Cheeni Kum - Especially post-interval!

"You see, George, you really had a wonderful life. Don't you see what a mistake it would be to throw it away?"
- It’s a wonderful life

No, am not going to talk about the plot or the actors (I think enough justice has been done to them in various blogs and critique review) Herez a recount the top-of-mind thoughts about the movie 12 hours after I watched it.

- Tabu looked ravishing. If I weren’t married and if I had had alternate preferences, I’d’ve made her pic my bathroom beauty! (the only other time she looked so wonderful was in a tamil pic ‘Kaadhal Desam’)

- Loved the gumption of Tabu when she says she is going ahead with her marriage plans and couldn’t wait for her dad to die. (Aravindswamy in ‘Bombay’?) Or the nicknames they had for each other (‘En Arumai Pattikaade’, anyone?) Or the lighthearted repartees (a la Mani Ratnam – ‘Agni Nakshatram’, ‘Anjali’, ‘Roja’, ‘Bombay’?) Not that am complaining. Similar genre I think.
- Amitabh was cool. His ponytail and single-rich-man demeanor was brilliantly executed. (Straight out of an Italian Count/Greek shipping magnate/Mediterranean Prince M & B!) The only other man who could pull this off (debatably) is Kamal Hassan (yes, kill me non-tams!).

- Ilayaraja rocks (coming from an A R Rahman fan, it’s a lot!) I’d forgotten how his music was the most hummable(MS word refuses to accept this word) and romantic pieces ever. Pure melody. Velvet smooth. Reminds me of a waiting-to-be-loved, warm mellow feeling after a few drinks on a nice breezy evening. :)

- The cinematography was fantastic. Light. Airy. Real at the same time. Yet, a place I wanted to be in, not currently in my grasp. Brilliant! P C Shriram is brilliant.

- Zora Sehgal was a riot. Nutty nag. (here’s a secret, my grandmom-in-law is a WWF fan too!)

- Paresh Rawal should’ve been a Hyderabadi or a Tam Brahm. The characterization would’ve been perfect then (arguably). He seemed a little over-the-top, especially the drama at the end.

- The kid was wasted. Precocious. Too smart for her age. Too sad. Unnecessary melodrama. Her lines, atleast in the first half were great, then they began to jar.

- The second half seemed like a private joke.. a mockery of commercial cinema with laughable long speeches (a la the Angry ‘Young’ Man!), silly references (Iron pillar at Qutub anyone?) and suddenly dampening Tabu’s joie-de-vivre(notice her dumbness when Amitabh comes to put ‘sindoor’ on her maang..silly!)

Overall, a wonderful movie. After a long time (after tamil movie ‘Mozhi’) I laughed so much in the theatre and enjoyed the repartees to the hilt. Restored my faith in Indian cinema after a disastrous ‘Shootout at Lokhandwala’ last Friday! A must-watch.

"I love that you get cold when it's seventy-one degrees out. I love that it takes you an hour and a half to order a sandwich. I love that you get a little crinkle above your nose when you're lookin' at me like I'm nuts. I love that after I spend the day with you, I can still smell your perfume on my clothes. And I love that you are the last person I want to talk to before I go to sleep at night. And it's not because I'm lonely. And it's not because it's New Year's Eve. I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible."
- When Harry Met Sally