What's the latest movie you've watched?

Bhaag Milkha Bhaag

I liked this one ! and the music too
15/20

Ab Tumhare Hawale Watan Sathiyo

Anil Sharma, who directed this film, is mostly known to Bollywhatters for his work on the notorious Salman vehicle Veer, but he is primarily known in India for making jingoistic action movies with Sunny Deol.  This movie is...um, how to describe it?  Imagine The Red Badge of Courage, only set during or shortly after the Kargil conflict, with Bobby Deol as the boy-soldier who talks a big game but is a coward at heart.  Now inflate it to Bollywood scale with songs, comedy, and a whole lot of family drama related to his macho career military granddad (Amitabh Bachchan) and romantic drama about the female military doctor who has a thing for him, which Bobby totally doesn't notice because he's busy pining for the wife of a MIA supersoldier (Akshay Kumar).

To me, Bobby is sort of the latter-day version of Vinod Mehra or Rakesh Roshan, whose careers were mostly built on playing likable but weaselly men who could get their acts together if only they got a good kick in the pants, but since Bobby's the son of a 60s/70s superstar and the kid brother of a pretty big 80s/90s star, he tends to be given way too much screen time to prove his characters need that kick in the pants, and that's basically the problem here.  This is a 3.25-hr movie, and at least half of it is Bobby's character cheating at minor contests, shooting his mouth off, ducking responsibility, guilt-tripping Lady Doctor into signing medical waivers for him, guilt-tripping the maybe-widow into agreeing to marry him (after he rescues her from a sandstorm), charming Mom and Granddad, snivelling when Granddad blows up at him, etc.  He also spends a lot of time embarrassing himself in combat/counterrorist situations, but since these parts are actually relevant to the Red Badge of Courage story arc and the action scenes sometimes manage to be So Bad It's Good, I will cut him some slack on those parts.  The film also spends a lot of time pontificating about Indo-Pak relations in a jingoistic way; I found that boring and fastforwarded a lot of it but I will say in fairness that the parts I watched seemed pretty typical of the kinds of things the Indian and Pakistani leadership say about each other IRL, for what that's worth.

Good points?  Well, the combat scenes are directed with a kind of crude energy and are sporadically amusing.  The songs are rather nice, and some of the picturizations are pleasant, particularly the two with Akshay and his character's wife.  Amitabh is good as the gruff ex-military man turned security advisor: you may not agree with what his character has to say about Pakistan, but you don't find it hard to believe that this particular guy would say and think those things, and although his blowups at his grandson are unpleasant to watch, the little weasel deserves it far more than the children do in most angry patriarch storylines (3KG, Patiala House, Boss, etc...)  Akshay has about 30-40 minutes of screentime devoted to his storyline, in which he pivots from dapper romantic figure, to action hero, to slightly crazed POW wrestling with captor Danny Dezongpa, to angsty returning veteran.  He was supposedly somewhat uncomfortable with the level of anti-Pakistan rhetoric in the early versions of the script, and his character, although prone to "Jai Hind!" type jingoism and taunting his enemies and captors on a man-to-man basis, doesn't spout off about Pakistan being totally awful as blatantly as Amitabh's does.  (The bad guys in Akshay's story arc, notably Danny, turn out to be "worthy opponent" types who ultimately team up with the Indian characters to stop a terrorist attack, supplying what little nuance the film has on Indo-Pak relations.) 

There's a decent guilty pleasure buried in here somewhere, about a love polygon where the menfolks' jobs involve thwarting terrorists and reenacting those old Chuck Norris Missing In Action movies.  Unfortunately, it's more trouble than it's worth to dig it out from underneath the politics, the granddaddy drama, the more redundant Weaselly!Bobby scenes, the random pseudo-documentary footage of the Indian military at work and Hindu pilgrims worshipping at Amarnath.

Here's the (IMHO) best parts of the movie, as brought to you by youtube:

(Let's gloss over the part where I sat down right shortly after finishing Ab Tumhare, rewatched Boss, and liked it much better now that I knew what I was getting into and what to fastforward.  Pathetic.)

Welcome (2007).  Well, I've now seen all the Akshay Kumar/Anees Bazmi collaborations, and weirdly enough, I think I still like Thank You the best of the three.  Welcome has a couple of cute picturizations, and doesn't have Singh is Kinng's penchant for jokes about disabled people, or Thank You's button-pushing take on marital infidelity and what to do about it.  But it squanders a truly amazing supporting cast (Anil Kapoor, Nana Patekar, Paresh Rawal, Sunil Shetty, 2G from Rowdy Rathore, Mallika Sherawat, Ranvir Shorey, and the late Feroz Khan), a popular item girl (Malaika Arora Khan), and a really cute jodi (Akshay and Katrina who are barely in this) in favor of the blandest, least interesting slapstick jokes it can find.  Not awful or aggravating, which I guess is an accomplishment given some of the other movies Akki has on his conscience, just not very engaging.  It also looks tacky and cheaply made, which is more striking because SIK and TY recycle some of the same exterior locations, commit a lot of the same sins with regard to CGI compositing, etc., and yet manage to look like way more polished and visually interesting movies.  I also found Welcome's handling of the obligatory scantily clad firangi extras more disrespectful than in SIK (where they're just sort of there) or TY (where the foreign women are still heavily objectified but for some reason feel more like people to me).

Gori Tere Pyaar Mein

I did not expect much from the director who made the ultimate borefest with I Hate Luv Stories, but in the end I found Gori Tere Pyaar Mein quite a pleasant venture. The film starts off slow and unfortunatelly also returns to the slightly boring mode as it nears the climax (which doesn´t really feel climactic or satisfying really). It lack "punch". However the whole bit with Imran´s engagement and later him  (possibly the best scene) as well as initial days in a small village are good and entertaining.

The film belong to Imran Khan, both story and performance wise. This is the kind of roles he does well and looks good doing. He is charming and believable. Kareena Kapoor looks truly beautiful and act well, however a film like this is, simply said, below her. There was nothing new or challenging about it for someone like her. She is solid, but has done so much better in similar avatars in the past. Frankly I felt that she was a miscast. Somebody less prolific and experienced would have been a better choice, and would probably feel fresh in such simplicity. What irked me about the movie was when we are first introduced to the character of Dia, it is immediatelly said that she is "a lot older" than our hero. I found it rude and needless. Firstly - Kareena does NOT look older than Imran, forget "a lot". Secondly I have never ever heard any such comment in a film which had a 40 plus actor trying his moves on a 20year old girl. Hell, not even something as hideous as Policegiri did that.

The songs work well in the film, but don´t have a repeat value.

The surprise of the movie was Shraddha Kapoor. She doesn´t have a big role, but she is extremely lovely and delivers a lot better (and less zombie-like) performance than in the much famed Aashiqui 2. I actually thought SHE would have been a perfect casting for Kareena´s role.

6/10

Chennai Express

My daughter and I watched it and really liked it. Loved the music and the singing that SRK and Deepika do on the train in Hindi to fool the goondas.

Khubsoorat, a thoroughly entertaining Hrishikesh Mukherjee comedy starring Rekha. First time I recall seeing Rekha in a "light" role. Really sweet how Rekha and Ashok Kumar affectionately addressed each other as "boyfriend" and "girlfriend"  

Pyaasa (Guru Dutt). What is so exceptionnal in this movie
I found it too slow, too slow...
12/20