In a word, infuriating! I want Arjun Kapoor to be in a good film, and this one isn't it. It's the script that I really have an issue with and not Arjun or Shraddha's acting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYUUxRj_UUU&t

Rarandoi Veduka Chudham (Come, Let's Watch the Spectacle) is an enjoyable family drama starring Naga Chaitanya and Rakul Preet Singh. This I believe is their first film together, and the first time I've seen Rakul in a film.

This film is put out by Naga Chaitanya's family banner, and he did well in the film, but frankly, I enjoyed his 2016 films Premam and Sahasam Swasaga Saagipo much more. The first half of this film is slow, but it's saved by the last hour or so of the film when the conflict comes to a head.

I also enjoyed seeing Jagapathi Babu again as Naga's father. He was Mahesh Babu's father in Srimanthadu.

Video review on Bollyfools:
https://youtu.be/oIAYKQImmI4

Video review on @bollyfools with @moviemavengal and @mredlich21 of DontCallItBollywood.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFgdrT2Ro3o

Fun for Dulquer Salmaan fans. He has a kick ass fight scene, and there is a fun framing of the romance story with a dream sequence conversation with Karl Marx, Lenin and Che Guevera.

Charming sweet film and I can't wait to see more films from debut director Akshay Roy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgGjutsGzVY&t

Fukri is an amusing timepass family comedy directed by veteran Siddique who also acts as the Fukri family patriarch in the film. Jayasurya stars as Lucky. Lucky is a wannabe engineer who with his band of friends tries different get rich quick schemes. They accept a job for two young women caught skipping school for a Salman Khan film. They girls want Lucky to pretend to be their cousin to meet the school principal. Of course Lucky falls for the beautiful Nafsi (in the red scarf below) played by Prayaga Martin.



The girls say he is the son of their long lost uncle who left after a violent argument with their grandfather over his interfaith marriage. The girls saying that Lucky is their cousin sets everything in motion. Both his Brahmin "grandmother" and his Muslim grandfather (Fukri) then want to meet Lucky and welcome him back into the family fold. To complicate matters, the real child (Anu Sithara) of that long lost son reveals herself to Lucky.



At first Lucky and his friends are enjoying staying in the wealthy homes of his "family", but Lucky's good nature lends him to try to mend the rift between the two families. I'm sure you'vesuspected that the long lost son makes a dramatic appearance, and it's Lal, so it's quite the entrance.



Read the rest of my review here:

https://moviemavengal.com/2017/03/06/fukri-a-mediocre-malayalam-family-farce/

I loved this film. Just loved it. I sobbed with tears running down my face through the last third. It really touched my heart.

Krish and Ananya meet at their MBA grad school. She wants to just be friends and study partners, but Krish can't help falling in love, which leads to my favorite song of the movie "Locha-e-ulfit" which the subtitles translate to "Confuzzled in love". :)

This is modern Bollywood, and Ananya not only kisses Krish when he confesses his love, but they soon fall into bed together, and live together for the rest of their time at college. There is a beautiful song montage that takes you through various festivals to show the time passing. But Krish's proposal of marriage as their MBA program is ending is just the beginning of their story. She is from Chennai, and he is from Punjab. Her parents and his mother hate each other almost from first sight at their graduation ceremony and Krish's mother uses a slur about Southern Indians. Krish's alcoholic dad doesn't even bother to show.

Krish works hard to win over Ananya's parents in Chennai, and slowly does. That's just the first hurdle. Krish's mother is horrible to Ananya when she visits Punjab for a family wedding with Krish, and Ananya learns just how dysfunctional his relationship is with his father. The couple tries to have a vacation for the families to meet and it goes disastrously. Ananya gives up, and breaks off their engagement. Krish becomes depressed to the point of suicide. His father saves the day by visiting Ananya's parents in Chennai and smoothing things over.

2 States is based on the book by Chetan Bhagat (who also wrote the book that 3 Idiots was adapted from). I gather it's mostly autobiographical. I don't know a lot about the cultural differences and prejudices between Northern and Southern Indians, but this movie shows how hard all of that is to overcome for the couple to get together, on top of getting parents to agree to a love marriage instead of an arranged one. In India, saying "We love each other. Shouldn't that be enough?" really isn't. As Krish says, the families have to get along, too. Being in an interfaith marriage myself, I can understand some of the chasm that they had to bridge.

I thought Arjun Kapoor was fantastic as Krish, and Alia Bhatt really won me over. I wasn't impressed with her in Student of the Year, but she was absolutely charming in 2 States. This film is the best of new Bollywood, all of the great songs, but with a realistic conflict and drama to match any Hollywood film.

Under two hours is just not enough time for all the things this film wanted to be and do. I have been anticipating Noor for months and months, mostly because I heard comedian Kanan Gill was going to have his debut in a Bollywood film. If you're not familiar with Kanan Gill, he has a hilarious Pretentious Bollywood Review Youtube channel, and is extremely amusing on Snapchat [@kanangill].



Kanan Gill plays the character Saad from the book Karachi, You're Killing Me by Saba Imtiaz who is the childhood best friend of Sonakshi Sinha's Noor (Ayesha in the book). There are films that have improved upon the source novel, but Noor is not one of those films. Karachi, You're Killing Me at first seems like a Bridget Jones knockoff, but the unique thing about it is the city it's set in -- Karachi, Pakistan! In the book, Ayesha is a journalist with an incompetent male boss, and she covers everything from terrorist bombings to fashion shows. It gave you a true sense of her life in the city in all its variety -- how she had to get her liquor from her bootlegger --- and how she loves the city, but also yearns for an international life working for CNN. The novel reaches a real peak near the end when she and her boss are caught in a terrorist bombing, and her calm quick thinking saves her boss.



Noor the movie has some of the same fun light tone in the first half. Like Bridget Jones, Noor obsesses about her weight, snacks on junk food, drinks a bit too much, and feels that attractive young men are merely an "urban legend" in Mumbai. Changing the film's setting to Mumbai just inherently takes away what was so unique about the novel. But I think Sonakshi does a great job still in playing Noor. She's a modern young woman journalist, who cringes at doing a Sunny Leone interview when she really wants to be doing SERIOUS work.



Read the full review here: https://wordpress.com/post/moviemavengal.com/8735

NOW I get it. When Aditya Roy Kapoor did his solo numbers at the Dream Team concert in Chicago, the girls in the crowd went crazy, especially when he covered one of the dancers with his jacket.



And it was because he was lip syncing the two big songs from Aashiqui 2 [Love], Sunn Raha Hai Na Tua and Tum Hi Ho.



I'vebeen suffering with what I think is a bad sinus infection for days and haven"t felt up to watching anything with subtitles as I couldn"t even concentrate. Margaret at Don"t Call It Bollywood mentioned that she's going to write a review of Aashiqui 2 soon, and I realized that I should really watch it before OK Jaanu comes out next weekend. I rented it last night from Amazon streaming, but I'm a little worried something may have been cut in their copy as the run time was only 2 hours 6 minutes.



I have not seen the classic 1954 Judy Garland A Star is Born, but I have the Barbra Streisand/Kris Kristofferson version from the "70"s. Aashiqui 2's plot is completely A Star Is Born. Successful male takes talented woman under his wing, and then her career eclipses his as he declines into alcoholism.



Read the full review here: https://moviemavengal.com/2017/01/03/aashiqui-2-the-hindi-remake-of-a-star-is-born/

I mostly loved Raees. I'vebeen so looking forward to this date " finally a new Shahrukh Khan film.

Raees is a great character for Shahrukh. He's playing a gangster " but a bootlegger with a heart, who makes dinner for his wife. He's got a lot of swagger and panache to him, and we are totally on his side as he seems to only kill bad people.



I love how the film starts, with the child Raees who works as a lookout and a mule for the local bootlegger. Even as a kid, he has lots of moxie, and you never, ever call him four-eyes.



Full review here: https://moviemavengal.com/2017/01/26/raees-a-great-character-for-srk-and-a-crowd-pleaser-of-a-film/