0 Never a dull moment in `Vicky Donor` (Movie Review)

When was the last time you saw a Bollywood comedy that made you chuckle and smile for two hours? When was the last time you saw a funny film that you wished wouldn't end? When the last time you saw a film where every actor in a big or small role simply sparkled on screen?

"Vicky Donor" is original and thoroughly engaging. It makes you feel blessed and blissed.

How good it feels to watch a director pick up a pertinent issue and convert it into a perky precocious and endearing rom-com which is less rom and, ahem, a whole lot of cum. Indeed "Vicky Donor" is suffused with delectable plus points, not the least of them being debutant Ayushmann Khurana who seems to be born to play Vicky the…er donor.

Ayushmann-God bless his spontaneity-has formidable competition in the acting department from Kamlesh Gill and Dolly Ahluwalia who play his grandmom and mom, and from the redoubtable Anu Kapoor who as the sperm doctor, adds so much to his role and to the film you wonder why he isn't seen more often in our films.

Each character is written with a keenness for details that go a long way in giving them a life beyond the camera.

Delhi, done to death in film after film, re-awakens in "Vicky Donor". Kamaljeet Negi's cinematography makes no overt attempt to explore the city through the topography. Sircar's splendid direction takes us into the heart of Delhi. The people, their homes and specially their spoken language come alive in ways that cinema has ceased to offer in recent times.

I'd give the film the thumbs-up for the sheer exuberance joy and conversational authenticity expressed in the spoken words. Writer Juhi Chaturvedi is a prized find.

And cherish this film's ability to turn the subject of sperm donation into a joyous celebration of life. There are no dull moments in the narration. No character walks by in Sircar's Delhi just for the heck of it. There are no incidental characters. Even the guy on the road who calls out the leading lady's name on Vicky's behalf is there because he belongs to the film's perfect-fitted jigsaw design depicting domesticity and adversity in the competitive city.

Never in living memory have I seen a film where every character comes alive as an individual. If Dr Malpani (Anu Kapoor) is quite a character, so is his assistant Chaman (Bupesh Pandya) and his nurse Lata (K.V Rajni). If Ayushman's Vicky is a scenestealer, so is his romantic lead, the lovely Yami Gautam who as an independent working girl from a Bengali family brings a disarming grace to her character.

"Vicky Donor" is a precious and important work of art. It negotiates an unusual theme with the least amount of fuss and the maximum warmth and vigour. The scenes are woven with seamless serenity into one another. Like life, the film is not only about laughter. The heartbreaking moment where Ayushmann holds his sleeping mother's hand defines the undercurrent of somberness that life in Delhi constantly secretes.

Scratch the surface, and the pain under the bravura display of flamboyance and gaiety comes to the surface.

"Vicky Donor" gets that urbane mix of the light-hearted jaunty mood at the top and the agony beneath, with pitch-perfect accuracy. The very act of attempting a film on a sticky subject like sperm donation suggests a dry staccato treatment. Pulling away from the pitfalls of pontification and self-importance, "Vicky Donor" simply takes us on a carefree joyride where the blend of pain and pleasure is never forced into the narrative. It just happens.

In a film industry saturated with slapstick double-meaning comedy, Shoojit Sircar has conceived a comedy on sex which is a not a sex comedy. No small achievement this.

Large-hearted and generously endowed with moments that you take away with you from the film even as John Abraham comes on screen for an irrelevant song and dance item, "Vicky Donor" is the surprise entertainer of the year. It is the warmest, funniest most sensible and sparkling comedy in a very long time. In Shoojit Sircar's vision every single actor shines with a glorious naturalness. Ayushmann is effortlessly the discovery of the year.

As for the film, in Anu Kapoor words, there are impatient sperms, angry sperms, stupid sperms. Seen in those terms this film is quite a fertile piece of work which says a lot more about life than we expect from it.

0 Hate Story (Movie Review)

Hell hath no fury like a woman spermed…Meet the newest avatar of Maa Kali. The fascist avenging woman has always been a favourite figure of fantasy fashioning for our films. Who can forget Nargis gunning down her own son in Mehboob Khan’s Mother India?

The motivations for revenge in Hate Story are not quite the ones that impelled the woman protagonist to rise up in arms in Mother India or for that matter in Bhavna (a film that was directed by this film’s producer Vikram Bhatt’s father Pravin Bhatt) where Shabana Azmi killed her own husband.

Really, who needs a gun to get even when you have sex? Paoli doesn’t give a damn if her bare back or flesh flash across the screen. She displays a healthy attitude of disdain for the camera, letting it swoop down on her vulture style, never allowing her vengeful character’s erotic journey to get sleazy cheesy or lurid. The camera violates her character’s privacy with her consent.

Hate Story is a tale that invites provocative measures of counter-argument. When the protagonist Kaavya (Paoli Dam) gets down to revenge she spares no one, least of all herself. In a line that has by now become a national catch-phrase she announces, ‘Main iss shaher ki sabse bade randi ban-na chahti hoon’.

Thereafter there’s no looking back. And quite a comely back it is. Paoli’s Kaavya uses her physique to lure her enemy into her trap. Director Vivek Agnihotri cuts into her journey of self-destructive vendetta like a knife.

The episodes sometime stretch the limits of believability. But what the heck! No one is making a statement here on the politically correct conduct of the Bharatiya Nari. In what can be regarded as one of the most defiantly unconventional debut performances, Paoli Dam lets herself go with the furious flow of her character’s vendetta.

The episodes hammer into one another with scarcely room to breathe. The pace is dizzy most of the way. And when it slows down you feel the protagonist’s vendetta is losing its steam.

Steamy love-making scenes are strewn across the narrative’s stricken landscape. The soundtrack suggests there’s an urgent tragedy nudging the erotic content. The dialogues by Rohit Malhotra don’t shy away from telling it like it is.

Vikram Bhatt’s screenplay is Sidney Sheldon territory. It doesn’t shy away from showing the heroine in an unflattering light. This is new-age cinema with no room for conventional narrative devices or apologies for what the protagonist sets out to do.

If in The Dirty Picture Vidya Balan wore her sexuality on her sleeve, in Hate Story Paoli Dam uses her sexuality like a favoured currency in the stock market.

Mint-fresh and shock-proof Paoli Dam interprets her character with vigorous conviction. As her adversary Gulshan Devaiya (so watchable in Shaitaan and That Girl In Yellow Boots) careens between rage and anguish quite effortlessly.

Hate Story is not quite the tale of the simpering wronged woman we’ve been seeing in our films since the time Adam impregnated Eve.

Hate Story pushes the envelope so hard, all the content spills open in a torrential tumble of tantalizing power-play set within the world of corporate battles and gender conflicts.

This is the most riveting and aesthetic saga of a woman’s revenge against the man who’s wronged her since R. K. Nayyar’s Inteqaam. Except for the fact that Paoli Dam does things Sadhana in Nayyar’s film could have never imagined.

Mother India must be squirming in her grave.

Credit: Mid-Day.com

0 Strong women take center stage in Tribeca foreign films

NEW YORK: As women increasingly press for greater equality in countries around the world, filmmakers are breaking barriers too, making their female protagonists as strong and varied as the characters they meet in everyday life.

New York's Tribeca Film Festival, which draws to a close this weekend, has shown its spotlight on several foreign-made movies that feature strong women roles, from the Israeli military drama "Room 514" to Mexican border thriller "The Girl."

"In Israeli films, I found that women's parts are always prostitutes or some secondhand old woman nobody wants. I said, ‘What's going on?,' Sharon Bar-Ziv, director of "Room 514" told Reuters. "This is not reality. We have F-16 pilots who are young women. In the Supreme Court and everywhere, women are strong."

He said that simple fact of life made him want to create a female protagonist that was more in line with reality.

"Room 514" has drawn comparisons to 1992 Hollywood drama "A Few Good Men," which starred Jack Nicholson, Tom Cruise and Demi Moore and told of U.S. marines accused of murder and the attorney who defended them.

Yet the focus of "Room 514" is on a lone woman, Anna. She is a military investigator who takes the case of a celebrated soldier accused of brutality against a Palestinian civilian, and she relentlessly digs for the truth despite attempts by her male colleagues to thwart her efforts.

"She's brave, she's strong, determined, independent ... In a mainly male area - an army male area - she's moving forward with her loyalty to her morals," Bar-Ziv said.

U.S.-Mexican border drama "The Girl" follows Ashley (Abbie Cornish), a single mother who loses her son and becomes involved in trafficking illegal immigrants to raise money and get him back. In the process, she finds herself responsible for a young Mexican girl, leading Ashley to fend off alcoholism and re-learn the importance of motherhood.

The approach toward his protagonist taken by director David Riker, whose previous work includes "La Ciudad," is more subtle than Bar-Ziv but nonetheless effective in depicting a woman who takes control of her life during a time of crisis.

"The metaphor I use is that she's in quicksand," he told Reuters TV. "Everything she does to try and get out just sends her deeper into the kind of train wreck of her life. And Abbie, over the course of the film, has to come out of that, and she does it in the most subtle, nuanced ways."

The depiction of strong women is not confined only to tough or gritty films. It also shows up in British manners comedy "Cheerful Weather for the Wedding," which features an ensemble of female characters ranging from a bride who disregards her guests to look inward, to her mother who confidently doesn't mince words with guests she perceives as interfering.

A frank younger sister crosses class lines for a stealthy fling, an elderly aunt trades playful barbs with her husband and a best friend advises the bride's ex-lover. They round out a cast of characters who refuse to fade into the background.

"There was a big range of female characters," director Donald Rice told Reuters. "There's six or seven really good female roles and that's unusual."

Based on a 1932 novel of the same name by Bloomsbury writer Julia Strachey, "Cheerful Weather for the Wedding" takes place in an English country house and sees bride-to-be Dolly (Felicity Jones) swigging rum as she reminisces about her summer romance with ex-lover Joseph.

Elizabeth McGovern, currently starring in TV hit "Downton Abbey," plays Dolly's mother in the movie, and she said she took the role because it reflected her own experience.

"(She) is allowed to speak for herself and what she feels, in a way that isn't always perfectly motherly," said McGovern. "So much of the time, the mother character in movies and TV is painted into the background, and there's an immediate assumption she's not a character with desires or much interest."

"Since I'm a mother, I have a different feeling about it," she said. "Just because I'm a mother doesn't mean that the rest of me has died and gone to sleep." (Reuters)

0 Red Carpet Minute: Solange Knowles in Stephane Rolland Spring 2012 Haute Couture

Give It To Them HUNEY!

 Sister Diva: Solange Knowles in Stephane Rolland Spring 2012 Haute Couture, 6th Annual DKMS Linked Against Blood Cancer Gala, Cipriani Wall Street NYC

Last night, at the 6th Annual DKMS Linked Against Blood Cancer Gala, the sister of "The Most Beautiful Woman In The World" (Beyonce)--singer/songwriter Solange Knowles,  made an appearance--looking very chic in a Stephane Rolland Spring 2012 Haute Couture white gown featuring a tiered peplum, drop shoulder/cap sleeves and gold metal center front waist accent.

Peplum Goddess:  Singer/Songwriter Solange Knowles attending the 6th Annual DKMS Linked Against Blood Cancer Gala, Cipriani Wall Street in Stephane Rolland Spring 2012 Haute Couture, and model from runway show on the right in same gown

Need I remind y'all that this is a $40,000+ hand-made Haute Couture gown. And it's Solange Knowles...and she's not at the Grammy's or Cannes or (name a big high-profile event)! The "red carpet game" is seriously getting out of control! Besides the fact that the gold center front waist detail looks like COUTURE iPad cover (does it vibrate or ring??) and that Solange looks as if she forgot to put her make-up on...I think the dress is quite directional and FAB!!! 

What do you guys think??? Yeay...or Nay?