Saturday, August 30, 2008

Movie Marathon

Yesterday I watched two Bollywood movies back-to-back at one of my favourite cinemas, Regal, Bombay. First it was Rock-On (RO) and then Bachna Ae Haseeno (BAH).

RO is one of the best movies to come out of Bollywood in recent years. A story of a dismantled college rock band - who have since moved on with their lives doing regular chores, jobs and boring family businesses - that come together thanks to an initiative of the wife of one of the group members. Brilliantly directed, well-edited, crisp and cool performances, RO is a winner. Actors are becoming directors (Aamir Khan of Taare Zameen Par) and directors are becoming actors (Farhan Akhtar who earlier directed Dil Chahta Hain is one of the four band members in RO).
Rating: * * * *

BAH was also better than I had expected. A story of a casanova who flirts around with girls, sleeps with them and then dumps them. Till reality hits him when he lands up on the receiving end. The dude repents and decides to make amends by travelling back in time to apologise for his mistakes and attain closure. But getting closure is not an easy task, he realises. Loved Bipasha Basu, Miniisha Lamba is so-so and Deepika Padukone is just about good enough. Ranbir Kapoor is confident, but overacts.
Rating: * * *

2 comments:

  1. Aur kohi kaam danda nahi hain kya jo dho-dho picture dekhta hai ek din mein! Aur bipasha se ishk bhi pharmata hai! somebody should throw a 'rock on' you to bring you to senses! :-) above rant apart, your post on FMPs - isn't it market forces (rising interest rates) that have made their NAVs tumble? why should they be completely blamed for it?

    ReplyDelete
  2. the NAV in an FMP doesn't have a great deal of significance because unlike a typical debt fund, an FMP buy and holds that instrument till maturity. Unlike other funds that are exposed to interest rate risk (the inverse relationship between interest rates and prices of debt scrips at work here), an FMP negates the interest rate risk because it stays invested in its underlying scrips till maturity.

    So if an FMP gets into an instrument that pays, say, 11%, then the FMP would earn that 11% (plus the initial principal payment) if it stays invested in that instrument till its maturity. It works just like a loan given to a borrower - think of an FMP like a lender.

    FMPs are good instruments. It's just that some FMPs take undue credit risk and in a chase for higher returns, lend money (invest in) to 2-tier and 3-tier companies that face the danger of defaulting on their payments.

    ReplyDelete

Has Novak Djokovic left the US Open ghost behind?

It's not just tennis that's back. Even Novak Djokovic is back after being kicked out of the US Open earlier this month. Last week, h...