Top 10 must see flicks in my book.

Folks, these are some of my favourite movies. If you haven't seen any of them, they are higly recommended. 

1.] Andaz Apna Apna

This is a cult classic and probably #1 on many people's list. Words cant explain how funny this movie is. I have watched this movie like a zillion times and it still cracks me up. :)

My Fav Part: The climax. Teja mai hu, mark idhar hai :)

2.] Dil Chahata Hai

Another cult classic. Not only were the characters amazing but Farhan showed us his brilliance behind the camera.

My Fav Part: The part after Koi kahe song, where Aamir gets a black eye.

3.] Swades

One of my all time favourites which really got me to think.

My Fav Part: SRK's journey to the poor man's village and the song, yeh jo des hai tera.

4.] Khiladi

A cool campus flick with a murder mystery. This film marked the entry of Akshay Kumar and Abbas-Mustan

My Fav Part: Post interval portions of solving the mystery

5.] Jab We Met

One of the best romantic comedies I have seen. Such an irony of life that Shahid and Kareena broke up during this movie.

My fav Part: Kareena's blabbering and the song Tum se Hi.

6.] Hera Pheri

Out right hilarious. I remember this film was publicised as a thriller/murder mystery. But it turned out to be a laugh riot.

My Fav Part: When the trio are fighting and Baburao gets hit by a coconut.

7.] Mr. India

Probably India's first Sci-Fi flick and pulled of brilliantly by Shekhar Kapur. 

My Fav Part: When Mr. India makes Teja eat pulses with stones mixed in them.

8.] Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na

A cliched campus flick story told with a difference. This movie shows that the story is as good as its story-teller.

My Fav Part: When Jai finds out Aditi is engaged and meets her fiance.

9.] Jo Jeeta Wahi Sikandar

A classical movie where the characters were inspired straight out of the Archie comics.

My Fav Part: The cycle races.

10.] Samay & Gupt

A tie at the 10th spot for 2 of the finest suspense dramas. Gupt was more commercial and its also the only Bobby Deol movie that I have ever liked. Samay is a fantabulous movie where the clues to unfold the mystery are much more mesmerizing than the actual mystery murderer.

My Fav Part: (Gupt) When Bobby Deol finds out that his step father is murdered. (Samay) The clues unfolding .

99 - Almost "Brilliant"

No people, the strike is still on. But the courageous producers of this film went ahead with releasing this film in single screens and private multiplexes. This might actually be a blessing in disguise for this film. Just think about it, which film would you watch at your nearest Multiplex,  had there been no strike, out of "Kameenay" (Shahid-Priyanka), "Kambakht Ishq" (Akki-Kareena) and 99 (Kunal Khemu, Boman Irani, Soha Ali Khan) ? This film is like an oasis in a desert and hence was lapped up by viewers like me.

99 is a movie based in the year 1999. It is like a perfect ODI wherein the first 15 overs and the last 10 overs provide the maximum entertainment. The middle overs just take the story ahead slowly. Writers and directors of this film, Raj Nidimoru and Krishna D.K have done a great job. They fail to keep the continuity of humor in the middle stages of a film, but considering that this is their debut in bollywood, this film is an achievement. 

Sachin (Kunal Khemu) and ZaraMud (Cyrus Broacha) are techno savvy crooks who deal in making duplicate sim cards for the then new technology of cell phones. Rahul (Boman Irani) is an executive who is addicted to gambling and betting. Sachin and ZaraMud get caught in their scam and in an attempt to flee, they total AGM bhai (Mahesh Manjrekar), a small time gangster's car. On the other hand Rahul loses a bet of 20 lakhs to AGM and flees to Delhi. Sachin and ZaraMud owe the car's price to AGM and hence he sends them to fetch Rahul from Delhi. From here begins the main plot and characters come into play to add humor to the plot. How these 3 repay AGM is what the film is about.

The film has a number of humorous jokes referring to the cricket match fixing scandals of that era along with mumbaikar's perspective of Delhi. Those people who like PJ's should really go in for this one. Whether it the giant thug named Dimple getting beaten up by the hero who is half his size or be it the jokes made on Delhi, its outright hilarious. The only drawback is that this movie gets slow in the middle stages.

On the acting front, Mahesh Manjrekar steals the show. His expressions and dialog delivery just cracks you up. He is simply brilliant in the movie. Kunal Khemu and Boman Irani do justice to their roles. Cyrus and Soha are OK. A special mention for Amit Mistry for a funny performance. Vinod Khanna has hardly anything to do.

Music is very dull in the movie. Although it only comes as background scores in the movie, it is not at all catchy. 

Directors and writers are the heroes of this film. With the awesome one liners and witty jokes they surely must have caught some attention from the film fraternity. 

Rating: *** (Watch it once)

Spoiler: One of jokes in the movies goes like this. A man is watching an ODI and India of the 90s is losing. He goes like, "Yeh log kabhi jeet nahi payenge.. Agar 20 over ki match hoti toh world champion ban jaate.. ", which is hilarious since India did win the 20-20 world cup. For more, watch the movie :).

Striked Out !!!

As many of you might know, there is an ongoing dispute amongst film makers and the multiplex owners regarding the share of revenue amongst them. Currently it is divided up as 50-50, 40-60, 30-70 for the 1st, 2nd and 3rd weeks with the higher share in favor of the multiplexes.

While the film fraternity did not mind this for the first few years, it has now suddenly woken up and has stood united against this so called exploitation. According to me, the reason that the film fraternity ignored this in the previous years was either because they are making more money now, out of shows running in multiplexes, than they used to for single screens and have only gotten greedier with time, or they were just dumb enough not to do the math earlier. It might even have been the recession, inflation or the string of flops for biggies, that we have seen in the last 4-5 months, that has led them to take this step.

With the revenue that can be achieved from multiplexes in mind, the producers started to increase the budget of their movies. Hence single screens merely became an add-on for big releases. The main moolah came from multiplexes. I remember, back in the day when the multiplex era had just begun, Mangal Pandey was released on a huge scale with as many as 33 shows running on a single day of the 1st week in a single multiplex in Pune. Even though it was a mediocre movie, it ran to packed houses for the 1st week and finished at par on the cost front. To take a perspective 33 shows x 7 days = 221 shows for a single multiplex in a week which is as good as 11 single screens playing 4 x 7 shows a week. No wonder that producers found this new methodology of movie distribution very enticing. Generally in one city 1-2 single screens get to distribute a movie. So that's almost 1/10Th of the number of shows we have these days. Hence the big budget movies cannot afford a small scale release.

On the other hand, multiplexes have their own canteens, other entertainment facilities like pool tables, McDonald's, CCD's which earns them an extra revenue. If a movie does well, it wipes out their expenses easily. Some or the other movie generally works. Very rarely is the case that we have seen movies failing for over 6 months. Keeping their expenses and the growing inflation in mind, the multiplex owners are adamant to stick to their current revenue sharing plan.

In this wrestling match between the filmmakers and the multiplex owners, the biggest loser is the avid movie-goer. In this time of strike, its bollywood buffs like me who have been deprived of their staple diet of movies. I think this is a contest where the biggest bully will win. Both sides feel that the other party should give in first, giving rise to a stalemate. Both sides are at a win win situation. Filmmakers don't mind stalling their movies by a month or two and go back to the drawing board to touch up on their movies. Multiplexes on the other hand, can keep showing re-runs of old Hindi hits like Ghajini, along with the new Hollywood movies and new regional movies that are being released which is a good enough scheme for the time being, without having to lose much of their business.

Now there are talks of releasing movies to single screens but again the big banners won't do that because it would virtually need a DDLJ like run to make their movies work which is more than ambitious in today's date considering the video piracy issue. Hopefully, I guess with the summer holidays arriving, both these fraternities are going to come to a consensus and we will see some movies releasing soon.