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The Migraine-O-Meter
With the slew of headache-inducing attempts at movies that Bollywood and Hollywood alike has offered us till now, it has been a sore to viewers and reviewers alike to sit through nauseatic angles, juice-spurting aliens, crotch-covered scenes and.. (you get the drift, right?) Be it Ram Gopal Verma’s ‘rogue methodology’ in Department, or the overdose of pregnancy hormones in What To Expect When Wou’re Expecting or the no-chill treatment of Don’t Be Afraid Of The Dark we have to admit that we have been mentally scarred for a while. So, in that tune, the thrashes of the week are put on a ‘migraine-o-meter’ where our reviewer Dhruvi Shah tells you how many pills to pop before you walk into the nearest theatre to watch this week’s releases—
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The Grey |
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THE GREY
SITTING THROUGH 117 minutes of The Grey won’t change your life in any way. A rather pointless and unnecessary exercise, the film documents a tragedy that keeps unfolding until the last drop of blood.
There isn’t any originality in the subject of survival and death anymore. We’ve seen too many films deal with it the same way. The supporting cast gets knocked out one by one and the lone survivor has a perception altering experience.
To watch that much discomfort, pain, misfortune and death is a little too heavy to grapple with. After a while, the freezing cold in the film gets to your brain. You may need to pop a disprin to keep the dull headache at bay.
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Love Recipe |
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LOVE RECIPE
THIS FILM is the perfect recipe for a heart ache (of the bad kind).
When the film’s title is spelt wrongly on the censor certificate, you know there is reason to worry. A loud voice-over follows immediately and doesn’t stop at the statutory warning. The same voice-over (with long pauses) introduces and describes every character of the film. You read that right. This is not a film with evolved narration.
You can usually tell when songs are thrown in for effect. The songs cause a ripple effect of horror. But the horrible ingredient of this recipe is actually a severed head. The shape, size and features keep changing as the film cooks, we mean, progresses.
With storytelling all over the place and not even one sane character, you’ll need to swallow at least three aspirins to keep yourself from tearing apart your hair.
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Yeh Khula Aasman |
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YEH KHULA AASMAN
THE FILM is titled so after a fictional annual kite-flying competition. The kites are everywhere, framed in the grandfather’s (Raghubir Yadav’s) room, being flown by kids on the streets and in the metaphors that don’t seem to stop.
Every time the grandfather speaks, he doles out advice or seemingly wise words. You wonder if he has ever had a direct conversation. The funniest bit is his initial reaction on seeing his grandson, as if he has seen a ghost or someone back from the dead. It isn’t Raghubir Yadav’s fault. He’s the only good actor, unfortunately playing a bad role.
To make things puke-inducing, 18-year-olds are shown to fall in love, with a full fledged song in tow. And the only other songs are (wait for it) about kite-flying.
Pop some painkillers and go fly a kite instead.
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