Vivanta by Taj @ Madikeri, Coorg

So we left from bamgalore around 2 pm. And realized that of all the times we have driven to Mysore from Bangalore, which is quite a few in past 2 years we have been in Bangalore, this time is the best time to leave from Bangalore to Mysore. May be rains on the way played a part because the roads were pretty clear.

We reached Mysore in 3.5 hours. Which is a record till now. We stayed at Brindavan gardens. Nice place to stay for a night. The Queen bed room is small. But serves the purpose for a night. It has good views of the garden. So all in all, good place.
Next day left for Coorg. The roads are surprisingly good. Four lane till Hassan and then two lane. But well built, no potholes. It still took us around 3 hours to cover around 95 km because of ghats.
At the Taj, they sprinkled holy Kaveri river water and opened the gates to a grand opening. It's a high lobby on top of a mountain. Nothing marking the boundary so gives a feeling of infinite stage extending till horizon. Extremely beautiful. If you don't see it, you are missing something in life. It's a work of art. They have made this 7 storey building to have the large infinite deck. The temperature controlled infinite pool underneath and entertainment /activity area. All in all pretty good.

The cottages are huge. I mean huge. The cottage we stayed in was bigger than our Mumbai house. One living room with fireplace. One large, and I mean large bedroom area. Then 2-3 steps down to study and viewing deck. Large windows overlooking the valley. Huge bath area, wardrobes, walk in closets and what not. It was pretty good.

Issues, no issues? Well, not really. There were issues. The restaurant processes were not figured out. The food was exorbitantly priced. There used to be a good half an hour of delay once you order the meal. So eat and then go to restaurant so that you can wait there for the food to arrive. Options were limited and they were not sure what to do if you need customization. Any, even the smallest of customization.

We witnessed the first ever buffet served during dinner in the hotel on 20th Oct. Was served an hour late from the time it should have started.

The place is new. Soft launch happened on 15th oct. Fully functional by 15th dec they say.

The place is nice. Coorg is about coffee plantations. And this place is about rain forest. The resort is on 250 acre of land. Mountains, valleys and ponds. All in the resort. Belongs to a private investor and Taj has leased it I think. 6 acres has cottages and pathways and all the stuff. Rest is jungle. Nature trails, cycling trails and what not.

It's a mixed bag review only because we have seen very high standard of service from Taj before. This still has to cover a lot of ground before it reaches say Holiday village in Goa. Or Coonoor Taj.

Overall. Extremely beautiful place. Very relaxing. Very pricy in everything. Needs improvement in service quality in restaurant. I think I will visit again. May be after Dec 2012 once it's fully launched.

Inception - movie review

Watching Inception. It's one amazing movie. May be I am not understanding it or may be I am, it is based on weird thing like dreaming.

I have thought a lot on dreams and thr weird dreams I get sometimes that I am a gangster and running from other chaps in similar profession and of course winning against them.

Very odd people coming for help, the ones I haven't seen, met or spoken to in years. Almost a Don movie running through. These dreams have come quite a few times.

So I have always been intrigued by dreams as such. Some of my friends think that dreams are B&W. I dont think so as I can remember the colours in my dream. My violet car with black windows when I was playing Michael Corleone. The steel of guns, robbers in one of my childhood dreams wearing a weird blue trousers and pink t-shirts. No hair, or may be they were masked.

Anyways, the concept of the movie is very good, dream within a dream and then again another one and how it affects the subconscious.

Controlling the dream is again a very simple scenario, you can actually script your dream to move in a direction, sometimes you can control it to nth degree.

They have taken this to the next level, pretty well done. Leonardo de Caprio is an actor who has changed completely. Compared to Titanic where he was ok to now in the Departed, Catch me if you can, Blood Diamond, the Aviator and now Inception. The guy is fantastic.

Would want to watch it once more, may be in Hindi this time to ensure that I didn't miss anything :).

And I finished the the review without reveling the story :).

Tunga Vihar - restaurant review

Going to Tunga has become like a weekend ritual for us. I think it serves the greatest south-indian food in this part of the Mumbai.

Paper masala dosa is the only thing not worth eating, because at times it has surplus oil. Everything else is absolutely fantastic.

5-Star to taste.

Dil Bole Hadippa - movie review

Loosely based on "She is the man". Tried watching this movie for more than half an hr before I started writing this post. Rani tried playing Amanda Bynes in the movie. Rani looked really nice. She was a sardar in more than half the movie.

Shahid Kapoor has a sort of confidence as he thinks (or maybe he almost believes) that he is a good looking guy who can act well too. Unfortunately, none of this is true yet.
In this movie, he gave a tough competition to Sherlyn Chopra by showing as much cleavage as she did.

Anupam Kher is wasted, the cricket theme and the plots around it are idiotic and out of context.

Yashraj films and Aditya Chopra want to experiment, which is good news. When we try changing something, going beyond our comfort zone, initially some of us fail miserably. Dil Bole Hadippa is exactly that failure for Yashraj and Aditya Chopra. I wish them all the best for next movies.

Toyota Fortuner Review

Saw two Toyota Fortuners today. Never thought there would be a car from Toyota stable which I wont like but this one is surely one of them.

Very bulky and looks like Tata Safari (which is another one I dont like), backlight arrangement is very similar to a X5. Its very curvilinear almost is as tall as it is broad. This somehow does not fit the SUV image in my head. I think SUV should be broad and flatter in looks, that gives it a mean look. More like a wide jawed Arnold Terminator look.

Now I hear this Fortuner has a 3 litre twin-turbo deisel which packs power of 171 horses and all time 4WD. Am sure toyota would have done a good job there. And I am sure its a very nice car. However, I will not buy it.

The SUVs I like Range Rover, Audi Q7, Volvo SUV which I saw today, not sure the name.

Movie review - Love Aajkal

Watching this movie called Love Aajkal.

In the first 10 mins it goes from atrociousness to ridiculousness. In the next 5 mins, it keeps swaying back and forth. Post that the movie is good.

I didnt dislike it. I didnt see it.

Rock On!!! - Movie review

Rock On!!! Nice movie overall. Can easily be watched almost once. Almost because, at some point, it feels like its become longish... Not long, just longish.

Very strong theme, "Do what you passionate about", "Go for it" types. Story goes like this, four guys formed a band while in college and later because of some reason, break up. Now all of them have not met for ten years. They are all doing various things and are successful /unsuccessful in various ways. The name of their rock band is "Magic". Can you believe it? Its such a weak name for a rock band. I would never make a movie around the name Magic. Anyways, out of the four, Poorab is ok, he tried copying Aamir Khan in DCH. I liked Luke Kelly - very normal acting but natural. Farhan sucks, sings well though and Arjun Rampal was ok cos he looked very old compared to the others.

All and all, the movie surely would have been good had Farhan Akthar directed it rather than Abhishek Kapoor. The story was very mediocre, screenplay was almost non-existent.Direction was weak. Farhan sucks as an actor, the only reason why the movie is worth-watching is because it has a very strong theme.

Shankar, Ehsaan, Loy impressed once more and Farhan was a good find as a singer.

Bombay to Bangkok - Movie

Another one from Nagesh Kukunoor. This is what I feel about the movie - this is one of the worst movies I have seen.

After watching this movie, I realised how wrong I was about Dor which I thought was one of the worst movies Nagesh Kukunoor has ever made and acted in. I cant even begin to compare the two movies. At least there was something good about Dor - Shreyas Talpade and Rajasthan, here there is absolutely nothing.

The more I am watching Farhan Akthar, I am beginning to appreciate his movie making skills - from DCH to Don to Rock On. Amazing stuff and the more I watch of Nagesh Kukunoor, I aver that Chemical engineers SHOULD NOT make movies.

The story of Bombay to Bangkok is nothing. Its just a movie you MUST NOT watch - even if someone is paying you for this. Earlier I thought he (Nagesh, who else) is trying to make a descent porn movie - but then I realised its not even that.

Shreyas Talpade is very ordinary, there is nothing for him to do anyways. The rock star villain added some idiotic comedy. Lena Christensen has good body and should try to learn acting. I don't know what else to say about her. There were no expressions and of course - not even an iota of acting.

Surprising part is - music is good. "Dheere dheere" is a fabulous song. That's the only song worth remembering, think it comes twice in the movie (probably broken down in two parts).

All in all, I take everything back I said about Dor. Its not the worst movie by Nagesh - but this one (B2B) surely is.

Great job Nagesh - you out-performed yourself.

Dor - Hindi Film

I watched this movie called Dor this weekend. Probably the worst movie Nagesh Kukunoor will ever make and act in.

The cast is a disaster. Nagesh himself looked so bad that I am sure he wont even like watching the movie the second time. It’s a very normal movie about two women, one of whose husband dies and other’s is convicted in charge.

Gul Panag (Zeenat) played the wife of convicted - Aamir. If you watch the movie, you will know why she is not doing well in mainstream cinema. Her body language is almost non-existent. Droopy shoulders, lack of expressions and she was playing the wife who travelled so much to save her husband.

Ayesha Takia (Meera) is ok. Normal acting, nothing bad, nothing great also. Probably she is too sofo for the role she was doing. Her voice modulations were clearly matching that of a South Mumbai born and brought-up and convent school educated girl rather than the Rajasthani widow she was playing.

Shreyas Talpade (Behroopiya) was the saving grace. He is good in the movie, the only other thing in the movie. (The first thing of course is Rajasthan itself). He however has a very distinctive maratha beard and so one can say he is the odd man out in the setting, but other than that, he was good. He picked up the language and dialect well. He was a pleasure.

Nagesh Kukunoor – Chopra, playing a businessman was pathetic. He neither looked nor acted like Chopra. I would have seriously liked Shakti Kapoor better in that role.

The other person who has the only good dialogue of the movie is Dadi, herself a rajasthani widow. The last dialogue of her’s is really good and that’s the only good dialogue in the entire movie.

Music – wherever there is original music by the music director (as in most places, they have used standard hindi movie songs) is good. Never heard of Salim Suleiman but he was impressive.

So this is one movie which can easily be ignored and one should not think twice if they have not watched this movie.

So, all in all, a not-so-watchable movie.

Iqbal - movie review

Watched this movie on TV. Never thought will do. Pretty straight forward movie. Same old story, a good side, a not so good side. Two good players (one better than other), on each of the sides.

The player on bad side also happens to be rich, still the talented one gets through in Indian criciet team. What happens after that, they have not covered.

Overall, the same old story we have seen in a lot of this sort of movies. A good combination of Awaal Number and Nache Mayuri. A challenged boy on the doing the right thing tries to get to Indian cricket team and in the end gets there.

Shreyas Talpade who played Iqbal did a good job. He looked really at ease with the role, also looked as he is a fast bowler. Being from Mumbai (land of cricket) helped him out.

Naseeruddin Shah who played the coach - Mohit also was good. Nothing challenging about his acting though, one of the simpler roles he has played. So, he was good as usual.

I think the difference about this movie and a few others based on sports was probably the focus on the subject. There was no heroine, no songs and dance, only cricket.

A good watch, still not in the category that you buy a DVD for it or go to theatres, but should watch if its on a TV channel.