Director S S Rajamouli’s Magadheera bagged six awards at 57th Idea Filmfare Awards 2009 (South). The awards were announced on Saturday night (Aug 7, 2010) in Chennai. Over 40 awards in various categories were given to Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada films.


Magadheera walked home with six awards including Best Film, Best Actor for Ram Charan, Best Director for Rajamouli, Best Cinematography for Senthil Kumar, Best Music for M M Keeravani and best male playback singer (Anuj Guruwara). Anushka won Best Actress for her role in Arundhati. Yuvan Shankar Raja won the special jury award for Siddartha starrer Oye (Telugu).


In Tamil, Kanchivaram fetched Priyadarshan the best director award, while Prakash Raj won the best actor award for the same film. ‘Nadodigal' walked off with the best film award. Lifetime achievement awards went to Kannada actor Ambareesh and Malayalam thespian KPAC Lalitha.

Movie Review: Aisha; Cast: Sonam Kapoor, Abhay Deol, Amrita Puri, Lisa Haydon, Ira Dubey, Cyrus Sahukar and Arunoday Singh; Director: Rajshree Ojha; Rating: **1/2 – A competent effort.
Aisha is based on Jane Austin’s popular novel Emma. Western filmmakers have attempted the big screen versions of Emma before and Rajshree Ojha has come up with a competent if not a fabulous Indianised version of the same with Aisha.
The film narrates the tale of Aisha (Sonam Kapoor) who believes in match-making as a hobby and follows it passionately. When she is done with match making of her aunt, Aisha takes a new entrant to her world as her next project. The girl is Shefali (Amrita Puri) and is from a smaller town and just reached Delhi to find herself a suitor. Aisha goes about changing the small town girl into someone more like her and then tries setting her up with a childhood friend Randhir (Cyrus Sahukar). Randhir loves Aisha and not Shefali and when Aisha gets to know this, blanks him out of her life. Aisha’s best friend Pinky Bose (Ira Dubey) finds a mate in Randhir and walks out on Aisha. In the meantime Aisha moves on to set Shefali up with another guy. All this while her childhood friend Arjun (Abhay Deol) tries to tell her that she is just making things worse for Shefali. By the time Aisha realizes things, it is quite late.
The problem with Aisha is that it is supposed to be a romantic comedy but it does not draw any emotions from the audience. The story stays superficial and there are no scenes – even the climax scene when Aisha knows she is in love – that are interesting enough. Also the scenes which act as a catalyst to the change in Aisha’s outlook are completely mistimed and not built well. Clearly the issue is with the screenplay. The dialogues are good though.
Technically the film is shot well and makes Delhi looks good. The costumes are a high point of the film and it will manage to set quite a few fashion trends. The music is good too.
On a scale of performances Sonam scores decent. Abhay Deol does his job well, though we wish we could have seen more of him. Ira Dubey, Arunoday Singh and Lisa Haydon are efficient. The real scene stealer though is Amrita Puri. She will bring a smile on your faces every time she comes on screen.
However despite numerous pluses, the minuses bough Aisha down in regular intervals and the two hour running time also appears tedious! So take your call, if you want to watch a light breezy entertainer that doesn’t really appeal to your heart but is beautiful to watch, go for Aisha.

Download Aisha Mp3 Songs

Movie Review: Once Upon A Time In Mumbai; Star cast: Ajay Devgan, Emraan Hashmi, Kangana Ranaut, Prachi Desai and Randeep Hooda; Director: Milan Luthria; Rating: ***1/2 – Amongst Bollywood’s best underworld sagas.
You seldom get period dramas in Bollywood which are not about historical characters. This year that way has been very lucky that way. Couple of months ago we had Badmaash Company and now we have Once Upon a Time in Mumbaai. Of course both are completely different from each other, the first being set in the fast 90s and the latter being set in colourful 70s. And director Milan Luthria makes enough efforts to make OUATIM look very authentic and worth a watch for its settings.
Settings apart the film has its pluses with some superb performances and great dialogues. However the problem with the film is the not so new storyline and the very slow screenplay. Though the characters are well established and well rounded the writer takes the entire first half to do that without much movement in the story. And then as you expect fireworks in the second half it fizzles out too fast.
OUATIM is the story of two gangsters. While one was ethical the other was reckless. It has inspirations of the characters of infamous smuggler Haji Mastan and now infamous don Dawood Ibrahim. The film is about Sultan (Ajay Devgn) who labored through his childhood and became a smuggler as he grew up completely ruling the sea routes. He however always preferred keeping the city clean and never smuggles which was against his conscience. Shoaib (Emraan Hashmi) is inspired by Sultan’s life as a child and wants to it as big. He is a son of a police officer but has no inclination towards the law. As he grows up he makes his way to Sultan’s gang and proves himself good enough to go up the ladder fast. However his reckless ambitions soon outgrew Sultan and he decided to take over the city on his own.
The story is built on the line – ‘behind the myth is the city’s greatest betrayal story’. The screenplay does not give much importance to the betrayal. The slow pace of the first half could be a put off. Also funnily Sultan and his girlfriend Rehana never seem to age as they continue to look the same even as Shoaib grows from a child to rustic young crook.
The film has its pluses. Luthria has taken care of everything – right from trains to cars to sunglasses to shoes to buildings! Everything takes us back to the 70s. Luthria handles the dramatic moments well and great use has been made of dialoguebaazi. All actors have come up with some memorable performances. Ajay Devgn’s overpowering presence is matched by Emraan’s charm. Kangna Ranaut and Prachi Desai do their bits well though they don’t bear many consequences on the story itself. Randeep Hooda is effective as the police office.
Overall, ‘Once Upon a Time in Mumbaai’ is an entertainer. It does not need any effort to be understood of liked. It is the mere magic of characters created that makes this film worth watching.

Movie Review: Khatta Meetha; Star cast:Akshay Kumar, introducing Trisha, Urvashi Sharma, Rajpal Yadav, Asrani, Milind Gunaji and Manoj Joshi; Director: Priyadarshan; Rating: *1/2 – Avoid this bitter pill.
Satire is a genre rarely touched by Bollywood mainstream filmmakers, so when a big star like Akshay Kumar decides to co-produce one with a director like Priyadarshan with whom he has never delivered a flop, naturally expectations run high. But what one gets at the end of the day is a migraine inducer. Remake of Malayalam film Vellanakalude Nadu (1988) starring Mohanlal, Khatta Meetha neither entertains nor offers anything new.
Sachin Tichkule (Akshay) is a road contractor who is forever cash strapped and in a mess after he attempts to go corrupt. His extended family consisting of a brother (Paritosh) and two brothers-in-law (Milind Gunaji and Manoj Joshi) all staying togetherunder one roof are neck deep in corruption where PWD contracts are involved. Sachin is often ridiculed by them for being a blot to their family since he is not able to contribute anything to the family but only creating more problems paining his retired judge father (Kulbhushan Kharbanda). Problems multiply for Sachin as his ex-flame Gehna Ganpule (Trisha) comes as the new Muncipal Commissioner.
First things first, if you are expecting Khatta Meetha to be a rip roaring comic affair, then let us warn you, the only genuinely comic moments of the film are all what you see in the promos. The entire film is a messed up affair with a non-existent plot joined together with some truly inane sequences. In fact, the setting also reminds one of Priyadarshan’s assistant Rajeev Kumar directed flop comedy Chal Chala Chal starring Govinda. Making it worse is the long running time of over 2 hours and 40 minutes. Priyadarshan tries to pack in too many things and fails on all accounts. He stretches his comic sequences very long, resulting in spoiling a good joke. The bridge and road contractors – Muncipal body officials and politicians nexus shown doesn’t really expose anything new and the contrived manner in which it all culminates makes you pull out your hair in irritation. What works to some extent is the authentic small town setting and a few one liners.
Akshay Kumar is the only good thing about this chaotic enterprise. Be it sarcastic humour or performing the most implausible comic sequences he performs them all with full conviction. Trisha (in a dubbed voice) makes an average debut but the blame goes to makers for casting her in a role of a Muncipal Commissioner. She appears too young for it. Urvashi Sharma is good. Aruna Irani playing Akki’s mom is wasted. Kulbhushan Kharbanda has his good moments. Usual suspects of any Priyadarshan film – Manoj Joshi, Asrani, Rajpal Yadav with addition of Johhny Lever continue to assault your senses with their high decibel dialogue delivery in the name of comedy.
Pritam delivers with a few good songs but with each song badly placed, half their fun is lost. Camerawork by V. Manikandan is good capturing the interiors of Maharashtra well.
Khatta Meetha fails to deliver what it promises. It is neither a political satire nor a good family drama. The film is better being avoided.