(Recommended by chaitu1987, mihi_rex, mallukuttan, rpsfyn and ajayrocks)
After Kaminey, we’re inclined to be more respectful of Bollywood director Vishal Bharadwaj.
So, when the recommendations for Blue Umbrella expanded into a chorus we were more receptive to it.
Fortunately, Netflix has Blue Umbrella in its Instant Play collection, which means you can play it on your TV at any time if you have a Roku, TiVo or Xbox 360 device without having to wait for the DVD.
Directed by Vishal Bharadwaj, Blue Umbrella features Pankaj Kapur (Shahid Kapoor’s father) and Shreya.
We’ll update this post after watching the 90-minute movie.
Watching Blue Umbrella added by SearchIndia.com on
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off the topic:
4 time National Awared winner Mamootty (real name: Mohammed Kutty) was detained for further questioning and frisking by the US immigration officers a few months ago, Mamotty calmly identified himself as a superstar of South Indian cinema. Like a gentleman he told the immigration officers, “I understand that you are performing your duty, and I respect your time and mine. Here is my website URL. You could also google up my name. I have won the highest number of national awards in India for my contribution to Indian cinema. Once you google me up, all your questions about me will be answered. You can save your time, and I can be on my way to this program I have to attend”.
The officers checked up his website and googled him up. They came back within 10 minutes with a big smile on their face and were extremely thankful to Mamootty for sharing that information with him and appreciated his achievements. They regretted any inconvenience that may have been caused him due to the official process of US immigration. Mammootty complimented the officers for their professionalism and politeness. He also invited the officers to visit Kerala and be his guests.
When he came out of the airport, he told his fans not to blow this incident up, because the officers were extremely professional and courteous. He was treated with a lot of respect and courtesy by the US immigration officers. Mammootty informed the press that he appreciates now that such profesionalism has kept the US safe after 9/11.
By the way, even I recommended the film. good that many people have watched it.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
1. Thanks for the pointer about Mamooty’s response to U.S. immigration queries.
What a world of difference in the response of Mamooty and Shahrukh Khan.
SRK seems to think that we should forget past attacks on our soil and pay obeisance on the altar of his monumental ego.
Inshallah, the idiot will leave our country soon.
2. You write above: By the way, even I recommended the film. good that many people have watched it.
True, and we were aware of it.
Just that we inadvertently left out your name. We’ve now added it to the “Recommended by’ list. π
Mammooty is a lawyer in real life. What is SRK other than a “star” and a non-“actor”?
SearchIndia.com Responds:
More than being a lawyer, Mammooty is also a sensible fella.
Of course. Many of his films also hold a strong story behind unlike other “super stars”.
Another incident – from wiki.
“His remarks during the 2006 IIFA Awards ceremony held at Dubai had gained a lot of media and public attention.[13]. He openly criticized the organizers of the IIFA Awards for completely ignoring South Indian films. Mammootty suggested that the Bollywood film industry stand up to competition from the South Indian film industry before calling itself International.[14] He commented:
Γ’β¬Ε Indian cinema is not just Bollywood, and Hindi is not the only language. Why should our films be called South Indian cinema instead of being under the banner of Indian films? Γ’β¬Β ”
Only thing is some good films from regional languages die within the boundaries of the region not making overseas.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
Given our exposure to both Tamil and Hindi movies from childhood, we believe overall Tamil films are way behind Hindi movies in quality. Sure, there are some exceptions but they remain just exceptions.
Most Tamil films are utter garbage.
Tis’ true that many Hindi films are also bad but on the garbage spectrum, they are not as bad as the Tamil trash.
By the way, most of Tamil movies are just imports of hit Malayalam movies.
There, the story, theme, and acting are natural and it becomes hit. Here, the corrupt minds insert five songs including one ‘kuthu’ song, three fights, and lot of heroism. It becomes horrible.
These days, Tamil films are far behind Hindi movies (with few exceptions). We can’t also deny till some time back, there were responsible film makers and creative people in Tamil cinema, so it was competitive. Now, it is junk and only junk.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
Let’s see how the four mucho anticipated films turn out – Kanthasamy (Vikram, Shreya), Endhiran (Rajnikanth, Aishwarya Rai), Asal (Ajith) and Vettaikaran (Vijay, Anushka Shetty).
FYI,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Lear
Just checked in NetFlix. It is available.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
Parkalam (we’ll see).
Right now, we’re going over to Blockbuster to get Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction.
My intuition says, Most of them will be awful, again.
Have you watched and reviewed ‘The Last Lear’ [Amitabh starrer]?
SearchIndia.com Responds:
No.
The last Amitabh movie we saw was Agneepath (on DVD).
In theatres, our last Amitabh films were Bhoothnath and God Tussi Great Ho (lift of the Jim Carrey film Bruce Almighty)
So, what’s the verdict on Dev D.. err.. Blue Umbrella..
SearchIndia.com Responds:
Later.
Right now, bz, beri bz watching Pulp Fiction.
John Travolta is in the bathroom, thinking out loud his next moves. Uma Thurman is waiting outside in the living room. Wonder what happens next? 9:09PM ET.
The reason we’re watching Pulp Fiction is because some folks here believe Kaminey owes (a lot, maybe?) to this 1994 Quentin Tarantino classic.
oh.. let’s know.. Pulp Fiction is one of my most favorite movies.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
Superb.
The movie sizzles with kinetic energy.
Now we know Ezekiel 25-17 (Remember the line Samuel Jackson keeps repeating?):
Solid screenplay. Fine acting. Crisp, short dialogs. Unpredictable.
All-round great movie.
You should watch ‘Maqbool’…its simply amazing…starcast of movie has – Pankaj kapoor, Irrfan khan, Tabu, Naseer sahab n om puri alongwith piyush mishra… U can’t ask for more.N blue umbrella is indeed a treat to watch. Pankaj Kapoor is jus sublime. Next is indian version of othello .. u must have heard about Omkara (All the above movies directed by Vishal bhardwaj).
N stating the obvious Vishal alongwith anurag kashyap, neeraj pandey n dibakar banerjee are some people in industry with grey matter in their heads.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
1. Will watch Maqbool one of these days…the movie features all of our favorite actors (note we said actors).
2. Pankaj Kapoor is brilliant in Blue Umbrella. The SRKs, Salmans, Abhisheks, Devgans et al are bachchas (kids) in the acting department compared to Pankaj Kapoor.
even kids do better… Pankaj kapoor is the one of the best i ve seen… n all of these are my fav ‘actors’ too…:)… Naseer sahab is my personal favorite of all times… Maqbool is the finest cocktail ever.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
Pankaj Kapoor on a bench as he tries to inveigle the young girl with all sorts of blandishments to part with the umbrella is a delight to behold.
never seen such portrayal of thirst n desire for an object… I remember a scene from Being cyrus (if u have seen it).. Naseer sahab sits on edge of a well n sees a flower halfway down the well… He jus rambles about gettin that flower to the dining table… Pankaj portrays immense childish fervour, greed n to die for emotions whereas naseer brings another shade to depict desire… Do watch if u haven’t seen it… i keep on bringing both of them to comparison…but they are like lebron n jordan… extra terrestrial…
SearchIndia.com Responds:
Seen Being Cyrus in the pre-SI blog days and reviewed it here too.
Liked it.
You make me watch movie again :D….its such a beautiful film..really good dialogue by brilliant actor pankaj kapoor spoiler warning http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kKC2OkEL-Q&feature=related
off topic:
and completely agree with your opinion on SRK. He was just routinely questioned because his name may be in no fly list as correctly pointed out by you..but he let the issue blow out of proportion and he ably epitomizes the typical mentality here of vip being above the law.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
In a movie filled with many nice moments, your above YouTube link is one of the nicest moments.
We’ll update the Blue Umbrella post later today or tomorrow.
Beg to differ on the quality of tamil movies vs hindi.
lot more money to be thrown around in hindi movies. so it looks rich thats all. Tamil always been low budget except the Dhanu produced or Dir.Shankar movies. please watch tamil movies like pasanga or anjathey (cool camera and direction here) and you can see the difference. but i do agree 90% of movies are crap in both hindi and tamil.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
Unfortunately, the low budget Tamil films seldom make it to the U.S.
That said, we still maintain that Hindi films are far ahead of Tamil movies in quality though, as we agree here, 90% of both are crap.
Whoa so you watched Pulp fiction. Great! Yes, the screenplay is the hero – perfect blend of dark humor and violence. But the excessive use of the ‘N’ word and other racial slangs can be observed in all Tarantino flicks. But yeah, he’s a f***in’ genius! π
Some other recommendations:
Reservoir Dogs
Jackie Brown
True Romance
By the way, when is Inglorious Basterds releasing there?
SearchIndia.com Responds:
1. We didn’t realize Jimmie was Tarantino until the credits started rolling at the end of the movie.
2. You write above: when is Inglorious Basterds releasing there?
Inglourious Basterds is releasing this Friday, August 21.
We’ll watch it for sure and review it here.
BTW, Inglourious Basterds is clashing with Kanthaswamy but the audience may not be the same.
SI asked “Remember the line Samuel Jackson keeps repeating?”
Yes of course, I have only watched that movie about 4 times though. I am one of the many who feels that Pulp Fiction was cheated by Forrest Gump in the best picture category in 1995.. which one would you have voted for? Interestingly Shawshank Redemption is from the same year. Both PF and SR are rated much higher than FG by the imdb users.
So is Kaminey a thiruttu movie or not? I am guessing a big comparison chart is coming up?
SearchIndia.com Responds:
1. You write above: I am one of the many who feels that Pulp Fiction was cheated by Forrest Gump in the best picture category in 1995.. which one would you have voted for?
Pulp Fiction and Shawshank Redemption were both fine movies. No question. But Forrest Gump is an exceptional movie with extraordinary drama.
A lot of us are guilty of using that word ‘classic’ loosely these day but if that expression belongs to any movie it’s Forrest Gump.
Without hesitation, we’d have picked Forrest Gump for the Oscars.
Here’s an excerpt from our Forrest Gump review:
2. You write: So is Kaminey a thiruttu movie or not? I am guessing a big comparison chart is coming up?
We’ll do a post on that subject later today. We have a desi friend coming in for lunch from NJ. Hence the delay.
I watched Pasanga yesterday.. 1000 times better than the big budget Tamil movies.. It isn’t as crisp or professional as I wanted it to be..
but still a decent watch for a Tamil movie. Liked it better than Subramaniyapuram.. Felt both movies were over-hyped.. but Pasanga deserves the hype more than S’Puram.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
We think we saw the Pasanga DVD at some desi grocery store the other day but it’s just way too far to go back and return it. So we skipped it. Will wait for Netflix.
Yes Kaminey story seems very similar to Pulp Fiction. But I haven’t seen Kaminey as yet. Not going to theatres for sometime due to swine flu scare π
SearchIndia.com Responds:
We’ll do a separate post on this issue later today.
Right now, we’re enjoying Mathura Peda a.k.a Dharwad Peda with our desi friend from NJ.
1. We didnΓ’β¬β’t realize Jimmie was Tarantino until the credits started rolling at the end of the movie.
LOL he appears in short roles in movies of his and of Robert Rodriguez. But to add, he’s a poor actor nonetheless. Compared to these chimps we have here, he’ll qualify for an Oscar though.
2. SI: BTW, Inglourious Basterds is clashing with Kanthaswamy but the audience may not be the same.
I’d highly recommend you to watch Kanthaswamy first. If you are alive after that, go for Inglorious Basterds. I’m 99.99% sure that Kanthaswami will be crap. Parkalam (Lets see) (In SI style :D)
SearchIndia.com Responds:
Will try to watch both Kanthaswamy and Inglourious Basterds.
@Albert
{Deleted at request of author]
Sorry SI, can you please delete this comment and the one just I posted before this? I was mistaken…
Sorry for the trouble!
SearchIndia.com Responds:
Your previous comment targeted at @Albert has been deleted. π
what?? this is too much.. why am I always involved in the “deleted” messages.. was is it abusive?? π₯
SearchIndia.com Responds:
No, not abusive.
@mallukuttan , don’t dare to talk abt kanthaswamy before the release, if u talk abt bheema then its ok , because that was a trash movie.
No hard feelings Albert, i though you were talking abt Nadodigal. It was a mistake so I asked SI to delete it. π
Pasanga was kinda OK, but not better than S’puram by any means, atleast for me.
π
nadodigal,pasanga and subramaniyapuram all were good and credits should go for Sasikumar
SearchIndia.com Responds:
We’ll try to see them.
update? review?
SearchIndia.com Responds:
Soon.