Wordless Wednesdays -- Confessions of a Shopaholic

7 Khoon Maaf

The Story:
Susanna (Priyanka Chopra) is a young rich orphan who falls in lowe with the dashing Edwin Rodrigues (Neil Nithin Mukesh). She marries him only to learn that he is not quite what she believed him to be. A brave fighter during war-time, he is quite insecure in his personal life. His suspicious attitude, hurtful comments, and jealous actions hurt susanna a lot. Susanna, instead of divorcing him or running away, kills him. She meets and marries Jimmy (John Abraham), a choirboy turned rockstar. Just wen she is settling into wedded bliss, she learns that he is a liar, a cheat, and an addict to boot. So Susanne, sends Jimmy to parlok as well.

And subsequently she meets 4 other men: Wasiullah Khan (Irrfan), Vronsky (Aleksandra Dyachenk), Keemath Lal (Annu Kapoor), and Dr. Modhusudon (Naseeruddin Shah) and while all of them love her in their own way, they also hurt her very badly and so they have to die too. Susanne's quest for love ends when she meets her 7th husband. As Susanna moves from one husband to the next, she is ably assisted in her murders by her butler, maid, and the horse trainer, Goonga. Arun, the orphan she adopts, falls in love with her and the whole story is shown from his perspective and what he has pieced together. Based on Ruskin Bond's short story, Susanna's Seven Husbands.

Image Courtesy: http://bollywood3000.blogspot.com/2011/02/7-khoon-maaf-music-review.html

What I liked about the movie:

• The concept of the female bluebeard character. Priyanka does a good job.
• Fleshing out the characters of the husband(s) to show us the qualities that Priyanka falls for and the ones that she abhors
• Transformation of Irrfan from the soft-spoken, romantic, poet by day to the beast by night.
• Vronsky's mouthing hindi dialogues especially "Mera pass Ma hai" in a thick russian accent.
• The song "Daarrrling" was simply fantastic.

Why some folks may not like the movie:

• No suspense element -- the trailer gives away the plot. Some folks believed the movie to be a murder mysetery.
• Linear style of narration and pace -- no twists
• Why did Priyanka never not stop falling in love or stop murdering her husbands?

You can either like it or you can hate it -- there is no middle ground. There are no punch dialogues, no mushy stuff, no masala potboiler, no detective story, and no twists. This was my first Vishal Bharadwaj movie and I enjoyed it. Watch it and let me know what you think.

What am I reading nowadays?

I do not like vampire stories.. I did not even watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer when it was aired, like a zillion years ago.

So, when my SIL handed me her copy of the first book of the Twilight series, I was not so sure if I wanted it. That was until my cousin(her hubby) started groaning in the background and yelled: "How can you ppl read such trash?" His putting the book down was enough encouragement for me to accept the book and begin reading it :D I had watched a few scenes of this movie everytime it was aired on televison but I never got to see the whole movie. So, this was kinda like the Golden Compass. I can only hope that I like the other books.

I am yet to finish reading the book -- it even has a poster of the two actors which means this is another young adult book. I mean, who would stick a poster of the movie inside the book - movie promoters who are sure gals would go ga-ga over it. And I am reading it :( More in my review... coming up shortly.

Kaavalan -- a movie review

After taking a break from watching movies.. I am back with a bang. Well, I was not really guzzing the movie watching all this time - jes not reviewing them :D Anyway, I wanted to see a Tamizh film after a looong time. Though this movie was fraught with gossip and bad press about both the co-stars: Asin's return to Tollywood after London Dreams flopped big-time, Vijay's chance to redeem himself after his successive flops and his political hoo-haa, I wanted to see the film. Maybe that is why I wanted to see it :P

Image Courtesy: http://www.movih.com/tamil-movie-songs-download/kaavalan-release-date.html

And then I heard that Kaavalan was a remake of the malayalam film, Bodyguard (pronounced bow-dee-gaa-rd). Now, malayalam movies are way ahead of Tamizh movies in terms of script, story-line, movie-making style etc. Tamizh folks, meanwhile have to contend with Vijaykanth in yet another fight against corruption movie, or Sarath Kumar in yet another triple role as grandfather, father, and son, or watch Simbu gyrate to yet another mindless dapanguthhu song in his next movie or watch Dhanush play the underdog yet again. Naturally, this movie would be like movie-amrutham.

So we went with high expectations. And as usual it ended up going phhhhttt! Firstly, it was not a typical Vijay masala movie. The songs were bad and looked mostly unnecessary. There were a lot of holes in the story and a couple of loose ends which the director did not tie up towards the end. The end was supposed to be a twist. However, because the movie is sans masala, the twist has minimal impact and actually raises a lot of questions. Vijay's awful wigs for two songs were honestly laugh-worthy. There were some scenes which were good but I think the director tried catering to the Superstar Vijay instead of the actor Vijay resulting in a movie that only partially redeems itself. I am not a major fan of Vijay but I usually enjoy his songs and some of his movies are pretty much like Dabaang -- loads of fun and a total entertainer. This movie disappoints and how. Watch it and share your thoughts.

Wordless Wednesdays -- Belgian Chocolates for me

Manmadhan Ambu

Madhan (Madhavan) is a rich business man and the suspicious fiance of film actress, Nisha (Trisha). Due to his suspicious behavior, Trisha asks him to wait till she completes all her film commitments. She decides to go on a European cruise with her childhood friend Deepa (Sangeetha), a divorcee with two children. Madhavan hires a detective, Major Mannar (Kamal Hassan) to spy on Trisha because he is sure she is meeting Suriya (Suriya in a cameo). Usha Uthup, as Madhavan's mother was quite funny, and the credit goes to the script-writer for the hilarious one-liners. Madhavan was good as a amma kondu, suspicious lover, and a drunkard. Kamal sleepwalks through most part of the role and his flasback story (told in re-wind mode) does not offer anything new and fails to impress. Some of the dialogues are so non-filmy that you are impressed but post-interval, the movie kills you with a supposedly filmy comedy sequence where you want to say "Oh Stop it!!".

The movie is supposed to be a laugh riot. However, the movie drags and fails to impress. There are a few nice scenes in between which raise your expectations but sadly the movie does not meet those expectations. There is absolutely no chemistry between Trisha and Kamal -- I think the audience connects to their character in the movie but their falling in lowe makes it absolutely filmy. Who is the Hero? sounds innovative. Neeeeela vaaanam could have been good but Kamal kills it, I feel with his rendition of "neeeeeeeeee ----eeela vaanam". The movie is different - it does not have an item number, the story deals with a business man falling in lowe with a film star and his insecurities while dealing with her work and her proximity with her co-stars. Sangeetha as the divorcee seems quite mercenary - very realistic. It could have been great but it misses it for me. Catch it and let me know what you feel.

Wordless Wednesdays -- Four Years completed in Jan