raghavan,Rajkumar Gupta,Abhishek Kapoor etc who made such original hard-hitting stuffs which reinforces our belief that indian cinema is in no way behind hollywood.We ought to encourage them and not pull them down.And not to forget, even the most hard-nosed critics like Rajeev Masand had good things to say about this one."A Wednesday" a must watch.

Rating- 4.5/5

Official Website:http://www.awednesdaythefilm.com/