The Wareblog

THE PLOT –

Wake Up Sid – the plot could be anybody’s guess and what’s more, it fails to surprise all those guesses!

Another candyfloss movie from the Dharma Productions banner that relies more on the ‘likeability’ factor and ‘offering’.

The plot involves a useless and aimless brat who eventually finds his feet through several hiccups and incidents and also ends up meeting his soulmate én route.

THE CAST –

Ranbir Kapoor is repetitive and predictable. However, his screen presence continues to offer the ‘feel-good’ factor and keep you involved.

Konkona Sen Sharma is outstanding – very natural and very very exceptional. Her role perhaps takes the ‘hats-off’ award precisely because she does it without even you realizing it.

Anupam Kher and Supriya Pathak are good in their acts. Rahul Khanna just about clings on too. The support cast is good in patches.

THE MUSIC –

Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy continue to churn out one great score after another. Quite essentially, the music of Wake Up Sid makes it all the more watchable and in fact, the album surely has more shelf life than the movie. Iktara is definitely the cherry on top!

THE VERDICT –

Wake Up Sid would find favour among the general audiences primarily on account of its ‘feel good’ and ‘I-identify-with’ factors. In fact, although highly predictable in its storyline and a stereotype screenplay, the movie is definitely watchable and better than all movies currently screening.

All these factors would add up to the blockbuster score for the movie and probably, Wake Up Sid would end up being one inspite of all its minuses.

THE SCORE –

6.50 / 10.00

THE PLOT –

I had seen the Telugu version of Pokkiri – starring Mahesh Babu. However, I walked into the auditorium unwillingly and rather out of a rejection towards Dil Bole Hadippa.

The movie began with the expected ways of Salman Khan walking around doing his own thing – almost as if this were an extended photo shoot or stage show.

The plot seemed to have been borrowed frame-by-frame from the South Indian version(s) except that amidst all the sub-plots, you suddenly find yourself staring at not just the possibility of a different storyline but in fact, a possible box-office winner.

Wanted shines in parts as a well-made masala adventure ride and comes across as a pretty watchable flick.

THE CAST –

Salman Khan builds on gradually in the movie and deceptively ends on a high – reminding one of the superb act in Tere Naam, although this one is quite different and yet so alike!

Ayesh Takia plays out her part without any fuss and so do the supporting cast. Govind Namdeo & Prakash Raj are appreciable in their essays but eventually it’s Mahesh Manjrekar who stands out once again with his exceptional acting and screen presence.

THE MUSIC –

Sajid-Wajid score good enough to complement the storyline in parts and in fact, some of the songs have this ‘growth’ factor attached to them – in case you choose to rerun the tracks as is often the case after sitting through the movie.

THE VERDICT –

Although the movie began on nothing worthwhile or promising, the storyline graduated to a pretty decent plot for a masala movie like Wanted. In fact, with a dearth of good movies at the screens, Wanted should be able to do fair business and surprise even more folks.

THE SCORE –

6.50 / 10.00

Every now and then I end up realizing – “You are but a small fry..!”, almost as if The Almighty himself is speaking those words right into the innermost corridors of my ears.

I remember that fateful day of April, 1993 when I was idling away surfing channels and suddenly saw this message flashing across – “A tribute to Divya Bharti”, I had a few thoughts myself of what was being conveyed here, but being in the third standard at that time I ran across to my sister asking her what had happened. She seemed to freeze and moments later told the unacceptable –

Divya Bharti was no more.

I don’t care what the reasons leading to this tragic event were. None of that is going to help us get her back. But all I know is Divya was a great actress and an even more charming face. For years after she has left us, fans across the world have played their part in keeping her spirit alive. Today, it really makes me wonder how passionately fans can keep their idols alive for years together – long after they’re gone.

So why all this blue talk?

Well, more than blue, it’s about being distraught at the news I received today – “Lisa Ray is battling multiple myeloma”.

Again, Lisa Ray has been an epitome of beauty for a great many over the past decade or so. I recall having seen her for the first time on a Zee Television flick named Hanste Khelte (in a song sequence – “O meri Rekha…”) and have been an ardent fan ever since.

While I have obviously sat through all her movies (including Kill Kill Faster Faster) and found her grow as an actress every single time, I have also admired the poise and ethereal nature of her beauty. Lisa Ray has always been that perfect manifestation of woman perhaps generations (or at least generations of genuine fans & admirers!!) would swear by.

It then does not help in any way to come face to face with such a piece of news from the least expected quarters. It’s one thing to appreciate and express solidarity with Lisa for being bold in her fight against cancer but what is simply not digestible is the fact that things go wrong for reasons unexplained and more importantly, on subjects unasked.

That brings me back to being a small fry.

While I read my prayers and express faith in the Almighty to bring Lisa back to her glorious self and endow her with scores of years to grace our fan-fury longings (Yellow Talks Rock - And You Know Who This Is For..!!) , I also keep that doubt alive in the corner of my heart – is there always an event about to unfold that bluntly puts across that we are only mortals and no more?

I guess.. or maybe not.. or perhaps, I just don’t know..!

THE PLOT –

All Hype & No Fizz – Kaminey summed up so to speak..!

With all the hype surrounding the movie that was further fuelled by exaggerated star ratings by various critics, I was led to believe that my weekend was awaiting an exceptional treat (It also doesn’t give you a reality check when your batchmates who’ve already seen the movie tag it a treat all the way.. morons is one word you can attribute to such leechers!)

There is absolutely no plot in the movie – the ending is a foregone conclusion and ever so slowly meanders towards the same along with two brothers (twins) with vocal impairments. And yes, don’t be surprised if you find yourself struggling hard to ward off your dozing instincts during the run of play.

THE CAST –

Shahid Kapur is a mere shadow of his Jab We Met self meaninglessly having to cope with the unnecessary impairments of vocal faculty. The support cast too seems to be struggling hard to deliver but sadly aren’t able to bail out a sinking ship.

Priyanka Chopra is the only saving grace – she looks great in the much restrained make-up version and is exceptional in her dialogue delivery and screen presence. Two thumbs up to her lone act..!

THE MUSIC –

Vishal Bharadwaj has lost the touch not just in his direction but also music direction it seems. You seriously doubt if this is the man who gave us Maachis and Omkara. Except for Dhan Te Nan and the wedding number (perhaps rendered more hummable by Priyanka Chopra’s act) – absolutely nothing makes you take notice.

THE VERDICT –

I have my doubts in giving a verdict this time around, the reason being so many ‘elitist’ brains around me declaring this a treat – but then, what the hell.. I’ll give mine anyways..!

In case you have nothing more worthwhile to do, you can definitely go for this one – otherwise, I doubt if you will ever have the same respect towards most movie critics out there.

THE SCORE –

5.50 / 10.00

THE PLOT –

Amazingly Awesome – two words for Love Aaj Kal.

For a change, I am at a loss of words to jot down the plot here. My best attempt would be that this movie takes you through a rollercoaster one-of-a-kind drive down a boulevard of emotions only Imtiaz Ali can deliver.

The story brings to the fore simple adages like ‘Love is timeless’ and ‘Love happens but once..!’ but most importantly does not meander in the entire run. Simply put, Love Aaj Kal will keep you hooked inspite of a predictable ending – very much underlining the fact that means justify the end..!

THE CAST –

Saif Ali Khan is simply beyond bounds of praise. He does full justice to the role(s) and comes up triumphs on all scores including a terrific screen-presence, something that has failed to elude him post-Dil Chahta Hai.

Deepika Padukone is surprisingly subtle and pulls off almost every piece of act with amazing grace. Perhaps, for the very first time, I have fully admired Deepika Padukone – the actress.

The rest of the cast, including Rishi Kapoor support the storyline very well and more importantly – do not appear stifling in any case.

THE MUSIC –

Another champion score from Pritam who delivers on the promise made with Jab We Met, as much as the director.

Twist and Chor Bazaari are already booming all over. Aaj Din Chadheya and Dooriyaan blend well with the screenplay though and Aahun Aahun wraps up things in style the Mauja Hi Mauja way.

A very well made album to state the least.

THE VERDICT –

One of those rarities which portray elements of contemporary cinema and find favor with any kind of audience.

So simple… So subtle… And yet, so very superb – exemplary at times..!

I can’t bet on you but for my cause – I will definitely give this one another watch..!

THE SCORE –

8.00 / 10.00

I remember reading in my school books how mankind was helpless with no cure for the condition caused by AIDS. Today, as we find people and celebrities, alike, falling prey to one fatal disease after another - well, I present here some text towards the big one - AIDS.

With all the AIDS-awareness drives worldwide notwithstanding and the clinically proven effectiveness of the antiretroviral drugs, Dr. Boyd Graves chose to differ.

If one were to go by his findings and recommendations, AIDS would eventually be proved to have been synthetically manufactured with suggested intentions of bringing down the third world population. AIDS, as per his research, has its roots in the United States of America’s The Virus Cancer Program which synthetically produced the HIV in its laboratories. The validity of such claims can always be contested and often dismissed as conspiracy theories but the fact remains that if such apparently biological warfare has actually been resorted to by supposedly responsible governments (not to be confused with these as reported here), perhaps it wouldn’t be out of context to mention here that they also (in black & white) harbour the cure in their backyards.

At the end of the day - I leave it to the Almighty to preside over.

I experienced this peculiar problem today when trying to activate the Power notification icon after it mysteriously disappeared from my system tray. To my amazement, the Power checkbox had become frozen and therefore I could not select and get my icon back.

When I opened the Customize Notification Icons dialog box, I found plenty of other icons lying there for applications I had removed long back – but no signs of my dearie dear Power..!

The reason behind this is the Explorer caches a list of every icon that appears through its interface and over a period of time this list could go up to hundreds or more.

The other issue is that Explorer keeps these items in memory somewhere, so it also causes bloat, but we can reset this list through the registry and by restarting Explorer. Note that this will remove any settings you had set for the icons.

To get to the dialog we are talking about, right-click on the notification icon tray and select Customize Notification Icons or go to the same through the Taskbar properties -

Run regedit.exe through the Start Menu -> Run command, and then browse down to this registry key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\LocalSettings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\TrayNotify

Now you will see two entries in the list: IconStreams and PastIconsStream. Select both of them and delete. (You may want to take a backup with the export function before doing this) -

That’s it, done..!

All we need to do now is to restart Explorer.exe through Task Manager (Ctrl+Shift+Esc).
In order to do so, we select explorer.exe from the list and choose End Process and subsequently click on the File menu (Alt+F) and click on New Task to specify explorer.exe in the same and then press OK.

Now your Customize Notification Icons dialog box should show you a very clean list of items, but note that any settings you had will be reset to default. 

Please note that some icons might disappear entirely until you reboot your computer.

I have always loved this browser and will never forget falling back on the same to get me there - faster & safer..!

Here’s a snapshot though of what the current build has rolled out in the language we’re all tied together with-

Apple & Microsoft (not necessarily in that order!) undoubtedly have some of the best brains working in their innovation labs. It is therefore no wonder that when they go ahead and toss up concepts and perceptions of how the future of computing would be like - it is often unbelievably awesome..!!

Microsoft Office Labs showcase their prophecies in this short-n-slick clip.

THE PLOT –

Delhi-6 takes a socio-cultural-political-umpteenical take on India and the domestic situation through the eyes of an Indian – Born (and brought up) in the USA.

After R.O. Mehra’s hugely successful and awe-inspiring Rang De Basanti comes Delhi-6, full of anecdotes from our daily lives shot amidst old Delhi’s backdrop and brought to life by quite a few creditable performances.

Abhishek Bachchan is born to parents who married outside their caste and settled in the USA. After several years he returns with his ailing grandmother (Waheeda Rehman) to get a feel of where his roots lie. He immediately starts taking a liking to the place despite its shallows of logic and monopoly of faith and the culturally spun-off politics.

If not for the social messages, you can watch this one just for the director’s intent and the protagonist’s unshakable faith in the adage – Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani..!

THE CAST –

Sonam Kapoor is so wow.!

Absolutely mint fresh and almost picture perfect – no less.

The rest of the cast, including Abhishek Bachchan are very true to their roles and deliver according to the asks of the screenplay.

The two actors that stand out though are – Divya Dutta (Jalebi) & Atul Kulkarni (Gobar).

THE MUSIC –

While A.R.Rehman struck gold with Rang De Basanti – Delhi 6 is sadly a consolation prize at best.

Most songs just have a few keys of notes and pronounced background scores – so characteristic of Rehman’s songs that lack melody or magic.

Except a few occasional sounds here and there – a very forgettable album.

THE VERDICT –

A movie that has pure intentions and they alone are reason enough to sit through this one.

Not a must-watch though.

THE SCORE –

6.00 / 10.00