These days, I rarely get to watch a movie from start to finish in one go. However, yesterday I watched this 2.5 hour long movie, London Dreams, in around 4.5 hours.
I am not "current" or may also be that this movie did not do so well at the box office, I had not heard of this movie until earlier this week when I had bumped into it while aimlessly browsing the web. However, it was good enough for me to stay up until 2:00 in the night to finish the movie. (Not that I need much of a reason to stay up late into the night)
What I did not like?
Not a long list but just a couple of things worth mentioning...
The end sucked donkey balls. Reminded me of Hyderabad Blues. I don't want to spoil the ending for anyone bumping into this post who has not watched the movie but I'll just say that sometimes people just take a huge dump on a story just to get to a happy ending. If this was based on a book, probably the director or someone decided that it was too gloomy of an end so he decided to screw it up and try to make it look colorful and lively while sucking the life out of it.
What else? Well, it wasn't anything close to reality. Not sure if it was meant to be close to reality, probably not. But, some things felt like a musician's version of Rajinikanth jumping off the 4th floor of a building, shooting 6 bullets from his revolver which ricochet various things killing 10 baddies, landing a roundhouse kick on the main baddie and rescuing the princess.
Anything else? Yes. Salman Khan. He is not 20 anymore. He is probably 50 and should act like one right about now. It was fun 15 years back in Andaz Apna Apna with Aamir Khan. It is not fun watching him do the same old antics anymore.
Now...for what I liked?
THE MUSIC. In two words, it was aww some! In one word, ENERGIZING. I am listening to it while typing this post and it just rocks. (Shola Shola is currently playing) I don't listen to a lot of music but I have the illusion of having the ear for good music. Yes. Energizing is the word to describe it. It makes you want to put some earphones on and go run a few miles. If you don't have this in your collection, get out and buy a CD or download it to your ipod or hunt for a torrent or something.
I loved all the songs, however, Barson Yaaron was a real powerhouse especially the later half of the song. Man ko ati bhavey saiiyan was also pretty decent but not one of the best. Shankar sang it very well. Shola Shola was my least favorite but it was still much better than 80% of the songs I've heard in the recent. I did not care much for the remixes at all. It beats me why one would want to put teriyaki sauce and hummus in a really well made pav bhaji.
After today, I've a freshly ignited respect for Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy in particular and good music in general. This is a CD that will probably be playing in my bus for the next 2 weeks.
I wish I listened to more music, more good music. Thank you S-E-L, I just ran 20 miles. In spirit.
Buddy, you write well....I loved the way you have written this.
ReplyDeleteHaving said this, I hated the movie and its music to the core. I hate spoiling it for you. I was tearing my head away at how could such un-inspiring music be part of a movie which about "catching up with dreams".
I liked Rock On and its music much better.....
but then, dont read into my comment...I was always into extremes.
Thanks! That means a lot coming from you. My only form of writing these days, other than this blog, is work related emails. Also, other than your blog and a few other sites, I don't read much either.
ReplyDeleteI won't ask you to listen to the music again, but I have listened to it quite a few times since then and I still like it. Some of the songs not so much but a couple of them are stil my favorites for now. As I said, you probably won't listen to them again but I know I will :)
About the movie, yeah, I watched some parts of it while it was playing for someone else at home and I have to agree it wasn't as good but not that bad for me to hate it.