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De Taali is a movie with a light comedy and a normal plot that doesn’t send the audience on laughing riot as it was projected, except for some enjoyable moments which should have been maintained throughout by E.Nivas.

The theme can friendships ever turn to love, gels in most of Shahrukh Khan movies. Here, three friends Paglu (Riteish Deshmukh), Abhi (Aftab Shivdasani) and Ami (Ayesha Takia) share the best of friendship. Ami is the girl considered the tom boy by the two guys. Abhi is someone who loves to get in love more often and is going to be in for the 33rd time. The character Paglu, is of a guy with great sense of humour. Paglu seeds one sided love for Abhi in Ami and she believes that she is the girl in the Abhi’s life. But the story takes a turn when Abhi falls in in love with Kartika (Rimi Sen) a gold digger and wants to marry her. Paglu and Ami come to know that Kartika is trapping Abhi because of his money, so they kidnap her in the airport. Kartika after being kidnapped is moved to Paglu’s house. Ami and Abhi fall in love with each other.

In the meanwhile, Kartika runs away from Paglu’s house and informs Abhi about he kidnap. She brainwashes Abhi into believing that Paglu and Ami are not his real friends. By then Paglu finds out Kartika aka Anjali’s past history of her two affairs (Mukul Dev, Pawan Malhotra) and a marriage (Sachin Narvekar). On the wedding day, Paglu calls all three of them and gives the bride a roll-a-coaster ride. What happens to Abhi, Ami, Paglu & Kartika post this?

Riteish has now developed the uncanny knack of coming up with such performance with relative ease, no doubt he is signed in for such films. Aftab has been is normal class act. Ayesha Takia has shown improvisation in this outing. Rimi Sen has added the requisite zing. Anupam Kher, Saurabh Shukla, Mukul Dev and Pawan Malhotra have been wasted in the movie. Music by Vishal-Shekhar is quite okay and the film has two good tracks on which the film has been promoted. Abbas Tyrewala has tried to brew up an interesting story, not ably supported by the screenplay and direction.

De Taali does not conjure up to its name and ends up in the okay category.

The direction of Haal E Dil by Anil Devgan does not justify his previous directorial outings and the producer Kumar Mangat in a quest of creating a launch pad for his daughter (Amita) has been done in by a poor script-line. Supposedly aiming to dish out an romantic entertainer the writer Dhiraj Ratan has ended mangling it pretty badly.

The film begins with Sanjana (Amita Pathak), who is in love with her classmate Rohit (Adhyayan Suman). In comes Shekhar (Nakuul Mehta) a chronic flirt, on a rail journey to Shimla with Sanjana, wooing her all the way. Both miss the train and are left with no choice than to travel together and have a encounter with a dacoit of Veerappan fame. Once they reach Shimla, Shekhar realizes his love for Sanjana and goes on hunger strike to prove his creditability. Sanjana for whom love is sacred finds herself torn between a Rohit who is a perfect love and Shekhar a perfect stranger in love with her, adding on a melodramatic twist.

As debutants, Amita Pathak exudes acting confidence, but she looks a tinge mature for the guys. Nakuul Mehta seems to go a bit haywire in his zest to portray the role. Adhyayan Suman should have got a more screen presence and has seemingly lost out.

The music is hummable and shot at some of the exotic locales. The cinematography (Rajeev Ravi) is just fantastic. The film is doomed because of shoddy script and screenplay. Somewhere the movie seems to draw parallels in theme with DDLJ and Jab We Met.

All I wish is, the best of luck for the debutants!!!!

If you have not seen sub-plots being woven intermittently without really connecting to the core plot, bet you can get your desire fulfilled with Summer 2007. The director Suhail Tatari has the boiling issue of farmers committing suicide as the main plot, also has subplots of medical campus, college politics, the tyranny of money lending landlords and finally roping in an awakening change. The film would have been much better if it could co-relate the sub-plots or ideally concentrated on a single plot.

We find a team of 5 medical students leading a lavish and carefree urban life. Rahul (Sikander Kher), Priyanka (Uvika Choudhary), Qateel (Arjan Bajwa),Bagani (Alekh Sangal) and Vishaka (Gul Panag) forms the group, each with some typical college nicknames. These folks take up rural internship to avoid the university elections, which has taken the initial chunk of the movie. The rural village in Maharashtra deprived of amenities and the farmers committing suicide. This takes the group through a soul searching sojourn seeing the pitiful state of the poverty stricken people out there, helped by Mukya (Ashutosh Rana) the village doctor.

Suddenly the script diverts attention to the money lending zamindar (Vikram Gokhale) from the village and his son (Prashant Narayanan) who take advantage of the villagers by charging exorbitant interest rates. Next diversion, is introduction of a reformer (Sachin Khedekar) who introduces the concept of micro-credit finance. To add on to it, the naxalite issues coupled with corrupt politicians and a confused female cop (Shweta Menon). Nowhere do these connect with the main plot of the farmer suicide issue and then ends up into the youth transformation into contentious citizens.

The new comers Uvika and Arjan have given a seemingly fair performance. Gul is good, yet to come up with her best. Alekh has been okay. Sikander is evolving and some scenes prove this factor. Ashutosh in a different role is ever dependable. As with Vikram Gokhale and Sachin Khedekar hardly things can go wrong. Prashant and Shweta leave a mark.

Editing (Bobby Bose) is in total disarray. Nothing much to talk of music, it would have been better off without songs.

Summer 2007 is a bold initiative to drive attention to the simmering issue, only to be outdone with the sub-plots and a run time of approximately 3 hours. A mix bag film………..

Dasavatharam, the mega budgeted movie implies a strong message to the human kind, that there is no one powerful than the almighty. Hats off to the Director K.S. Ravikiran and powerful scripting of Kamal Hassan who have dared to do a movie like this. The movie is themed on the infinite and abounding love of the almighty God for mankind, who has time and again saved the earth and this time from the latest bio-tech invention that would destroy mankind. Kamal Hassan plays all the 10 roles in the movie with effervescence and exceptional brilliance depicting each character to its best.

The stage is set in the 12th Century wherein Rangarajan Nambi - A whole hearted and staunch devotee of Lord Vishnu, does not accept Lord Shiva to be the Lord. On the other hand powerful King Kulothunga (Napoleon) an ardent follower of Lord Shiva does not believe in Lord Vishnu and compels Nambi to be a follower of Lord Shiva. Nambi is imprisoned and asked to chant “Om Nama Shivaya” but refuses to obey, he chants “Om Namo Narayana”. Enraged the king sentences Nambi to death, throwing him in to the deep sea after being tied to the statue of Lord Vishnu, his wife Kothai (Asin) also kills herself.

After the tragic end of the first avatar the second part of story is shot in US as, Dr. Govind Ramaswamy a renowned Biotech American scientist invents a dangerous bio-warfare weapon and the consequences of it forces him to destroy it. His boss tries to sell the weapon to scrupulous people who can cause destruction to humanity, that where the story catches motion and revolves around rest of the 8 characters enacted by Kamal Hassan.

- Keith Fletcher - A Former CIA Officer, The Terminator
- George W. Bush - The American President
- Chinese Martial Arts Teacher - The Fighter
- Balram Naidu - Telugu Police Officer in the Chennai Police
- Avatar Singh - A Punjabi Pop Singer
- Krishnaveni Paati - An Old Woman
- Vincent Poovaraghan - The Dalit Activist
- Kalifullah Khan - A 10 feet tall humble Afghan.

Govind who manages to escape with the bio weapon heading to India, is followed by Fletcher and his Tamil interpreter wife (Mallika Sherawat), the story covers most of the continents and revolves around the rest of the characters like Balram Naidu, Avatar Singh, Krishnaveni Paati, Vincent Poovaraghan, Kalifullah Khan and Andal an Iyengar Brahmin girl who are incidentally caught in the mire of dangerous chase. All of the Ten Avtars do really build into the storyline , it’s the character of Balram Naidu and the character of Krishnaveni Paati which catches attention, but the rest are not to be outdone.

Asin has played a dual role in the film for the first time and looks cute in her role and has tried the typical Iyengar accent, but her repetition of dialogues gets a bit monotonous. Kamal Hassans make-up at times seems to be overdone at but his sincere efforts to portray himself in ten different role is worth an applause. Cinematography by Ravi Varman is commendable, music by Himesh Reshammiya is nothing great to talk about, director K.S. Ravikumar has put great efforts with the a wonderful script provided and tried his best not to get lax at any moment. The Tsunami climax has been shot extremely well where the movie ends with a flash back and the immersed statue of Lord Vishnu appears on the shore.

Overall the it’s a film with emotions, drama, comedy and some great action with a deep rooted message to the human kind, which seemingly is lost in todays films. Dasavatharam is another of Kamal Hassan creative best, recommended a watch……..

Remake ustaad Priyadarshan once again brings up a comedy movie Mere Baap Pehle Aap, does not justify the promos in any way and is also at fault of dragging the film for two and a half hours. Initial first half is laughter ride but the second half takes you to a dramatic terrain, surely Priyan needs to do something more than this for sure.

It’s about a widower Janardhan Rane (Paresh Rawal) who spends his life in the upbringing of his sons Chirag (Manoj Joshi) and Gaurav (Akshaye Khanna). Now the sons take on the responsibility of managing business and household activities. But it is the younger Gaurav who takes care of his father as if he were his son, to the extent of shouting, fighting and locking the father up in room only to keep him away from his friend Madhav Mathur (Om Puri). Madhav is desperate to get married and seeks Janardhans help always, ending up into trouble, only to be bailed out by Gaurav time and again. Gaurav starts receiving calls from a girl Shikha (Genelia D’souza) who happens to be his old college friend whos back from the US and stays with her guardian Anuradha Joshi(Shobana). Janardhan happens to meet Anuradha only to recognize she is his lost love. Gaurav and Shikha get to know of it and are determined to get them married and in the process take a liking for each other.

Akshaye has developed the penchant for such roles and rendered the right poise. Paresh is at is usual best and the director surely knows how to use him. Genelia does leave her mark. But there is a gross under utilization of performers like Om Puri and Shobana knowing their caliber. Archana Puransingh is fantastic. Naseeruddin is effective in his cameo. Rajpal Yadav is yet another talent wasted out here. Manoj Joshi seems okay.

The music (Vidyasagar), editing and scripting are simply disappointing. The cinematography (Piyush Shah) is a worth mention. This is what we do not expect of Priyadarshan movie and is just enough to make you say “ Bas kar Baap Re Baap”

Aamir the film sees a lot of debutants, under UTV SpotBoy’s banner Rajkumar Gupta in his directorial debut has taken on a topic which is rarely chosen and caters to a discerning audience who would prefer subtle subject.

The film begins off with Aamir Ali (Rajeev Khandelwal) a London based Muslim doctor with secular views flying to Mumbai to meet his family. He is questioned a lot by the custom authorities because of his religion; his family is not there to receive him. He calls home only to find the phone unattended. Suddenly out of nowhere a bike appears and a mobile is thrown into his hands. What follows later is a host of instructions, informing of his family being kidnapped and the task he has to carry out for the terrorists. Aamir finds himself in a state of strife. Does he succumb to the pressure of terrorists? Do the fundamentalist values entice him in the name of God? Does he end up doing what the terrorist ask of him or risk losing his family?

The film has been extensively shot in the bylanes of Muslim pocket areas of Dongri, Bhendi Bazaar covering all the impoverishment, bustling markets, the shoddy lodges, pimps and whores giving it more realistic feel. The background theme and debut music (Anurag Trivedi) raptures through the scenes, coupled with some great debut cinematography (Alphonse Roy) and some sharp editing (Aarti Bajaj) compliments it all the more. The film has a few glitches in terms of its culmination and also fails to explain why Aamir is chosen to carry out the work by a well networked terrorist group or maybe its more of sourcing the suave and elite Muslims they want to carry out their mission.

Rajeev Khandelwal the romantic small screen hero has come up with a natural performance by depiction of a man in distress to perfection. With a rocking debut performance the ‘Kahin Tho Hoga’ guy is definitely made a mark and is here to stay for sure. The villain Gajraj Rao is equally good.

Running for less than a time span of 2 hours, over rall Aamir is a gripping film of substance, may not turn out to be box office hit but surely will leave your thoughts provoked……………

Ram Gopal Varma has come up with a stunner of a sequel with Sarkar Raj, especially after being written off by many as a spent force has proved his mettle once again. RGV has aptly woven the film right from the word go and more so in the last 20 minutes which really is gripping.

Sarkar Raj opens with Shankar Nagre (Abhishek Bachchan) at the helm of the affairs and the father Subhash Nagre (Amitabh Bachchan) still the Sarkar, has left the son with decision making powers. Anita Rajan (Aishwarya Rai-Bachchan) the CEO of Shepperd Power Plant MNC wants to set up a power plant in rural Maharashtra brings up the proposal to the Nagres at the behest of middleman Hassan Kazi (Govind Namdeo). Sarkar declines the proposal, but Shankar realizes the potential of the project and the associated benefits that the power plant could bring to the people of Maharashtra, ending the power woes in the state. Shankar along with Anita visits the rural countryside to garner the support of the villagers, only to be opposed by Somji (Rajesh Shingarpure) a social activist and the grandson of Rao Saheb (Dilip Prabhavalkar) who has given a go ahead nod for the project. Sarkar has been mentored in his early days by Rao Saheb. The Deputy CM (Sayaji Shinde) and a Businessman Kantilal Vora (Upendra Limaye) alongwith Kazi want to bump off Shankar and wish to see a diminishing political clout of Sarkar. What happens to the Nagres? What happens to the project? Or is it the most intrigued politics with the series of happenings just being a deceptive maneuver?

Abhishek Bachchan and Amitabh Bachchan have worked out terrific father-son chemistry with a superlative performance complimenting each other, whilst retaining prominence of their individual efforts. Aishwarya Rai as a businesswoman is quite okay. Sayaji Shinde and Upendra Limaye are at their best. Govind Namdeo has done well. Ravi Kale has done a great job akin previous film. Not to be missing out Dilip Prabhavalkar, he has been awesome. Supriya Pathak and Rajesh Shingarpure have been good.

Worth a mention is the cinematography (Amit Roy) and the background ‘Govinda’ score (Amar Mohile) which creates an compelling effect for the scenes. The action (Allan Amin) does not go overboard. Dialogues (Prashant Pandey) have been crafted to a crisp perfection. Definitely Sarkar Raj is more effective and exceptional than Sarkar, unveiling myriad of deceptive goodness in a quest to gain POWER…………

The epitome of the Indian Cine, Madhuri Dixit was awarded Padma Shri on 10th May, 2008 for her outstanding contribution to Indian Cinema, the inevitable charm of this Bollywood actress and her million dollar smile has made thousand of hearts go Dhak-Dhak. Padma Shri - is an award given by the Government of India mostly to Indian citizens taking recognition of their distinguished contribution in various spheres of Arts, Industry, Education, Literature, Science, sports, science, social service and Public life. The award stands fourth in the ranking hierarchy of civilian awards. In order first being Bharat Ratna, then the Padma Vibhushan and the Padma Bhushan.

Madhuri Dixit was accompanied by her husband as she flew in from Denver (USA) where she is currently residing to receive the award. She was very excited to receive the award and so was her husband. An elated Madhuri commented that it was very prestigious moment for her, that people in her home country still remember her and she has been awarded for all the sincere hard work she has put into Indian cinema . Mother of two sons, 5 years old Arin (2003) and 3 years old Ryan (2005), feels that her children make her feel very precious. She says she has always dreamt of being a wife and a mother almost all her life and always knew that when she meets the right person in her life she wouldn’t think twice to give up her film career and that is what she did and has no regrets.

The gorgeous actress was born on May 15 ,1967 in a middle class Marathi Brahmin family. Her family comprises of father Shankar Dixit, mother Snehalata, two sisters Bharti and Rupa, and brother Ajit. Madhuri Dixit is a trained kathak dancer and started her film career making debut in Abodh (1986), which went unnoticed, post which she acted in a couple more movies. But she got a major break in the movie Tezaab (1988) and her outstanding performance throttled her career after which she had to never look back. She followed it up with commercially hit films like Dayavaan (1988), Parinda, Tridev and Ram Lakhan (1989), Kishen Kanhaiya, Dil (1990), Saajan (1991), Beta (1992), Khalnayak (1993), Anjaam (1994) and the super hit movie of the millennium Hum Apke Hai Kaun (1994), Raja (1995), Mrityudand, Dil to Pagal Hai (1997) And Pukar (1999).

After reaching the pinnacle of success in her film career , in the year 1999 she got married to Indian –American cardiovascular surgeon Dr. Sriram Madhav Nene and started her family life. Later in the year 2002 she was again seen on big screen in the movie Devdas where she was starred with actor Shahrukh Khan and Aishwarya Rai and walked away with Filmfare Best Supporting Actress Award. Her charisma was such, that a film “Main Madhuri Dixit Banna Chahti Hoon” was released based on a woman from small town, who wants to emulate the actress Madhuri and make it big.

Madhuri’s comeback film Aaja Nachle (2007) failed to create magic at the box-office, the powerful actress and the undoubted queen of Bollywood in the late 1980’s through the 1990’s, still has left her impact and her presence in Hindi film industry in her own way.

WoodStock Villa is a venture of White Feather Productions and is a thriller with tinge of Hollywood flicks of which Sanjay Gupta is known to induce. Director Hansal Mehta has in no way let down the producers penchant by intensifying the plot in bits and pieces to keep you seated through the 12 reel movie, only to be let down by a routine trodden end.

The film is about a NRI, Sameer (Sikandar Kher) who comes to India to find lady love with Indian culture and actual intent to have fun. He gets himself entangled into web of abduction which is plotted by Neha Uberoi (Reshma) and her married boyfriend Arbaaz Khan (Jatin). The movie is quite suspense, till one knows that the plot is to save Jatin from his wife’s (Zara) murder. Reshma turns Zara and reaches to Sameer to kidnap herself, convincing him that she needs to check the fidelity and love of her businessman husband Jatin. The kidnapper calls the businessman for a hefty ransom in return for releasing his wife. Well, before the arrangements can be made the lady is found dead and following is a climax with re-appearance of the same lady (Reshma).

Debutant Sikandar would require some more time to match up the acting excellence of his parents and is not from the league of stereotype actors. Neha Uberoi as a debutant is strikingly beautiful and carried her role quite well. Arbaaz has been more stoic and mature, delivering just what is required of him. The potential of performers like Sachin Khedekar, Dayashankar Pandey have been not fully tapped into. Shakti Kapoor, Gulshan Grover and Anupama Verma have been elegant and given their best.

Worth a mention is the cinematography by Vikash Nowlakha. Amar Mohile has come up with a good background music score. Overall the movie is all about changing moralities and deceit in today’s short and fast paced society. Check out Woodstock Villa to know whether it’s Sameer or Reshma or Jatin who change fidelities………………..

The biggest star was born into a Muslim family on November 2nd ,1965. His parents had moved to Delhi before the partition of India. Shahrukh has degree in Economics and Masters in Mass Communication. His father expired when he was quite young and his mother brought him up, but as destiny would have it she passed to eternal abode before she could see her son’s stardom.

Shahrukh studied acting at Delhi’s Theatre Action Group and started his career with the small screen i.e. television serials, Fauji (1988) directed by Col. Kapoor followed with Circus (1989) directed by Aziz Mirza and started getting recognition for his performances. He shifted base to Mumbai in 1991 and his debut film was Raj Kanwar’s Deewana (1992), a box office hit. The Khan got married to Gauri (a model, whom he knew for quite sometime) with Hindu rites the same year (October 25, 1991) he came to Mumbai. He has two kids, son Aryan (11 year old) and daughter Suhana (8 year old). He owns a big mansion called ‘Mannat’ facing the sea at one of Mumbai’s posh localities.

He has won seven (6 Best Actor & 1 *Best Villain) Filmfare Awards : ‘Baazigar’ (1993), * ‘Anjaam’(1994), ‘Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge’ (1995), ‘Dil Toh Pagal Hai’ (1997), ‘Kuch Kuch Hota Hai’ (1998), ‘Swades’ (2004) and ‘Chak De India’ (2007), many a time got into the nominations and has won critics awards. The year 1996 is the only phase of his career where his movies flunked at box office, otherwise Box Office Hits and King Khan are synonyms – with ‘Darr’, ‘Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa’ (1993), ‘Pardes’, ‘Yes Boss’ (1996), ‘Dil Se’ (1998), ‘Badshah’ (1999), ‘Mohabbatien’, ‘Josh’ (2000), ‘Devdas’, ‘Hum Tumhare Hain Sanam’ (2002), ‘Don’ (2006).

Shahrukh Khan turned producer and launched Dreamz Unlimited alongwith Juhi (his long time friend and co-star) - ‘Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani’ (2000), ‘Asoka’ (2001) did not achieve success, ‘Chalte Chalte’ (2003) was a moderate success under this banner. In 2004, he set up Red Chillies Entertainment and produced ‘Main Hoon Na’ (2004) a box office hit, ‘Paheli’ (2005) was nominated for Oscars but box office failure and ‘Kaal’(2005) moderate success, but it was ‘Om Shanti Om’ (2007) a mega hit. Even the overseas markets have not been averse to the SRK syndrome, his films Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham (2001), Kal Ho Naa Ho (2003), Veer-Zaara( 2004) and Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna (2006) have done exceptionally well abroad.

From television serials to films to production, he then branched to anchoring TV shows and in 2007 replaced Big B (Amitabh Bachchan) to host the game show ‘Kaun Banega Crorepati’ (KBC) which had very good TRP ratings. He currently hosting another game show ‘Kya Aap Paanchvi Paas Se Tez Hain?’, starting from April 2008, yet to pick up on the TRP’s. In April 2007, Madame Tussauds museum installed Shahrukh’s wax statue. The French government honoured him with ‘Ordre des Arte et des Lettres’ award. Recently, Red Chillies bought the team Kolkata Knightriders for the IPL – T20 cricket league championship, managed by the BCCI for 75 million USD.

His superstardom has seen fans and critics drawing comparisons of him with superstars like Amitabh Bachchan, Aamir Khan and superstar from the south Rajnikanth. Down the years, Shahrukh has stayed clear of any gossips pertaining to affairs with any of his co-stars, despite of acting with the top and beautiful lead actresses, which speaks volumes of his integrity and respect for women. Shahrukh is a self made superstar, unlike many of the younger film stars who bear lineage and family legacy into the film industry, embroiled into controversies. With competition heating up for SRK, he has already answered the good handsome hunks on the block with Om Shanti Om (notice the 6 pack abs) as for now.

But, watch out for the King Khan (as he is popularly known)………..capable and determined, you never know what he might be at the very next moment.