Pokiri Review

"I may not be perfect but parts of me are pretty awesome." This is the writing on the T-shirt of Illeana in the famous forward ( see pic attached) that is floating in the internet circles. Coincindentally, the same appies for the film too.

Mahesh Babu, gives a dazzling performance. I am not a fan of his, and I wont be for the next n years, but I have to grudgingly concede he has put up an enchanting act. I am apprehensive of the Poori-Mahesh combination, as Poori's heroes generally look tough and mouth quick dialogues. AndMahesh excelled exactly at this in his I-dont-care-a-damn role. Illeana, the latest 'IT' thing to ignite the young hearts is wasted by Poori, who is known to present heroines in a pleasnt way.PJ,who depicted Miss.Takia superbly in Super, made a mistake with Illy. As always happens with his films, female-lead has no clue of what is happening in the film. She appears in between every two fights, tells some dialogues and disppears and she appears some 20 times.Now do the math and count the fights... hehe

The film successfully earns a big A for its over-dose of violence. All through out the film you can see knives and bullets taking places in every imaginable organ of human body. Coming to Melody Brahma Manisharma's music,I liked the audio very much and the picturization is okay. My only grudge is that my favourite 'Ippatikinkaa Naa Vayasu Inkaa 16...' is wasted with that
standard vamp in Poori's stable. The movements Mahesh gave in 'Deva Deva Devudaa..' are good.

Poori takes yet another swipe at the S/W community with Brahmanandam's role of Brahmi, Software Engineer, the previous one being VenuMadhav's role in 143. Ali fails to fail yet again with his beggar's role. All-in-all Commedy track is okay.

A huge relief is there is not much of sentimental stuff. So you may not exactly feel bored, but for the leeeeeeengthy fights.Thought I would not tell, as is the norm in Poori's films, Prakash Raj plays the baddie. The cast includes all the chota-mota villains who have debuted on the Telugu silver screen in the last 5 years. There are n gangs and as expected, (n)(n-1)/2 fights. To satiate those who have a penchant for storyline, there is a twist in the tale, right at the end.

If I say its a different film, I would be wrong.Its just the quintessential masala film with glorified violence, a reclusive hero, a chooo-chweet herione and good songs. Not a bad package ..eh ?

POORnami-The Dull Moon Day .. err.. Pournami-The Full Moon Day

Pournami - is not an apt title. "Varsham Kosam" would have suited better. You will know why.

The lead pairs here,Prabhas-Trisha (Varsham) and Prabhas-Charmi (Chakram) are repetitions. Sindhu Tholani is the female lead no.3 in the film. As for the film,the idea ( to make a social period film ) is novel, but the story has no strength. It is woven around an interesting but delicate point i.e., a woman has to dance in front of Lord Shiva from a particular family for the rains to grace the village, but the story writer ( MS Raju claims the credit but I doubt it) failed to come up with a good plot and strong characters necessary to thicken the theme. Added to that, faction dragon ( looks forced ..here) raises its ugly head once again on the Telugu silver screen. The icing on the cake being, the new faction rule introduced saying that a family wont avenge the murder of its scion, until the bloody (both literally and figuratively) shirt he was wearing when he was killed turns yellow. Now, what if the person killed is not wearing a shirt? hehe ....And the movie reeks of stereotypes. A bad zamindar, troubled father,harassing step-mother, her side-kick brother, two families trying to kill each other, what not.Commedy is almost non-existent, with Sunil not able to evoke any noteable laughter.

Prabhu Deva intermittently shows his spark mainly in the scenes between Prabhas and Charmi, but they reminds you of the ones in NNNV.Given the script, he has done an okay job.The main drawback being lack of authenticity, the period conscience is missing . I could spot roads recenty laid under Rajeev Nagara Baata/Indira Palle Baata....hehe... In some scenes Prabhas wears the normal is-zamaanaa shirts and the dialogues get modern(meaning this-days') at times.

Stunts provided by Peter Heins are good, especially the one between Prabhas and Rahul Dev ( Yaa.. you guessed it right.He is the one playing the zamindar)

The music is chalthaa,but nothing much to drum about. The film would have come up better had it been conceived as a musical, roping in an Ilayaraja ( a little far-fetched) or a Vidyasagar/MM Keeravani . With the story having lot to do with flutes, mridangam, rock-roll and all, the music if serious would have been a treat to hear/watch. DeviSri is not upto the mark except for the number "Nuvvalaa Navvakalaa...." and one has to watch the slow and subtle movements in that song from Prabhas (almost pulling off an Amitabh).

Man, I am fast becoming a fan of his. With each passing film, the only manly Telugu hero in all of the young brigade, is improving by leaps and bounds.

That day,it seems, is not far away when PFA doesn't mean "Please Find Attached" but "Prabhas Fans Association"..hehe...

Verdict : The MS Raju juggernaut halts atlast.

Boring Instincts ....

Aaah.. BI...Basic Instinct.. That ever green film which is the basic syllabus for any novice to the terrain of soft-porn. That film with so many top-less scenes that topped the chart-busters of sexualla oblongatae of so many teenage minds. That epic film which made Sharanstone Sex Goddess overnight.... And here we go... Ladies n Gentlemen... the most awaited hot sequel ever.. I thought it would be yummy but...yuck..... yuck...

Everytime I think BI2, I was reminded of the green bill with Gandhi ( Father-o-Nation warning paternally "NO SON..." with a smile albeit) going down the Prasadz's gutter..As I was just checking out the crowd for the evening at Screen 3, I was flabbergasted to find a family. The man,the woman and who were they...Gosh... two gals.. whose ages could be 15 and 16 in any order. Indian urban middle class has come out its centuries-old cocoon? Is sex no more a taboo in Bharatiy Khaandaans?? Am I witnessing the ground-breaking and multiplex-shattering socio-cultural turn??? Hold your breath... Some english song being played in the theatre ... Family chatting away blissfully.. Then the gals got up... and brought some (= most of the quantity that was on display, i guess) pop-corn. This time, inter-weaving and multi-tasking chatting with munching... rather..the other way round.... Music stopped. Titles. A car running fast and furious..and a woman ( hopelessly old at that) nearing orgasm ( is there a biological probability of orgasming at that ripe age..?..hehe).The family raises with the head leadining the pack and walks-out ..sorry walks-in into the centuries-old cocoon.

Titles and more titles.. and the boring movie unravels... Same story. with some other guy (a looker too..yaa his name is David Morrissey) trying to imitate the inimitable Michael Douglas. And may be for some punch dialogues ( which are aplenty in the earlier version), the film is absolute crap. As with not much happening on-screen, I turned my attention to my fellow audience who appeared they themselves were ruing about the ruining of their hard-earned Gandhi bills. Suprised to find almost 33.333% of the seats filled up with fairer butts... an indication of the rapid strides of progress being registered in the field of sexual deliverance of the weaker sex. Women India shining ?

Addendum:

This is only FYI. This stuff I am typing in between another BI ... No its not Basic Instict III but a Business Initiative.. ( yaa..projects around here are called BIs)

Sinful similarity? huhh ??

And on a pesonal note :

1.Don't rely on your INSTINCTS and do this BASIC of mistakes.
2.Learn from others' Xperience...
3.Refrain and Relaxxx.... Save a Gandhi ....

24-Carat Bangaram Audio

Energetic.Peppy.Mass-beat. These are the adjectives you use to describe Bangaram's songs. Vidyasagar, the maestro of mass has done it in a class of his own. Pawan's resurrection was now made easy.
No review can be started without the mention of "Ra Ra Ra ... Raa raa Bangaram", the title song which gently reminds the audience of the impending imposing release of Pawan's film and the usually unusual expectations his movies carry with some striking words... "Neeku poti lene ledoy Bangaram".
"Thaadu Bongaram.. Thala Thala Ungaram ...", has everything that is requried of an ITEM song.Trisha is expected to set the screens ablaze with her oomph. The rendition is fresh and just perfect.
"Jai sambho..." is a passionate song, typical of Pawan's movies, wherein he tries to reach out to the people with his message. The rap bits in between make this a special.
"Maro Masthi Maro.." is a bhangra which would give Daler a run for his money.Full of energy, this song makes a great dance number. In this,Pawan blatantly refuses the advances of the gal. Should be a treat to watch on-screen.
"Egire chilakammaa..." starts slow in comparison and picks up pace beautifully. A song that lingers for a long time in your ears after you Alt+F4 ed your Winamp.

All-in-all a very good album, which will earn even more mileage with the film's almost guaranteed success.

Thank you Vidyasagar.