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Movie Review: Banjo’s Commercial Prospects At The Box Office Turnstiles Are Very Bleak

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banjo-movie

Banner: Eros International
Producer: Krishika Lulla
Director: Ravi Jadhav
Starcast: Riteish Deshmukh, Nargis Fakhri, Dharmesh Yelande, Aditya Kumar, Ram Menon, Mahesh Shetty, Luke Kenny, Mohan Kapur et al
Music: Vishal–Shekhar

Ravi Jadhav, the well – known director of Marathi Cinema, now makes his debut in Bollywood. The conception of the story is good and the film could have turned out to be a good musical entertainer. But alas it was not to be so.

The scripted scenario of Banjo kickstarts with film the “musical introduction” of the Mumbai based Nandkishore aka Taraat (Riteish Deshmukh), an extraordinary banjo player who also doubles up as an extortionist for the sake of earning extra money. His Banjo band consists of 3 (part time) members named Grease (Dharmesh Yelande), Paper (Aditya Kumar) & Vaaja (Ram Menon). On the other side of the globe (New York, to be specific), exists an aspiring & spunky DJ Chris (Nargis Fakhri), who wants to enter a prestigious music championship. While she is searching for the right music as her entry in the championship, her Mumbai based friend (Luke Kenny) helps her by sending a recording of Taraat’s banjo performance during Ganeshotsav festival. Totally impressed by Taraat’s mesmerising tunes, Chris reaches Mumbai, in order to search for Taraat and his talented team members, as she wants to collaborate for a song with them as her entry in the music championship. In no time, Taraat unknowingly becomes Chris’ guide & friend in Mumbai. And while, doing so, he gradually falls in love with her. At the same time, Taraat and his gang refrain from revealing to Chris that they are banjo players, fearing insult & rejection from her. What they don’t realise however is that it is in search of their band for whom Chris has especially flown down to India. One fine day, when Chris gets to know about Taraat and his Banjo band, her happiness knows no bounds and she immediately starts jamming with them for her songs. Amidst all this, an unfortunate incident occurs that completely changes the lives of Taraat, his band members & Chris as well.

Director Ravi Jadhav’s directorial skills have gone awry because of the poorerst writing skills of Ravi Jadhav himself in tandem with
Kapil Sawant & Nikhil Mehrotra. Need I say anything more?

Performance wise Ritiesh Deshmukh has really worked wonders by literally getting into the skin of the character. Just watch out for his new avatar of a Banjo player dwelling in the grimy slums in lieu with his side job as a tapori extortionist and then he also showcases one more side of his as a silent lover. On the other hand, Nargis Fakhri delivers a convincing performance. The next in line superb performance comes from Luke Kenny in a believable role of a street smart musician. Some of the other actors like Dharmesh Yelande as Grease, Aditya Kumar as Paper, Ram Menon as Vaaja & Mahesh Shetty as Pakya are too good to be true.

Tail Piece: Banjo can very well be termed as an arty film lover’s delight and should be promising enough for the global film festival circuits. But its commercial prospects at the Box Office turnstiles are very bleak.

Movie Review: M. S. Dhoni: The Untold Story is a not to be missed film at any cost

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m-s-dhoni-the-untold-story

Banner: Fox Star Studios, Inspired Entertainment & Friday FilmWorks
Producer: Arun Pandey & Fox Star Studios
Director: Neeraj Pandey
Starcast: Sushant Singh Rajput, Disha Patani, Kiara Advani, Bhoomika Chawla, Anupam Kher et al.
Music: Amaal Mallik, Rochak Kohli & Sanjoy Chaudhary

Director Neeraj Pandey has proved his worth time & again with his flawless directional skills in scores of movies. And now he his back with his outstanding directorial venture namely M. S. Dhoni: The Untold Story. So much so that after this film he may very well be crowned as the “Badshah Of Biopic” movies. Take a Bow Mr. Neeraj Pandey.

Fox Star Studios’ M. S. Dhoni: The Untold Story is a film mainly about the untold & unknown aspects of Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s life. The film starts off with the iconic match that took place between India & Sri Lanka on 2nd Apr, 2011. This is followed by a series of flashbacks into the life of M. S. Dhoni, who grows up with his passion of playing football. It is during one such match when his sports teacher spots his impeccable talent in goalkeeping. On his insistence, an initially reluctant Dhoni, then starts playing cricket. When Dhoni realises that he is only keeping wickets and not getting an opportunity to bat, he “creates an opportunity” and starts smashing the ball in all directions, thus, impressing one & all. Things, then, start gradually moving forward for Dhoni, who, after playing for a handful of Government organisations, lands up becoming a TC (Ticket Collector) at Kharagpur station and starts playing for the railways. As days pass, his job tires him physically & mentally too, leaving him limited time for cricket practice. When frustration reaches its peak in Dhoni’s mind, he quits his railway job and comes back home, something that extremely annoys his father (Anupam Kher). Amidst all this, when Dhoni gets a call from the selectors to play for India, he does not play well on the ground, despite that being his 1st ever international match. He however gets insipired on meeting Priyanka (Disha Patani) who boosts up his morale and Dhoni regains his form. Just when life starts blooming for Dhoni, both, professionally & personally, an unexpected tragedy buoys him down miserably. Around this time, Dhoni happens to meet Sakshi (Kiara Advani).

Director Neeraj Pandey has done full justice to this Dhoni Biopic. He promised to highlight “the untold story” about Dhoni, whose “private life” has been extremely guarded. The film is all about the trails, the tribulations, the challenges, the failures & the eventual success of Dhoni. And Neeraj does not let the viewers down. He delivers what he has promised. Besides the film remains clear of gossips, scandals & rumors in any form. In fact Neeraj has just presented the true sides of Dhoni’s life. And what a presentation!!! A special worthy mention also goes for the entire technical team. Take a Bow once again Mr. Neeraj Pandey.

Performance wise Sushant Singh Rajput is outstanding & brilliant to the core!!! In fact he is “MS Dhoni personified” in every frame of the film. He has given his all to make sure that his role as Dhoni simply remains “unforgettable” unlike his totally forgettable last outing namely Yashraj Films Detective Byomkesh Bakshi. While Disha Patani makes a picture perfect debut, but Kiara Advani is just about ok. On the other hand Bhumika Chawla enacting the role of Dhoni’s sister springs a pleasant surprise and that too when she has made her comeback to Bollywood after almost a decade. Welcome Back Bhumika!!! Anupam Kher in one word is “Superb”. That apart the entire supporting cast lends an adequate support and makes the film worth watching even more.

Tail Piece: M. S. Dhoni: The Untold Story will hit many more centuries at the Box Office turnstiles. Besides In a nation where Bollywood & cricket are considered as religion, the amalgamation of both will really work wonders at the Box Office turnstiles. All in all M. S. Dhoni: The Untold Story is a not to be missed film at any cost.

Japan’s Yoshinori Ohsumi wins Nobel prize in medicine

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Japanese professor worked on how cells break down and recycle content, which could shed light on range of diseases.

Ohsumi is currently a professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology [Reuters]

Ohsumi is currently a professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology [Reuters]

by Al Jazeera

A Japanese professor has won the 2016 Nobel prize for medicine or physiology for his discovery of how cells break down and recycle their content, which could lead to a better understanding of a range of diseases, including cancer, Parkinson’s and type 2 diabetes.

“[Yoshinori] Ohsumi’s discoveries led to a new paradigm in our understanding of how the cell recycles its content,” the Nobel Assembly at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute said in a statement on awarding the prize of $933,000.

“His discoveries opened the path to understanding … many physiological processes, such as in the adaptation to starvation or response to infection,” the statement added.

Ohsumi’s work on cell breakdown, a field known as autophagy, is important because it can help explain what goes wrong in an array of diseases.

“Mutations in autophagy (‘self eating’) genes can cause disease, and the autophagic process is involved in several conditions including cancer and neurological disease,” the statement said.

Ohsumi, born in 1945 in Fukuoka, Japan, has been a professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology since 2009. He received a PhD from the University of Tokyo in 1974.

“I am extremely honoured,” he told Kyodo News agency.

Autophagy is essential for the orderly degradation and recycling of damaged cell parts and its failure is believed to be responsible for ageing and cell damage.

Researchers first observed during the 1960s that the cell could destroy its own contents by wrapping them up in membranes and transporting them to a recycling compartment called the lysosome.

“Difficulties in studying the phenomenon meant that little was known until, in a series of brilliant experiments in the early 1990s, Yoshinori Ohsumi used baker’s yeast to identify genes essential for autophagy.”

He also explained the underlying mechanisms for autophagy in yeast and showed that similar sophisticated machinery is used in human cells.

Last year, Irish-born William Campbell of the US, Satoshi Omura of Japan and China’s Tu Youyou won the prestigious award for their discoveries of treatments against parasites.

Kashmir newspaper banned for ‘inciting violence’

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The government in the Himalayan region bans Kashmir Reader newspaper as anti-India protests continue to take place.

The statement orders a ban on the printing and publishing of the newspaper "till further orders so that disturbance of public tranquillity is prevented" [Kashmir Reader]

The statement orders a ban on the printing and publishing of the newspaper “till further orders so that disturbance of public tranquillity is prevented” [Kashmir Reader]

by Al Jazeera

The Jammu and Kashmir state government has banned local newspaper Kashmir Reader accusing the daily of publishing material that “tends to incite acts of violence”, the editor of the newspaper has told Al Jazeera.

Hilal Mir, editor of the newspaper, on Monday said that a group of police officers entered the publication’s premises late on Sunday with an order from the Srinagar District Magistrate to halt publishing.

“Yesterday evening five or six policemen came to our office and handed over the order to stop publication of the newspaper. We don’t know why, the situation is not our creation. Whatever is happening we are reporting that [and] we are reporting like any other newspaper.

“For now we have a meeting of Editors and publishers in the evening, then we will proceed accordingly. We can take the legal course as well. We want to know why it happened,” he said.

According to the court order, a portion of which was published on Kashmir Reader’s website, the newspaper was banned because it contained “such material and content which tends to incite acts of violence and disturb public peace and tranquillity”.

“Therefore, it has become expedient in the interest of prevention of this anticipated breach of public tranquillity to forthwith take necessary precautionary measures,” the order said “and asked printing presses to stop printing Kashmir Reader with immediate effect”.

The ban on Kashmir Reader comes as the people’s uprising against Indian rule in Indian-administered Kashmir continues unabated since the killing of popular rebel leader Burhan Wani in July. At least 83 people have been killed and 12,000 others injured since theuprising began.

Another English language local newspaper, Greater Kashmir, reported on Monday that 100 protesters were injured in clashes between protesters and Indian armed forces over the weekend. On Monday, an Indian soldier was killed when armed fighters attacked an Indian military camp in Baramulla, a town 50km northwest of the state capital, Srinagar.

The attack comes three days after the Indian army said it had carried out a “surgical strike” in the region and destroyed “terrorist launching pads” used by the fighters with support from Pakistan.

Al Jazeera’s Kamal Hyder, reporting from Pakistan’s capital Islamabad, said that Pakistan government continues to refute claims that any such “surgical strike” took place.

Tensions between India and Pakistan over Kashmir have also reached extraordinary levels with the killing of 18 Indian soldiers in September, blamed on Pakistan-based armed groups.

The attempt to gag Kashmir Reader comes after a series of attempts by the state government to clamp down on media and communication in the valley. Since July, mobile phone services have been intermittently cut, the internet has been blocked and newspapers have been routinely raided by police.

In July, the Indian Journalists Union (IJU) held a protest in New Delhi against the “clampdown” on the media in Kashmir after the state government were found to be prohibiting publicaiton of newspapers and confiscating printed materials.

“The J&K Police action in the name of volatile situation in the Valley is an attack on the freedom of the media and unacceptable in a democracy … The IJU demands that the police should desist from such illegal and unconstitutional actions immediately and allow the press to function unhindered,” the IJU statement said.

Al Jazeera was unable to reach the Jammu and Kashmir State government or the ruling People’s Democratic Party for comment.

Kashmir is divided into two parts, one administered by India and the other one by Pakistan.

India claims Pakistan has been supporting a violent secessionist movement in Kashmir – a charge Islamabad has consistently denied. It calls Kashmiri rebels freedom fighters.

Tens of thousands of people, mostly civilians, have died in the fighting.

Additional reporting by Rifat Fareed in Srinagar

India clinch NZ series, ensure No.1 ranking in Tests

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india-nz

Kolkata: Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja spun India to an unassailable 2-0 lead and the No.1 ranking in Tests, pinning New Zealand down in a riveting see-saw four-day affair, to win the second cricket Test by 178 runs here on Monday.

Local boy Wriddhiman Saha was adjudged Man of the Match for his unconquered 54 and 58 in the two Indian innings at the Eden Gardens.

Besides Saha, contributions with the bat by captain Virat Kohli (45) and Rohit Sharma (82) in the second innings helped India post 263 after a top-order collapse threatened to take the match away from them.

But despite the visitors’ grit early on in their 376-run chase, they fell to the guile of Indian tweakers once again — similar to the first Test at Kanpur that they lost by 197 runs — managing a meagre 197 in their seconds outing.

The tourists started their run chase well, riding on opener Tom Latham’s (74 not out; 144 balls, 8×4) ninth half-century and contributions from Martin Guptill (24) and Henry Nicolls (24) at the top order.

But post-lunch, the in-form Indian spinners ran through the Kiwi batting. Both Ashwin (3/82) and Jadeja (3/41) made mischief in tandem, joining in the party was the raw pace and swing of Mohammed Shami (3/46), who shaved off the lower order. Bhuvneshwar Kumar (1/28) claimed the remaining wicket.

Latham departed soon after tea, starting the slide. Ashwin’s mastery over his craft was on show as he floated an inviting delivery which forced the opener to drive away from his body giving a nick to wicketkeeper Saha.

Mitchell Santner (9) and B.J. Watling (1) followed suit in quick succession, Shami accounting for both the scalps.

Luke Ronchi (32; 60 balls, 4×4) fought briefly before Jadeja accounted for him, castling the 35-year old. Jeetan Patel (2) failed to replicate his first innings form, when he scored a gutsy 47, failing to comprehend the reverse swing generated from a good length ball by Buvneshwar.

Matt Henry (18) and Trent Boult (4) were cleaned up by Jadeja and Shami, respectively.

Earlier, India wrested back the second session from New Zealand as Ashwin and Jadeja took three wickets to deny the tourists any hope of a fightback at tea.

Latham staged a lone battle as top-order batsmen fell around him.

The hosts took 16 overs in the innings to get the first breakthrough. Ashwin pitched the ball fuller and it turned in from outside the off stump to catch Martin Guptill (24; 49 b, 3×4) off guard.

It was an important wicket just when the opening stand had started to look steady, engineering a partnership of 55 runs. The second-wicket stand between Latham and Henry Nicolls (24) was of 49 runs, helping the Kiwis reach 104 when Nicolls fell.

With the wicket offering a lot of turn, Jadeja made the most of it. Changing his angle to outfox Nicolls, who failed to come fully forward to cover the turn, the left-arm tweaker got the outside edge of Nicolls’ bat with Rahane taking the catch at first slip.

Ross Taylor, who is standing in for indisposed captain Kane Williamson, lasted only 26 minutes in which the right-hander scored just eight runs before falling to Ashwin’s guile, dismissed leg before wicket. Taylor played the wrong line leaving umpire Richard Kettleborough with an easy decision to make as the ball hit Taylor’s front pad.

Earlier, resuming at 227 for eight, India were all out for 263 in their second innings.

Wriddhiman Saha, who had run out of partners in the first innings after scoring 54, once again anchored the lower order, remaining not out at 58 (120 balls, 6×4) — his fourth Test half century.

The two overnight batsmen, Saha and Bhuvneshwar Kumar (23; 51 balls, 2×4, 1×6) were involved in a 56-run partnership that helped India cross the 250-mark and set New Zealand a target which no team has ever achieved in the fourth innings at the famed ground.

The stand was broken in the 10th over of the morning session when Bhuvneshwar misjudged the bounce of Neil Wagner’s delivery and offered an easy catch to short leg. It was Wagner’s 99th wicket in 25 Tests.

(IANS)

Search operation called off after Baramulla attack, militants escape

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Jammu Kashmir

Srinagar: A massive search operation to hunt down militants who escaped after a failed attempt to attack an army camp in north Kashmir’s Baramulla town was called off on Monday morning, officials said.

The search operation, which lasted for more than six hours, was launched soon after a two-hour gunfight outside the camp of counter-insurgency 46 Rashtriya Rifles (RR) in Janbazpora stopped late Sunday night, a senior police officer said.

“After six hours, the search operation was called off and traffic restored in the area,” he said.

Border Security Force (BSF) Constable Nitin Kumar was killed and Constable Parminder injured when a group of heavily armed guerrillas attacked the camp on Sunday night.

“The two troopers got suspicious of some movement. When they tried to find out the cause, they were fired upon by militants using grenade-launchers. One of the grenades exploded, seriously injuring Nitin,” BSF’s Kashmir Frontier Inspector General Vikash Chandra told Times Now.

Parminder was hit in his leg. Despite his injuries, Constable Nitin fired at least 20 rounds while Parminder fired 48 rounds.

“Nitin Kumar succumbed to injuries in a hospital. But we repulsed the attack,” the IG said.

“We have seized a wirecutter, which points towards the terrorists’ intention. They should ideally have been killed, but they escaped due to darkness and ground conditions,” the BSF officer said.

The forces are on high alert to face any eventuality, he said.

Police said that ‘fidayeen’ militants attacked the army camp outpost at around 10.30 p.m. on Sunday.

“They used grenades and heavy automatic gunfire as cover in their attempt to enter the camp,” the senior police officer said.

“They first attacked the camp outpost guarded by the BSF but were thwarted by the security forces.”

The attack on the 46 RR camp comes in the wake of the Indian Army’s surgical strikes on September 29 across the Line of Control in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and the killing of 19 soldiers by four terrorists in the garrison town of Uri in Baramulla district on September 18.

(Agencies)

Supreme Court seeks report from Karnataka on Cauvery water release

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cauvery-water

New Delhi: Supreme Court today asked the Karnataka government to apprise it by tomorrow afternoon whether it has released water to Tamil Nadu as directed by it on September 30.

The Centre also moved the apex court seeking modification of its earlier order asking it to constitute the Cauvery Water Management Board (CWMB) by Tuesday.

Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for the Centre, told the court that the Centre should not have been asked to constitute the CWMB as the main civil appeal on the issue was still pending and the task of setting up the CWMB fell under the domain of the Executive.

A bench comprising Justices Dipak Misra and C Nagappan listed the interim plea of the Centre for hearing tomorrow. The apex court sought a report from Karnataka by 2 PM tomorrow on compliance of its order of September 30.

On September 30, SC had directed Karnataka to discharge 6,000 cusecs water from October 1-6, warning it that no one would know when the “wrath of the law” would fall on it.

The apex court had also directed the Centre to establish the CWMB, saying once it was constituted, its team would visit the sites to take a prima facie view of the ground reality and submit a report.

On October 1, Karnataka had moved a review petition in the apex court against its three orders on Cauvery water release to Tamil Nadu and direction to the Centre to create the CWMB.

In its review petition, Karnataka said “grave miscarriage of justice” has been caused to it pursuant to the three apex court orders of September 20, 27 and 30, by which it was directed to release 6000 cusecs of water till October 6 and the Centre was to constitute the Board by October 4.

(Agencies)

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