Sunday, December 20, 2009

Paa-pular demand

Random thoughts after watching Paa...

  • Having read and heard reviews, I knew that contrary to popular belief, the movie was not going to be melodramatic at all. But I had no idea that it would be so funny.

  • Abhishek Bachchan clean-shaven. WHEEE! Abhishek Bachchan with glasses. Double WHEEEE! Abhishek Bachchan as an honest politician. TRIPLE WHEEEE! I think I have forgiven him and am back to liking him.

  • Jaya Bachchan reading out the opening credits was annoying as hell. She didn't look like she wanted to do it in the first place. Watch how she keeps rubbing her hands and fidgeting as she pretends to rattle off names from memory. It's like the AB Corp people thought, "We might as well find a way to stuff one more Bachchan into the movie." I'm just thankful they did not get Aishwarya Rai Bachchan to play Vidya Balan's part. Oh the horror.

  • R. Balki seems to like the idea of Paresh Rawal finding himself in odd age-related situations with Amitabh Bachchan. While in Cheeni Kum, he was faced with a potential son-in-law who was older than him, in Paa he has a grandson who looks older than him.

  • Balki also seems to like the idea of giving inappropriate nicknames to his characters. Well, at least Auro calling his grandma 'Bum' is not as bad as Amitabh Bachchan calling that annoying kid in Cheeni Kum 'Sexy'.

  • Amitabh Bachchan effortlessly slips under Auro's skin, literally and otherwise. The make-up, the posture, the voice modulation. Simply terrific. There is absolutely no trace of the familiar "Rishte mein toh hum tumhaare..." baritone. I'm not surprised they said 'Introducing Amitabh Bachchan' in the opening credits.

  • Okay, this is going to get a lot of brickbats but I have to say it. This is the only movie where I have liked Amitabh Bachchan. I mean, the make-up was so great that they could have gotten any good actor to play this role, but there’s something unexpected that Amitabh Bachchan brings to this role that I can’t really explain.

  • Vidya Balan rocks rocks rocks every scene she is in.

  • Who would have thought Paresh Rawal and Abhishek Bachchan could look so uncannily similar? They really did look like father and son, and it wasn't just the similar clothes.

  • I'm still kinda mad at Illayaraja for recycling his own tunes in Cheeni Kum, so I didn't have high expectations. The music is ho-hum. The 'Udi udi' song is quite nice though.

  • I wasn’t quite sure what to make of the whole politics angle between Amol and Jaikrit, and where it was supposed to go. I’m just happy that they did not pull a gimmick where the ‘sick kid’ magically solves all of his Dad’s problems seconds before dying.

  • It was beautiful how Auro's progeria is shown to be totally incidental and not a pivotal point in the story. It could have been any kid.

  • I loved the fact that the rona-dhona was confined to the last 15 minutes of the movie. The rest of the movie is a laugh-out-loud comedy. The dialogues are really funny. R. Balki knows how to hit the funny bone and make the best of each scene.

  • Some of the best one-liners, apart from Auro's, were little Vishnu's. Watch out for the especially entertaining phone conversation between the two kids, which will have you laughing uncontrollably and trying to control it at the same time so you don't miss any of the lines. HILARIOUS.

Lately, Bollywood has been getting smart, getting mature and getting genuinely funny. Hmmmm... This year, I liked almost every movie I watched.

And that almost made me panic a bit.




12 comments:

smalltown_girl said...

goooold!!!

and i think i love Robbie Williams and "Jack" better. :)

But bollywood is getting intelligent!! hard to keep away from theaters!

smalltown_girl said...

i meant ROBIN WILLIAMS :|

so silver too.

Maryum said...

and i have genuinely without any hanky panky won silver.. yaaaay..
and as u have been my personal film critic since i started reading ur blog.. i m definatley going to see paa and very hopeful to like it as well
yaaaayyyyy silver mera hoya...

PizzaDude said...

//This year, I liked almost every movie I watched.
That's because you watched only those which had good reviews (except Karzzzz) :P

~ Lopa said...

We normally watch movie on first day it's released and i had decided to skip this movie, thinking abt all melodrama and also the fact that I am not great AB fan.... But reviews !! and then some recommendations from friends tempted us, and we watched it on 3rd day ! And we loved it !! :)

And Ditto same for Amitab, i liked him in this movie and while watching the movie i spoke same thing that Abhishek looks good as politician and i am so so happy that they didn't take Aishwarya as heroin ;)
Thanks God !

Btw did you watch Avatar? It's a must watch !

Sayesha said...

#smalltown girl,
//But bollywood is getting intelligent!! hard to keep away from theaters!

You said it, sister! :)

#Maryum,
Watch it watch it, it's really funny! :)

#Pizzadude,
Not really true... there were some that had good reviews (e.g. Dev D) which I couldn't catch, there were some with good reviews (e.g. Kaminey) which I didn't like, and there were some with not so good reviews (Luck by Chance) which I really liked. :)
PS: You should go watch Paa at once! :D

#~Lopa,
Hahaha same thing happened to me! :D

Haven't watched Avatar yet, waiting for the crowd to die down a bit. :P

Unknown said...

Paa has been made very intelligently, the casting augments the USP of the movie, also they went with time-n-tested director "Balki".
one more uncanny resemblance between "Sugarless" and "Paa" is that all the characters in the movie share the same IQ.
the small kid in Cheeni Kum delivered the most matured n hilarious lines at par with zohra sehgal,
ditto in the movie Paa observe the conversation between vidya and her mom ( Arundhati Nag) when she reveals her about motherhood, the reaction
from the mom was too idealistic. It can only happen in Balki's movie where children utter the most funny and most unrestrained dialogues.

some questions to the makers of the movie :

why pick a 60+ actor for playing 13 year old kid.
Progeria was just introduced in this movie but no time given to go deep into wiki of Progeria unlike "TZP" treating the delicate subject of Dyslexia.
the plot of the movie creating the perfect stage for AB to re-introduce him.

beg to differ bhai...AB's most powerful performance was in "Black".

Neha said...

I am yet to watch Paa...then shall come back with my comments.

Anusha said...

Agree with several of your points on "Paa", but I read a review that said the whole film was contrived just so we could somehow get AB Jr playing AB Sr's Dad, and I thought it hit the nail on the head. Everything revolved around that one point, as a result of which, while it was entertaining, it didn't make for a "great" movie, in my opinion. I have a feeling that while AB Sr was the highlight of the movie, getting someone else (say, a kid) playing Auro.

Vidya Balan was kickass, though. LOVE her.

Anusha said...

Haha, I never even finished that sentence!

I meant "... getting someone else (say, a kid) to play Auro would've made the movie better, and more realistic."

*facepalm*

Sayesha said...

#anand,
Interesting observations. Though picking AB to play Auro was definitely a gimmick, I think it was a well thought through one. Also, Balki said in his interviews that the movie was not about Progeria (unlike TZP which focused on Ishaan's condition) but it was just a father-son story so I felt it did deliver.
PS: I didn't like Black at all. :P :P

#N,
Watch it! :)

#Clueless,
Yes, just like I was telling Anand above, getting AB to play Auro was definitely a gimmick to show the role reversal in real vs reel life between the two ABs, but I felt that it worked. Maybe it was because on some levels we knew AB was playing Auro so his smartass dialogues were not at all annoying which they could have been if a real kid played the role (remember Sexy in Cheeni Kum? How many times did you want to slap her? :P).

I found the movie very entertaining, and the fact that it didn't pretend to have 'substance' (by going deep into progeria for instance) made the entertainment value even greater. :)

Stupidosaur said...

Sayesha was lost in thought of Paa. Viv started singing...
"Tu Hamari Thi...Jaan Se Pyaari Thi
Tuuuuu.......
Auro Ki Kyon Ho Gayi?"