The Last Don

Welcome to the world of deception, lust, hatred and revenge mingled with passion and humanity. The Mafia's rule of terror, primarily based on the love for power and also their family, had always been the central theme of Puzo's novels. So after 27 years of 'The Godfather' Puzo's 'The Last Don', starts with Don Domenico Clericuzio expressing his wish of legalizing the family for the new generations after the recent war with the Santadio that caused too much bloodshed. His wishes were a command to his chief followers comprising of his sons Giorgio, Petie, Vincent and his nephew and the family Hammer, Pippi De Lena. But the seed of evil had already been sown in the past crimes of the family and thus years later Dante, his grandson and Croccifixio (Cross), son to Pippi De Lena seemed to be going opposite to the Don's wishes. The cunning Cross was promoted to the position of the second Hammer and the violent Dante eventually made his way as the primary one. Also Cross, operating in Vegas got involved in Hollywood business and started defying the Family, though slowly. Dante acted in operations under Pippi's guidance but the later complained about his crude techniques that too were not recommended by the family. Curiously, the Don seemed not to take too much offence in these two and thus his behaviours seemed mysterious to Pippi. The shadow of an evil past too seemed to loom at large and a sudden assassination of Pippi worsened the situation. Cross was baffled and silently enraged while oddly it appeared the Don was not interested in deeper investigation of the murder. Thus it was on the hand of Cross to exact revenge and for that he secretly ensambled a crew to punish the murderer. In doing so whether the Don's wishes remains guarded were yet to be seen in the final few pages.
After going through 'The Godfather', my fascination drove me to buy this book but it seemed that the years of his detachment in his writing of the Mafia families infact detached Mario Puzo further from their ways and comparing 'The Godfather', this seemed not so intense. Infact the Hollywood part and the lavish Vegas lifesytle semed to be the primary focus in the long introductory chapters though the final progress and the twist in the story no doubt, reflected ‘The Godfather’ days. Infact the description of the events preceding Pippi's assasination seemed classic to me. Overall a good read but I suggest you not to compare it with the outstanding novel called 'The Godfather'.

Daddy Cool

A hilarious piece of comedy, though a remake one but correctly acted throughout. Of all the movies that I’ve seen with him acting, this seemed to be Aftab’s best performance. Javed Jaffrey and Chunkey Pandey also acted well. Sunil Shetty, though, didn’t seem to be a right choice for the role and Ashish Choudhury also had been underutilized but Rajpal Jadav’s short but important role adds significantly to the comic.

The drama is based on Goa and all the characters have been portrayed as Christians. Steven, a resident of Goa is preparing for the final speech in honour of his father at the later’s funeral. But this seemed not to be approved even by his wife as all are expecting Brian, his brother, a famous novelist, to be the speaker. This irritates Steven as though he had always taken up the responsibility of their parents but Brian had always been held at a superior level by the relatives and friends.

In the meantime Steve’s cousin Maria was on her way with her boyfriend Michael. On the way they picked up Maria’s brother Harry, a dealer of drugs who had currently been designing a hallucinogenic drug inside Relaxo capsules. Now at Harry’s house, as Michael was increasingly panicking at the thought of confronting Maria’s father at the funeral, Maria gave him a Relaxo to lighten his nerves. But as the true character of the drug unfolded Michael started to feel its effect along the way to Steven’s.

Meanwhile, Karlos, Steven’s best friend was also on his way to the funeral accompanied by his wife, Jenny who always distrusted her husband’s fidelity. Along with them was Steven’s cynical Uncle Murphy whom age and illness has made more and more vile tongued and for no particular reason, seemed to pick on Karlos only. To make matters further worse for Karlos, one of his friends, Jim, travelling with them, joined in the ragging too. Infact worse was still to happen as a budding model Ayesha was on her way to meet her would be producer named Karlos and mistook Jenny’s husband as him. Thus the confused Karlos seemed more at risk of losing his loyalty to Jenny when a comic twist made matters straight and Ayesha’s entry seemed not so worse in reality for him.

There was another character Andrew, who claimed to Stevens to be his late father’s lover and demanded money from both the brothers threatening to expose the relation there and then.

Thus all the characters combined and the sequence of events will leave you roaring in laughter but at the same time will leave you wondering for the reason why funeral was chosen as the theme for the movie and also the justification for its name. The direction by K. Murli Mohan Rao was good though T. Surendra Reddy’s cinematography could have been much better. The music had been kept at minimum that suited the picture well.

Sab Charitro Kalponik

http://calcuttatube.com/shob-charitro-kalponik-2009-bengali-movie/22102/

Stree

A classic movie with a difference with a star cast of Uttam Kumar, Soumitra Chatterjee, Arati Mukherjee, Tarun Kumar, Bhanu Bandyopadhyay, Jahar, Sulata Chowdhury and many others. Studded with some memorable numbers by Hemanta Mukhopadhyay and Manna De, including duets of these legends, the movie will touch everyone’s heart.
The story starts with a freelance photographer, Sitapati, losing all his property to the conspiring uncles and living in the shelter of his beloved cousin and brother-in-law, earnest in his search for a permanent job. In this moment of his crisis, he was appointed as personal photographer by the whimsical Mahesh Dutta, one of the last few nobles existing in the final years of the British regime in India. Thankful to his generosity, when Sitapati began his career he was exposed to the peculiar character of his lord. He found that being an womaniser and alcoholic, Dutta loved himself to be surrounded by sycophants and didn’t care to look after his property which was slowly being exhausted by his lawyers and managers. His belief in his associates was supreme and moreover his prestige prevented him from taking advice from anybody below the ranks. The honest Sitapati did not like this and tried to make Dutta wise of the reality but to no avail. At this point of time Sitapati was introduced to Dutta’s wife Mrinmoyee and it stunned him to see that she was no other than his lost fiancée. Following this, Mrinmoyee secretly started to meet Sitapati from time to time and confided in him, her life of misery that was devoid of husband’s love. This caused much trouble in Sitapati’s mind as on the one hand his principle checked him from possible elope with Mrinmoyee that the later earnestly wished for and on the other hand his love for her prevented him from getting away from the Duttas. The drama turned to a series of misunderstandings climaxed in a classic scene with death coming as the saviour to the characters.
Salil Dutta’s direction and Nachiketa Ghosh’s music makes this movie unforgettable as do the acting of Uttam Kumar, Soumitra in the lead roles and Tarun Kumar, Arati, Bhanu and Jahar in the side roles. That a rude and negative character as that of Mahesh Dutta can invoke sympathy of the audience is once again proved by the brilliance of Uttam Kumar's acting and the meek but principled Sitapati has been portraied to perfection by Soumitra. Tarun Kumar and Bhanu are irreplacable in the side roles and Jahar also delivers anm unforgettable performance in his short role. As an afterthought, I must acknowledge that this picture would have never been possbily seen by me, were it not on the insistence of my wife for which I really am grateful to her and it truly baffles me that though her choice of movies are most of the time more than correct but I don't know why I can never have enough confidence during the time of purchase.