Loveshhuda~ Let there be Vodka and Beer!

Release date- 19th Feb 2016

One Word which describes the film- Superficial

Best Dialogue- 'Agar cheers karte samay ek dusre ki aankhon main nahi dekho to 7 years tak you will have bad sex.'

Genre- Romance/ Comedy

Music- Parichay, Mithoon

Producer- Vijay Galani, Pratik Galani

Story & Direction- Vaibhav Misra

Cast- Girish Kumar, Navneet Kaur Dhillon

Budget- 15-20 Crores approximately

Girish Kumar, son of Kumar Taurani made his Bollywood debut through Ramaiya Vastavaiya (2013). After 3 years he is back in another romantic comedy along with Miss India Winner Navneet. 
The couple look cute together but they are made to act for 2 hours in a film which has no story. It seems that Vaibhav Mishra was in a drunken stupor when he thought of this film as throughout the film he has created situations where the actors and their friends can drink and party.
The film takes us from London to Delhi to Shimla to Mauritius and still doesn't give any insight into why the characters are behaving in that particular way. The film superficially covers the journey of the hero from being single to married to single to loveshhuda. If this sounds confusing to you then guess you must stay away from the film.
There are glimpses of Hollywood film Hangover but soon Bollywood drama takes over any creativity and anyone who watches films can guess how the film is going to end.
The film has four songs where the actors are all drunk and wild, 'Total Talli', 'Peene ki Tamanna,' Chitta Kukkad and 'YOLO' which must have been played a lot in discs and weddings.

Mar Jaayen sung by Aatif is quite melodious. The film got 5% occupancy and collected just 1-1.2 crores on it's opening day. Even huge promotions and postponing the release date from 5'th Feb to 19'th Feb couldn't save this film and the producers are going to lose a considerable amount of money. Guess they should drown their sorrows in a bottle of Vodka! In a line the film is a mirror of the lifestyle of the current generation who believe that drinking and partying is the solution to all problems. Time-pass. Avoidable.

'All is Well that ends well' ~ Pun intended

Release date - 21'st August 2015

One Word which describes the film - Stereotyped

Best Dialogue - ' Bhaag ke jaao, par dabe paanv jana.'

Genre - Family Drama

Music -Himesh Reshammiya, Amaal Mallik
Meet Bros Anjjan, Mithoon

Producer - Bhushan Kumar,Krishan Kumar, Shyam Bajaj, Varun Bajaj

Story- Sumit Arora, Niren Bhatt

Direction -Umesh Shukla

Cast-  Rishi Kapoor, Abhishek Bachchan, Asin, Supriya Pathak, Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub

Budget- 40 crores approximately

I went to watch this film only because of Umesh Shukla's last directorial venture Oh My God (2012) which I enjoyed to the hilt.

The film started with the song "Tu Milade" where we are shown that Abhishek Bachchan is a struggling musician in Bangkok. He delivers a very heavy duty dialogue, 'Kuch log apne sapno ko sach karna chahte hai isliye wo unke peeche bhagte hai aur kuch log sapno ke peeche is liye bhagte hai kyonki wo apni jindagi ki haqeekat se bhagna chahte hai' and i thought maybe the critics were too harsh on Junior Bachchan.

In the next one hour I was made to regret this thought and how.

We are introduced to a couple who is always fighting with each other, a cynical singer, a romantic girl who believes in destiny and signs and the crooked money lender. 
The characters were well thought of but the screenplay and dialogues are so poor that we wonder why veterans actors like Rishi Kapoor and Supriya Pathak agreed to do this film. The only good thing about the film is it's songs which are so well shot that it appears as if half of the budget of the film was spent on just the songs and then some story and random dialogues were written around those songs.
Some dialogues are so pathetic that we are forced to laugh at the sheer stupidity of the writer and director for even thinking that they can make this idea work. There is an item dance by Sonakshi Sinha where she looks like a fair sumo wrestler. Then comes the mindless running which is a very bad imitation of Rohit Shetty style of films. Interval comes with the line ' All is not well' and we wonder what torture will be inflicted on us in the next half.
In the second half we are showered with a dose of equally bad dialogues along with some emotional drama. The director has now started following Farha Khan style of Om Shanti Om and tries to make everything right so we can have a happy ending.
Abhishek Bachchan has tried to act and manages to give expressions in some scenes. Though when he tells his father, 'Man, get a life' we wonder how a person who has come from Bangkok manages to talk in an American accent.
Asin as the girl next door looks sweet but in some scenes her dresses are so common and dull that we wonder if she actually got them from Pantaloons or Globus.
Rishi Kapoor is a good actor and we expect nothing but a great performance from him but when he was made to say those silly dialogues like ,' Kinare karo, mujhe make water karna hai', we wonder why can't he simply say NO to such films.
Mohammaed Zeeshan after leaving his mark in Tanu weds Manu Returns totally disappoints in this film. 
There are few scenes which make us laugh but they are lost in the overall slow pace of the film. The overall film looks so low budget that it gives the feeling of a stage drama rather than a full fledged film. There was a picture of a young Abhishek Bachchan which was sometimes hanging in the bedroom and sometimes in the hall. People like me who pay attention to such minute details must have laughed at the director's folly.

The film got an opening of just 10-15% and has collected approximately 5 crores in 2 days which is too less for a Rishi Kapoor, Abhishek Bachchan starrer. The reviews and word of mouth are so bad that it will be a big task for the film to even collect 20 crores.

2015 has been a really bad year for T-Series as apart from Baby none of their films such as Roy, Ek Paheli Leela and I Love New Year have managed to make money at the box office.

In a line the proverb  'All is well that ends well'  holds true for this film as we were back to our all is well status and took a sigh of relief when the film finally ended.

Highly Avoidable. Junior Bachchan fans can watch this film at their own risk.

Return of The Marketing Queen - Ek Villain

Release date - 27'th June 2014

One Word which describes the film - Psychotic

Best Dialogues -
Shraddha Kapoor-  'Jab tak hum kisi ke humdard nahi bante  ,tab tak hum dard se aur dard humse juda nahi hota.'

Riteish Deshmukh - 'Tum sabki nikalti jaan ke sath ..meri har chinta , sara stress bhi nikal jata hai.'

Sidharth Malhotra -'Main tuujhe marne nahi doonga lekin main tujhe roz maroonga ..ek baar nahi hazar baar maroonga.'

Genre - Thriller 

Music -Ankit Tiwari , Mithoon

Story - Milap Zaveri , Tushar Hiranandani

Producer - Ekta Kapoor ,Shobha Kapoor

Direction -Mohit Suri

Cast - Sidharth Malhotra ,Riteish Deshmukh ,Shraddha Kapoor ,Aamna Sharif

Budget- 30 Crores

Ekta Kapoor may have made a wrong decision when she decided to release Once Upon a Time In Mumbaai Dobara along with Rohit Shetty's Chenai Express. She broke her own rule of producing small budget films and spent almost 25 crorers in P&A taking the film's cost to 90 Crores which the film could not recover and was a huge flop. In the same year two other films co produced by Balaji Productions Lootera and Ek Thi Daayan also flopped at the box office. 

Ekta Kapoor said good bye to big budgeted films and again shifted her focus to medium budgeted films with peppy songs and lots of marketing.

Ragini MMS2 made on a budget of 20 crores earned 40 crores with it's two songs Babydoll and Char botal Vodka becoming big hits.
Ek Villain much before it's release managed to create a big buzz amongst the younger generations because of its romantic songs, 'Teri Galliyan' , 'Banjara' and ' Main Adhura.' Not only the film was promoted on reality shows , Ekta promoted it on her TV shows too. To cash in on the hit music a rock concert was also organised for the music launch.
Because of these rigorous promotional activities Ek Villain managed to get an opening of 65% which is quite huge considering Akshay Kumar's Holiday released in the same month got just a 30% opening.
It was shown on a show that Ekta Kapoor herself was shocked when the film crossed the 100 crores mark as she never expected it to be such a big hit.
Except the music and some scenes where Ritesh Deshmukh managed to create fear in the minds of the audience there was nothing much in the film. The story from the start was predictable.  
Sidharth  Malhotra should really start working on his acting skills as his other two co-students of the year Varun and Alia are way ahead than him.

In a line Indian film industry has started focusing more on show and publicity because of which the films lack in story and content and though they make money they fail to leave any mark on the viewers and are soon forgotten.
Note to Producers - Please make more films like A Wednesday , Sarfarosh , Border or DDLJ.

Review of Yaariyan

Release date – 10'th January 2014

One Word which describes the film – Candyfloss
Best Dialogue  – (can't think of a single good dialogue)

Genre – Romance / Comedy/ Drama

Music – Pritam , Mithoon ,

 Arko Pravo Mukherjee , Anupam Amod , 

Honey Singh

Producer- Bhushan Kumar , Krishan Kumar

Story & Direction - Divya Khosla Kumar

Cast - Himansh Kohli , Serah Singh , Dev Sharma , Rakul Preet Singh , Nicole Faria

Budget- 19- 20 Crores (Including P & A) 

Bhushan Kumar 's company Super Cassettes ( T-Series) controls more than 60% share of the Indian music market . For his wife's directorial debut film he chose the best 5 music directors , 13 singers which covered all the music styles from sufi to rap to pop songs. The result is a collection of melodious songs which one will keep humming long after the film ends.

The film starts with three guys and a girl who are friends and study at a hostel in Sikkim. The boys are more interested in making girlfriends than in any other college activity. After showing some  American pie kind of scenes the story moves to Australia and then the director has tried to include every possible idea right from racial issues to mother son angle to love triangle to patriotic to Holi and last but not the least first kiss . 

Because of so many twists and turns though the film has speed yet it fails to leave any long lasting impression on the mind of the viewers. You don't get bored but neither the characters stay in your mind.

Instead of  the story , screenplay and dialogues the director has focused just on getting the skimpiest shorts and skirts for the leading ladies which is a major reason for pulling the teenagers to the theaters.

    

Despite getting bad reviews the film has managed to collect 20 plus crores in just 5 days which shows that the current generation doesn't care much for story or acting and is comfortable with vulgar jokes and cheap comedy.  

In a line the film can be seen for some beautiful scenic locations , some scenes which make you laugh and the songs.

Time pass

Rank -6/ 6 ( Films released in 2014)

Review of Aashiqui 2

Release date – 26'th April  2013

One Line which describes the film –

 “When you can stop you don't want to, and when you want to stop, you can't..”

Best  Dialogue – ' Star wahi ban sakta hai, jsiki awaaz sunkar dil kahe 'seeti maar' 

Genre – Romance

Story- Shagufta Rafique 

Music – Mithoon , Jeet Ganguly , Ankit Tiwari

Producer - Bhushan Kumar , Mukesh Bhatt

Krishan Kumar

Direction - Mohit Suri

Cast- Aditya Roy Kapoor , Shraddha Kapoor

Budget- 12 crores

Aashiqui  was one of the highest grossing films of 1990 mainly due to its music and hit songs such as  "Dheere Dheere Se", " Main Duniya Bhula dounga", "Bas Ek Sanam Chahiye", "Nazar ke saamne" and "Tu Meri Zindagi Hai" . 

Aashiqui 2 starts with a big audience cheering for their star, who stumbles to the stage in a drunken stupor and sings ' Sun raha hai na tu ' . The scene reminds us of  Rockstar , but this is where the similarity ends.

Imtiaz Ali gave us an intense story of a simple guy who pays the heavy price of heart break and becomes an international Rockstar . In this film we have a former superstar who has destroyed his career because of his addiction to alcohol. He meets a girl who he thinks has great potential to become a singer and the love story starts. 
The film has some intense scenes but there are so many loopholes in the script that the viewers are left to imagine the story behind the hero's dependence on alcohol , or how he became a superstar , why he can't sing again when he gives excellent training to the budding singer ,why his loving father never cares enough to come to his rescue and didn't the hero ever hear about rehabilitation centers and Alcoholics Anonymous ? 

In any romantic film the feelings are mainly expressed through dialogues and facial expressions. Though in many scenes Aditya Roy Kapoor manages to express his love and agony ,Shraddha Kapoor fails miserably in matching up to him. Her porcelain face has the same traumatized expression even during the happiest moments.
There are no memorable dialogues and the only song which remains in our memory is  'Tum Hi Ho' sung by Arijit Singh . 

In a line, even if some people like the film because Misery loves company , it is not the kind of love story one wants to watch again and again. 

Time Pass .

Rank- 15 (Out of th 23 films I have seen in 2013)