MKMJA is the story of Maya. Maya lives in New Delhi, is married to Vikram and has a daughter Priya. Maya’s life is mundane and centers around her family.
One evening she overhears a conversation between her husband and another woman and realises that he’s having an affair. Her simple, family centric life around her breaks down and she realises how Vikram had slowly degenerated her confidence and self esteem in the past few years of their marriage. He stopped her from singing and abandoning all her dreams.
During a conversation with her neighbour Mrs Mathur, who is looking for an ideal tenant, she conjures up her fantasy man, Jai.
Through Jai, who keeps reoccurring in her dreams in different avtars, she regains her confidence. He inspires her to pursue her ultimate dream of singing.
With the help of her neighbours, a young band, she embarks on realising her dreams.
Will her fantasy turn into reality or will reality hinder her dreams?
Considering that the last releases of both Raima and Randeep – “C-Kkompany” and “Ru-Ba-Ru” respectively – were box office duds, one can hope for the best for their “Mere Khwabon Mein Jo Aaye”.

There’s no harm if you pick up an enticing story and tell it your way, but Kashyap goes a bit too far, crosses all limits and tends to get abstract once again. And that’s the reason for DEV D’s downfall.

In ‘Dev D’, Anurag Kashyap and Abhay Deol dust him off and resurrect him, making of him just another guy who goes at romance with all the arrogance and prickliness and insecurities of a young man. Recognise yourself in him? Dev’s (Abhay) childhood sweetheart Paro (Mahi Gill) has all of these qualities, tempered by the essential female-ness of her. When, in a fit of jealous pique, he throws her off, she doesn’t beg or grovel: she turns her back on him, too. Recognise yourself in her?

Not one to take on responsibilities for his acts, Dev digs deep into drugs and alcohol for salvation. He stays away from home, but his finances still come from a doting father.

In this virtuoso re-working of the Devdas story, there’s none of the obfuscatory self-indulgence that marred Kashyap’s last outing, ‘No Smoking’. The cast is perfect for their parts. Debutante Mahi Gill is no Bollywoodized phoolkari-dupatta-wearing ingénue:

she dresses, moves and behaves like a feisty girl who’s been born and brought up in sugarcane country in rural Punjab. The other first-timer, Kalki, is astonishingly apt too: her journey from a traumatized schoolgirl (based on the MMS scandal emanating from one of Delhi’s top schools a few years ago) to a role-playing, phone sex-worker Chanda, is riveting. The first is raw and sensuous, the other raises the lust-meter as high as any red-blooded male can handle, but both are heart-stoppingly, blatantly alive, needy, looking-for-love-with-sex-as-a-by-product real girl-women.

Amit Trivedi’s music sounds good to the ears. ‘Emosanal Attyachaar’ is already popular, besides a couple of other songs ['Nayan Tarse' and 'Pardesi']. But there’re too many songs in the narrative. Rajeev Ravi’s cinematography captures the rustic look of North India well.

Luck By Chance is the directorial debut of Zoya Akhtar, who is from the talented Akhtar Family. She shows her talent in the direction and script department but sadly chooses the same old story of strugglers in Mumbai changing their attitude after getting a break with some luck.

Luck By Chance is both insightful and funny. The film serves up a palette of colorful characters who may seem like caricatures on the outside but come packed with emotional depth and even a tinge of sad back-story. Chief among these is greasy old-school film producer Romi Rolly (played astoundingly by Rishi Kapoor) who, at one point we see break down when a superstar he created won’t return his calls. Or the yesteryear siren-turned-pushy star-mum (played by Dimple Kapadia) who makes a shocking confession when confronted by her exasperated daughter.

The highpoint of the film are its performances. Both Farhan and Konkona are complete naturals before the camera, just as Rishi Kapoor and Dimple Kapadia prove that vintage never does lose its flavour.

The story is about a frustrated ghost with a hint of social consciousness trying to teach its murderers a lesson. Kangana Ranaut is a model and she is in a love-hate relationship with Adhyayan Suman, who runs a TV show called “AndhVishwas” The ghost must have seen too many Hollywood films and it liberally uses all those tricks to scare Kangana. Serial kisser Emraan Hashmi is a painter who can see the future in his paintings. He keeps drawings Kangana’s pictures and sees her in trouble all the time (I wasn’t impressed with this observations powers though. In his pictures, Kangana is always fully dressed). The story is all about knowing why the ghost is interested in her and what does it want to do to Kangana.

For any horror movie to work, the entire story of why it happened must be really good and solid. For the audience to love and enjoy the movie they must be captivated enough to feel that such-and-such happened because of so-an-so reason.

Technically the movie is good with some good editing and excellent background music by Raju Singh. The sound effects are good and up to the mark. The cinematography, a very important aspect of any horror flick doesn’t raise above average. There has been efforts to use color filters in some sequences but somehow they don’t seem to accentuate the scene much.

Cast: Irrfan Khan, Anil Kapoor, Dev Patel, Freida Pinto, Mahesh Manjrekar, Saurabh Shukla and Ankur Vikal

Dharavi boy Jamal Malik, server of ‘chai’, keeper of secrets, is one of the wise. He’s learnt his wisdom on the streets, and he uses it to become a millionaire.

The film has the popular show Who Wants To Be A Millionaire at the centre. A contestant on the show, Jamal Malik (Dev Patel) is on his way to winning the prize money. He answers each question correctly but behind every answer there is a story.

A story which shocks, awes and reveals his life and love. Quizzing him on the show is Prem (Anil Kapoor), getting out the truth is the Inspector (Irrfan Khan), living in hope is Latika (Freida Pinto), regretting his act is Salim (Madhur Mittal) and slowly unfolding it all is Jamal (Salim). What finally transpires is an easy guess.

To get back on the show for the final question — by explaining to the dubious police inspector (Irfan Khan) how he came to know what he does — Jamal has to tell him  the story of his life, a story which, in true Frank Capra fashion, chance, luck, suffering and street smarts all play major parts.

Jamal’s companion in most things is his older brother, Salim (Madhur Mittal), a hard-headed cynic where Jamal is a passionate dreamer, the kind of kid who is willing, in one of the film’s most piquant scenes, to wade through the offal from an outhouse to get to his hero, Indian film legend Amitabh Bachchan.

As Jamal describes the specific incidents that led to his being able to answer each of the quiz show questions, he is simultaneously telling several stories, tales of the link between brothers, the never-ending battle with poverty, the lure and pitfalls of crime and the rapid modernization of India.

The film brings a smile to your face and a tear to your eye. It makes you acknowledge the little boy who taps your car window for money, it acknowledges the fact that evil lives in the same place as good, and it recognizes love, hate, power and destiny.

A masala flick it is, and a pretty good one at that. Unlike remakes released in the recent past , CC2C doesn’t try to be too serious: instead, it offers comedy, drama and some brilliant stunts that Akshay Kumar not only fits into very easily, but also very clearly enjoys.

Chandni Chowk to China is about Sidhu, a clumsy looser who counts his success and growth on luck. In attempts to become something big in life and not remain a vegetable cutter throughout his life, he visits astrologers, tarot readers and baba’s in search of anything that possibly could bring him some luck. Despite all the efforts from his dada (Mithun Chakroborty), Sidhu continues to believe the conmen in the disguise of saints. Meanwhile, two Chinese men come in search of Sidhu claiming him to be the reincarnation of their long dead war idol asking for help to save their village from the clutches of Hojo (Gordon Liu). Falling to the words of swindler Chopstick (Ranvir Shorey), Sidhu delightfully sets forth to China without having a slightest idea of the danger that’s awaiting him. Throughout his journey, Sidhu dreams of his royal life with his love interest (Deepika Padukone). What happens to Sidhu when reality strikes him? Will he be able to stand against evil?

The movie is strongly reminiscent of the seventies Bollywood movies complete with lost at birth babies, tearful reunions and heroes singlehandedly fending off the evil guys. Well, the latter is reminiscent of Kung Fu movies. In fact CC2C is a Kung-Fu Bollywood fusion, the first of its kind. Another first for this movie is that it is backed by Warner Bros. Surprising that Warner got itself into such an unoriginal venture and plans a sequel!
However, making box office predictions is quite impossible.

Director Aditya Chopra chooses a desi plot and weaves a story around an ordinary, middle class couple. The story begins with gusto and the initial scenes between Shah Rukh and Anushka are thoroughly interesting. But the screenplay falters the moment Shah Rukh’s character Surinder transforms into Raj and his personality undergoes a sea-change.

The two make an odd match. She is a good-looking Punjabi kudi with suppressed jubilance, and he – in his full sleeve shirts and loose pants over sports shoes – is as ordinary and clumsy as a man could be. Even though Surinder loves her, he doesn’t express it to Taani, hoping that haule haule she would begin to love him. But that day doesn’t come, and Surinder decides to transform himself into the kind of man his lonely wife would admire – a hip dude in narrow-fit jeans, studded boots and ragged tee-hee shirts.

In his new avatar as Raj, he becomes Taani’s dance partner in a competition. And even as he makes her laugh and relive life, she doesn’t realize that Raj is the same ordinary man she makes toasts for every morning. So the irony of this love story is that the more Taani is drawn towards Raj, the more Surinder loses her. And Surinder cannot be Raj forever.

To be fair to the director, he has penned a nice story with some fine dialogues and situations that keep a perpetual smile on your face. The meek and submissive protagonist (played brilliantly by SRK) may be the story’s underdog, but your heart goes out for him. He is a man who amuses you with his ordinariness. And he evokes sympathy (not the pitiful kind) when you see him locked in a losing battle with his other fictitious half in winning over his wife’s love.

The movie tells the story of a petty crook Subhash ( Paresh Rawal ) who saves the life of a rich man Adenwala ( Naseeruddin Shah ) and gets the job as his driver. An ex filmmaker who’s drinking himself to death, Adenwala is married to a young pretty but fiery wife Mallika ( Neha Dhupia ) who’s favorite pastime seem to be squandering her alcoholic husband’s wealth.

Tired of his messed up life, Adenwala commits suicide and leaves behind a whopping insurance sum which the surviving players — his wife, driver, lawyer ( Boman Irani ) and caretaker ( Tara Sharma ) – want to get their hands on. But there’s one problem. They would have to turn the suicide into murder. And somebody has to be the fall guy.

Despite such a talented ensemble, director Shivam Nair botches up ‘Maharathi’ with his shoddy direction.

Samit ( Irrfan Khan ) and Mita ( Soha Ali Khan ) are married but not made for each other. He loves to experiment in bed and wants a sexually aggressive wife, but Mita is an intellectual who cherishes delicate moments of love and wants to go slow with her sexually impatient husband.

Expectedly, Irrfan falls for his curvy aerobics instructor ( Payal Rohatgi ) who is a sex bomb with a defused intellect.

The wedge in Samit and Mita’s marriage forces their friends Rishi ( Rahul Bose ) and Simi ( Konkona Sen Sharma ) to ponder over their dull married life. Deep within, Rishi, a professor, is tormented (pleasantly though) by sexual fantasies about his student Raga (Saba), while Simi, an agony aunt for a magazine, finds herself getting attracted to Veer ( Rahul Khanna ), an art director nursing a heart break. But, willy-nilly, Simi ends up playing a matchmaker between Veer and Mita (Soha).

‘Dil Kabaddi’ does have a few funny sequences, but overall the film fails to deliver what it promised.

The movie tells the story of Rajeev ( Sudeep ), a builder and a staunch atheist with a family comprising of a loving wife ( Amrita Khanvilkar ), two kids Raksha ( Ahsaas Chana ) and Rohan (Shrey), and a religious mother.

A non-believer in God or Devil, Rajiv’s world and his belief system goes topsy-turvy when an evil is let loose in his house and the most affected is his daughter Raksha who begins behaving in strange ways.

The doctors say Raksha suffers from “psycho dissassociative disorder” but offer no conclusive cure. Not long before it’s clear that a black magic spell has been cast on Rajeev’s family by some malicious ill-wishers. It’s a spell that only an exorcist can break.

Unlike any pulpy horror flick, ‘Phoonk’ doesn’t scare you with its gory details but by gradually building up your anticipation regarding what would unfold on the screen. Varma’s technical prowess does come handy to this effect but there are a couple of scenes where the filmmaker overindulges in this style.

RGV is back with a bang. There’s a certain consistency from start to end and this time, he gets the right subject to prove his detractors wrong. Every sequence bears the stamp of a genius that RGV is, hits and flops notwithstanding.

The performances are uniformly good. Sudeep impresses you with an excellent performance. Amruta Khanvilkar is efficient. Baby Ahsaas Channa makes a strong impression. Ashwini Kalsekar is top notch. Zakir Hussain’s tantric act is superb. Ganesh Yadav lends good support. K.K. Raina and Lilette Dubey, both doctors, are competent. Kenny Desai, Anu Ansari and the actress enacting the role of Sudeep’s mother are perfect.