Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara continues to surprise and polarize

What started out looking like a Spain tourism ad to some, a Dil Chahta Hai redux from the promos to others, was described by the maker as NOT that as most of the film is spent driving in a car, was slated to tank badly at the box office, have a short life span and be yet another yuppie wannabe film, has now taken on some legs at the ticket windows and continues to delight many viewers into its third week.  The usual gang of reviewers ranged from panning it solidly to loving it unabashedly.  Then we had this salvo fired by none other than Baradwaj Rangan:

I did not review Zoya Akhtar’s multiplex hit Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara for this paper – and I didn’t have to. I’d already reviewed Wake Up Sid in 2009, where I wrote, “It has all the weight of a television commercial showing sad people transforming into happy people in the course of thirty seconds, which is to say that nothing ever seems to be at stake… Everything is frustratingly preordained.” And, “But these bits of growing up are tucked away into inconsequential corners of the film, in song montages and the like, so we’re mainly left with the incessantly happy-cheery story of a boy and a girl getting together after a series of extremely minor hiccups. That’s not a bad way to spend a couple of hours, sure, but how you wish a few dashes of reality had been allowed to temper this unrelentingly feel-good fantasy.” The heft of a television commercial. The minor hiccups. The feel-good fantasy. Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara has it all.

Mr. Rangan went on to mock the audience favorite Rock On! (though I must admit that I found it underwhelming):

Read more here!

Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara!

Abhay Deol disowns Aisha!

Aisha Box Office discussion

Aisha opened to a poor response with 30-35% collections at multiplexes this morning. The collections in the afternoon did not show much improvement and were at a similar level.

The film may have improvement at select multiplexes of cities like Mumbai, Delhi NCR and Bangalore over the weekend but is unlikely to make much impact in other centres.

Aisha Review: Yep the same "Idiot" way

Aisha reviews!

Deccan Chronicle: 4 stars
Mayank Shekhar, Hindustan Times:  1.5 stars
Aparajita Ghosh, Apun Ka Choice: 2.5 stars
Deepa Garimella, Full Hyderabad:  4 stars
Sanjukta Sharma, Livemint: no star rating provided ("pretty picture, bad film")
Rajeev Masand, CNNibn: 2 stars
Deccan Herald:  no star rating provided ("fashionable chick flick")
Subhash K. Jha, Bollywood Hungama: no star rating provided ("engaging and endearing")
Pankaj Sabnani, Glamsham: 2 stars
Komal Nahta, Koimoi: 1.5 stars
Spice Zee: 4 stars
Sukanya Venkatraghavan, Filmfare Magazine:  3 stars
V Love Movies: no star rating provided ("frothy")
K.K. Rai, Stardust Magazine: 3 stars
Shilpa Jamkhandikar, Reuters Blog:  no star rating provided ("very pretty, very shallow")
Sukanya Verma, Rediff: 3 stars
Aniruddha Guha, DNA:  2.5 stars
Sonia Chopra, Sify: 3.5 stars
Mihir Fadnavis, India.com: 3 stars
Blessy Chettiar, DNA: 2.5 stars
Nikhat Kazmi, Times of India: 4 stars
Taran Adarsh, Bollywood Hungama: 3.5 stars

Avg: 2.91 stars

(scroll down for full reviews)

The New “Emma”: Clueless in Bollywood

Of all the unfortunate products spit out by the furiously spinning Jane Austen Corporate Gyre, those that repurpose the author’s 1815 novel, “Emma,” seem the least obtuse. “Emma,” is, after all, plainly a comedy of manners; lighter fare, and thus perhaps less sacrosanct.

New Bollywood Music

Aisha



Listen here: LINK

Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara Spain shoot

Gal Meethi Meethi Bol - Aisha

Gal Meethi Meethi Bol - Aisha

Aisha Promo

Aisha Promo

Road Movie Reviews (Raja Sen)

Raja Sen - 3/5

A long and winding ode

All roads lead to roam. Dev Benegal's new film, armed with a syntax-challenging title, is one of those wonderfully shot ruminations of a young clueless man trying to find himself.

He -- by which we mean both protagonist and filmmaker -- can't quite find his forte, but takes us along on a fanciful, unpredictable little diversion, a very pleasant hitchhike through bleak deserts we really ought to see more of.


The film is about slackjawed young loner Vishnu , played by Abhay Deol , an apathetic slacker who really doesn't seem to give a damn about anything. All he knows is that anything would be better than his actual stinking legacy -- he's a hair oil heir -- and escapes by way of delivering an old truck across Rajasthan .


On his way he encounters a motormouth chaiwallah determined on finding a better life, a grizzled old mechanic who knows the ways of the world and points them forward, and a comely young widow looking to forget.

In short, a perfectly family-photograph sized entourage heading to a makeshift Oz mela down the yellow brickless road.


It is, as you'd imagine, a charming film. Thanks mostly to Michel Amathieu's starkly stunning cinematography, the frames are what you take away from the film, frames of a blue, graffiti-led truck wheezing to a halt in the middle of Kutch, of a kid in a bright yellow tee-shirt and of a fat mechanic struggling to stand but never to smile.

The film is textured lovingly, the colours are beautiful and its slow, sluggish pace initially enchants as much as it eventually exasperates.


Yes, exasperates. For this film -- this pretty little waterless detour of a film -- falters because of inconsistency and the lack of a cohesive storyline.

It's neat and pretty and quite charming, but after a while shots of a truck framed by arid landscape begin to seem tiresome. There are moments of genuine surprise and cleverness, but these are often cancelled out by overdone moments, like an excessive fair that appears out of nowhere, or the unforgivably theatrical shot of filmstrips blowing in the wind.

Read more from HERE

Road Movie Reviews (Raja Sen)

Raja Sen - 3/5

A long and winding ode

All roads lead to roam. Dev Benegal's new film, armed with a syntax-challenging title, is one of those wonderfully shot ruminations of a young clueless man trying to find himself.

He -- by which we mean both protagonist and filmmaker -- can't quite find his forte, but takes us along on a fanciful, unpredictable little diversion, a very pleasant hitchhike through bleak deserts we really ought to see more of.


The film is about slackjawed young loner Vishnu , played by Abhay Deol , an apathetic slacker who really doesn't seem to give a damn about anything. All he knows is that anything would be better than his actual stinking legacy -- he's a hair oil heir -- and escapes by way of delivering an old truck across Rajasthan .


On his way he encounters a motormouth chaiwallah determined on finding a better life, a grizzled old mechanic who knows the ways of the world and points them forward, and a comely young widow looking to forget.

In short, a perfectly family-photograph sized entourage heading to a makeshift Oz mela down the yellow brickless road.


It is, as you'd imagine, a charming film. Thanks mostly to Michel Amathieu's starkly stunning cinematography, the frames are what you take away from the film, frames of a blue, graffiti-led truck wheezing to a halt in the middle of Kutch, of a kid in a bright yellow tee-shirt and of a fat mechanic struggling to stand but never to smile.

The film is textured lovingly, the colours are beautiful and its slow, sluggish pace initially enchants as much as it eventually exasperates.


Yes, exasperates. For this film -- this pretty little waterless detour of a film -- falters because of inconsistency and the lack of a cohesive storyline.

It's neat and pretty and quite charming, but after a while shots of a truck framed by arid landscape begin to seem tiresome. There are moments of genuine surprise and cleverness, but these are often cancelled out by overdone moments, like an excessive fair that appears out of nowhere, or the unforgivably theatrical shot of filmstrips blowing in the wind.

Read more from HERE

'The prospect of composing for an Indian film was very enticing, especially after I met A R Rahman'

Abhay Deol's Road, Movie is unusual is many ways. It tells a unique story, not one that we've seen on Bollywood screens time and again. And it has some beautiful music by Canadian guitarist Michael Brooke, who has lent his talent to such Hollywood films like Mission Impossible, Transformers, Phone Booth and Black Hawk Down.

Brooke has also worked with the late legend Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan on his album Night Song, for which he also won a Grammy nomination in 1996.

In an e-mail interview, Brooke talks about his work in his first Bollywood film.

You have worked with such astonishingly diverse stalwarts as Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, The Edge and Robert Fripp. You have even worked on a blockbuster like Mission Impossible II and a path-breaking documentary like Inconvenient Truth. What made you sign up a Hindi movie?

I had some connection to the producers from the past, and I believe that Dev Benegal [ Images ], the director, was aware of my music. Also, the combination of the beauty and emotional resonance of the film and Dev's deep musical knowledge and creative ideas.

Did you do any homework as such, like maybe reading up on Indian cinema, or listening to Indian songs?

Not really, I have heard Indian songs before. I have been enjoying The Bombay Connection Volumes 1 and 2, collections of music from Bollywood films of the 1960s and 970s. Also, Dev gave me the brief of what kind of music he wanted, so it was not that difficult.

Take us through the composing process.

The prospect of composing for an Indian film was very enticing, especially after I met A R Rahman. I was also in Rahman's studio in Chennai and after speaking to him, the lure of Bollywood became even more important for me.

When Dev came forward with this proposal, I knew it was a good opportunity. It was an interesting experience to compose music for the movie. I just went with the brief I got. I have used my invention, the infinite guitar, to create the background score because Dev wanted a more westernized music than Indian. So I just went with it.

Read more from HERE

'The prospect of composing for an Indian film was very enticing, especially after I met A R Rahman'

Abhay Deol's Road, Movie is unusual is many ways. It tells a unique story, not one that we've seen on Bollywood screens time and again. And it has some beautiful music by Canadian guitarist Michael Brooke, who has lent his talent to such Hollywood films like Mission Impossible, Transformers, Phone Booth and Black Hawk Down.

Brooke has also worked with the late legend Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan on his album Night Song, for which he also won a Grammy nomination in 1996.

In an e-mail interview, Brooke talks about his work in his first Bollywood film.

You have worked with such astonishingly diverse stalwarts as Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, The Edge and Robert Fripp. You have even worked on a blockbuster like Mission Impossible II and a path-breaking documentary like Inconvenient Truth. What made you sign up a Hindi movie?

I had some connection to the producers from the past, and I believe that Dev Benegal [ Images ], the director, was aware of my music. Also, the combination of the beauty and emotional resonance of the film and Dev's deep musical knowledge and creative ideas.

Did you do any homework as such, like maybe reading up on Indian cinema, or listening to Indian songs?

Not really, I have heard Indian songs before. I have been enjoying The Bombay Connection Volumes 1 and 2, collections of music from Bollywood films of the 1960s and 970s. Also, Dev gave me the brief of what kind of music he wanted, so it was not that difficult.

Take us through the composing process.

The prospect of composing for an Indian film was very enticing, especially after I met A R Rahman. I was also in Rahman's studio in Chennai and after speaking to him, the lure of Bollywood became even more important for me.

When Dev came forward with this proposal, I knew it was a good opportunity. It was an interesting experience to compose music for the movie. I just went with the brief I got. I have used my invention, the infinite guitar, to create the background score because Dev wanted a more westernized music than Indian. So I just went with it.

Read more from HERE

Road, Movie is experimental: Abhay Deol

Road, Movie has generated quite a buzz in international film circuits and actor Abhay Deol hopes that the Dev Benegal directed film will fetch a similar response in India.

"Road, Movie is very subtle in its humour and drama. However, the fact is that subtlety is not something that people lap up rather quickly," said Deol, adding that the film comes with a niche appeal.

The 33-year-old is quite pleased with the response that Road, Movie is fetching internationally.

"We have been to some really major festivals and foreign audience are going gaga over it. There have been awesome reactions all over which has pretty much established Dev's vision of making Road, Movie as a film which has a universal appeal," said the actor.

The film was premiered at Toronto Films Festival to a thunderous response. During its screening at Berlin Film Festival all three shows were sold out but closer home, Deol is awaiting the response to the movie, which he believes is more experimental than his earlier films.

"Road, Movie is more experimental whereas Dev D was actually quite stylish in treatment rather than being experimental. In fact Dev D relied a lot on visuals while
Oye Lucky Lucky Oye had music to elevate its commercial viability. Moreover, since it was a Delhi based film, there was a lot more identification factor involved," he said.

However, while refraining from commenting much on the commercial aspects of Road, Movie, Deol said,"People will appreciate it for the kind of difference it is going to make to cinema. In fact if they don't catch it now then may be 10-15 years down the line, it would be considered as landmark movie. I am quite positive about that", said the actor.

Meanwhile, Deol continues to live the philosophy that he has adapted ever since he started working in Bollywood films.

Read more from HERE

Road, Movie is experimental: Abhay Deol

Road, Movie has generated quite a buzz in international film circuits and actor Abhay Deol hopes that the Dev Benegal directed film will fetch a similar response in India.

"Road, Movie is very subtle in its humour and drama. However, the fact is that subtlety is not something that people lap up rather quickly," said Deol, adding that the film comes with a niche appeal.

The 33-year-old is quite pleased with the response that Road, Movie is fetching internationally.

"We have been to some really major festivals and foreign audience are going gaga over it. There have been awesome reactions all over which has pretty much established Dev's vision of making Road, Movie as a film which has a universal appeal," said the actor.

The film was premiered at Toronto Films Festival to a thunderous response. During its screening at Berlin Film Festival all three shows were sold out but closer home, Deol is awaiting the response to the movie, which he believes is more experimental than his earlier films.

"Road, Movie is more experimental whereas Dev D was actually quite stylish in treatment rather than being experimental. In fact Dev D relied a lot on visuals while
Oye Lucky Lucky Oye had music to elevate its commercial viability. Moreover, since it was a Delhi based film, there was a lot more identification factor involved," he said.

However, while refraining from commenting much on the commercial aspects of Road, Movie, Deol said,"People will appreciate it for the kind of difference it is going to make to cinema. In fact if they don't catch it now then may be 10-15 years down the line, it would be considered as landmark movie. I am quite positive about that", said the actor.

Meanwhile, Deol continues to live the philosophy that he has adapted ever since he started working in Bollywood films.

Read more from HERE