date:20070113


ya.. that guy sucks.. i mean it.. i have noticed those stuff that u have
pointed out..

On 1/14/07, Roshan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


  rediff has a bunch of pretentious reviewers and reporters. I had once
posted about it when Guru's music was released. that raja sen is a
pseudo intellect. the only thing he will rate high would be if it has
any resemblance to any movie he might have seen on DVD, otherwise all
others are just bad. thats his view.

and a common motto of rediff is that they will never say good about
anyone who is famous, successful. take for example AR Rahman. Raja
sen once unnecessarily dragged his name in a bad way while he was
talking about Omkara's music. Same goes when they reviewed Guru's
music. same they did when RDB released. but despite of all these,
they all became classics.

it could be because rediff is not getting enough interviews from AR
Rahman, Maniratnam or aishwarya rai ( oh yeah.. they hate her too,
this same guy, raja sen reviewed her Website!!!) or may be just
because they don't like them.

--- In arrahmanfans@yahoogroups.com ,
"yeshrao81" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> Friends,
> One thing Im upset about is the Rediff's attitude in reviewing great
> movies like Guru. They are so critical that they end up pulling down
> great movies. They do not get into the intensity with which film or
> music or cinematography is done...but just talk badly about
> them...remember Guru music review!!
> Why does this guy not understand that Guru is just dubbed in Tamil to
> make tamil audience understand the dialogue and not completely think
> of it as a Tamil film
> Even the Hindi review of Guru in rediff was confusing...If this
> reviewer cannot write a review with clarity why is he commenting on
> great filmmakers like Maniratnam
> I think its time that we start appreciating great efforts and give
> them due credit.
>
>
> --- In arrahmanfans@yahoogroups.com ,
Gopal Srinivasan 
> wrote:
> >
> > Tamil Guru does not have the real feel
> > Sriram Iyer
> >
> >
> > When Yuva was being made into a bilingual movie, the general
> feeling was that Mani Ratnam had
> > learnt from his failure in Uyire.
> >
> > But these impressions have dispelled now that Guru has been dubbed
> and released in Tamil.
> >
> > Watch Guru for the actors
> >
> > Having to see Abhishek Bachchan and a whole lot of other actors
> speaking Tamil while their lips
> > move differently is quite a strain to begin with. Moreover, the
> story is supposed to be set
> > somewhere in Thirunelveli in southern Tamil Nadu whereas the
> costumes and the set up resembles
> > western India from where the original Hindi version is based.
> >
> > This hitch remains alive throughout the movie, successfully
> depriving the viewer of the real
> > feel.
> >
> > This time around Mani narrates the story of Guru Nath Desikan
> (Abhishek Bachchan), a resolute
> > boy from a small village who goes on to become one of the premier
> industrialists of the
> > country. The journey is characterised by hard work, determination,
> passion, grit and quite a
> > bit of the gray.
> >
> > 'Entertainment is not a bad word'
> >
> > Neither his poor family background nor his deterrent father could
> stop him from going to Turkey
> > where he delivers petrol cans. But soon his intense over-ambitious
> materialistic urge forces
> > him to quit the job and return to India to start his own business-
> venture, the only barrier
> > being the lack of finance.
> >
> > His decision to marry Sujatha (Aishwarya Rai), his best friend's
> sister, only to get the dowry
> > which he could use as his capital gives the viewer a clear idea of
> the character very early in
> > the movie. The occasional downhill ride does not bother the
> extremely motivated profiteer,
> > Guru.
> >
> > Straight from the Guru's mouth
> >
> > However, as he runs faster, he kicks up dust. Bribes and scandals
> became the backdrop to his
> > meteoric rise to glory. He isn't bothered but his near and dear
> ones do bother. The rift
> > between him and the righteous Nanaji (Mithun Chakraborty), Guru's
> mentor during his early days
> > in Mumbai and the editor of a newspaper, widens with every stage of
> development in Guru's life.
> >
> > Along with Shyam (Madhavan), Nanaji constantly tries to expose the
> unjust ways of the seemingly
> > grand Guru.
> >
> > The movie successfully brings out the several facets of the life of
> Guru. The realism in the
> > evolution of his relationships with people around him shows the
> distinguished touch of Mani
> > Ratnam.
> >
> > Abhishek seems to like every bit of his streak in the gray that
> started with Yuva. While he
> > rules the show, the performance of the cast as a whole is
> heartening, especially those from
> > Mithunda and Madhavan. Aishwarya gets better in the second half
> where there is less of an
> > opportunity to flaunt her beauty.
> >
> > Marvelling over Mallika
> >
> > Vidya Balan and Manoj Joshi do quite well in their small roles.

[arr] Re: 1sr SONG @ AGE OF 8- BREAKING NEWS!!!!!!!!!

2007-01-13 Thread vinodraju2k


This has already been posted way back in 2002.

http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/arrahmanfans/message/28780

Vinod


--- In arrahmanfans@yahoogroups.com, "merson_ez" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
wrote:
>
> The breaking news is that RAHMAN has composed his first song at the
> age of EIGHT. It has come in a Malayalam daily 14th January 2007
> "Malayala Manorama" Sunday edition.
> 
> Song: Velli then kinnam
> Film:"Penpada"
> Director: Cross Belt Mani
> Music: R.K.Shekar (Arr's Father)
> Lyrics: Bharanikaavu Shivkumar
> Singer: Jayachandran
> Year: 1975
> Actors: Vincent & VijayLalitha
> 
> Transaltion
> 
> It so happened, 30 years ago one afternoon in kodambakkom at R.K
> Shekars home were composing for Director's Cross Belt Mani new film
> "Penpada". They composed three songs and they were working on the
> fourth song when a.s dileep kumar(arr) came from outside after 
playing
> cricket. He was in full dirt wearing nicker and sleeveless 
baniyan. He
> straight away went and began to play the harmonium. One tune he
> played. The lyricist was amazed by his ability. He liked the tune 
and
> asked him to play it once more. His father came to hear 
this .Father
> asked lyricist to pen the lyrics for this tune. He asked his son
> whether he could also tune the remaining part; rahman with his 
little
> knowledge somehow completed the remaining part as he knows. Later
> without much changes R.K Shekar with some polishing made the song.
> Thus the song of RAHMAN was created. Later this song became HIT. 
Then
> the sudden demise of the father left the family in poverty. He 
came to
> assist M.K Arjunan another leading Music director @ 9 years. Then 
at
> 11 he came into the troup of Ilayaraja. The fatal illness of his
> sister and the recovery from it by the help of Peer Mohamed, a sufi
> saint made him and family convert to ISLAM. He came into the field 
of
> jingles in which he was instant hit.  Meeting with Mani Rathnam
> changed his life in 1991. He got his break in Roja and in the same
> year Yodha also got released. Then there was no looking back and 
the
> rest is History.
>

[arr] 1sr SONG @ AGE OF 8- BREAKING NEWS!!!!!!!!!

2007-01-13 Thread merson_ez

The breaking news is that RAHMAN has composed his first song at the
age of EIGHT. It has come in a Malayalam daily 14th January 2007
"Malayala Manorama" Sunday edition.

Song: Velli then kinnam
Film:"Penpada"
Director: Cross Belt Mani
Music: R.K.Shekar (Arr's Father)
Lyrics: Bharanikaavu Shivkumar
Singer: Jayachandran
Year: 1975
Actors: Vincent & VijayLalitha

Transaltion

It so happened, 30 years ago one afternoon in kodambakkom at R.K
Shekars home were composing for Director's Cross Belt Mani new film
"Penpada". They composed three songs and they were working on the
fourth song when a.s dileep kumar(arr) came from outside after playing
cricket. He was in full dirt wearing nicker and sleeveless baniyan. He
straight away went and began to play the harmonium. One tune he
played. The lyricist was amazed by his ability. He liked the tune and
asked him to play it once more. His father came to hear this .Father
asked lyricist to pen the lyrics for this tune. He asked his son
whether he could also tune the remaining part; rahman with his little
knowledge somehow completed the remaining part as he knows. Later
without much changes R.K Shekar with some polishing made the song.
Thus the song of RAHMAN was created. Later this song became HIT. Then
the sudden demise of the father left the family in poverty. He came to
assist M.K Arjunan another leading Music director @ 9 years. Then at
11 he came into the troup of Ilayaraja. The fatal illness of his
sister and the recovery from it by the help of Peer Mohamed, a sufi
saint made him and family convert to ISLAM. He came into the field of
jingles in which he was instant hit.  Meeting with Mani Rathnam
changed his life in 1991. He got his break in Roja and in the same
year Yodha also got released. Then there was no looking back and the
rest is History.

[arr] Re: Tamil Guru does not have the real feel

2007-01-13 Thread Roshan

rediff has a bunch of pretentious reviewers and reporters. I had once
posted about it when Guru's music was released.  that raja sen is a
pseudo intellect. the only thing he will rate high would be if it has
any resemblance to any movie he might have seen on DVD, otherwise all
others are just bad.  thats his view. 

and a common motto of rediff is that they will never say good about
anyone who is famous, successful.  take for example AR Rahman. Raja
sen once unnecessarily dragged his name in a bad way while he was
talking about Omkara's music.  Same goes when they reviewed Guru's
music.  same they did when RDB released.  but despite of all these,
they all became classics.  

it could be because rediff is not getting enough interviews from AR
Rahman, Maniratnam or aishwarya rai ( oh yeah.. they hate her too,
this same guy, raja sen reviewed her Website!!!) or may be just
because they don't like them.


--- In arrahmanfans@yahoogroups.com, "yeshrao81" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> Friends,
> One thing Im upset about is the Rediff's attitude in reviewing great 
> movies like Guru. They are so critical that they end up pulling down 
> great movies. They do not get into the intensity with which film or 
> music or cinematography is done...but just talk badly about 
> them...remember Guru music review!!
> Why does this guy not understand that Guru is just dubbed in Tamil to 
> make tamil audience understand the dialogue and not completely think 
> of it as a Tamil film
> Even the Hindi review of Guru in rediff was confusing...If this 
> reviewer cannot write a review with clarity why is he commenting on 
> great filmmakers like Maniratnam
> I think its time that we start appreciating great efforts and give 
> them due credit. 
> 
> 
> --- In arrahmanfans@yahoogroups.com, Gopal Srinivasan  
> wrote:
> >
> > Tamil Guru does not have the real feel
> > Sriram Iyer
> > 
> > 
> > When Yuva was being made into a bilingual movie, the general 
> feeling was that Mani Ratnam had
> > learnt from his failure in Uyire.
> > 
> > But these impressions have dispelled now that Guru has been dubbed 
> and released in Tamil.
> > 
> > Watch Guru for the actors
> > 
> > Having to see Abhishek Bachchan and a whole lot of other actors 
> speaking Tamil while their lips
> > move differently is quite a strain to begin with. Moreover, the 
> story is supposed to be set
> > somewhere in Thirunelveli in southern Tamil Nadu whereas the 
> costumes and the set up resembles
> > western India from where the original Hindi version is based.
> > 
> > This hitch remains alive throughout the movie, successfully 
> depriving the viewer of the real
> > feel.
> > 
> > This time around Mani narrates the story of Guru Nath Desikan 
> (Abhishek Bachchan), a resolute
> > boy from a small village who goes on to become one of the premier 
> industrialists of the
> > country. The journey is characterised by hard work, determination, 
> passion, grit and quite a
> > bit of the gray.
> > 
> > 'Entertainment is not a bad word'
> > 
> > Neither his poor family background nor his deterrent father could 
> stop him from going to Turkey
> > where he delivers petrol cans. But soon his intense over-ambitious 
> materialistic urge forces
> > him to quit the job and return to India to start his own business-
> venture, the only barrier
> > being the lack of finance.
> > 
> > His decision to marry Sujatha (Aishwarya Rai), his best friend's 
> sister, only to get the dowry
> > which he could use as his capital gives the viewer a clear idea of 
> the character very early in
> > the movie. The occasional downhill ride does not bother the 
> extremely motivated profiteer,
> > Guru.
> > 
> > Straight from the Guru's mouth
> > 
> > However, as he runs faster, he kicks up dust. Bribes and scandals 
> became the backdrop to his
> > meteoric rise to glory. He isn't bothered but his near and dear 
> ones do bother. The rift
> > between him and the righteous Nanaji (Mithun Chakraborty), Guru's 
> mentor during his early days
> > in Mumbai and the editor of a newspaper, widens with every stage of 
> development in Guru's life.
> > 
> > Along with Shyam (Madhavan), Nanaji constantly tries to expose the 
> unjust ways of the seemingly
> > grand Guru.
> > 
> > The movie successfully brings out the several facets of the life of 
> Guru. The realism in the
> > evolution of his relationships with people around him shows the 
> distinguished touch of Mani
> > Ratnam.
> > 
> > Abhishek seems to like every bit of his streak in the gray that 
> started with Yuva. While he
> > rules the show, the performance of the cast as a whole is 
> heartening, especially those from
> > Mithunda and Madhavan. Aishwarya gets better in the second half 
> where there is less of an
> > opportunity to flaunt her beauty.
> > 
> > Marvelling over Mallika
> > 
> > Vidya Balan and Manoj Joshi do quite well in their small roles. The 
> effort put in the movie
> > becomes obvious in Abhishek's paunch t

[arr] Re: Tamil Guru does not have the real feel

2007-01-13 Thread yeshrao81

Friends,
One thing Im upset about is the Rediff's attitude in reviewing great 
movies like Guru. They are so critical that they end up pulling down 
great movies. They do not get into the intensity with which film or 
music or cinematography is done...but just talk badly about 
them...remember Guru music review!!
Why does this guy not understand that Guru is just dubbed in Tamil to 
make tamil audience understand the dialogue and not completely think 
of it as a Tamil film
Even the Hindi review of Guru in rediff was confusing...If this 
reviewer cannot write a review with clarity why is he commenting on 
great filmmakers like Maniratnam
I think its time that we start appreciating great efforts and give 
them due credit. 


--- In arrahmanfans@yahoogroups.com, Gopal Srinivasan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
wrote:
>
> Tamil Guru does not have the real feel
> Sriram Iyer
>   
> 
> When Yuva was being made into a bilingual movie, the general 
feeling was that Mani Ratnam had
> learnt from his failure in Uyire.
> 
> But these impressions have dispelled now that Guru has been dubbed 
and released in Tamil.
> 
> Watch Guru for the actors
> 
> Having to see Abhishek Bachchan and a whole lot of other actors 
speaking Tamil while their lips
> move differently is quite a strain to begin with. Moreover, the 
story is supposed to be set
> somewhere in Thirunelveli in southern Tamil Nadu whereas the 
costumes and the set up resembles
> western India from where the original Hindi version is based.
> 
> This hitch remains alive throughout the movie, successfully 
depriving the viewer of the real
> feel.
> 
> This time around Mani narrates the story of Guru Nath Desikan 
(Abhishek Bachchan), a resolute
> boy from a small village who goes on to become one of the premier 
industrialists of the
> country. The journey is characterised by hard work, determination, 
passion, grit and quite a
> bit of the gray.
> 
> 'Entertainment is not a bad word'
> 
> Neither his poor family background nor his deterrent father could 
stop him from going to Turkey
> where he delivers petrol cans. But soon his intense over-ambitious 
materialistic urge forces
> him to quit the job and return to India to start his own business-
venture, the only barrier
> being the lack of finance.
> 
> His decision to marry Sujatha (Aishwarya Rai), his best friend's 
sister, only to get the dowry
> which he could use as his capital gives the viewer a clear idea of 
the character very early in
> the movie. The occasional downhill ride does not bother the 
extremely motivated profiteer,
> Guru.
> 
> Straight from the Guru's mouth
> 
> However, as he runs faster, he kicks up dust. Bribes and scandals 
became the backdrop to his
> meteoric rise to glory. He isn't bothered but his near and dear 
ones do bother. The rift
> between him and the righteous Nanaji (Mithun Chakraborty), Guru's 
mentor during his early days
> in Mumbai and the editor of a newspaper, widens with every stage of 
development in Guru's life.
> 
> Along with Shyam (Madhavan), Nanaji constantly tries to expose the 
unjust ways of the seemingly
> grand Guru.
> 
> The movie successfully brings out the several facets of the life of 
Guru. The realism in the
> evolution of his relationships with people around him shows the 
distinguished touch of Mani
> Ratnam.
> 
> Abhishek seems to like every bit of his streak in the gray that 
started with Yuva. While he
> rules the show, the performance of the cast as a whole is 
heartening, especially those from
> Mithunda and Madhavan. Aishwarya gets better in the second half 
where there is less of an
> opportunity to flaunt her beauty.
> 
> Marvelling over Mallika
> 
> Vidya Balan and Manoj Joshi do quite well in their small roles. The 
effort put in the movie
> becomes obvious in Abhishek's paunch that appeared and Madhavan's 
paunch, quite a bit of which
> disappeared.
> 
> The Rajiv Menon-Mani Ratnam duo, that spelt its magic in Bombay, 
has worked again. With his
> expertise over the Digital Intermediate grading technique, Rajiv 
has made the visuals look
> exemplary. Art director Samir Chanda's contribution in giving the 
movie the period feel cannot
> be understated.
> 
> The music of A.R.Rahman, though not one of his best albums, adds to 
the feel, except for the
> odd abrupt song.
> 
> Suriya does a good job lending his voice to Abhishek, but the movie 
is too conspicuous a dub.
> 
> Showcasing Guru
> 
> The biggest drawback of the movie is the dubbing. It is quite 
difficult to digest the fact that
> half the city of Mumbai speaks Tamil.
> 
> The director of a company conducts a whole annual general meeting, 
full of speeches that would
> shame the president of America, in Tamil. In the climax, a whole 
judicial enquiry takes place,
> which is then followed by a monologue, all in Tamil.
> 
> In addition to that, the movie doesn't focus much on the rise of 
the industrialist itself, as
> much as on what followed the rise. In fact one might even say

[arr] Gurubhai V/S Dhirubhai

2007-01-13 Thread Sunil VG


Here's an interesting read on Dhirubhai Ambani. Notice the uncanny
resemblance in not just his life in the Middle East (the coins, SHELL, etc.)
but even Guru's costume during the courtroom scenes!

http://www.answers.com/topic/dhirubhai-ambani

All said and done, a great film with goosebump inducing cinematic moments!!
:-)

Regards,
Sunil

[arr] My true review on guru

2007-01-13 Thread karthikeyamurthy jayaraman


A movie is nothing but a dream. The ability of the director lies in taking
that dream into the mind of the public without any disturbance and
Mr.Ratnamaccording to me is 95% successful in doing that in his latest
venture GURU.
The dream should get over as the movie ends but unfortunately in Guru a
disturbance comes at the climax. Now wait don't jump into any conclusions!!!


Guru is indeed nothing but real & reel mix. It is based on the great
industrialist Dhirubhai Ambani. Dhirubhai as Gurubhai… Abishek Bachan in the
lead role as Gurukanth Desai had done a great job. Whether it is young
Gurukanth or the middle age man Abishek is simply awesome. But it was not
only Abishek who has done a great job in acting each and every character of
the movie has done their role superbly. Madhavan, Aishwarya Rai, Mithun
Chakraborty, Vidya Balan everyone has done their part excellently. So I
think the credit should be given to the director who has really worked hard
even on small characters and its perfection. Of course the movie revolves
around Abishek so a greater delegation of risk on him and he had responded
in style.

Right from the start of the movie you feel Maniratnam's touch. The titles
really attracted me a lot. The dialogues are really amazing and you could
see a very smooth editing. Rajiv Menon's camera and lighting is really
excellent. Whether it is Turkey or the Indian village or the Mumbai city it
exactly takes you to that place and to add to the exact period in which the
story moves.

Music by A.R.Rahman. Whether it is melodious Tera Bina or Ay Hairathe or the
peppy Barso Re or Mayya Mayya or the typical 80's style Baazi Laaga or Ek Lo
Ek Muft Rahman scores in each and every song. When you see the movie Mayya
the item number and Barso Re attracts you a lot. Tera Bina my favourite of
the album. Its all Aishwarya Rai and her beauty in this song. I don't know
whether it is the problem of the dance master or abishek & ash. The steps
were not really attractive. It could have been better. And regarding the re
recording Rahman really rocks. He is bang on target. When you need a pulse
setting tune there it comes. When you need a tune with soothing effect it
comes and in climax he was remarkable. To comment more on this I need to
watch the movie once more. The reason is simple. I couldn't recognize the re
recording separately. It was too good. I felt it at certain places due to my
deliberate effort to concentrate on the re recording. The music is a very
big plus for the movie.

Another big plus for the movie is the chemistry between Abishek and Ash. I
don't  know whether it is the result of their off screen chemistry or they
have really acted excellently. In any case it's a big plus.

But the climax was not really satisfactory. I am not sure whether the
problem is with the dialogue writer or with the director himself. Abishek
instead of defending his company before the commission against the
allegations and complaints, talk's patriotism and difficulties he had faced
in bringing his company to the top position. So my dream really got
disturbed there and that was the reason the re recording was observed and
found to be awesome, something which shouldn't have happened. But for this
dialogues were really awesome in all other places.

So in all GURU is one of the most finest movie I have watched in recent
past. A typical Mani Ratnam movie and a sure hit.

You can also post your reviews and comments @
http://karthikeyamurthy.blogspot.com/


with regards
Karthikeyamurthy.J

[arr] Bloggers review Guru the movie 19

 Guru: Review
Manirathnam, is one my favorite directors, and one whom I consider to be 
clearly the number uno
as far mainstream Indian cinema is concerned. He is probably one of the few 
directors who would
command a box-office opening worthy of a big star. There is a buzz about his 
movie, a lot of
people are curious and even skeptics of Indian cinema atleast peep in and check 
out what he has
to offer. He has obviously shown interest in making Bollywood movies in the 
recent past. I have
never understood why. A market, which has a different culture and acceptability 
towards the
artsy-commercial stuff that Mani tends to throw out. I was curious if he would 
even connect
with Bollywood sensibilities. Manirathnam, as he has done for the past 20 odd 
years, comes to
this movie, armed with his magic kit, his unique narrative technique, and 
probably the best
technicians any director can ever hope to have. Every time, I sit to watch a 
Mani movie for the
first day, the nerve tingling experience is incomparable. I have literally 
grown up with his
movies and it is a pleasure to follow the arc of his creative offerings so far. 
How will his
title credits look like (It is sometimes white characters in black background, 
with deathly
silence, in Yuva credits appear like cars racing through the road, in Roja they 
appear with
machine gun chatter as background music. Here, credits appear 5-10 minutes 
after the movie has
begun in a very creative 'newspaper printing' type of way and curiously gives a 
senior like
MithunDa top credits). Will this beat 'Iruvar' as his best movie ever? What has 
he got to say
this time?

Guru is a biopic of an ambitious 'bijinez' man called Gurukanth Desai from a 
village called
'idhar' Gujarat. As it progresses, the movie morhps his name to Guru-Bhai to 
suggest enough
allusion to Dhirubhai Ambani, the founder of Reliance Group of Companies. This 
probably fuels
the pre-relese rumor surrounding the same issue. This is obviously a 
high-quality movie. As
expected from Mani, its technically slick and raises the visual experience. 
Nobody tells us
stories like these. Movies, are mostly about 'a 
different/violent/rational/indigestion love
story' and I hate love stories. So I was already glad that any semblance of 
romance in this
movie was limited to something as un-romantic as Guru marrying a woman for a Rs 
25,000 dowry.
She is a capital investment to his ambition and for that he is prepared to 
marry her, even if
she is older to him. He doesn't even ask her permission and gets her because he 
can convince
her father that he is loony enough to marry the 'mad' daughter - thereby making 
this the best
romantic Hindi movie, I have ever seen. This movie then takes us through his 
struggle, his
opposition, his ups and downs and his ethics.

There is a conceptual choice that Manirathnam seems to have made in this movie. 
It is not a
detail-oriented movie but a more big-picture kind of a movie. He wouldn't tell 
you exactly why
Guru was so successful in business but just focus on the fact that he 
persevered and was
successful. He wouldn't tell you exactly what the case/enquiry/commission 
against him is, he
would limit it to a superficial chatter where words like debentures and shares 
come up very
often. Consequently, you wouldn't know why Guru wins but you know that he wins. 
Contrast this
to a cliched but excellent example like Godfather, where you are told details 
of 1 event and
you know exactly what needs to happen for the hero to suceed a mafia coup or 
win a enquiry
commision probe. 1 event is told in clear detail, while a biography is 
narrated. Guru does not
describe any 1 event in great detail. It skims over a lot of things but you get 
the point. So
its a design choice that Manirathnam makes - to focus on the larger picture of 
ambition,
never-say-die and the archiacness of Indian legal system. There are pros and 
cons to this. The
pro part is obvious so let me focus on the con part. A logical argument/ a 
joke/ a persuasive
speech is like a bridge. You have a starting point, from where you hope to 
reach an end state.
An argument, a joke with its punch lines gets you from this starting point to 
the end state.
The end state being victory or a humorous situation. The audience should be 
convinced that the
argument was strong enough (in other words the bridge was long enough) to 
connect the start and
the end state. Here, it is not. Mainly because you aren't told much details of 
whats going on,
you struggle to connect. You aren't very sure why his fiery speech produced a 
certain result.
Or why some of the things he said resulted in a business contract. You are just 
told that it
did and you have to run with that. Citizen Kane or Godfather II connected with 
the audience
because you are clearly aware of the causality. Here, especially in the last 
scene you arent
sure if the crescendo that built left you with a good taste in the mouth. You 
wanted a better
payload after all the

[arr] Bloggers review Guru the movie 20

Just came home after watching Maniratnam's Guru - A few scribblings
This story does not contain a link
posted by TollywoodBollywood 1 day 4 hours 47 minutes ago

A perfect example of gripping storytelling and impeccable characterisation

Just returned from the theatres, now that I am home I feel genuinely very happy 
that Guru Kanth
Desai is still going strong. I am also completely confident he will make 
Shakthi Corporation
the biggest company in the worldby now you must be wondering what I am talking 
about, this is
how many viewers would feel after coming out of watching Maniratnams Guru.

First of all let me start by mentioning Abhishek Bachans role, as this is the 
role that Guru
is built upon. If there ever was a movie where one actor dominated so 
completely I would only
compare Kamal Hassan in Nayakudu/Nayakan. Abhishek should be very proud of what 
he has
accomplished in Guru, it is something that some actors havent or will not 
achieve in a life
time. He is impeccable for the hardest of critic to comment. His histrionics 
are brilliant and
the way he lost and gained weight during different parts of the movie 
demonstrate how serious
Maniratnam and Abhishek were in making this movie. Keep the awards ready 
pleaseAbhishek Bachan
has his name stamped on them.

The story is quite simple; it is the narration and the characterisation that 
makes this movie
so unique and interesting. its about a common mans journey to build Indias 
largest company
with the help of its share holders by whatever means possible. In Guru, Guru 
Kanth Desai is not
portrayed as an invincible man rather he is played as a very good business man 
who can talk and
do right things at the right time. The narration of the story is so tight you 
never flinch.
(This applies only to serious movie watchers, not the ones who cannot do 
without masala and
comedy in a film) Maniratnam is one the best story tellers in our country if 
not the best, and
he does that perfectly again. This will rate as one of the best works of 
Maniratnam; I would
take the liberty of putting this Under Nayakudu/Nayakan which rates first on my 
list of
Maniratnam movies.

The music is by A R Rahman, we all know what happens when Maniratnam and A R 
Rahman team up.
Pure magic is created. More than the songs of Guru, the background score 
impressed me. It is
the music in every important scene that brings the scene to life. Rahman is 
amazing and like
Rang De Basanti the songs just blend into the movie. Not to mention Mayya Mayya 
and Barso re
Megha in the first 20 minutes of the movie brighten up the whole theatre.

A word of mention

Aishwarya Rai has a very strong role in Guru; strong roles are very scarce in 
Bollywood these
daysespecially for female artists. Aishwarya stays with Guru throughout the 
movie and stays on
the top of Bollywood by doing that brilliantly.
Mithun & Madhavan are the adamant characters that fight for the right, when I 
say adamant they
really are in the movie and you feel their willingness to stay on the right 
side of things all
through the movie.

All the other supporting roles including Vidhya Balan are brilliantly enacted. 
There is no
character that was underplayed or wasnt justified.

Where does this leave us?

Maniratnam has made a wonderful movie full of strong characters, great screen 
play, brilliant
music and marvellous photography by Rajiv Menon. He needs to be commended for 
this effort. It
is no wonder he takes two years to make out one movie, Guru was worth waiting 
forso here I am
already waiting for his next

http://www.indianpad.com/story/24103

[arr] Tamil Guru does not have the real feel

Tamil Guru does not have the real feel
Sriram Iyer


When Yuva was being made into a bilingual movie, the general feeling was that 
Mani Ratnam had
learnt from his failure in Uyire.

But these impressions have dispelled now that Guru has been dubbed and released 
in Tamil.

Watch Guru for the actors

Having to see Abhishek Bachchan and a whole lot of other actors speaking Tamil 
while their lips
move differently is quite a strain to begin with. Moreover, the story is 
supposed to be set
somewhere in Thirunelveli in southern Tamil Nadu whereas the costumes and the 
set up resembles
western India from where the original Hindi version is based.

This hitch remains alive throughout the movie, successfully depriving the 
viewer of the real
feel.

This time around Mani narrates the story of Guru Nath Desikan (Abhishek 
Bachchan), a resolute
boy from a small village who goes on to become one of the premier 
industrialists of the
country. The journey is characterised by hard work, determination, passion, 
grit and quite a
bit of the gray.

'Entertainment is not a bad word'

Neither his poor family background nor his deterrent father could stop him from 
going to Turkey
where he delivers petrol cans. But soon his intense over-ambitious 
materialistic urge forces
him to quit the job and return to India to start his own business-venture, the 
only barrier
being the lack of finance.

His decision to marry Sujatha (Aishwarya Rai), his best friend's sister, only 
to get the dowry
which he could use as his capital gives the viewer a clear idea of the 
character very early in
the movie. The occasional downhill ride does not bother the extremely motivated 
profiteer,
Guru.

Straight from the Guru's mouth

However, as he runs faster, he kicks up dust. Bribes and scandals became the 
backdrop to his
meteoric rise to glory. He isn't bothered but his near and dear ones do bother. 
The rift
between him and the righteous Nanaji (Mithun Chakraborty), Guru's mentor during 
his early days
in Mumbai and the editor of a newspaper, widens with every stage of development 
in Guru's life.

Along with Shyam (Madhavan), Nanaji constantly tries to expose the unjust ways 
of the seemingly
grand Guru.

The movie successfully brings out the several facets of the life of Guru. The 
realism in the
evolution of his relationships with people around him shows the distinguished 
touch of Mani
Ratnam.

Abhishek seems to like every bit of his streak in the gray that started with 
Yuva. While he
rules the show, the performance of the cast as a whole is heartening, 
especially those from
Mithunda and Madhavan. Aishwarya gets better in the second half where there is 
less of an
opportunity to flaunt her beauty.

Marvelling over Mallika

Vidya Balan and Manoj Joshi do quite well in their small roles. The effort put 
in the movie
becomes obvious in Abhishek's paunch that appeared and Madhavan's paunch, quite 
a bit of which
disappeared.

The Rajiv Menon-Mani Ratnam duo, that spelt its magic in Bombay, has worked 
again. With his
expertise over the Digital Intermediate grading technique, Rajiv has made the 
visuals look
exemplary. Art director Samir Chanda's contribution in giving the movie the 
period feel cannot
be understated.

The music of A.R.Rahman, though not one of his best albums, adds to the feel, 
except for the
odd abrupt song.

Suriya does a good job lending his voice to Abhishek, but the movie is too 
conspicuous a dub.

Showcasing Guru

The biggest drawback of the movie is the dubbing. It is quite difficult to 
digest the fact that
half the city of Mumbai speaks Tamil.

The director of a company conducts a whole annual general meeting, full of 
speeches that would
shame the president of America, in Tamil. In the climax, a whole judicial 
enquiry takes place,
which is then followed by a monologue, all in Tamil.

In addition to that, the movie doesn't focus much on the rise of the 
industrialist itself, as
much as on what followed the rise. In fact one might even say that the 
character of Guru is
little too black to be termed gray.

The limit seems to be lost in the concluding reel, when there is an attempt to 
portray the
highly motivated capitalist as a patriotic and messiah and his selfish and 
illegal profiteering
as something very insignificant.

Trying to compare unlawful business tactics to that of Gandhi's rejection for 
colonial rule and
its law was simply outrageous. For his class, Mani Ratnam could have done 
without such
idolising. Given the subject dealt with, that is not expected to strike a chord 
with the
masses, the dubbing in Tamil wasn't completely necessary.

http://inhome.rediff.com/movies/2007/jan/13guru.htm

[arr] Web reviews of Guru the movie 4

The first major release of the year, Mani Ratnams Guru is, well is a major 
film. Guru is grand
and big like its protagonist. It describes the life of a common man who dares 
to dreams and
achieves his dream by whichever way possible. Mani Ratnam is known for making 
film on real life
character. The character of Gurukant Desai has a strong resemblance to 
Dhirubhai Amban but that
only in terms of the story. All resemblance ends after that.

Gurukant Desai is a larger than life figure, an enigma. A person above law, 
power and people,
who lives for his dream. The dream is not to earn money but to be big, big in 
what he does. Be
it by becoming a major player in his business or starting from scratch against 
all odds. He
lives for his success.

The film tracks his ups and downs from his childhood to his old age when he 
commands and lead a
big business empire, the friends and enemies he makes and his love who stands 
by him. Gurukant
Desai runs and he runs to succeed. Brimming with idea and a strong desire to be 
someone, he
goes to Turkey to work there. He works in a oil company and then saves enough 
money to come
back to India He marries a girl from his village because her father promises a 
huge dowry. He
needs the money to start a new business. He wants to trade in cotton but is not 
allowed because
of licenses. He meets a newspaper editor who stands by him to get the license 
to trade. After
that there is no looking back. He works hard, manipulates men and power to 
start and grow a
company.

The rise is phenomenal. He sees opportunities and takes risk where other fear 
to venture. The
editor, Manikdas Gupta who sees him as his son and mentor is the first one to 
expose him with
his editor supporting him. The second half of the film focuses on this fight. 
Gurus wife
Sujata supports him and stands by him at every problem, even when her own 
brother leaves him.

Manikdas Gupta and his editor, Madhavan almost succeed in bringing Guru down. 
The climax is how
he fights back a paralysis and a government to succeed in his goal.

Guru is focused solely on Gurukant Desai so much so that his ability to 
manipulate those in
power and the corruption he promotes is looked as a positive aspect of his 
character. Manikdas
Gupta and Madhavan who wow to fight him just to expose his unethical way become 
villains. Was
it knowingly or unknowingly, may be the question Mani Ratnam would want to 
answer. Guru is not
a white hero in shining armor. He is a person who is one among us trying to 
succeed when a lot
many people do not want him to succeed. To succeed he would use any way 
possible. Guru
ensures that the hero or the main character wins, be it right or wrong does not 
matter.

Gurus wife Sujata is supportive of her husband. The relation starts with doubt 
but then she
supports him and stands by him all her life.

Guru is a journey of a man hungry for success and thankfully avoids making any 
statement or
judging him. It just chronicles his life from scratch to success.

Mithun Chakraborty plays Manikdas Gupta, the editor of the newspaper who wants 
to see Guru down
for the sole reason to oppose his unethical ways. This would be Mithuns real 
comeback role. He
plays the editor with conviction depicting the love-hate relationship with 
Guru. A treat to
watch him.

Madhavan is in a very small role of the editor of the newspaper. He plays a 
very thankless role
and only job seem to marry Vidya Balan who pays a dying Meenu, who is Mithuns 
grand daughter
and also Gurus object of affection. He is totally wasted in the role.

Vidya Balan role as Meenu is confusing. She plays a girl on a wheel chair, who 
adores Guru. She
has a disability and she neither contributes nor moves the story forward. She 
is totally wasted
in the movie.

Aishwarya Rai plays the better half of Guru, his wife Sujata. She is ok in the 
role of Sujata
but the second half is where she almost matches with Abhishek Bachchan. Her 
chemistry with
Abhishek Bachchan is better than their earlier films.

Abhishek Bachchan is Gurukant Desai, arrogant and hungry for power. His 
character undergoes
transformation from being a happy, jolly young man to a big businessman with a 
sense of humor.
He play Guru to perfection. It is difficult to imagine any other actor playing 
Guru and you
tend to ignore the fact that in many scenes, he acts like Amitabh Bachchan even 
playing the
angry young man at the climax. At one time, I remembered Amitabh Bachchan from 
Agnipath. The
same intensity and the same dialog delivery.

Mani Ratnam wanted to make a big movie about a big industrialist and he makes 
it. The
screenplay is tight and the movie is not boring even though its more than 2 and 
half hours
long. But then this is not Mani Ratnams best work. The movie is good but still 
it lacks the
intensity of other. You watch the movie without any attachment to the 
characters except
Abhishek Bachchan and that is because of his strong performance. The climax is 
a big

[arr] [Semi-ARR] Bollywood Glitz in a Times Square Debut

Bollywood Glitz in a Times Square Debut


By KAREEM FAHIM
Published: January 14, 2007

Roopam Jain craned for a view of the celebrities on Friday night, jostling with 
dozens of other
fans. He called his wife by cellphone, warning that she was about to miss the 
grand arrivals.

Its incredible to find something like this in New York, Mr. Jain said.

Mr. and Mrs. Jain, who live in Alpine, N.J., had tickets to a premiere that 
heralded not only
the arrival of a movie, but also a growing cultural phenomenon.

The red-carpet event was for a movie called Guru, and was rare American 
treatment for a
feature from Bollywood, the Mumbai-based film industry.

Two of Bollywoods biggest stars, Abhishek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai, finally 
did touch down
in Times Square Friday night, as their film opened around the world.

At the vast AMC Empire 25 theater on West 42nd Street, it got a high-profile 
American debut
that many said was unusual for a movie without the apparent crossover 
credentials of a
Bollywood film like Bride and Prejudice. Ms. Rai, who starred in that film as 
well, attended
its American premiere at a theater in Union Square nearly two years ago.

Things have changed for Indian cinema since then. Seven Hindi-language films 
each made more
than $2 million last year at the United States box office. Only one of them, 
Water, had an
American distributor.

Long available on videotape, Indian films can be seen on an increasing number 
of movie screens
across the United States, and, since November, on cable television 
video-on-demand in almost
two dozen states.

A press event before the screening was a relaxed affair, as film executives 
mingled with Indian
journalists and ate finger food. Bobby Bedi, a producer, talked about the 
prospects for Indian
cinema abroad.

There is a huge interest in the world in India, things Indian and in Indian 
cinema, Mr. Bedi
said. But the formula for a successful crossover film eludes filmmakers, he 
said.

Films he described as more focused in scope, like Monsoon Wedding, have done 
well. Theyve
not really been about the world; theyve been about villages or about small 
episodes in
peoples lives, he said.

He suggested a strategy for expatriate Indian moviegoers to help increase 
Bollywoods exposure:
bring two non-Indians along to the movies.

Mr. Bedi spoke from the dais with the films stars; the director, Mani Ratnam; 
and A. R.
Rahman, who wrote the music for the film. There was a pleasant exuberance to 
some of the
questions from the audience.

I feel this movie is going to be a super hit, a man in a trench coat said to 
Mr. Bachchan,
who wore a salmon-pink tie. What is your gut feeling?

Another woman, addressing Mr. Rahman, the prolific film and theater composer, 
could hardly keep
it all in. You revolutionized Bollywood with your music, she said. I mean it 
is so
exceptional. A moderator warned journalists not to ask personal or follow-up 
questions.

A very large security guard, Ivan Bozovic, looked after the striking Ms. Rai, 
who is regularly
called one of the worlds most beautiful women. She talked about Guru, mostly 
(Every
character is finely etched, she said), and about the talents of the director 
and her co-stars.
A journalist went after rumors that Ms. Rai and Mr. Bachchan were engaged, 
asking whether there
was any news.

I have an announcement, Mr. Bachchan teased. The films going to start in 10 
minutes!

Inside the theater, local business leaders gave flowers to the stars and the 
filmmakers. Ms.
Rai, wearing a shimmering blue sari, took a few moments to greet young fans.

Guru is the story of Gurukant Desai, a villager who becomes a polyester mogul.

Yesterday morning, Mr. Jain, whose wife, Sapna, did make the show, said Mr. 
Bachchan showed
excellent range, even if the film was a bit disjointed.

As an Indian, I was very proud to have them all here, Mr. Jain said, adding 
that he
identified with some of the themes in the film. A lot of Indians have 
struggled. My father
came here in the early 70s. He came from nothing to become very successful. 
Its kind of nice
to see the Indian community doing so well.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/14/nyregion/14bollywood.html?_r=1&ref=nyregion&oref=slogin

Thanks to Vinod for the tip

[arr] The Pioneer reviews Guru the movie

Good despite ambivalence

Showtime | Meenakshi Rao

Guru *Abhishek Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai; At: PVR others; Rating: 6.5/10

If you mistake director Mani Ratnam's Gurubhai for Dhirubhai, it's not your
fault really. For,
there is very little Ratnam camouflages in the first screen version of the late
Reliance
patriarch's life and times.

Actually, one wonders why he really bothers to spin that thin veneer of
make-believe around his
central character and falls short of calling him Dhirubhai instead of Gurubhai.
After all,
there is such a liberal dose of kela silk, polyester and petrochemicals talk
thrown in to leave
you in no doubt about who the tale is being spun around.

Then there is this other point of query. Why one earth would a director of
Ratnam's stature go
so wrong in the portrayal of his central character. For some reason one fails
to fathom, he has
made Abhishek Bachchan look a wee bit maniacal as Gurubhai and at many points
in this otherwise
engaging movie one feels he is staring or laughing or merely thinking the
abnormal way.

Of course, Abhishek has worked really hard at becoming the character he plays
though one
fervently wishes it did not show.

These niggles apart, this Ratnam real-reel will catch your imagination not so
much with its
music as with its subject. It is the story of a legend in India's corporate
history told with a
lot of tender loving care. And that's where you start thinking of how a twist
here and a turn
there has this immense potential to enslave your emotions to a crafty film
director's wishes.
Ratnam shows Dhirubhai as a visionary far ahead of his time. He was that, no
doubt. He shows
him as corporate India's biggest success story. Again, no doubt about that. He
says the
economic policies of his time were inordinately restrictive. True.

But when it comes to Dhirubhai's well-known ability to shed scruples and
network with Govts,
Ratnam decides to wear kid gloves before touching his subject.

But then, aren't all obituaries meant to be tributes?

http://www.dailypioneer.com/indexn12.asp?main_variable=FILMS&file_name=film1%2Etxt&counter_img=1

[arr] Deccan Chronicle reviews Guru

GURU CAST: Mithun Chakraborty, Abhishek Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai, R. Madhavan, 
Vidya Balan and
others DIRECTOR: Mani Ratnam RATING:***

T he character of Gurukant Desai (Abhishek Bachchan) in Guru, facing an enquiry 
for corruption
and large scale irregularities in his company, says 40 years ago a man had 
broken rules and
today we call him Bapu! This highly irresponsible statement ends up devaluing 
Mani Ratnams
film.

Ratnam chooses as his hero a poor schoolmasters son, whose ambition and 
business acumen make
him Indias biggest industrialist. If he uses mostly foul means to get there, 
says the
director, it doesnt really matter, because the end justifies the means.

His enemies, apart from a rival, old-money business house, are a newspaper 
baron and his former
mentor (Mithun Chakraborty) and his pet reporter (R. Madhavan). What they are 
exposing about
Guru is not wrong, yet they are portrayed as villains and Guru as a martyr and 
victim.

In making so simplistic a film, Mani Ratnam missed a great opportunity to 
portray an accurate
socio-political picture of contemporary India. The film moves within a very 
narrow circle,
obstinately refusing to look at the larger picture. Instead of wasting valuable 
time on rain
dances and item numbers, he could have made some comment on the era  India 
started changing
rapidly in the late eighties and nineties  and on the system that made a man 
like Gurukant
Desai a hero.

The first half is made up of quick vignettes of Guru going to Turkey to work at 
a low level
job- theres a totally needless item number by Mallika Sherawat, and one had 
hoped at least
Mani Ratnam had grown beyond such juvenile box-office tactics. He returns to 
his village,
marries Sujata (Aishwarya Rai) for her dowry, so that he can start a business 
in Bombay. He is
up against the traditional traders who dont want an outsider to crash into 
their domain. Here
he is befriended and helped by Nanaji (Chakraborty) and is soon a successful 
industrialist, who
makes his fortune by making small investors his partners and bypassing 
conventional finance
sources.

Overlook how superficial the film is and there are Mani Ratnams aesthetic 
visuals (Rajiv
Menon) to be admired, whether it is the rain-soaked village, Aishwarya Rais 
overwhelming
beauty or period Mumbai recreated by Samir Chanda. There are several highpoints 
 like Gurus
brisk romance with Sujata, his fierce confidence when he confronts hostile 
traders, his
deviousness in dealing with a faceless minister, his bantering with Nanajis 
disabled
granddaughter (Vidya Balan) or his physical collapse towards the end. There are 
just as many
longueurs  like the unnecessary Madhavan-Vidya Balan track, or the many scenes 
devoted to the
brother-in-law (Arya Babbar); the Turkey scenes are too sketchy to leave an 
impression. The
music (A R Rahman) should have had a bit more of a period/Gujarati sound, and 
the choreography
is ordinary.

Abhishek Bachchans performance is both strenuous and studied, but he props up 
the film. If,
finally, Guru is disappointing, its because much better was expected from Mani 
Ratnam.

Deepa Gahlot

[arr] [Non-ARR] The director is always write

The director is always write

Why did director Mani Ratnam change Anurag Kashyap's original script of Guru?

Ram Kamal Mukherjee

Mani Ratnam's Guru, starring Abhishek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai, may have
received rave
reviews from film connoisseurs, but it seems that some of the cast and crew are
unhappy with
the final outcome of the film.

Allegedly, Mani Ratnam signed Anurag Kashyap to write the script for Guru,
which Anurag readily
agreed to do, but when Anurag saw the film this Friday, he was taken aback. A
source reveals,
"Anurag was surprised to see that Mani had retained only 30 per cent of the
original draft and
rewritten the rest of the script. He was disappointed with certain changes"

There is much speculation about Mani's reasons for changing the script. Some
say that although
Mani Ratnam began shooting the film as Dhirubhai Ambani's life story, later
when he realised
that too much resemblance to the character might get him into trouble, he
thought of changing
the script.

"Everyone's role has been chopped in the film. Madhavan and Vidya Balan are
mere extras in the
film, although they have done a splendid job in whatever scenes they have in
the film," says a
character actor associated with Guru.

Mani Ratnam

When we contacted Anurag Kashyap he admitted that Mani Ratnam has changed the
script
extensively. "After Mani returned from his schedule in Turkey, he wanted me to
change the
script. He called me to say that he wanted a 'sea change in the script'. I
would have helped
him, but unfortunately I had to leave for New York at the same time, so he went
ahead and got
the changes made by another scriptwriter," says Anurag.

Does this irk him? "The film is Mani's baby, why would I be upset? Even I
changed my script
after the first schedule, that's a given liberty in filmmaking," he replies.

Anurag Kashyap

However, Anurag gives Mani the benefit of the doubt. "See, I have an issue
with every film,
and this film is no exception. But I would say that Guru is a fine piece of
work and I think
Mani made what he wanted to make," he says, rather tactfully.

When asked about Mani promoting Abhishek in the film at the cost of editing
others' roles,
Anurag says, "Now, that's a director's prerogative, I don't think that we have
the right to
question the calibre of a director like Mani Ratnam. The film is doing well,
and that speaks
volume about his vision as a director."

http://www.mumbaimirror.com/net/mmpaper.aspx?page=article§id=30&contentid=200701140242095623c921ef1

[arr] Deccan Herald reviews Guru the movie

Guru
Priyanka Haldipur
Hindi (U/A);Cast: Abhishek Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai, Mithun Chakraborty, Vidya 
Balan, R
Madhavan; Director: Mani Ratnam
 
Villager, Visionary, Winner. Did someone forget to mention manipulator? Since 
thats what
completes the description of Gurukant Desai (Bachchan), the lad who dreams big 
and and has the
wonderful power to make all his fantasies come true through steely grit and 
persistence. A soul
who chooses his bride after weighing the dowry that shell fetch, but treats 
her like a
princess. One wholl never wish harm on his foes for they have once been 
friends.
Contradictions. Abominations. All... Guru!

The film documents Gurus climb up the success ladder and his journey in making 
Shakti
Corporation the national leader in textiles, not necessarily the clean way. 
Permits and
licenses come at a cost, and from where Guru comes, nothing gets done without 
the greasing of a
palm or two.

But a mans dark deeds are bound to catch up with him somewhere down the line, 
and he will have
to pay.

Mani Ratnams magic wand transforms a somewhat-maturing Abhishek to one that is 
reminiscent of
daddy Bachchan. Even Aishwarya plays the nat khat-Sati with poise. Mithun 
Chakraborty is
delightful as Nanaji, a media baron who is friend, philosopher and guide to 
Guru as long as
he treads the path of honesty. Madhavan and Vidya Balan have a limited but 
marked presence.
Mani has drawn the best out of the big stars and small screen actors alike.

A R Rahmans music comes alive against the backdrop of the movie despite 
appearing a little
bland otherwise. That does not excuse the unnecessary songs in this one. Though 
the
resemblances in the lives of Dhirubhai Ambani and Gurubhai are striking, the 
film comes with
a disclaimer about all the characters in it being fictitious, the resemblances 
purely
coincidental.

The moral of the story is cause for confusion... Make mistakes. But master the 
art of cover
ups or Walk the path of wrong, if all others wear a no entry sign. Yet 
Guru is something
that you dont want to miss. In Nanajis words, Achha hai, achha hai. Bahut 
achha hai!

http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/jan142007/movies2135232007113.asp

[arr] Guru movie review on Desicritics

Movie Review: Guru (Hindi; 2007)
January 13, 2007
Qalandar
Guru
Aishwarya Rai


[Warning: This review contains spoilers]

Ek lo ek muft ("Buy one get one free") appears to be the lot of Gurukant Desai 
(Abhishek
Bachchan), that is to say the law of, not unintended consequences, but 
unintended benefits.
When as a boy he fails his exams he is able to wrangle permission from his 
schoolmaster father
to go to Turkey and sell petrol cans, permission that would not have been 
forthcoming had he
passed his school exams.

When he wants a business partner (Jignesh, played by Arya Babbar) he gets a 
wife too, none
other than Jignesh's sister Sujatha (Aishwariya Rai). And when he gets his 
wife's dowry - the
initial capital for his business - he also gets a devoted spouse who radiates 
quiet strength.
When they want a child they get twins. Heck, by film's end we see that in 
amassing wealth and
success Guru gets to wear - muft - the mantle of corporate populist, bringing 
capitalism and
its benefits to the masses. In fact, when Guru arrives in Bombay he gets a 
surrogate father in
"Nanaji" Manikdas Gupta (Mithun Chakraborty), and - also muft - a crusader 
adversary (egged on
by newspaper baron Gupta) in Shyam Saxena (Madhavan), a journalist determined 
to bring Guru
down. Oh well: five out of six ain't bad.

Mani Ratnam's Guru is the story of Gurukant Desai, a villager from Idhar, 
Gujarat, convinced of
his lucky star and determined to succeed in bijness at all costs, no matter the 
attempts of the
corporate establishment to keep him out, and the zeal of a leftist newspaper 
baron and his
editor in bringing him down. His destiny is already written, Gurukant informs a 
skeptic early
on in the film, and there is never any doubt that he is going to end up a 
business titan,
second to none.

But Guru is also the story (as Ratnam sees it) of an India in transition, from 
colonialism
through license raj to free enterprise. As Ratnam concludes the tale the 
journey is a heroic
one indeed, from an India where outsized ambition - in particular, the ambition 
of amassing
great wealth - was frowned upon, to an India where the acquisition of wealth is 
seen as the
great leveler, representing the best hope of the ordinary man for prosperity 
and happiness.

Ratnam is not blind to the warts inherent in an ambition that will stop at 
nothing to achieve
its aim, and over the course of the film we see the affable, irrepressibly 
optimistic Guru
become less and less accessible, "available" only in private settings or in 
orchestrated public
spectacles before the shareholders of his company, Shakti Trading. Guru's 
actions too become
ever more obscure, available to the audience only through the prism of Nanaji 
and Shyam. The
wide-eyed youth who turned down a coveted job in Turkey to return to India in 
order to start
his own business seems like a distant memory indeed.

But in order to shoehorn his own vision into an overarching narrative of Guru 
triumphant,
Ratnam has to cut some corners: when the journalistic crusade against Guru 
leads to a
government crackdown and a commission of inquiry, Ratnam simply hands over the 
film to its
title character, who proceeds to hold forth as the public incarnate, not 
bothering to deny any
of the allegations of corruption and fraud leveled against him but justifying 
his
transgressions by appealing to a higher law, not God but the public.

"I am the public," Guru rasps in the film's memorable (and troubling) 
penultimate sequence, and
it is clear that he feels his actions are justified because he has empowered 
the middle
classes, and given them a stake in Indian industry. (He has done so by means of 
Shakti
Trading's various public offerings, the polar opposite of the family-run and 
closed corporation
that, Guru suggests, held sway prior to his rise). While the film has hitherto 
led us to view
such claims a bit askance, there is no trace of directorial irony in this 
sequence, carefully
constructed to give Gurukant Desai the last word and to leave him the winner. 
It's unclear
whether Ratnam buys into this, but he certainly wants the audience to buy 
whatever Guru is
selling.

None of this detracts from the fact that Ratnam remains arguably the least 
judgmental of
popular directors in either Hindi or Tamil, and the cinematic magnanimity - 
able to take in a
rather wide range of activity without malice or moralizing - that we have come 
to expect from
films like Mouna Raagam, Nayakan, Iruvar, Dil Se, Alai Payuthey, Kannathil 
Muthamittal, and
Aayitha Ezhuthu/Yuva is very much a hallmark of Guru.

Thus we see that Gurukant marries Sujatha because of her dowry, and we see that 
he is not above
smearing his corporate rivals via the media, or even of whipping up a little 
class hatred by
resorting a little too easily to an "us" versus "them" rhetoric - yet we do not 
judge him. And
nor is he the only one: we see Nanaji insulting Sujatha after she has come to 
his house to show
him her babies; we

[arr] Why "Ek lo ek muft" is under strong criticism

hi guys
i defended this song when GURU audio was released
and almost 90% folks must have found the song nice after multiple 
hearings

today i am here to defend the song again after the release of the 
movie.
thanks god reviewers have not spoiled the movie this time by giving 
bad reviews
but one thing i noticed in many of the reviews that they haave severly 
criticesed EK LO EK MUFT, saying that its unwanted and below rahman 
standardss

I CAN NOT UNDERSTAND WHY?
its a uniqe song and used proerly in the movie.

when a child is born in a family (especially in rural aras) the family 
celebrates it with their elders
that's what gurubhai did 
he took the family back to his village and enjoyed with elders and 
others through this song


now, you can not expect rahman and ratnam to creat a CHALOO kind of 
song at this particular time,
they have rightly chosen a song from gujrati backgrond
and the song is sung very well (and in a natural way)

those people who say that there should be no songs in a movie
please stop watching indian films coz the songs are an integral part 
of indian movies


Pravinder Sheoran

[arr] gurus-ash-a-woman-of-substance


http://www.ibnlive.com/videos/31095/gurus-ash-a-woman-of-substance.html

[arr] vote for filmfare

2007-01-13 Thread Mohd Nash

MD - ARR for RDB
Lyricist - Prasoon Joshi for Ru Ba Ru for RDB
Playback Singer(male) - ARR - for Khalbali or Luka Chuppi ??
Playback Singer(female) - Lata Mangeshkar - Luka Chuppi (but there is 
no point to vote her as she asked the Filmfare not to nomiante her 
anymore long back)

I am using all my frinds email ids and phone numbers to vote. you 
guys also do the same.

  www.filmfare.com
   


-
 
 Real people. Real questions. Real answers. Share what you know.

[arr] Re: Shauk Hai Song as BGM - Guru

2007-01-13 Thread aung_payit_phyoe_oo

I also really looking for this song pls find and give me link!

--- In arrahmanfans@yahoogroups.com, "Balamurugan Ramakrishnan" 
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> for quicktime
> 
> download it from www.apple.com
> 
> its simple, and its free
> cheers
> 
> bala
> 
> ps - the link to the song by rakesh works people. please, use the 
> link. 
> 
> --- In arrahmanfans@yahoogroups.com, "tanyaagha"  
> wrote:
> >
> > 
> > yes can you upload it on another website, please, thanks.
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > --- In arrahmanfans@yahoogroups.com, "Balamurugan Ramakrishnan" 
> >  wrote:
> > >
> > > thanks rakesh...
> > > 
> > > the file plays on quicktime 7.1. its a free download.
> > > 
> > > my God the song is beautiful...i wanna hear it in big 
> > screen
> > > 
> > > thanks again rakesh!
> > > 
> > > Balamurugan Ramakrishnan
> > > 
> > > 
> > > 
> > > 
> > > --- In arrahmanfans@yahoogroups.com, rakesh gowda  
> > > wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Guys,
> > > > 
> > > > Saw Guru yesterday and I found it to be a good Muvi,
> > > > but not upto the hype.
> > > > 
> > > > There was this song "Shauk Hai" by Saumya Rao which is
> > > > played as the BGM around 3-4 times, it comes up as a
> > > > BGM for Imp scenes on Vidya Balan. Its such a
> > > > BEAUTIFUL song, Its soo unfortunate that such gr8
> > > > songs are not a part of the soundtack !!! dono why
> > > > such thing happen again and again. 
> > > > 
> > > > I tried to record this thry my Sony W810i cell, but
> > > > its in a .amr format, shud b able to play in real
> > > > player i guess, I have attached the file. 
> > > > 
> > > > Let me know if anyone is able to play it properly.
> > > > 
> > > > Rgds
> > > > Rakesh Gowda  
> > > > 
> > > > 
> > > >  
> > > > 
> > > 
> > 
> 
_
> > > ___
> > > > Don't get soaked.  Take a quick peak at the forecast
> > > > with the Yahoo! Search weather shortcut.
> > > > http://tools.search.yahoo.com/shortcuts/#loc_weather
> > > >
> > >
> >
>

Re: [arr] Radio Sargam reviews Guru the movie


A R Rahman's music is average. - what the hell is that? :-x

On 1/13/07, Gopal Srinivasan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


  Gurukanth Desai, knows from hereafter as Guru, has hopes of being rich
and successful. He wants
to achieve what his father could not. To make his dream come true, Guru
requires going
overseas, after all dreams can only come true off-shore.

Guru works here and there, but it isn't long until he gets a prime
position at a big factory.
But, Guru is not happy, so risks it all by resigning the post to start his
own business.

He needs money for this enterprise, so offers to marry Sujata, just so he
can use the dowry
money to start his own business.

Guru has a friend in Manik Das Gupta, a newspaper publisher, but their
friendship comes under
threat when Manik starts to print Guru's bad deeds. Manik gets help from
editor Shyam, and
together the two begin exposing Guru to the world.

Mani Ratnam is a perfectionist and Guru is no exception. His direction is
first rate and
everything on-screen looks real. Cinematography, dialogues, and the
screenplay are all above
standard. But, it is the acting of the main players that give the film the
edge. This kind of
film requires the tempo to be just right, but that is not the case. There
are scenes that just
somehow don't work out right.

A R Rahman's music is average.

Abhishek might finally have a hit on his hands, a hit for which he is
solely responsible. His
performance is the best he has done in his career thus far. Mani Ratnam
showed us what Abhishek
is capable of in Yuva, and in Guru further evidence is brought to light;
Abhishek is surely his
father's son when it comes to movies. The only negative criticism that
Abhishek might get is
for his senior age role, where he lacks experience.

Aishwarya Rai is supposed to be playing a low-key role, she has neither
that many scenes nor
any good dialogues, but she fits into her role perfectly and is a delight
to watch. She and
Abhishek look good in the scenes together, finally managing to create some
on-screen chemistry
that has eluded them so far.

The return of Mithun Chakraborty has been laughed at for the past few
years, but here he shows
what a great actor he is, if a good role comes his way. Madhavan and Arya
Babbar fit in well
with the script. Vidya Balan is under-used while Mallika Sherawat is her
usual self.

The film tells a good story, the performances are good, but due its lack
of spice (something
that is required these days) the film will suffer at the Box Office.

RS Rating: 6/10

Reviewed by Tony

[arr] Even the music of BOMBAY had mixed reviews


n today´s Hindi music industry creativity is lacking. Nadeem-Shravan, Anand
Milind and Anu Malik lack it the most. *A.R. Rahman* proves that he doesn´t
belong in this category, as he comes around again in *Mani Ratnam*´s *Bombay
*. Although having the same style as his previous accomplishment, Roja, the
songs are distinctly different. Three of the songs have parts that sound
like "*Rukmani Rukmani*", from Roja. But the rest of these songs completely
change.

The standouts in this album are "*Ek Ho Gaye Hum Aur Tum*" sung by Remo
Fernandes, a hit in India, and "*Tu Hi Re*" beautifully rendered by
Hariharan and Kavita Krishnamurthy. The first of these sounded like it could
sound like "*Rukmani*" later in the song, but it turned into rap/middle
eastern music with tabla in the background. Fernandes is great; he has no
trouble in singing this fun song. The latter of the two songs, "*Tu Hi Re*",
is completely the opposite. Hariharan renders the song beautifully and
Kavita aids him with the normal nasal but greatly improved voice. This song
is slightly similar to Roja´s "*Yeh Hassen Vadiyan*" but, again, distinctly
different.

"*Kehna Hi Kya*", sung by Chitra, has a confusing *Qawali* beat that A.R.
Rahman uses creatively, the music has the familiar *dholak* (from "*Rukmani*"),
used as this beat. Chitra is her normal self, with extra voice-control, but
she is not as great as her Roja hits.

"*Kucchi Kucchi Rakkamma*" and "*Kuch Bhi Na Socho*" are sung by Udit
Naryan, Kavita Krishnamurthy, G.V. Prakash, and Shardha, and Pallavi,
Anupama, Shuba, Noell and Srinivas, respectively. You might think that the
songs are a copy of "*Rukmani Rukmani*" at the beginning, but the first of
the two changes to the sort of slow way, and the second adds a phrase to the
chorus. In "*Kucchi Kucchi Rakkamma*", Udit sings with ease, Kavita sings
with a convincing style, but the other two (children) are a little annoying,
although I expect that some people may feel that they are "cute". The chorus
is very similar (almost the same) for "*Kuch Bhi Na Socho*", with the
children, so I had the same reaction to them as "*Kucchi Kucchi Rakkamma*".
The music and beat in this song are better than "*Kucchi Kucchi Rakkamma*"
but the singers didn´t impress me as much.

The 'Theme of Bombay', which is excellently done by A.R. Rahman, is just
music. The music consisted of a flute, (wow what a flute!), bells, a
constant ´ting´ in the background, and Kitaro-type sound effects. (Kitaro is
a composer who creates relaxation music). Also there is a slow orchestra in
the latter part of this song, making a nice relaxing finish to the music.

Overall, the songs are slightly similar to 'Roja', but vary. *Bombay* was a
big shot for A.R. Rahman as he reached the "numero uno" position in the
music industry, which was once occupied by Anu Malik, who is now declining
quickly.
http://www.planetbollywood.com/displayReview.php?id=042106020210

Re: [arr] Allah Rakha Rahman - The Guru


this is an extraordinary idea and deeply thought.. simply superb.. my full
support for this initiative, if any...

On 1/13/07, Shah Navas G <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


  Since yesterday night, when I saw Guru, my mind is consumed with these
thoughts – How about Mani making a biopic on Rahman?

The opening lines of the movie would say "All characters inthis movie
are true and any coincidence to reality is purely intended".

Probably Mani sir is the only person to whom Rahman can't say no…

The movie will be on the lines of Guru, except for the negative shade.

A musical spanning 4 decades:

1st – childhood and struggle

2nd – youth and hard work

3rd – adulthood and raise and raise of Rahman and so comes criticism

4th – Rahman redefined….World acknowledges the Legend

Wow. . . What a musical would that be…none of the music would repeat
in the movie…

The music would mature from jingles to Roja days to Taal,Dilse days to
Water and Guru days!

Each time Rahman's character appears there will be different themes…

Sivamani to Naveen to Blazee - interpreting the main theme in their
own way…

Rahman's life has enough real life incidents to make a commercial movie
– envying peers, not so supportive media, in fact writing him off
completely at times only to be proven wrong again by his work.

If we can take some cinematic liberty and add a dramatic sequence of
events leading to a meeting between Mani sir and Rahman, a
very supportive wife, even more supportive fans, all stars waiting to
get Rahman score music for their movie, secret plots by "bashing"
peers… who in the end turn good and join www.arrahmanfans.com

Mani would be the mentor Nana Saheb . . Barath Bala would be his
`friend in need' …

And Mani sir can let the character grow from a kid to youth with rock
star looks to a charming spiritualist...

Lo… we have movie which I will watch at least 100 times…

Now after Guru, no can say me to stop dreaming….

Regards,

Shah Navas

[arr] public opinion videos


http://www.indiaglitz.com/channels/hindi/gallery/events/11352.html

[arr] MTV reviews Guru

STORY: Gurukant Desai (Abhishek) goes to Istanbul, dances with Mallika and 
returns to his
village hoping to set up a business. He marries Sujata (Ash) only because with 
the dowry money
he gets to set up his own business. He rises, rises and rises till he gets a 
paralysis attack.
In between he sings songs with Ash, takes takkar with Mithunda, has weird talks 
with Vidya
Balan about marrying her, sings another bhaang wala song etc etc.

REVIEW: This film belongs to Abhishek. Period. He carries the sometimes shaky 
film, with great
panache - even the negative shades of his characters are wonderfully potrayed. 
Ash is just
about tolerable while Mithun is first-rate. Yes, the film is clearly based on 
Dhirubhai's life.
And what's with the final speech of Guru - a guy who runs international 
petrochemicals business
doesn't understand terms like "excise" when spoken in English? A pacy first 
half, a slow second
half, some excessive melodrama and a letdown of a climax is what sums up this 
film.

EDIT PLEASE: The unnessecary bhaang wala song, after the birth of Guru's twin 
daughters, is
completely ghusaoed in the movie. Please, please cut that out - it sticks out 
like a hair in
biryani.

WHAT?: A wheelchair bound Vidya Balan kisses on-screen. Full on lip-to-lip, 
baba! Call me
names, but I found it kinky. Also what's with the obsession with rains - Ash's 
entry, Vidya's
kiss, shareholders meeting, first factory set up - it rains in virtually half 
of the movie.
People actually clapped in the theatre, when Ash & Abhishek got married in the 
film.

http://www.mtvindia.com/mtv/movies/reviews/07/guru/index.php

[arr] Baradwaj Rangan reviews Guru

http://brangan.easyjournal.com/entry.aspx?eid=3252750

Review: Guru

SHOW ME THE MANI
The New Sunday Express - January 14, 2007

An unabashed ode to capitalism is wickedly entertaining for the most part  
until it gets all
righteous on us.


Picture courtesy: rediff.com

MANI RATNAMS Guru opens in a Gujarat village in 1951  a time when the heady 
whiffs of
independence hadnt yet rotted away into the stench of cynicism. Theres a 
can-do spirit in the
air  something that informs the actions of both women (like Sujata  played by 
a spirited,
moving, and very beautiful Aishwarya Rai  who elopes after leaving behind a 
letter to her
father that says she wishes to be free, like her country) and men (like Guru  
Abhishek
Bachchan  who rebels against a job because hes required to wear that symbolic 
yoke of the
British: a tie). And when Guru leaves his village to seek employment in big, 
bad Bombay  a
city of Buick ads and large, lumbering trams  you cant help flashing back to 
Shri 420, which
warned the citizens of a newly-independent India about the Faustian bargain 
that is usually
struck in the quest for success. You can make it big, but youll have to sell 
your soul, it
said  and this message probably reflected the socialist bent of the era. Shri 
420 was,
therefore, a morality play, replete with a redemption scenario  and whats 
most fascinating
about Guru, who would be Raj Kapoors contemporary, is that he doesnt need 
redeeming. Hes
unapologetic about wanting money, making money, and wanting to make more money. 
If this movie
had been made in the time it opens in, its protagonist would have been our 
cinemas first
unabashed capitalist.

And the first half of Guru  which plays like the movie equivalent of a 
picaresque novel, where
the roguish, low-class hero relies on his wits to survive (except that his 
adventures are in
the world of business)  is the textbook definition of intelligent, 
entertaining, commercial
cinema. (Well, except for the songs, but more about that later.) Guru is a 
charming crook
wholl do anything it takes  and that includes shamelessly marrying the older 
Sujata simply
because she brings with her a fat dowry. (And irony of ironies, the man she 
wanted to elope
with earlier, he was a red-flag waver, a... communist.) In these early 
portions, almost
everything is made to look like a business transaction  whether its Guru 
jingling the coins
in his hand as he leaves Turkey (where hes worked for a while; the exposure to 
the spice
markets there prepare him for the textile markets in Bombay), or Sujata 
haggling with the
vegetable vendor, or Sujata striking a post-pooja deal with the father-like 
newspaper publisher
(Mithun Chakraborty, superbly torn between love for an individual and loyalty 
to a nation) that
shell give him a piece of the sweet prasad only if he brushes aside his 
atheism and allows her
to apply a teeka on his forehead, or the doctor telling Guru that Sujata has 
had twins.
(Double munafa, he cracks, and I cracked up even more upon hearing the names 
of the two girls
 Disha and Drishti, both of which are indicative of the kind of verbiage that 
wouldnt be out
of place in a companys annual report. And its a nice touch that Guru has his 
children late in
life; perhaps he had to focus on building an empire before building a family.)

The birth of Gurus children, however, leads to one of the least graceful 
segments in the film
 and thats the sequence built around the number Ek lo ek muft, where Abhishek 
downs a
brass-tumblerful of bhang and begins to dance. I am all for the conventions of 
commercial
cinema, but did we really need to see Abhishek  at this point, a hugely 
successful businessman
of a certain age  executing the choreography. Wouldnt the song have been just 
as fun with a
group of dancers around Abhishek and Aishwarya (who also gets into the act, 
post-partum)? This
made me remember Trishul  a movie with a different Bachchan, but with a 
similar business
background  and not once did we see the hero hoofing around; singing, yes, but 
dancing, no.
Mani Ratnam was, at one time, the most exciting conceptualiser of music videos, 
but with
Kannathil Muthamittal and Yuva, I got the suspicion that he was losing interest 
in filming
songs  and that feeling intensifies when you look at whats been done with AR 
Rahmans
terrific soundtrack in Guru. Mayya Mayya comes off as the first-ever item 
number to be
shoehorned into a Mani Ratnam movie, though this may be a result of some of the 
Turkey portions
being edited out  for the cutaways with Mallika Sherawat suggest that she 
played some sort of
role in Gurus life in Istanbul. And this song is followed almost immediately 
by Aishwarya Rai
going Barso re, which is heavily reminiscent of Ratnams earlier outings in the 
rain. (But the
second stanza, which shows Sujata leaving her house, is perfectly in sync with 
Gulzars words,
where she asks her surroundings not to forg

[arr] Mid-day reviews Guru

 Not quite the Manispinner

Guru
Director: Mani Ratnam
Starring: Abhishek Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai, Madhavan, Vidya Balan and Mithun 
Chakraborty
Rating: ***

A still from Guru
Whats it about: All that brouhaha about Mani Ratnams Guru being based on 
Dhirubhai Ambani
life was not unjustified after all. The striking similarities are rather 
obvious and
thankfully, the sensibility of the director salvages it from becoming a dreary 
documentary.

The film focuses on the rags-to-riches story of Gurukanth Desai (Abhishek 
Bachchan), the son of
a failed businessman-turned-school master who goes abroad in search of his big 
dream.

After indulging in odd jobs for a few years, he manages to get a good position 
in a big factory
but leaves it all to follow his vision  to start his own enterprise. Nothing 
comes between him
and his goal.

He even offers to marry his friend Jigneshs (Arya Babbar) sister Sujata 
(Aishwarya Rai), just
because he wants the dowry money to start his business. He finds a friend in 
the forthright
publisher of a newspaper, Manik Das Gupta (Mithun Chakraborty) who helps him 
wage his first
battle against injustice, and there forms a relationship of mutual respect.

Only it gets spoilt a few years later, when Gurukanth begins to make 
compromises to earn larger
profits and Manik makes it his purpose in life to expose him through his paper. 
Helping Manik
in his mission is his dynamic editor, Shyam (Madhavan). Guru is the story of 
one mans journey
through anonymity, power and eventually, self-realisation.

Whats good: The master storyteller, Mani Ratnam, weaves his tale like a poem. 
Guru had all the
trappings of  a dull docu-drama, but Ratnam maintains his fine form well, 
almost.

Like all his earlier films, Mani successfully captures a surreal look and feel 
through
innovative shot taking and dazzling cinematography courtesy Rajeev Menon. 
Dialogues are
clap-worthy and the screenplay is innovative and inspiring; there are scenes 
that take your
breath away. And the crowning glory comes in the form of performances.

Abhishek and Aishwarya finally get their chemistry right. But this time, its 
Aishwarya who
delivers a knockout performance from her first scene to the last. Shes not the 
one with the
author-backed role neither does she have the best dialogues. But she blends 
beautifully into
the character and is the surprise packet of the film.

Abhishek Bachchan is earnest and is a scene-stealer at times: Look for him in 
the scene where
he tells his senior in the trading pit how hes going to beat him at his own 
game. That one is
sure to draw whistles in the theatre. Hes also fabulous when he confronts his 
loyalist
Ghanshyam (Manoj Joshi) after the attack on Manik Das.

He brings forth all his emotions to the front in the hospital sequence after 
Ghanshyams
suicide attempt. Mithun Chakraborty is magic personified; heres an actor of 
caliber doing what
he does best. Its sad that the industry isnt offering him roles he deserves. 
Madhavan,
despite a small role, makes a big impact.

Whats Bad: Theres nothing wrong with Abhisheks performance, but for a film 
like this, maybe
Ratnam needed a more mature actor. For a film that spans through generations, 
Abhishek looks a
bit uncomfortable in the senior role. Also, the film has its powerful moments 
but theyre
sporadic. Somehow, Ratnam fails to maintain the tempo throughout the 
proceedings.

This could be one of the few Mani Ratnam films where you could do away with a 
few scenes  like
Abhisheks Yammo Yammo song. Vidya Balan is wasted  her presence does not add 
or take away
anything from Guru and as for Mallika Sherawat, dancing is certainly not her 
forte.   
 
What to do: Guru may not be Mani Ratnams best, but watch it to rediscover 
Aishwarya Rai.
Abhishek Bachchan is the bonus.   

http://www.mid-day.com/hitlist/2007/january/150061.htm

[arr] Web reviews of Guru the movie 3

GURU, the latest film from writer-director
Mani Ratnam, begins with the usual disclaimer
about not being based on any individual and any
similarities are purely coincidental. In this case,
it is more than just legalese: the film is
acknowledged to be loosely inspired by the life
of Indian entrepreneur Dhirajlal Hirachand
Ambani, better known as Dhirubhai Ambani, the
founder of Reliance Industries Limited. His firm,
initially called Reliance Commercial Corporation
and set up to import polyester yarn and export
spices, grew into the largest petrochemical firm
in India and is reportedly the largest private
sector company in the country as well.
Additionally, the company held interests in textile
manufacturing, telecommunications and financial
services. Ambani died in 2002 and a dispute
among his surviving family has led to the
company being split into several smaller entities.

 Ambani was a colorful figure whose ethics
were not always above board. His life was
chronicled in the unauthorized biography,
The Polyester Prince by Hamish McDonald.
Instead of taking a purely biographical approach
to the material, Mani Ratnam instead opted
to fictionalize the story (I would guess partly
to avoid lawsuits). What he has crafted in GURU
is a superb film that profiles a man driven
to succeed. The movie opens in black-and-white
with Gurukant Desai (excellently portrayed by
Abhishek Bachchan) recalling how his father
always told him that it was pointless to dream.
Defiantly, he dared to dream -- and he came to
realize nearly all of them. From a rural upbringing
as the son of the local headmaster to the
corridors of power as the nation of India grew
and developed.

  GURU takes the young man to Turkey where
he excels in his work for an oil company. Offered
a promotion and a large salary increase, Desai
turns it down to return to his native area with
the idea of going into business. His father scoffs
at his schemes, certain he will fail, and that is
partly the psychological spur he needs to find
success. He marries Sujatha (Aishwarya Rai),
whom he had encountered on a train ride after
she had been spurned by her lover. That she
happens to be the sister of Guru's best friend
and future business partner (Arya Babbar) and
that she comes with a large dowry also play into
the equation. At first, she is unhappy with the
idea but gradually warms up to her spouse --
until her brother informs her in anger about why
Guru really married her. The couple eventually
overcome this little bump and settle in together.

  As the story evolves from roughly the late
1940s into the 1980s, Guru schemes to succeed,
never taking "no" for an answer. With success
and power, though, come critics, notably his
former mentor, newspaper editor Nanaji (Mithun
Chakraborty), and an avid reporter (R Madhavan).
The film reaches its climax in the early 1980s
when Guru has to defend himself before a
government board and he delivers a bravura,
inspiring speech.

  The film is anchored by Bachchan's terrific
performance. As always, Rai is lovely to look at,
but she doesn't make much of her character.
The large supporting cast is uniformly good,
with Babbar, Madhavan, Vidya Balan and the
always reliably great Roshan Seth as the
standouts.

  In mulling over this film, I kept trying to think
of an American movie to which it may bear
comparisons and I kept thinking of Orson Welles'
CITIZEN KANE. While GURU is not quite on the
same level as that masterpiece (after all, what
is?), it does rank pretty close in its depiction of
the life of a man consumed by his business
pursuits and his dreams. Even if you have never
heard of Ambani or know little about India and
its history, you can still appreciate GURU for its
terrific cast and its strong direction and script.


 Rating: B+
 MPAA Rating:NONE
 Running time:165 mins.
 (shown with an intermission)

http://www.murphysmoviereviews.net/2007Films/guru.html

[arr] Music'N'Movies reviews Guru

Mani Ratthnam, like his previous movies - Roja, Iruvar, Bombay brings yet 
another
semi-biographical Guru. Manis movies are generally based on a 
socio-political commentaries
and biographies of larger than life people. The story of Guru is also one of 
them, and
obviously takeoff from Dhirajlal Hirachand
Ambanis life and times, (better known as Dhirubhai Ambani), irrespective of 
whatever the
disclaimer may say. Similarly while the execution part of the story is clearly 
seems to be
loosely inspired from Hollywoods Citizen Kane.

Guru is a decades-spanning drama with a compelling Abhishek Bachchan as a 
ruthless Indian
business tycoon who refuses to take no for an answer.

Cast: Abhishek Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai, Vidya Balan, Mithun, Madhvan
Rating:

Mani, undisputedly one of the best modern story tellers of this country, 
consistently produces
stylishly made movies that have a fairly strong storyline, or at least one that 
tugs at your
heart strings (Nayakan, Roja, Bombay, Mouna Ragam, Anjali - it is a long list 
that would name
almost all of his films) good music, (he gave us A.R.Rehman) good 
cinematography, (P.C.Sriram,
Rajiv Menon are among the best) stunningly shot dances (can anybody forget 
Chaiya Chaiya?). His
genius lies in incorporating a cute and impish love into the broader ambit of 
an emotionless
world of shares and supplies. So deos he able to spun a magical yarn this time 
too?

Yes !, he does.

Guru begins in a raw black and white mode. The movie begins where Guru Kant 
Desai (Abhishek
Bachchan) fails his exam and wants to go out to do a job. His father is a 
teacher and wants to
see his son succeed in his studies, but Guru has no taste for studies. With a 
negative
permission, Guru leaves his village and land up in Turkey. He works as petrol 
can filler to a
chemical company assistant to Gambler. When he gets a promotion as sales 
supervisor in the
factory he was working and when the manager asked him to wear a tie, unlike 
others, he quit the
job and decides to a start business in India.

His father has no confidence again and doesnt help him in any way. Ridden by 
financial crisis,
to start any business he finds an alternative way to get a capital. To get the 
rest of the
capital he agrees to marry Sujatha (Aishwarya Rai) who earlier tried to run 
away with her
lover, but her lover betrayed her. That was the beginning of the rise of Guru.

His father always told him, not to dream because dreams will not come true, but 
he dare to
dream and succeeded.

The story now revolves around the business side of Guru where the relationship 
between Sujatha
is developed nicely in parallel. The eradication of license system, stock 
exchange
manipulation, newspaper story cover-ups and more  the modern battlefield was 
just under
construction. When called up by government for enquiry he gives yet another 
inspiring speech ;

You frame the rules that make it necessary for me to sometimes kick 
somebody down, and at
other times to salaam somebody else. I wanted to succeed, and I did all of 
this, and now you
ask me why I kicked somebody down, and why I salaamed somebody else? 

Guru is an Abhishek Bachchan show all the way. Abhishek has grown as an actor 
and it shows. We
can see the glimpses of genius in this show (like Big B in Zanzeer), where he 
will be a
contender for best actor in 2008 awards. Aiswarya is as usual delivers a ok 
performance but
gossip mongers will be disappointed to see NO ELECTRICITY between the hush hush 
couple. Vidya
Balan and Madhavan gave what the script required from them. After Chingari, 
Midhun Chakraborthy
delivers another fine performance in this film. Mallika Sherawat gives a hot 
number in Turkish
background.

One of the major led down of this movie is AR Rahmans music, nothing but just 
an average
score. The big AR Rahman magic is missing. Choreography by Saroj Khan and 
Brinda fails to make
an impression. Though 2 songs (the dance number in Turkey and the song at the 
time Ash leaves
Abhishek) were above average.

Mani has done his job above the expectation level as a director, but in the 
screenplay and
editing department there is still enough room left for the improvisation.
Overall, Guru is well made movie with some imagination and more of inspiration 
and must say
till date first and best tribute to Mr. Dhiru Bhai Ambani  a common man, who 
dared to dream ! 

http://www.musicnmovies.info/index.php/2007/01/reviews/guru-2007-dared-to-dream/

[arr] Indya.com reviews Guru

Guru



Guru Directed by: Mani Ratnam
Cast: Abhishek Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai, Mithun Chakraborty, R. Madhavan, Vidya 
Balan and Arya
Babbar

Synopsis: Gurukant Desai's (Abhishek), school headmaster father from Idar 
village, Gujrat,
tells him don't believe in dreams because they never come true. But, he dares 
to dream big. His
hunger for fulfilling his dreams takes him to Turkey where he starts of as an 
employee in an
oil company. Just when he gets promoted to a good post after working for seven 
years he leaves
it all to come back to India and start his own business. He gets married to his 
childhood
friend Jignesh's (Arya Babbar) sister Sujata (Aishwarya) so that from the dowry 
money he can
set up his own business in Mumbai.

But in Mumbai it is difficult for him to get entry into the cloth trading 
market syndicate. He
faces stiff opposition from all sides but with a new found mentor in media 
magnate Manikdas
Gupta (Mithun Chakraborty) he manages to break through. With his confidence and 
optimism, in
quick time he takes control of the entire trade and makes record breaking 
profits for all. Guru
decides to set up a factory of polyester and go public. His stature starts 
rising manifold and
his clout in the media and ministries alike gets powerful.

His Shakti Mills becomes one of India's biggest profit making companies. In 
this journey to
accomplish his big vision he starts using corrupt practices which alienate him 
from his old
mentor Gupta. An avid journalist Shyam (Madhavan) working for Gupta starts a 
media campaign to
expose Guru and his malpractice. Guru starts getting set backs (including a 
paralysis attack)
as Shyam proves more powerful than he expected. Despite serious allegations and 
judicial
enquiries, Guru emerges victorious and more powerful only to dream bigger.

indya.com rating: 4 out of 5

Acting: In a role of his lifetime Abhishek Bachchan has given his all. From 
playing an
enthusiastic small town boy to a middle aged business magnate he has performed 
exceptionally
well taking care of every small nuances of his character. Aishwarya Rai gives 
him good support
and for the first time together onscreen, their chemistry works like magic. 
Mithun finally gets
a role to be proud of post Agneepath (1990). Madhavan leaves a lasting 
impression. Vidya Balan
playing Mithun's handicapped granddaughter who shares an affectionate 
relationship with Guru,
in a small role is good. Arya Babbar is fine.

indya.com rating: 4 out of 5

Direction: Mani Ratnam, a master in handling films based on real life 
characters, captures
Guru's journey with cinematic excellence with outstanding support from his 
technical team.
Special mention needs to be made of cinematographer Rajiv Menon and Editor 
Sreekar Prasad.
Ratnam has handled complex situations with amazing ease and has extracted 
amazing performances
from all, including the supporting cast. The Aish-Abhi meeting for the first 
time in the train
is fun to watch and the scenes between Abhishek and Mithun and one in the end 
where Jr.
Bachchan faces the judiciary are outstanding. Greatest achievement for Ratnam 
is he has not
followed the commercial dictates and has also not shown his main protagonist as 
a Mr. Clean
throughout.

indya.com rating: 4 out of 5

Script: Despite denials from the makers, Guru is indeed based on business 
legend Dhirubhai
Ambani's life. Parallels can be drawn from various situations such as the 
Dhirubhai v/s Nusli
Wadia (Bombay Dyeing) business feud, Dhirubhai v/s Ramnath Goenka ideology 
clash etc. Detailing
deserves a special applause. Only complaint is the pace slows down a little bit 
in second half.
Dialogues by Vijay Krishna Acharya (Dhoom2, Pyar Ke Side Effects) provide ample 
sitti bajao
moments. For instance, Mein jeetne ke liye daudta hoon, sehat ke liye nahi.

indya.com rating: 4 out of 5

Music: A.R. Rahman  Mani Ratnam combo has woven magic together earlier in 
Roja, Bombay, Dil Se
and Yuva and once again one gets a paisa vasool score in Guru. The appeal of 
belly dance number
shot on Mallika Sherawat, Mayya Mayya increases after watching it's 
picturisation.

Barso Re, a rain song picturised on Aishwarya enjoying herself in village 
fields is a foot
tapping number, again a visual treat. The dream song, Tere Bina is enjoyable 
for its Dam Tara
Dam Tara loop. Jaage Hain by Rahman is an excellent number with its opera feel 
and is used
effectively in the background score. Only one that irritates is the Bappi Da 
sung, Ek Lo Ek
Muft which should be chopped from the film as it looks unwanted in the film.

indya.com rating: 4 out of 5 

http://cinemaa.indya.com/reviews/guru.html

[arr] Bloggers review Guru the movie 17

Greed Is Good
 

Guru
Dir- Mani Ratnam
Cast- Abhishek Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai, Madhavan, Vidya Balan, Arya Babbar, 
Manoj Joshi and
Mithun Chakraborty
Written by- Vijay Krishna Acharya and Mani Ratnam.
Rating- 
 

The muse is not kind on decent souls; she always seduces her creative master 
-be it a poet,
writer or any other artist- to those lives and stories which obey a concrete 
arc of times
cruelest joke. The artist wrongly assumes that he controls his creation, as 
writers do of
characters, when really the artist unwittingly conforms to the laws of destiny- 
What goes
upmust come down! Most often then, consciously or subconsciously, a heroic 
account is never
really heroic; but tragic. Great tragedies make great epics and great epics 
need flawed heroes.
Shakespeare understood this, as did Marlowe and so did our very own Ved Vyas. 
Even the Bible,
Gita and Quran do. For nearly 95 percent of Gurus running time Mani Ratnam 
seems to know this
as well, except the final few minutes when the film gets afraid to reach the 
heights of a
Citizen Kane.

Mani Ratnams Guru begins with a disclaimer that acquits it of any guilt about 
its supposed
depiction of Indian business mogul Dhirubhai Ambanis life. An hour into the 
film and we
realize that the disclaimer is merely legalese. When Gurukant Desai(Abhishek 
Bachchan) comes to
Mumbai in the late 50s(posters of Kaagaz Ke Phool and Naya Daur act as subtle 
hints, not to
mention the trams) with his wife Sujata(Aishwarya Rai) and brother-in-law 
Jignesh(Arya Babbar),
and takes his first steps towards eventual millionaire status as a stock trader 
lost in the
cacophony of the then unlawful stock market, we know that Gurukant Desai IS 
Dhirubhai Ambani.

Gurukant, or Gurubhai as he is fondly called, dreams big even as a kid in the 
pastoral village
of Idhar, Gujarat. A weak student, Gurubhais schoolteacher father permits him 
to go to Turkey
and work as a loader with his uncle Ghanshyam(Manoj Joshi) at an oil and petrol 
refinery. Guru
may be weak at math, but he displays his perceptive skills at a young age when 
to Ghanshyams
astonishment Guru outwits a street player at his own game by simple 
observation. This important
scene is followed by what would seem an out-of-place item number featuring the 
openly sexual
Mallika Sherawat. In fact the song Mayya Mayya, which takes place in some sort 
of a Turkish
resto-bar, acts as Gurus initiation into adulthood. Looking back, it is 
actually Mallikas
uninhibited invitation, vulgar yet tempting, that acts as a trigger which fuels 
Gurus ambition
for the bigger things, minus the ethics. Mallikas brazen sexuality stands for 
consumerism, and
one must say Mallikas never been this appropriately cast. The song smoothly 
merges into the
title credits, and it is surely a fine title sequence that gives you the feel 
of history being
documented, irrespective whether its personal or public or both.

It wouldnt be wrong to say that though Guru is an individuals story, Mani 
Ratnam obviously
isnt restricting it to the private. The character graph and actions of Guru, 
as well as of
those that surround him, try to mimic the growth of India as a nation. It isnt 
accidental that
Guru calls his father Bapu, a father who is strict, honest and believes in 
modest living. Nor
is it by chance that Sujata calls her father Bapu as well and addresses a 
letter to him asking
why the country is free yet its daughters arent. Every allusion and reference 
is intended.
When Guru returns to India from Turkey, he is chided by his mother as Souten 
ka chokra and
rightly so as he symbolizes an India that has been bred on its Imperial roots 
and morals where
greed is not necessarily a bad thing.

It is this greedy ambition and heady drive for success that makes Guru marry 
Sujata, not out of
love or arrangement but for dowry that he uses as capital investment. Guru 
eventually falls in
love with Sujata, who literally enters his life as the dawn of a new morning. 
She grows to love
him as well, and despite the minor hiccup in their relationship brought about 
by Jigneshs
revelation of Gurus reason to marry her, the pair remains doggedly devoted to 
each other in
good and bad.

Unperturbed by Jigneshs parting ways(the script doesnt explain the reason 
behind this and
then conveniently forgets Jignesh for the rest of the movie), Guru continues on 
his road to
fame and fortune. He exploits every loophole and bends every law; nothing comes 
between him and
his destined success. Sujata never questions him; she remains by him in his 
every action. But
slowly eyebrows are raised over Gurus sudden and immediate rise. What took 
others 150 years to
accomplish(an obvious allusion to the English), he achieves only in 10; a feat 
that his
contemporaries are timid to be a part of. Just like his father who advised Guru 
to never dream.

The story and life of Guru in fact, and his battles, are the countrys 
perpetual struggle with
its own fa

[arr] Jammag reviews Guru

It is said that reality is more exciting than fiction. I agree. After watching 
Guru, I agree
wholeheartedly. Films like Guru take you on a higher plane, without being too 
arty. It's the
kind of film where the end is only incidental; it's the process in which you 
reach there that
really matters.

Mani Ratnam is like the Australian team. Both generate a lot of hype; pundits 
declare that
success is implicit. Yet the public, deep within its heart, wants them to make 
a mistake. It
adds masala to life, innit? But both behave exactly as expected of them - they 
deliver a
winning performance. Well, iss disappointment mein bhi kuch baat hai.

It was Mani Ratnam who utilised Abhishekh's potential in Yuva. Ever since, 
Abhishekh's career
has taken the road north. In Guru, the ace director makes Abhishekh's acting 
since Yuva look
mediocre. It's not about the dialogue delivery, or the body language. It's the 
eyes. So when
Abhishekh delivers his dialogue - "Aap mujhse meri himmat nahin cheen sakte", 
it's not the
fist, but the eyes that enrapture, making the character Gurukant Desai entirely 
believable.
Guru's power comes not from his voice but with his smile, which makes him one 
with people and
also distinguishes him as sahukar - someone to whom rules just don't apply.

If you still want proof of Mani Ratnam's directing prowess, have a look at 
Aishwarya Rai who
shakes off her Ice-Queen tag. Aish's character, Sujatha, is the woman behind 
the successful
man, and not merely the protagonist's prop - a malady that affects many Hindi 
films. Madhavan
(who has left the Southy fat behind) and Vidya Balan deliver convincing 
performances in their
short roles. But the surprise element here is Mithun Da - his acting takes you 
back to his
National Award days.

But the film is squarely about Guru. You may feel the other characters have 
been neglected
towards the end. But this film is about dreams. And about the man who didn't 
allow his rural
origins, past failures, relations, or even the law to come in the way - Guru's 
brushes aside
such trivialities with cynicism.

In the end, Mani Ratnam refuses to give his judgement. Each person is free to 
come to his/her
own conclusions. The director slips only once - the climax is filmy and reminds 
you of Andha
Kanoon's court room scene. Guru's lecture-baazi somewhat spoils the drama for 
the serious movie
goer. Perhaps it was done to keep the junta happy. Dhirubhai, I am sure, would 
have been ok
with it. 

http://www.jammag.com/movies/show_movie.php?movie_id=467

[arr] Bloggers review Guru the movie 18

 Wah Guru! (May contain spoilers)




Allright, that's a dead give away. But then, you must call a spade a spade.

Since I watched the movie at the Apollo Hospitals charity premiere Thursday 
night, people have
been asking me if it will be a big hit. I'm not sure. But unless you are 
Maniratnam, which I am
not, I think it is hardly material.

Because Guru packs a decent punch, in sheer entertainment. Granted it begins 
slowly (though
sizzlingly for Mallika Sherawat fans, which again, I am not) but picks up 
momentum like one of
those trains that take forever to get into 100kmph. But once they get going, 
there's no
stopping them.

Nevermind what they say, if you remove the very thin veil over the Gurukant 
Desai story
(Abhishek Bachchan), you have Dirubhai Ambani. Guru, then, is the story of the 
rise of a middle
class Indian to the ranks of a business tycoon, the means which he uses to get 
there and his
justification of the same. Meanwhile, there is gentle romance, a little humour, 
some
superlative moments, much courtroom drama, some drama outside the court, 
irresponsible
rhetoric, excellent dileanation of character, brilliant cinematography (Rajeev 
Menon) and music
(A.R.Rahman) that blends with the movie.

If you are going to watch the movie remember that the first half sags a bit. At 
times, you are
even wondering what the point is. Istanbul, where the intital parts of the 
movie are shot, is
pale. Probably deliberately so... India is where the colour is, India is where 
the vibrancy is
and India is where Guru Kant Desai can become what he has. A technique that has 
been used with
much success in other movies, I'm not sure it quite works here.

Clearly however, the moment that begins the movie is the scene in the running 
train where
Aishwarya Rai bumps into Bachchan junior. The chemistry is evident right from 
the word go, only
going on to brew more magic in subsequent scenes in the movie, portraying 
marital intimacy in
the most subtle language. To be mentioned in particular are two scenes, one in 
which the couple
have a friendly pummeling routine on the bed and the other, in the second half 
of the movie, a
mature Ash and Abhishek reminiscence about their just-married days. Superlative!

Headmaster's son Guru Kant Desai builds his business brick by brick, destroying 
an elite
competition to shambles with a carefully blended mixture of personal charisma, 
bribery,
corruption and cheating. He climbs steadily up the ladder, building business 
after business, in
his success, arrogating to dream for the entire nation. In that is his hubris, 
his downfall. It
is also in Manik Das Gupta (Mithun Chakraborty), the Commie newspaper man, that 
Guru meets his
downfall.

Ironic, given that it's Manik Das, brilliantly essayed by Mithun, and his 
paper, The
Independent(Swatantra), that gives Guru his first big break. It is poetic 
justice that the man
who fights against monopoly to give Guru his chance also turns back on his 
protege when he
realises he is going down the same path. Mithun uses Madhavan, Shyam Saxena, a 
reporter who
takes up the challenge of bringing Guru down to destabilise him. Neat 
performance by Madhavan,
credit to director Manirathnam for not sterotyping him as a reporter, it is so 
easy to do so
these days.

Justice, then, descends on Guru. He loses the faith of the people and suffers a 
stroke. The
support of the masses is his adrenalin...and when that is withdrawn, when 
people turn against
him, Guru collapses - nearly wholly. A very touching scene in the ICU follows 
as his twin
daughters sing to him - again the touch of a classy director. Abhishek has some 
splendid
Nayagan moments throughout the movie, but more so in his illness. I certainly 
think that the
junior B has just been in the role of a lifetime and he has Maniratnam to thank 
for drawing out
what must be innate, but truly well-hidden talent in him.

Significantly it is the aam junta that revive the flailing behemoth. The 
courtroom scene has
its usual moments of humour, Roshan Seth playing the chief inquisitor. Seth has 
been a
favourite right from the days of Bharat Ek Khoj and brief though his appearance 
might be, it
certainly adds meat to the movie. The success of Guru, I think, is the manner 
in which its many
well-oiled components orchestrate in harmony as one unit.

But then there is the movie's fatal flaw. A number of people who watched the 
movie along with
me, began by enjoying the second half of the movie, but had revised their 
opinion by the time
the movie ended. "Nice" became "O..kay." Primarily because in the crucial 
scene, the climax,
they loose the connect that is essential between movie and audience. What snaps 
it off is the
rhetoric that Guru uses to justify himself and his work... Can the great Indian 
middle class be
expected to sympathise with a man who made himself a millionaire, clearly with 
a good measure
of deceit and deception?

At the end of the day, Guru is still an entertainer, in it, are

[arr] FullHyd.com reviews Guru

Guru **1/2http://www.fullhyderabad.com/scripts/profiles.php3?section=Movies&name=Guru&ID=4297

[arr] Web reviews of Guru the movie 2

'Guru': Metaphor for India
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January 12, 2007
susan walker
entertainment reporter

Guru

 

Starring Abhishek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai. Directed by Mani Ratnam. In 
limited release.

 

There is a lot to engage the eye and the ear in Guru, a movie that its makers 
are predicting
will be Bollywood's first crossover hit. The 2 1/2 hour epic, inspired by the 
biography of
Dhirubhai Ambani, one of India's most successful industrialists, is a South 
Asian Citizen Kane
only with a triumphant ending.

Gurukant ("Guru") Desai, a failure in his headmaster father's eyes, leaves his 
village in
Gujurat in 1951, forsaking education for a job in Turkey. In Istanbul he works 
his way up from
a delivery boy to supervisor for Shell Oil, but he shows his defiance again by 
rejecting
further promotion. He won't work for the white man, Gurukant says, and he 
returns to his
village determined to start a business of his own.

With endless nerve and cunning, he secures a bride, Sujatha, as a means of 
acquiring a dowry to
begin his textile business. With his brother-in-law as his partner and his 
equally determined
wife at his side, Desai goes to Bombay, with nothing but two shirts to his name 
and the money
he's ready to gamble on a venture manufacturing polyester clothing, an idea 
that no one else
believes in.

Every time he has an obstacle thrown in his path by the clique that controls 
the Bombay
business world, Desai is equal to the challenge, eventually breaking the 
licensing system that
is central to the monopoly in the textile trade. Desai defies his father's 
warning not to
dream: he dreams and he dreams big. Soon he is the "business king of India" 
controlling the
massive Shakti corporation with its many factories and thousands of employees.

Success breeds envy and suspicion. It's never quite clear whether the business 
king's practices
are criminal or not, and a former friend who runs a big newspaper sets out to 
expose him as a
tax evader, smuggler and fraudster.

Desai defies the relentless reports of bribery and corruption simply by making 
more money. But
finally the pressure becomes too much and Desai is felled by a stroke and 
partial paralysis.
He's down, but he's by no means out.

Guru becomes a metaphor for India itself, its rise from colony to nationhood 
and more recent
economic climb from Third World to First World status.

As the indomitable Desai, Abhishek Bachchan gives a powerful and mostly 
convincing performance
beside the beautiful Aishwarya Rai, his faithful Sujatha. A.R. Rahman's 
soundtrack and some
beautiful dance numbers save the movie from its preachy tendencies. 

http://www.thestar.com/artsentertainment/article/170493

[arr] Web reviews of Guru the movie 1

Full Review - 
Guru

Clearly inspired by the life of controversial Indian entrepreneur Dhirubhai 
Ambani, Tamil
filmmaker Mani Ratnam's politically inflected Hindi melodrama examines three 
decades in the
life of Gurukant "Guru" Desai (Abhishek Bachchan, son of Bollywood legend 
Amitabh Bachchan),
who rises from his modest rural origins to the top of the business world.

Idhar Village, Gujarat, 1951: Young Guru bitterly disappoints his father, 
headmaster of the
local school, by failing his exams. But Guru is less interested in academics 
than business, and
takes the opportunity to move to Istanbul, where an uncle teaches him the 
basics of trading.
Though Guru's knack for it lands him a promising job offer from a British 
petroleum company, he
doesn't want to live in Turkey and work for Europeans. So he returns to Idhar, 
where he and his
childhood best friend, Jignesh Patel, decide to go into business together: The 
only thing
stopping them is money  though Jignesh's father used to be a moneylender, he's 
keeping all his
spare funds as a dowry for his headstrong daughter, Sujatha (Aishwarya Rai). So 
Guru marries
Sujatha, and the three of them move to Bombay, only to find that a web of trade 
associations
and government quotas conspire to keep newcomers from establishing themselves.

A fortuitous meeting with newspaper publisher Manikdas Gupta (Mithun 
Chakraborty) gives Guru
the break he needs; Gupta, who's impressed by Guru's drive and energy, exposes 
favoritism
within a local union, and Guru steps into the resulting breach. He becomes a 
successful yarn
trader, then expands into fabric import and export. He sees an opportunity in 
polyester and
opens a textile factory, later diversifying his interests to include chemical 
manufacturing.
Guru's financial success erodes his integrity and he alienates old friends and 
supporters,
including Gupta, who assigns hotshot reporter Shyam Saxena (Madhavan) to cover 
irregularities
in Guru's Shakhti family of companies.

Guru embodies a number of trends that have emerged in postcolonial India, and 
when he's called
before a government commission, he delivers an impassioned speech that 
emphasizes national
pride  he and Sujatha even request that the proceedings be conducted in Hindi 
rather than in
English  and the need for India to establish herself as a respected member of 
the
international business community. Unlike most mainstream filmmakers, Ratnam 
doesn't try to
include something for everyone, but he does deliver several handsome production 
numbers. The
highlights are a sultry belly-dance sequence featuring Mallika Sherawat and a 
solo for Rai that
emphasizes her rural roots while contriving to get her sari soaking wet.  
Maitland McDonagh 

http://www.tvguide.com/detail/movie.aspx?tvobjectid=285622&more=ucmoviereview

Re: [arr] Shauk Hai Song as BGM - Guru

2007-01-13 Thread Mahesh Muzumdar

hey,
   Nokia PC suite is required to play .amr format. The media player of Nokia PC 
suite will help u. If not plz get in touch back. will try some other 
possibility.

rakesh gowda <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
  Guys,

Saw Guru yesterday and I found it to be a good Muvi,
but not upto the hype.

There was this song "Shauk Hai" by Saumya Rao which is
played as the BGM around 3-4 times, it comes up as a
BGM for Imp scenes on Vidya Balan. Its such a
BEAUTIFUL song, Its soo unfortunate that such gr8
songs are not a part of the soundtack !!! dono why
such thing happen again and again. 

I tried to record this thry my Sony W810i cell, but
its in a .amr format, shud b able to play in real
player i guess, I have attached the file. 

Let me know if anyone is able to play it properly.

Rgds
Rakesh Gowda 

__
Don't get soaked. Take a quick peak at the forecast
with the Yahoo! Search weather shortcut.
http://tools.search.yahoo.com/shortcuts/#loc_weather

 

 
-
Food fight? Enjoy some healthy debate
in the Yahoo! Answers Food & Drink Q&A.

[arr] Radio Sargam reviews Guru the movie

Gurukanth Desai, knows from hereafter as Guru, has hopes of being rich and 
successful. He wants
to achieve what his father could not. To make his dream come true, Guru 
requires going
overseas, after all dreams can only come true off-shore.

Guru works here and there, but it isnt long until he gets a prime position at 
a big factory.
But, Guru is not happy, so risks it all by resigning the post to start his own 
business.

He needs money for this enterprise, so offers to marry Sujata, just so he can 
use the dowry
money to start his own business.

Guru has a friend in Manik Das Gupta, a newspaper publisher, but their 
friendship comes under
threat when Manik starts to print Gurus bad deeds. Manik gets help from editor 
Shyam, and
together the two begin exposing Guru to the world.

Mani Ratnam is a perfectionist and Guru is no exception. His direction is first 
rate and
everything on-screen looks real. Cinematography, dialogues, and the screenplay 
are all above
standard. But, it is the acting of the main players that give the film the 
edge. This kind of
film requires the tempo to be just right, but that is not the case. There are 
scenes that just
somehow dont work out right.

A R Rahmans music is average.

Abhishek might finally have a hit on his hands, a hit for which he is solely 
responsible. His
performance is the best he has done in his career thus far. Mani Ratnam showed 
us what Abhishek
is capable of in Yuva, and in Guru further evidence is brought to light; 
Abhishek is surely his
fathers son when it comes to movies. The only negative criticism that Abhishek 
might get is
for his senior age role, where he lacks experience.

Aishwarya Rai is supposed to be playing a low-key role, she has neither that 
many scenes nor
any good dialogues, but she fits into her role perfectly and is a delight to 
watch. She and
Abhishek look good in the scenes together, finally managing to create some 
on-screen chemistry
that has eluded them so far.

The return of Mithun Chakraborty has been laughed at for the past few years, 
but here he shows
what a great actor he is, if a good role comes his way. Madhavan and Arya 
Babbar fit in well
with the script. Vidya Balan is under-used while Mallika Sherawat is her usual 
self.

The film tells a good story, the performances are good, but due its lack of 
spice (something
that is required these days) the film will suffer at the Box Office.

RS Rating: 6/10

Reviewed by Tony

[arr] Kind Atn : T shirt despatch date

2007-01-13 Thread Hakkeem

Hi,
   
  I would like to bring in to kind attention for those who have ordered t 
shirts  that I will be able to deliver next batch of T shirt only on 
27/01/2007, coz  from 26 /01/2007 to 29/01/2007 Its holiday for me and I can 
dispatch goods worry free. I bring in to your kind attention that I will ask 
you to transfer money to my ICIC a/c from 23 on wards and I will get next batch 
T shirts on 25/01/07. Mean while all who have mailed out the roll can post your 
T shirt requirements till 20/01/07. With all details including size address, 
mobile num, number of T shirt required to [EMAIL PROTECTED] num is 
09947488829.all those who have orderd T shirt plz acknowldge this mail.
  Anticipating your cooperation.


Kind regards,
Hakkeem.A
(I Support UNICEF and AR Rahman foundation)
 
-
Expecting? Get great news right away with email Auto-Check.
Try the Yahoo! Mail Beta.

[arr] GURU-FANTASTIC MOVIE

2007-01-13 Thread parimi sreekar


just watched the movie .
its FANTASTIC.actually i dont like abhishek but i just cant stop
appreciating his performance.this film is sure to become a hit.
Rahmans BGM is once again superb.

[arr] B.O. update: 'Guru' picks up!

B.O. update: 'Guru' picks up! 
By Taran Adarsh, January 13, 2007 - 02:52 IST
Mani Ratnams GURU started on a 50%-60% note almost everywhere. A positive sign 
since the film
has opened extensively [750 prints, including Digital] in the three versions 
[Hindi, Tamil and
Telugu]. The film picked up towards the evening shows everywhere, with 
multiplexes [screening
the film in 12/15/20 shows] showing approx. 85%-90% occupancy. The general 
feedback being
extremely positive, the film is expected to enjoy a good first weekend.

Abhishek Bachchan has been appreciated tremendously. Both, the paying public as 
well as the
industry people have gone gaga over the actors sterling performance in the 
film.

[arr] Bloggers review Guru the movie 16


Guru - Movie Review
Posted by Indicine Team on January 12th, 2007
This page has been viewed 33 times

Story:
An inspirational tale of a young man who dares to dream big, to establish 
Indias largest
company. The story revolves around him, how he builds his company from scratch 
after leaving a
decent job in Turkey.

I am not sure how much the story resembles Dhirubhai Ambhani but it was very 
nicely done. It
flowed nicely though with some loose ends here and there. The story was helped 
with a
tremendous effort from Abhishek Bachchan. You connect with the main character 
and that helps to
connect with the story.

Direction and Screenplay:
Its a Mani Ratnam film. Enough said.
Though in the screenplay, there were parts which seemed loose as there was no 
place in the
story and it seemed a bit rushed there. But otherwise it was perfect.

Music:
AR Rahman does it again. Beautiful music. Every song.
And the item number from Mallika was Hot.

Performances:
Abhisekh Bachchan - Amazing. He certainly has lived up to his surname in this 
one. Why does he
need to waste his time and talent on something like Dhoom!??. This film proves 
that he is a
fantastic actor. A mind blowing performance and I dont see how anyone else 
could have carried
it off. He oozed confidence. Fearlessness was in his eyes. Body language of a 
man who has seen
and taken a lot of bricks but is still standing ready to fight back. He has 
shown a light of
brilliance and shade of his father. Award worthy performance!

Aishwariya Rai - She was good!! Played the part just right, the Dhoom 
irritation and bad acting
is all gone. A more sober character suits her. Very Good.

Mithun - What can i say?! He was good, he is fantastic, and amazing as always.

Madhavan - Wow, he has slimed down quite a lot. And his performance was his 
best performance
till date, of course in Hindi movies.

Vidya Balan - I am not sure why her character was needed at all. But whatever 
she had to do,
she was amazing in it. She shares a passionate smooch with Mahadvan.

The rest - Perfect

Overall:
A must watch. Though i can see why the likeness factor of the film will be 
subjective to each
one of us. A brilliant film indeed it is, an inspirational movie. With a nice 
message in the
end.

Rating: 4.5 / 5 (Must Watch)

Box Office prediction:
40 - 45 crores. Hit to Superhit. The movie has opened to a slow start, but the 
collections will
improve post saturday due to the positive word-of-mouth the movie is receiving.

http://www.indicine.com/movies/bollywood/guru-movie-review.html/

[arr] interesting review on GURU on business shades


http://balajiviswanathan.blogspot.com/2007/01/guru-film-economics-review.html

Disclaimer: I'm not here to comment on how the songs were, how the this &
that pinky minor details were... search some other blog for that. I'm not
gonna talk about Mani Rathnam or AR Rahman or even Rajiv Menon. I felt most
other reviews were pathetic in that they totally missed the whole point. I'm
here for the story and story alone, what it means.)

Oh boy! what a week of movies... This whole week I had been spending
watching some of the best movies (apart from doing my day job) included one
of the best movies of all time - "Life is beautiful" (that got me to spend
most of the tissues in my house) and the first day of this Hindi movie -
"Guru". I loved it so much that I didnt even talk coming out of the theatre
with my dozen frens and drove the car without switching on the music. I
wanted the film to settle in me and blogging as soon as possible. This is my
review based on my experiences with both investing & films and ya... ATLAS
SHRUGGED. Kindly bear if dont talk about AR Rahman at all (the music
director) as I'm someone who believe that most films dont need songs and in
this film most of the songs were out of place (but you know I loved the
Mallika Sherawat's song ;)).

The movie is about the story of one of the world's greatest entrepreneurs
Dhirubhai Ambani, the founder of the conglomerate Reliance. To me he is much
more than even Henry Ford & Andrew Carnegie (the former pillars of American
economic ascendence) as he battled India's highly idiotic anti-business
atmosphere and built a vast empire (from texitles to petroleum, telecom, and
now retail malls & real estate) starting from nothing. He should be a hero
for any Indian dreaming to do something big by the power of economics and
today we are seeing the brilliant empire slowly on the footsteps of becoming
a GE of the world. So, how did a guy with no political or business links to
start out with, built such a magestic empire is a great legend. I once read
about it again and again (12 years ago during the Indian boom) and its
fascinating. And this movie brilliantly captures that (Hindi films are
getting better and better in every genre) and top the director ices with the
film depiction of Hank Rearden's extraordinary court scene in "Atlas
Shrugged". (For those who didnt read the novel, I cant pity you for the lack
of understanding of the climax). One moron writes >> he attempts to justify
the man's deeds in a weak climax which puts forward the dubious premise that
as long as you bring happiness to your shareholders
here
What the heck he knows about climaxes or business?

The story revolves around Gurubhai (does it sounds like Dhirubhai) & his
brilliant political & business maneuvres (basically he got around India'
archaic rules of milking out well-run companies and increased production
enormously and fought a system by breaking all its bad rules and involved
one of the biggest sharebases in the country, thereby benifitting most
middle class in the country) and his pitched battles with Nanaji (Ramnath
Goenka of Indian express).

Simple story: Guru fails in his exams and runs to Turkey to work in a
petrochemical firm and learns in and out of business and commodities
trading. He then beleives that he can do much better by starting business in
India and returns back. Here, he then partners with his close friend and
marries his sister (played by Aishwarya Rai) partly for the dowry with which
he can open a company. He then goes to Mumbai and wants to trade in the
rudimentary commodities exchange there. However, he finds redtapism there,
with the President of the exchange a wealthy Mr.Contractor (Nusli Wadia of
Bombay Dyeing) doesn't allow new members and extends full control over it,
thereby blocking development. Guru accidentally Nanaji, a news baron, and
Nanaji agrees to publish his story of how business is blocked by vested
interests in the exchange. Contractor gets pissed off and using his
political power closes the exchange itself in anger. But, Guru does an
intelligent convincing and puts the IAS officer incharge to a great
embarassment and forced to reopen.

Guru becomes a great trader, and later opens a big factory and in a path
that revolutionized Indian industry, he went for an equity based approach
with an IPO (that time called new issues) instead of taking the conventional
debt based aproach. An ingenious decision that brough millions of commoners
into shareholder governance thereby ensuring its success with politicians.
He dreams of beating Burma Shell (Bombay Dyeing) with his company and does
extrordinary maneuvres - creating bogus exports (Indian law then allowed teh
companies to import only if they export something, so he created ghost
entities abroad that bought his empty boxes) and then channeled the revenue
to import a lot of capital goods (machinery). And he understaded the imports
to avoid

[arr] Allah Rakha Rahman - The Guru

2007-01-13 Thread Shah Navas G

Since yesterday night, when I saw Guru, my mind is consumed with these
thoughts  How about Mani making a biopic on Rahman?

The opening lines of the movie would say "All characters inthis movie
are true and any coincidence to reality is purely intended". 

Probably Mani sir is the only person to whom Rahman can't say no

The movie will be on the lines of Guru, except for the negative shade.

A musical spanning 4 decades:

1st  childhood and struggle

2nd  youth and hard work

3rd  adulthood and raise and raise of Rahman and so comes criticism

4th  Rahman redefined.World acknowledges the Legend

Wow. . .  What a musical would that benone of the music would repeat
in the movie

The music would mature from jingles to Roja days to Taal,Dilse days to
Water and Guru days!

Each time Rahman's character appears there will be different themes

Sivamani to Naveen to Blazee  - interpreting the main theme in their
own way

Rahman's life has enough real life incidents to make a commercial movie
 envying peers, not so supportive media, in fact writing him off
completely at times only to be proven wrong again by his work.

If we can take some cinematic liberty and add a dramatic sequence of
events leading to a meeting between Mani sir and Rahman, a
very supportive wife, even more supportive fans, all stars waiting to
get Rahman score music for their movie, secret plots by "bashing"
peers who in the end turn good and join www.arrahmanfans.com

Mani would be the mentor Nana Saheb . . Barath Bala would be his
`friend in need' 

And Mani sir can let the character grow from a kid to youth with rock
star looks to a charming spiritualist...

Lo we have movie which I will watch at least 100 times

Now after Guru, no can say me to stop dreaming.

 

Regards,

Shah Navas

[arr] ApunKaChoice.com reviews Guru

Guru : Movie Review
12th Jan 2007  23.55 IST
By Naresh Kumar Deoshi  

What words shall be used to describe a cinematic masterpiece like Guru . Mani 
Ratnams flawless
direction and Abhishek Bachchans superlative performance simply leave you 
speechless by the
end of the film.

Firstly, Guru will silence all those detractors who say that Abhishek 
Bachchan doesnt have a
talent for acting. The actor not just surprises you, he shocks you with his 
extraordinary
performance. Gosh, how come this hidden potential of Abhi never came forth 
before? Perhaps it
is Ratnam who knows how to get the best, or even more than that, out of Abhi.



Secondly, Mani Ratnam , the master of his craft, arguably surpasses all his 
previous works in
Guru. Apart from its technical soundness, Guru tells a story that is deeply 
gripping and
highly inspiring. It is the tale of a man who never gives up. The protagonist 
of the film is a
perennial fighter and an incurable optimist.

Beginning in 1951, Guru is the story of a boy who goes to Turkey to work in a 
petroleum
company after failing his school exams back home in a small Gujarat village. 
With sheer hard
work Gurukant Desai (Abhishek Bachchan) rises in ranks and gets promotion. But 
Guru is a man of
big vision. He quits his job in Turkey and comes back to Gujarat to start some 
business of his
own.

So fixated is Guru about his dream that he marries Sujatha ( Aishwarya Rai ), a 
village girl,
simply for the dowry sum that he could use to start his business.

With their minimal belongings, Guru, his wife and her brother go to Mumbai to 
start some
business. By hook or by crook, by persuasion and by his sheer charm, Guru 
overcomes all hurdles
and progresses in leaps and bounds. He is unstoppable. And this attitude of 
Guru doesnt go
well with some people.

Manikdas Gupta or Nanaji ( Mithun Chakraborty ) runs a newspaper called The 
Independent. He
likes Gurus determination and straightforwardness. He almost begins treating 
Guru like his own
son. But when Guru uses Nanajis newspaper to achieve his business motive, 
Nanaji vows to stop
the unstoppable Guru.

Journalist Shyam Saxena ( Madhavan ), who works for Nanaji, uses his power of 
pen to bring Guru
down and expose his truth.

At the same time, Nanajis handicap daughter, Meenu ( Vidya Balan ), who 
suffers from multiple
sclerosis, is the only one who loves Guru unconditionally.

The war between Guru and Nanaji heats up as Gurus public venture company, 
Shakti Corporation,
increases in size and proportion to become one of the best polyester making 
companies in India.
It is a war that will claim much from Guru. But the perennial fighter in him 
succeeds in the
end.

A film like Guru has not been seen on the Indian screen before. With its 
powerful story,
awesome performances, melodious music ( A R Rahman ), splendid cinematography 
(Rajiv Menon) and
skilled direction, the movie leaves you spellbound. However, two songs in quick 
succession at
the films very beginning do make for a bumpy start.

The story picks up when Guru goes to Mumbai where he starts his clothes 
business. How this
visionary with an indomitable spirit fights against all odds and succeeds, 
makes for a riveting
watch. And full credit goes to Abhishek Bachchan who has given the best 
performance of his
career so far. His Guru is full of energy, vivacity and optimism.

Whats commendable is the conviction with which Abhi gets into the skin of his 
character. His
bulky frame moves with a swagger, his penetrating gaze reflects his shrewd 
business acumen and
yet there is a vulnerable side to Guru that shines through now and then. Abhis 
performance is
particularly excellent in the second half, when his business begins to sink and 
he is
paralyzed. His monologue in the courtroom (with his lip twitched and his one 
arm incapacitated)
makes him truly deserving of an award.

For the first time, Guru offers something to write about chemistry between 
Abhishek and
Aishwarya. There is almost an electric vibe between the two actors and it could 
verily be seen
in the film. Apart from this, Ashs performance, too, is commendable.

Mithun Chakraborty has a domineering presence and is effective in his 
performance. Madhavan and
Vidya Balan are very natural. Mallika Sherawat provides her brand of 
entertainment at the
films beginning.

To sum it up, Guru is one of the best movies to have come out of Bollywood 
recently. It is a
perfect treat for the dreamers. A must-watch.

A gem of a film.

[arr] Minute details of GURU (please share)

hi guys
everyonw who watches guru must will find some minute details which 
others might not detect

so i request everyone that please share your intresting findings with 
others

for instance in the song barso re, the voice of the rain is added to 
the song, and in cinemas with excelent sound system, you will feel 
that its raining all around you

I  THANK  GOD  THAT  I HAD THE GREATEST  OPPORTUNITY  OF MY  LIFE  OF 
WATCHING  SUCH  A  MASTER  PIECE  
THANKS  TO   THE   CINEMA  GUYS  (THEY   OPENED  ALMOST  FULL  SOUND)
JUST  LISTEN   "BARSO   RE"   AT   VERY   HIGH   VOLUME,  YOU   
WILLFEEL   THAT   YOU   ARELISTENINGDRUMS   OF   HEAVEN


Pravinder  Sheoran

Re: [arr] my birthday gift on behalf of arr. ARR ASIANPAINTS PONGAL AD


it was excellent.. nice one on the eve of pongal..

On 1/13/07, bhagavathi_mohan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


   my struggle for searching arr jingles is defintely paying me and
also obviously for the group ..first through rahmania.net got the
cinthol.com to get the cinthol ad starring arvindswamy but
unfortunately no other company responded me so thought of searching
adagencies and got this rahman ad which he did for ASIAN PAINTS so
here it is

http://www.ogilvyindia.com/work/asianpaints.asp

[arr] Bloggers review Guru the movie 15

January 13, 2007

Impressions from Guru

Guru

1. Mani does a good job of first publicizing that the movie is on Dhirubhai 
Ambani and later
making it a point to deny it every pre-release interview. He did it 
successfully earlier in
Iruvar and ended up generating huge publicity for the film and this time too, 
does it to
perfection. I dont know how he manages to create that buzz time and time again 
even though the
movies do not offer any suspense in terms of the plot. By the way, Guru is 
entirely based on
Dhirus life even if it wasnt obvious through the song Gurubhai Gurubhai . 
It is left to
the viewer to count the similarities between Guru and Dhiru which have been 
sprinkled
throughout the movie. Guru leaving for his home country after a promotion, his 
native, his
dads profession, his accomplice leaving him midway, his companys symbol, his 
first car, the
stroke he suffers and the area it affects, the location of his companys 
shareholder meetings,
his one-liners are some examples.

2. The screenplay of Guru is also very similar to Iruvar with several scenes of 
short durations
and abrupt endings. While in Iruvar, it aided the narration, here it neither 
portrays his
personal life clearly, nor gives adequate time to his professional successes. 
It leaves the
viewers halfway in both these aspects of his life.
In fact, throughout the movie, a Manis fan is left to compare the similarities 
of the plot
with Manis other movies. The tactic of depicting both the positive and 
negative shades of a
controversial personality and then questioning his character and defending his 
acts to an
extent and leaving the final judgement to the viewer was also used in Nayagan 
(when Velus
daughter questions him to which he responds by giving several examples and 
says, Avan(gal)a
nirutha sollu, naa nirutharen, and again when his grandson asks him, Neenga 
nallavara,
kettavara?). The heros wife giving birth to twins and the use of rain in 
important parts of
the movie reminds one of Bombay. Again, as they did in Bombay, though not to 
that extent,
some songs clearly hampered the narrative and could have been dispensed with.
On the whole, this movie again proves that Mani Ratnam is a formula director.

3. Abhishek has probably given his best performance. His intensity is evident 
in most of the
scenes; whenever he misses out, though, he leaves the viewer to recall Kamals 
portrayal of
Velu Nayakan. Though Kamals acting in Nayagan lent itself to funny 
imitations (especially
his cry on his sons death and neenga nallavara kettavara part) and he was, 
sometimes,
criticized for over-acting, exceedingly viewers will miss his acting in the 
last couple of
decades (80s-90s).
Coming back to Guru, Hindi audience will simply love Abhishek whereas he will 
have to climb
the difficult mountain of comparison with Kamal to be appreciated by the 
Tamil audience.
Aishwarya, on the other hand, has no such problems. Since the viewers go in 
with zilch
expectations from her, she will win hands down. However, she could have danced 
a little better.
One also fails to comprehend her exposure in Barso Re song. Madhavan looks a 
lot younger
when compared to his recent movies, but his acting and dialogue delivery is 
monotonous and
predictable. Mithun da is wonderful and Vidya is bubbly.

4. It is not mandatory for Hindi movies to show a kiss. That scene was very 
pathetic and the
only worse kiss on screen I can recall was in Neal-n-Nikki. The actors seemed 
very
uncomfortable and tentative.

5. The climax is too dragging and contrived. It starts out setting big 
expectations and fizzes
out without leaving an impression. The climax could have been more realistic 
and trimmed. The
time gained from leaving out some songs and trimming the climax could have been 
used to
strengthen the plot.

6. A.R.Rehmans music has been good in parts. Though a couple of songs, Ai 
Hairathe and Tere
Bina are excellent, many other tunes and interludes bear resemblance to his 
earlier works. The
initial portion of Tere Bina has been used throughout the movie.

7. To sum up, the movie is excellent when compared to the Hindi movies being 
dished out every
week. Personally, I love those movies that affect me to an extent that they 
make me think and
talk about them in the subsequent days (and no, I dont include Pudupettai that 
left me with
thalavali the next day :) ). This movie, after a long time, had that effect. 
Mani Ratnam has
lived up to his reputaion, but has not tried to exceed the expectations.

P.S: Two of my KV IIT fellow alumni have played a role in the film. One is of 
course, Rajiv
Menon. The other guy, Ravi Prakash, is actually not very prominent in the film. 
He sits to the
right of Roshan Seth in the climax scenes. He has also acted in Alaypayuthey 
and Boys.


http://rkarthik.blogsome.com/2007/01/13/impressions-from-guru/

[arr] Re: Businessofcinema.com reviews Guru

2007-01-13 Thread Roshan

The story somehow reminds me of that Leonardo Di Caprio movie,
Aviator.  though DiCaprio wasn't really a middleclass boy in it.  But
then it is a Maniratnam movie, so it ought to be something different.

--- In arrahmanfans@yahoogroups.com, Gopal Srinivasan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
>
> Film Review: Guru
> 
> By Sanjay Ram
> (12 January, 2007)
> 
> Film: Guru
> 
> Director: Mani Ratnam
> 
> Rating: 4/5
> 
> This is the week you are just glad to have the option of watching a
movie that does not bore
> you or kill you. Guru has released all over.
> There is film and there is cinema, Guru is the latter. A cinema that
has truly raised the bar
> of what Bollywood cinemas should aim to be.
> 
> Guru set in the 50's till the 90's orbits around the life of
Gurukant Desai (Abhishek Bachchan)
> a middle class man with the dream of making it big in life, a dream
of being better than the
> best.
> 
> In the beginning Gurukant Desai approaches his father to tell him
that he has decided to start
> his own business in the textile industry. But with a refusal from
his father he decides to go
> ahead with his plan and thinks of an ingenious way to amass the
money needed to set up his
> business. He decides to marry Sujata (the flawless and gorgeous
Aishwarya Rai), as she would
> bring with her a dowry of Rs 25,000, which would be sufficient to
make a small beginning.
> Convincing her parents and Shakti, who is bummed because the love of
her life decided to betray
> her and leave her stranded (he must be crazy to leave her), Gurukant
successfully marries her
> and now has the money to start off his business.
> 
> With their bags packed, the newlyweds leave for Bombay (Mumbai) to
start a new life and a new
> business. On reaching and trying a thing or two to start his
business Guru realizes that things
> were not going to be easy. With his traders license application
rejected, a sad Guru finds
> himself wandering on Marine Drive cursing the union leader who
rejected his application in
> spite of promising to look into the matter and getting it approved.
> 
> At this point Mr. Das Gupta (Mithun Chakraborty) who is walking his
dog overhears Guru;
> impressed with him he gets Guru a trader's license (still figuring
how though). With the
> license in place, Guru marks his beginning and begins to grow
strong. So much so that he
> manages to reopen the trade market by blackmailing and pressurizing
the IAS officer who shuts
> the trade market by declaring it as a place of gambling.
> 
> Sujata, who throughout essays her character remarkably reminding the
viewers of her performance
> in Iruvar (her debut movie), forms the backbone for Guru's success.
With great profits Guru
> sets up a textile factory (named after Sujata, now that's true
love), soon emerging as a high
> roller in society with tremendous support from the public.
> 
> Sudden growth leads to a gradual fall... the same was true for Guru.
Strong and undeterred by
> his surroundings, he was the business king but as luck would have it
his move of killing
> competition by publicizing their negativity gets Mr Das Gupta angry.
> 
> Thereon the war of right against the wrong beings. Shyam (R
Madhavan) is appointed to snoop
> around and uncover the truth of Guru's instant success. Guru, still
undeterred, finds ways to
> grow till things get out of hand and finds himself among a group of
unhappy employees and share
> holders.
> 
> With reports blown out of proportion in the newspapers, Guru
succumbs to the negativity and is
> paralyzed. Now in the hospital with nothing more than Sujata's
support, Guru is slowly
> recovering but the final blow occurs when he is summoned to the
court and is set to be tried
> for all his business malpractice.
> 
> Unable to speak, paralyzed and shaken all he has for defense is his
will to succeed. On the day
> of the hearing the panel of judges charge him with unfair trade
practices, but with faith in
> himself he stands up to them and confronts them with his version of
the truth. In typical
> `filmi' style he accuses them of holding back growth of a nation and
blames them for the
> extensive reliance on imported goods. With this over empowering
speech, he gathers once again
> the support of the public and the judges see him as not a thug but a
hero. The final verdict
> declares Guru free of all charges and orders him to pay a fine of a
few lakh rupees.
> 
> What is remarkable is not only the story but also the way it has
been narrated, the film is
> stylistic and beautiful. Each frame is well constructed and well
executed. For all those who
> wrote off Abhishek and Aishwarya's pairing, it is time you eat your
own words as they not only
> share an amazing chemistry but also do complete justice to their
characters. The only injustice
> done was to Minu (Vidya Balan) who is of no significance to the
movie but still manages to do a
> remarkable job.
> 
> Here's hoping that Mani Ratnam will continue to set the bar higher
each time.
> 
> Film Review: G

[arr] Re: Guru Movie Review (very very very very excelent review)

dear PRABHU
I have no words to praise about your review of the movie GURU
all the minute details that you have presented in the review are 
breath taking
i also noticed many of them but forgot as i came out of the cinema
AND I WOULD LOVE TO THANK YOU FOR SOME DETAILS THAT I COULD NOT SEE AT 
ALL

YOUR PASSION TOWARDS ACKNOWLEDGING EXCELENT WORK LIKE GURU IS CLEARLY 
VISIBLE THROUGH YOUR REVIEW

I WOULD LIKE YOU (AND ALL OTHER FANS) TO PAY ATTENTION ON A FEW THINGS 
WHEN YOU GO TO WATCH THE MOVIE NEXT TIME (OR FIRST TIME)

1. NOTICE IN THE SCENE ON RAILWAY STATION , THE CAMERA STARTS FROM THE 
FRONT OF THE TRAIN AND GOES ALL THE WAY TO THE TOP AND THEN MOVES 
TOWARDS ABHISHEK. IN BETWEEN ALL THIS THE STEAM OF THE TRAIN COMES ON 
THE CAMERA SCREEN. EVERYTHING VERY NATURAL

2. YOU WILL NOTICE A LOT LOT MORE ABOUT ART DIRECTION WHILE WATCHING 
SECOND TIME.

3. SOME OF THE BACKGROUND PIECES, WE ARE ONLY ABLE TO DETECT WHILE 
WATCHING IT SECOND TIME, LIKE THE SLOW VERSION THEME OF BARSO RE WHEN 
AISHWARYA FIRST MEETS ABHISHEK AND WHEN SHE STARTS CRYING. 

4. IF YOU NOTICE CAREFULLY, CHOREOGRAPHY IS OF DIFFERENT STYLE AS 
WELL, NONE OF THE USUAL DANCE STEPS ARE USED IN ANY OF THE SONGS 
(EXCEPT YAMOLE)

thanks a million FOR YOU REVIEW

Pravinder 

--- In arrahmanfans@yahoogroups.com, Prabhu <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> Hi friends,
> 
> I just came back after watching GURU. Go watch the movie!
> Here is my review without spoilers.
> 
> http://prabhukrish.net/2007/01/13/guru-hindi-movie-review/
> 
> 
> -- 
> -Prabhu
> 
> http://prabhukrish.net
> http://bangalore.metblogs.com
> http://chennai.metblogs.com
>

[arr] Re: Guru Movie Review..please leave your comments (attention on aishwarya)

hi vijay 
you have written a marvellous review
i felt exactly the way you felt
cinamtography is out of the world
art direction is superb
dialoges are to the point and accurate and pure
performances are superb specially 
RAHMAN'S BACKGROUND SCORE IS EXTREMLY SUPERB

BUT AS FAR AS THE ROLL OF AISHWARYA RAI IS CONSIDERED
SHE HAS DONE VERY NATURAL ACTING AND LOOKS SUPERB
I SUPPOSE YOU ARE PREJUDICED ABOUT HER
YOU WOULD HAVE EBJOYED MORE IF YOU HAD GIVEN HER A LITTLE CREDIT FOR 
HER HARD WORK

pravinder



--- In arrahmanfans@yahoogroups.com, "VijayNarain" 
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> Finally, really saw Guru!!
> Here's my review:
> www.vjarrfan.blogspot.com
> Please leave ur comments:)
> 
> LONG LIVE ARR
> 
> LONG LIVE ARR_MANI COMBO :D
>

[arr] Bloggers review Guru the movie 13

Watching a movie first day first show has its own charm, its a like mystery 
novel which you
have picked on the weekend and cannot wait to reach the last page.
GURU is a story of a common Indian villager with dreams to succeed in this 
world and he can go
at any lengths to fulfill it. For him the ends justify the means Partially 
based on the life
of Dhirubhai Ambani the movie showcases the journey of Gurukant Desai from a 
tiny village in
Gujarat to becoming the richest businessman in the country.
Giving Abhishek company is Ashwariya rai who plays his wife Sujata. Mithun 
plays the role of a
owner of newspaper. Madhavan plays a fiery reporter and Vidya balan looking 
beautiful as ever
plays the role of a crippled young girl.
In an author backed roled Abhishek proves again why he is the hottest star in 
the bollywood.
The love chemistry between the lead pair is to be seen. Vidya balan is wasted. 
Even though she
puts her heart and smile in her role she could have been used better.
The duo of Gluzar and A.R Rehman delivers yet again. The music is good .The 
climax though has a
shade of the movie Aviator where in the movie the protagonist Howard Hughes 
faces an inquiry.
In the end you are confused as to what the director wanted to say. Whether he 
wants to justify
the means employed be the protagonist to achieve his goals wherein he pays no 
regards to the
rules of the land and make him a hero who got rich along the way making the 
people richer too.

But even though the pace of the movie slows down in the second half it is 
nevertheless an
inspiring movie. it makes us think . It tells us no matter who you are where 
you are from you
have the right to dream big in this world ..And that my friend is the story of 
GURU.

[arr] Bloggers review Guru the movie 11

Ek lo ek muft (Buy one get one free) appears to be the lot of Gurukant Desai 
(Abhishek
Bachchan), that is to say the law of, not unintended consequences, but 
unintended benefits.
When as a boy he fails his exams he is able to wrangle permission from his 
schoolmaster father
to go to Turkey and sell petrol cans, permission that would not have been 
forthcoming had he
passed his school exams. When he wants a business partner (Jignesh, played by 
Arya Babbar) he
gets a wife too, none other than Jigneshs sister Sujatha (Aishwariya Rai). And 
when he gets
his wifes dowry  the initial capital for his business  he also gets a 
devoted spouse who
radiates quiet strength. When they want a child they get twins. Heck, by films 
end we see that
in amassing wealth and success Guru gets to wear  muft  the mantle of 
corporate populist,
bringing capitalism and its benefits to the masses. In fact, when Guru arrives 
in Bombay he
gets a surrogate father in Nanaji Manikdas Gupta (Mithun Chakraborty), and  
also muft  a
crusader adversary (egged on by newspaper baron Gupta) in Shyam Saxena 
(Madhavan), a journalist
determined to bring Guru down. Oh well: five out of six aint bad.

Mani Ratnams Guru is the story of Gurukant Desai, a villager from Idhar, 
Gujarat, convinced of
his lucky star and determined to succeed in bijness at all costs, no matter the 
attempts of the
corporate establishment to keep him out, and the zeal of a leftist newspaper 
baron and his
editor in bringing him down. His destiny is already written, Gurukant informs a 
skeptic early
on in the film, and there is never any doubt that he is going to end up a 
business titan,
second to none. But Guru is also the story (as Ratnam sees it) of an India in 
transition, from
colonialism through license raj to free enterprise. As Ratnam concludes the 
tale the journey is
a heroic one indeed, from an India where outsized ambition  in particular, the 
ambition of
amassing great wealth  was frowned upon, to an India where the acquisition of 
wealth is seen
as the great leveler, representing the best hope of the ordinary man for 
prosperity and
happiness.

Ratnam is not blind to the warts inherent in an ambition that will stop at 
nothing to achieve
its aim, and over the course of the film we see the affable, irrepressibly 
optimistic Guru
become less and less accessible, available only in private settings or in 
orchestrated public
spectacles before the shareholders of his company, Shakti Trading. Gurus 
actions too become
ever more obscure, available to the audience only through the prism of Nanaji 
and Shyam. The
wide-eyed youth who turned down a coveted job in Turkey to return to India in 
order to start
his own business seems like a distant memory indeed.

But in order to shoehorn his own vision into an overarching narrative of Guru 
triumphant,
Ratnam has to cut some corners: when the journalistic crusade against Guru 
leads to a
government crackdown and a commission of inquiry, Ratnam simply hands over the 
film to its
title character, who proceeds to hold forth as the public incarnate, not 
bothering to deny any
of the allegations of corruption and fraud leveled against him but justifying 
his
transgressions by appealing to a higher law, not God but the public. I am the 
public, Guru
rasps in the films memorable (and troubling) penultimate sequence, and it is 
clear that he
feels his actions are justified because he has empowered the middle classes, 
and given them a
stake in Indian industry. (He has done so by means of Shakti Tradings various 
public
offerings, the polar opposite of the family-run and closed corporation that, 
Guru suggests,
held sway prior to his rise). While the film has hitherto led us to view such 
claims a bit
askance, there is no trace of directorial irony in this sequence, carefully 
constructed to give
Gurukant Desai the last word and to leave him the winner. Its unclear whether 
Ratnam buys into
this, but he certainly wants the audience to buy whatever Guru is selling.

None of this detracts from the fact that Ratnam remains arguably the least 
judgmental of
popular directors in either Hindi or Tamil, and the cinematic magnanimity  
able to take in a
rather wide range of activity of without malice or moralizing  that we have 
come to expect
from films like Mouna Raagam, Nayakan, Iruvar, Dil Se, Alai Payuthey, Kannathil 
Muthamittal,
and Aayitha Ezhuthu/Yuva is very much a hallmark of Guru. Thus we see that 
Gurukant marries
Sujatha because of her dowry, and we see that he is not above smearing his 
corporate rivals via
the media, or even of whipping up a little class hatred by resorting a little 
too easily to an
us versus them rhetoric  yet we do not judge him. And nor is he the only 
one: we see
Nanaji insulting Sujatha after she has come to his house to show him her 
babies; we see that
Shyam Saxena is not above a little skullduggery himself if it makes for a 
racier story; and we
see that the upr

[arr] Bloggers review Guru the movie 15

If Rang De Basanti was an external question and ended on a melancholic note, 
Guru seeks the
inner path and strikes a nightingale's chord with us. The Mozart of films, 
Maniratnam, gets to
business again.

Brilliance. Sheer brilliance on screen. Maniratnam raises the stakes of Indian 
cinema. Evertime
this man crafts a film, it comes out a more colourful,stronger and more fresh 
than the last
augustine attempt. "Guru" traces the life of a man, Gurukant Desai, from the 
20's to the 50's.
The man has a vision and he translates his dreams into reality. Hold it. Not 
your
run-of-the-mill feature. This is where Maniratnam gets into exploring and 
examining a human
side to an otherwise astute and brave businessman. It is about the 
relationships, the mistakes,
the failures, the odds,the challenges, the triumphs.The very phases that we 
pass through
and fall, and yet come out stronger.It is about the growth and triumph of the 
human spirit over
human spirit.
Gurukant Desai(Abhishek Bachchan), an ambitious young man, gets to fly to 
Turkey for work.
Apart from his work, Guru discovers an instinctive business knack. This propels 
him to turn
down a job offer and fly to India. He dreams of initiating a business venture. 
And there starts
our journey.
A journey that we all travel with and identify with.So many instances in the 
film remind us of
ourselves. Anything more is going to ruin your chances of being swept by the 
film. I
deliberately choose to refrain my words.
Abhishek Bachchan carries the film well enough,though not much convincing. The 
first half of
the film blitzkriegs at a fast pace. The second half might seem to be a bit 
sagging, but it is
slowed down to metaphorize the sudden cut in pace. The varying paces themselves 
don an
important role. Reminds me of Akira's films. The screen play is suave,retro and 
well paced. I
personally think that a more impressive narrative could have spiced up the 
film. Mithun
Chakraborthy shot at an 60/70 year old is convincing.
Shyam (Madhavan) and Minu (Vidya Balan) are simply stunning on screen. The 
silent resoluteness
of a young journalist to take down Guru is well essayed by Madhavan. The 
conforntations between
Abhishek and Madhavan are excellent.Vidya Balan simply holds you in awe with 
her child like
demeanour and glistens in every frame she wheels into. The other protagonist, 
Sujata(Aishwarya
Rai) has crafted a typical strong Indian woman with her roots grounded. Not 
easy, I should
remark. Because you get the feeling that your mother is on screen. That's 
because all the
characters in this film are self identifiable. This is a story of anyone who 
dreams, who lives,
who marries, who has friends, who does business, who fails,who 
wins...absolutely anyone. That's
the magic of this film. The BGM of the film is classic and a wanted retro feel 
is added by A R
Rehman. Art direction is also appreciable and Samir Chanda has worked 
meticulously on the sets.
The cinematography is par excellence.The camera angles when Madhavan and Vidya 
Balan share the
screen space are noteworthy. Slight camera shakes and movements are deliberate 
as we whizz past
through Guru's life.
Anyone who sees this film might be inclined to term this a Biopic,as I do, but 
it is to be
understood that this Biopic is very identifiable with us, a self 
retrospective..
Not that it is guaranteed to set the cash registers on fire, but the art of 
cinema is taken
above mere commercial purposes.
On the whole, its brilliance coupled with business.
Do watch it..

http://www.websitetoolbox.com/tool/post/princefans_board/vpost?id=1629101

[arr] Guru press conference pics


http://filmiholic.com/2007/01/13/quick-pix-from-the-guru-press-conference-nyc/


Quick pix from the Guru press conference,
NYC

AB 2.0's watch

AB 2.0's phone:

A.R. Rahman, Mani Sir, AB 2.0 (Ash was yet to arrive), and, some man's head:

(The movie was *amazing*.)

[arr] Videos of GURU's Toronto premiere


http://www.ibnlive.com/videos/30983/guru-premiere-takes-toronto-by-storm.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrLjXOl-XuU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7k29Z0QiUo&NR
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFdU_KH9WvU&NR

[arr] Indiaglitz GURU public opinion


Public Opinion: "Guru Bhai Chaya Che" *Faridoon Shahryar*, IndiaGlitz
[Saturday, January 13, 2007]

Abhishek Bachchan's performance in 'Guru' shall always be referred to as a
performance that jolts you. And the Mumbai public agrees with this
viewpoint. Although the advance booking in Mumbai has been lowest (10 – 30%)
as compared to Chennai (House full for the first two days) and Delhi (50 –
60% advance booking), but when Indiaglitz conducted an exclusive video off
'Guru' public opinion after the first day first show yesterday, the
overwhelming majority was of the opinion that 'Guru' is a landmark film. The
dazed expression on their faces said it all.

Although the attendance was not high but the people seem to be united in
saying that, Mani Rathnam is rightly called the master of moviemaking. Most
of the people agreed that, Abhishek Bachchan's Gurukant Desai is based on
the life of Reliance founder Dhirubhai Ambani. A R Rahman's music was rated
from 'exceptional' to 'ok'. Even though people were unanimous in saying that
this is the first time that Ash-Abhi jodi 'works' on screen, most of the
people felt that Aishwarya doesn't have much to do in the film. And what
about Abhishek? "He has outclassed his father," said one of the viewers.
Bachchan Junior has earned a vociferous encore from everybody. And the
applause is going to grow bigger and better soon.

While almost everyone praised the film, there was one dissenting voice of a
young dude who seemed clearly bored. As we have stated in Indiaglitz movie
review of 'Guru', it's not a film for everybody. And not everybody will like
it either. It seems to be a film like 'Black' that earned Box Office success
entirely due to a positive word of mouth. So far, the word of mouth is very
positive. Let's see how it converts into more ticket sales too.

Do catch the exclusive Indiaglitz Public Opinion Video this evening. And see
what the ticket paying public has to say about the film. It's
showtime….anytime….


http://www.indiaglitz.com/channels/hindi/article/28463.html

[arr] Bloggers review Guru the movie 9

 Guru Movie Review

Guru has many things to make you excited. 1. It is directed by the Guru of 
direction, Mani
Ratnam. 2. Music is by the Guru of music industry, A R Rahman. 3. It is based 
on life of the
business Guru, Dhirubhai Ambani.

The movie is about life of Gurukant Desai (Abhishek Bachchan), a dreamer, who 
lives in a small
village and believes in dreaming high. The movie shows how Guru becomes Indias 
top businessman
from a small time worker in Turkey. You will find many similarities between the 
character Guru
and Dhirubhai Ambani, be it paralysis attack or being constantly in the news 
with various
allegations.

The movie is shown in 3 phases, Phase 1, the young Guru who leaves India for 
Turkey to earn
more. Phase 2, the young matured Guru, who leaves his job in Turkey and comes 
back to India to
start his own business. And Phase 3, A middle aged businessman, who is top 
businessman in India
and does not believe in looking back. (Even after he was paralyzed).

>From the beginning itself the movie does not let you move for a single minute, 
>the music, the
cinematography, the direction and finally the acting. Everything is just on the 
right place and
very well balanced. I think this movie will be a milestone for Abhishek 
Bachchan as his acting
abilities have been explored very well. This will be the best role of his 
career so far.
Aishwarya Rai played the role of a very simple innocent girl from a small 
village. And she
played it very well. But the movie totally belongs to Abhishek Bachchan.

The cinematography is really impressive, the locals of the village are shot 
very beautifully.
The waterfalls, the grass fields just make you feel like being there.

Let me sum up the movie.

Story: It is based on the life of Dhirubhai Ambani, the director has handled 
the subject
brilliantly.

Music: When it is A R Rahman, it has to be top class. I personally liked all of 
the songs.
Specially Tere Bina is very impressive.

Acting: Abhishek Bachchan deserves an award. Excellent acting. Aishwarya Rai 
was also very
good. The acting was just too natural. I had a fear that they might not fit 
well in Gujarati
characters but I am really happy that they proved me wrong. Other characters 
too did their job
well. It was good to see Mithun Chakraborty in a decent role after a long time. 
R Madhavan
looked a lot more slimmer than his earlier avatar. Vidya Balan had a very short 
role but she
was good at it.

So, overall I would give this movie 4 stars out of 5. It is a must watch.

Predicto Meter: It should do very good business all over.

http://www.whoisdeep.com/2007/01/12/guru-movie-review/

[arr] CNN-IBN covers GURU with review videos!


http://www.ibnlive.com/videos/31056/masands-verdict-guru--reactions.html
http://www.ibnlive.com/videos/31032/first-day-first-show-guru-cool.html
http://www.ibnlive.com/videos/30888/watch-trailer-guru.html

[arr] Bloggers review Guru the movie 14

 GURU(2007)

My Opinionz about Guru-8.75.The movie is yet another masterpiece in Mani 
Ratnam's stable of
super hit movies.The acting of Abhishek Bachchan is best described in one word 
as
"awesome."Aiswarya Rai's acting is realistic and she really brings a distinct 
image to the
character she plays.Vidya balan's acting is good though her role in the movie 
is not so
important.Mithun apparently has not lost his touch of the art.Everything from 
the screenplay to
the editing to the shooting of the movie is worth applauding.Music by 
A.R.Rehman is as usual
"top notch." One thing that enlightens the viewers is the fact that honesty 
pays( rarely or
frequently is left to the outlook of the reader),but it definitely does not pay 
in the buisness
world.The sentence from the book 'The Last Don' about People earning a living 
irrespective of
the way of earning a living is emphasized to a certain extent in the movie.A 
few loose ends
though remain at the end of the movie like the fate of Guru's brother in law 
and also of
madavan's character.Overall a great movie to watch.

[arr] ARR at the Guru premiere in NYC (?)

http://filmiholic.com/2007/01/13/quick-pix-from-the-guru-press-conference-nyc/

[arr] Bloggers review Guru the movie 10

 Geo's Talkies - Guru
Guru is the story of dreams, of relationships caught in between them and off a 
man who fought
the odds to create value for people who trusted in him. Gurukant Desai hails 
from Iddhar
village in Gujarat whose father is a school headmaster. He goes to Istanbul, 
Turkey in search
of better pastures after failing in school . After doing fairly well over there 
he returns back
to India with dreams of setting up a business.

Guru marries Sujata, a daughter of a wealthy money lender and whose recently 
been ditched by
her lover. They go to Mumbai to setup a business against the wishes of Gurus 
father. In Mumbai
Guru faces all sorts of hurdles attempting to setting up his business and meets 
Manikdas Gupta
who runs a newspaper The Independent who helps Guru in voicing his concerns 
through his
newspaper. Meenakshi aka Meenu is Manikdas is the differently abled terminally 
ill
granddaughter of Manikdas aka Nanaji.

Guru setups a strong business empire and in the process breaks a few laws in a 
system that his
largely sided with the ones that have money. This causes concern in Manikdas 
whos straight as
an arrow approach towards life makes him despise Guru and enlists Shyam Saxena, 
a successful
journalist, in exposing Guru. Meenu meanwhile marries Shyam and lives the 
remaining days of her
life in his company.

What happens to Guru and his empire? Thats for the audience to see in the 
theaters. Sapna
nahi dekhna, sapnay kabhi sach nahi hothay  this is the line Guru speaks as 
the movie opens
in an empty cricket stadium. That sets the tone for the movie and the things to 
come because we
know right then the futility of that line somehow. Gurukant Desai is the 
character handled by
Abishek Bachchan and does he do a wonderful job? Oh yes he does, this is his 
best performance
till date. He displays variety, range and a certain aura which binds us to his 
character.

Mithun Chakraborthy plays the role of Manikdas Gupta. I wish Mithunda does more 
character roles
in movies, but its hard to get a character of such depth and substance. He 
plays the role
perfectly and still has an immense screen presence. Aishwarya Rai plays the 
character of
Sujata, surprisingly for a cynic like me who has never like any of the acting 
shes done in the
past except her dancing skills, this turns out to be a better performance. The 
deglamourized
Aishwarya works well in the movie and I am sure a lot of hard work has gone 
into her character
and role.

Madhavan walks the character of Shyam Saxena which looks easy to play but 
theres a lot of
subtle things he does proving his experience in the Mani Ratnam production 
unit. Vidya Balan
essays the role of Meenakshi, this is one capable actor we all want to see 
more. No running
around, no dancing but perched on a wheel chair, she emotes well and has a 
wonderful voice. All
other characters are dealt with by talented people and veterans and full marks 
to the director
in selecting this cast. No song till now has done justice to Mallika as Mayya 
mayya in this
movie. This song is sensuous, well lit and shot and has good dance too. Its 
not vulgar and
arousing like item numbers are these days. We cant expect any less from the 
badshah of item
numbers Mr.Mani Ratnam.

Rajiv Menons camera captures the proceedings accurately and innovatively. This 
man is not only
a good director and singer but also an exceptionally talented cinematographer. 
The last time
Rajiv and Mani came together, Bombay happened. Though the expectations on the 
second outing
could have been huge, Rajiv has equaled them if not surpassed. Look out for 
lights on temple
dooms, light reflections on pillars and the way the Turkish Church is lit up 
for Mayya mayya.
Sreekar Prasads editing is not sharp in the sense that we know how it is in 
the movies in the
past 2  3 yrs. Transitions between scenes are not swish-zoom-tak but more 
subdued and
laidback, I guess the subject deserves this kind of treatment. I am sure hes 
also ruthlessly
chopped out some scenes from the movie, for example, the following scene did 
not feature in the
movie at all.

Samir Chandas 20 yr experience shows in the production design. Except for the 
tram in the
Mumbai scene in the beginning, which I thought was a bit too tacky and unreal, 
everything else
about this production is superlative. To believe that the sets were put up in 
the Binny mills
compound in Chennai is tough, its so real and fits the period. The train in 
the movie from the
50s looks real too. Sridhar (a Mani regular) captures and recreates the 
necessary aural
ambience and the dts mix is not distracting at all. Not sure if they used sync 
sound, my logic
says that the dialogs are dubbed.

AR Rahman, the musical genius weaves a score that at once melodic, periodic and 
inventive. How
I wish producers would give him all the time he needs to work on music. The 
result cant get
any better than this. A musical from Mani with AR Rahman writing

[arr] Bloggers review of Guru Movie 8

GURU | A Review
January 12th, 2007 · 7 Comments

My father advised me not to dream. Dreams never come true. But I saw a dream, 
says the deep
baritone of Abhishek Bachchan with Jaage hain track trying its best to make 
its presence felt
through the background. Thus begins the movie with high expectations 
considering the starcast
and the infallible Mani Ratnam.

Gurukant Desai (Abhishek Bachchan) is the son of a teacher belonging to Idhar 
village in
Gujarat. But Guru is a failure at studies and has made big plans to go abroad 
to work. His
father though never believes in the ability of his son. Guru is amazingly 
ambitious and
supremely confident about his abilities. So he joins Shell in Istanbul, Turkey, 
selling oil
cans and does very well in that job to merit a promotion within 3 years. When 
offered the
promotion, Guru refuses saying, Agar main idhar achcha kaam kar sakta hun to 
khud ke liye kyon
na karu! (If I can work so well for some foreign company then why not work for 
myself?). He
leaves the job and returns to his village to pursue dreams of setting up his 
own company.

Guru marries his best friend Jigneshs sister Sujata (Aishwarya Rai) who is one 
year elder to
him and even though she tried to run away with someone from her village because 
he will receive
a lot of money in dowry from Sujatas father with which he can start his 
business. And he also
promises to make his best friend-turned-brother in law a partner in his 
business. So everyone
is happy with this deal and the marriage is ritualised!

Guru, Sujata and Jignesh then proceed to Bombay to try their luck which Guru is 
absolutely sure
is going to click. He is supremely confident of making it big in Mumbai. But he 
faces a slew of
obstacles and emerges out of them successfully through plain guts (never is any 
unethical
practice shown which is somehow brought up towards teh end!!) which border on 
foolishness.
After a few successes with the help of Gandhian newspaper owner fondly referred 
to as Nanaji,
Guru becomes very confident and starts making rapid strides. Jignesh cannot 
keep pace and
leaves Guru and also takes Sujata with him.

Guru, on the other hand, though is slightly worried about these happenings. But 
he has reached
a point of no-return and continues with completing those large half-strides 
that he has already
taken. He goes for a public issue and creates his own company manufacturing 
polyester and keeps
growing. Somewhere along the way he goes back to his village and brings Sujata 
back home.

Guru finally reaches a stage where he begins using the media and others to 
achieve more
success. Nanaji suddenly (another point of concern here is that, the war cries 
are let out on
what the audience sees as something harmless) realises this is where their 
roads clash and
resolves to fight Guru to the end. According to Nanaji, Guru has now become a 
disease of the
society that needs to be stopped in his tracks. Shyam Saxena (Madhavan) is 
nanajis protege who
believes that people like Guru need to be jailed and the key thrown into the 
sea. So, the movie
builds up to the interval as a fight between Guru and Nanaji (through Shyam) 
with Guru saying,
Mujhe koi nahi rok sakta. Na aap, na yeh Shyam Saxena, na yeh akbaar!. 
(Nobody can stop me.
Neither you nor Shyam Saxena or your newspaper!)

When I got up from my seat during the interval I realized my eyes were aching 
because the
camera had moved so much that it almost had me tired. I was tired of watching 
those close-ups.
In order to avoid covering much of the background because it was a period 
setting the camera
was focussed on close-ups rather than any other beautiful reason that the 
camera man Rajiv
Menon can conjure. And as the timeline approached the 80s it was relatively 
safe to take those
long shots. I thought the cinematography could have been better. Atleast by 
Manis standards we
have seen much better pictures than the work done here. This looks like Manis 
first shot at a
period film (A classic called Iruvar was also by the same gentleman, Guru 
ends during the
late 90s or around that time) and it shows through the cinematography. All 
that unnecessary
slow motion shots during the climax court scene made me feel dizzy. But I 
should mention that
the movie is crystal clear visually - no dots, lines, nothing. Pure digital 
print I guess.

Coming back to what happened after the interval: The fight between Guru and 
Nanaji climaxes
with the shareholders of Gurus company questioning his ethics and integrity. 
Guru lands up in
a lawsuit and how he wriggles out of it forms the remaining part of the story. 
The dialogue in
the climax is good and hard-hitting but needed more populist punchlines. The 
applause that Mani
expects to generate in the audience during that scene is obviously missing and 
that is very
embarassing for a movie-maker of Manis calibre.

Frankly, I was not impressed with the movie at all. A typical rags to riches 
story is what

[arr] Bloggers review Guru the movie 12

 Maan gaye Guru

In a country that loves sagas and is happy celebrating its own one in every 
realm, the petrol
pump to palaces story of Gurukant Desai helmed by Mani Ratnam with the star 
power of India's
best couple is inspirational to say the least. And the film-maker returns to 
his top-drawer
form by giving us everything that we have grown to associate with him.
1. Narrating refreshingly simple stories sometimes in a cinematic larger than 
life backdrop
with poignantly displayed relationships and clever alludes to real 
life.(Iruvar,Nayakan,
Roja/Bombay/Dil se).
By choosing a business backdrop this time he escapes the idealist trap which he 
fell into in
Yuva, and also gets a much larger canvass, more characters and incidents to 
showcase his sheer
prowess. He sticks to the Iruvar style of screenplay in the meshing of scenes 
and building pace
to chronicle an entire life. So Gurukant Desai starts from Turkey as a petrol 
attendant,
returns to his village with dreams in his eyes, gets almost disowned by his 
father for wanting
to start a bijines, marries a girl for dowry as capital but dotes on her later, 
fights his way
to starting a polyester business and rises to the top.

But Mani's genius lies in weaving wonderful relationships in the saga with 
scenes that seem
natural yet powerful. Some scenes that stand out are the railway station scene 
where Abhishek
agrees to take Ash to Mumbai, his fallout with his brother-in-law and Ash, 
Abhishek's raw
determination to get a trading license, the romantic/emotional interludes with 
Ash and his
interactions with Mithun in the second half.
The resemblance to the Dhirubhai saga also helps in creating a stronger sense 
of identification
with the storyline especially the shareholder meetings in stadiums, largest 
IPO, dreaming of
starting a Burmah Shell, the dubious political approval processes, the fight 
with businessmen
of Parsi origin, exploiting loopholes for profitability and the tryst with a 
prominent
newspaper baron( Mithunda) of that time . But I felt the underetched characters 
of Madhavan and
Vidhya Balan ( granddaughter of media baron) dilute the second half which could 
have been
better utilized to highlight the business battles. For instance, Dhirubhai's 
famous fending off
a bear cartel attack on his stock could have cinematic dynamite in Mani's hands.
2. Career best performances by stars and solid performances by under-rated 
actors:
Abhishek breathes fire as Gurubhai by combining manic energy, an alarming zeal 
to get rich,
business shrewdness and emotional depth into a life-time role. There are angry 
scenes where the
Bachchan genes spout but he carries off the older man with charming ease. Its 
amazing how he
has grown a real paunch for the movie which is shown in a scene where he rivals 
his pregnant
wife. This performance is just a shade lower than Kamal Hassan in Nayagan.
But the real surprise is Ash, proving how in the hands of a superior director 
her expressions
are malleable indeed. Stand out scenes include the train journey where she 
bumps into Abhishek
after being bumped by her infatuation, her breakdown after she learns about 
Guru marrying her
for dowry and when Guru is struck by paralysis, and in all the songs.
Mithunda as a man who mentors Guru initially but exposes his wrongdoings 
through his newspaper
is amazingly nuanced. Vidya Balan and Madhavan are charming . Roshan Seth as 
the inquiry
committee chairman exudes great screen presence and diction.
3. Brillant Craftsmanship
Authentic recreation of old railway trains, old parts of Mumbai, trading houses 
and shareholder
meetings. Cinematography by Rajeev Menon especially in the scene where Ash runs 
away from her
house at the crack of dawn.
4. Wonderful Music : AR Rehman comes up with a brilliant score with 'Barso re', 
'Mayya Mayya'
and 'Tere Bina' . In fact the background score consisting of these songs and a 
pulsating beat
meshes well with the intensity of the scenes.
The only letdown from a scripting perspective is Abhishek's speech during the 
inquiry trial.
Although it starts with a bang " Main bania hoon, har cheez bachake rakhta 
hoon" , it whimpers
after that. For the climax of a movie, the dialogues lacked impact.
This time Mani Ratnam has also made a Hindi movie which has no trappings of 
'Madrasiness'. In
fact the Gujjuness in the movie ' Aav jo, Mota bai' and in the detailing is 
perfect. In fact if
Gujjus can make 'Kyunki Saas' the top watched serial since its protagonists are 
Gujju, then
Guru is going to rock in the territories of Mumbai and Gujarat where most of 
Dhirubhai's
shareholders also resided. In fact theatres in Kandivali and Ghatkopar might 
have to run extra
shows.
Overall its a fine effort from the man whose movies are special and suitable 
for multiple
viewing. Bollywood 2007 starts with a bang with Guru.

http://booletpoint.blogspot.com/2007/01/maan-gaye-guru.html

Re: [arr] The Times of India reviews Guru


http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/NEWS/Entertainment/Movie_Reviews/F-I/Review__Guru_/articleshow/1162401.cms

Guru  (drama)
Cast  : Abhishek Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai, R Madhavan, Vidya Balan
Direction:  Mani Ratnam

There was Gandhi, there was Nehru and then there was Guru Kant Desai, one
more name that needs to be added amongst the roster that boasts 'Architects
of India.' And in case you still don't know who Guru Bhai is, let's just
leave you with a few FAQs. Guru Bhai was India's first textile magnate who
grew from humble origins and dreamt of setting up a factory that was bigger
than Burma Shell. He towered over the Mumbai skyline with his polyester
fabric that became the national fabric in a post-khadi, pre-globalisation
era. And Mani Ratnam takes up this 'inspired' tale to script an ode to this
messiah of the middle class, who broke the rules, twisted the system,
rubbished the red tape and raced ahead, with impunity.

 [image: /photo.cms?msid=1162414]

Yes, Mani has dared to present the top industrialist as a man who
introduced corporate crime in the lexicon of Indian industry. Guru Bhai's
business mantra was murky. He bribed politicians, smuggled machinery, evaded
sundry taxes and used people for profit. In short, he was the perfect
capitalist who created wealth any which way, even if it involved marrying a
woman for the dowry she would bring. His justification? The wealth was for
the public, because he was part of the public and if he hadn't broken the
law, the great Indian middle class (the millions of shareholders who grew
rich along with him) would still be non-existent.

And that's where the film slips. Although the director valiantly lifts the
lid off corporate crime, he suddenly cowers in the end and creates a hero
out a man who justifies every fraud in the name of public good. It is the
moral ambivalence of the film which somehow leaves you dissatisfied, for
isn't all cinema meant to be a moral fable? Till the very end, you seem to
keep remembering what Guru Bhai's brother-in-law said when he left him
midway in his grandiose ventures. The disgusted brother-in-law walked off
branding Guru as a complete mercenary who cared only about money, not
people. Guru had no answers for him! Nor for us.

Cinematically, the film is quintessential Mani. The frames are stupendous
with Rajiv Menon's camera working wonders, whether it be Mumbai, Pondicherry
or Istanbul. The combination of AR Rahman and Gulzar create magic with
melody and Abhishek Bachchan puts his heart and soul into a dream role that
sees him grow from a gawky teenager to a wizened adult. Sometimes however,
it does seem the role demands too much from him, specially in the climax
which ends up ekdum thanda. Aishwarya too is just okay and fails to register
the growth in her character.

The first half of the film is intensely dramatic as it traces the rise of
simpleton Guru from a small time salesman in Istanbul to a textile honcho in
Mumbai who just wanted to do 'bijnas'. It is the second half which becomes
prolonged and repetitive with the drama being reduced to a conflict between
the archetypal capitalist and the communist — a newspaper owner with leftist
leanings (Mithun Chakraborty) and his star reporter (Madhavan) who doggedly
follows the unveil-Guru beat. In between, he falls in love with his
employee's dying daughter (what's Vidya Balan doing in a wheelchair?) and
takes off to make dal takda for her. He's a crusader in all kind of roles,
you see!

In the end, Guru is an important film as it tackles a fresh subject and
raises a pertinent query about India's accelerating corporate juggernaut.


On 1/13/07, Gopal Srinivasan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


  http://www.flickr.com/photos/arrahmanfans/355562590/

[arr] Bloggers review of Guru Movie 7

Guru - Rise of the Sun

Pros: Cast performance & First half
Cons: Script some times turn to be as one of documentary

A Mani Ratnam movie is always special and Guru is no exception. I like to read 
biographies a
lot and I didnt miss the first days show of Guru in Dubai. The much awaited 
film satisfy most
of the expectation from the film though it is not the best we can expect. The 
first half of the
film is perfect and we cannot ask for more from the Director, though the 
technical side could
be improved. The second half gives a mixed feeling, where the Writer/Director 
was in hurry to
tell and justify the character. Overall, Guru is a well made biography, though 
improvements,
especially in the scripting could have been done for better.

The movie begins where Guru Kant Desai (Abhishek Bachchan) fails his exam and 
wants to go out
to do a job. His father is a teacher and wants to see his son succeed in his 
studies, but Guru
has no taste for studies. With a negative permission, Guru leaves his village 
and land up in
Turkey. He worked as petrol can filler to chemical company assistant to 
Gambler. When he got a
promotion as sales supervisor in the factory he was working and when the 
manager asked him to
wear a tie, unlike others, he quit the job and decided to start business in 
India. His father
has no confidence again and not helped him in any way. What he has is 15000 
rupees. To get the
rest of the capital he agrees to marry Sujatha (Aishwarya Rai) who earlier 
tried to run away
with her lover, but her lover betrayed her. That was the beginning of the rise 
of Guru. His
father always told him, not to dream because dreams will not come true, but he 
dare to dream
and succeeded. The story now revolves around the business side of Guru where 
the relationship
between Sujatha is developed nicely in parallel. One will be curious if the 
movie says anything
about the children of Guru, but Mani Ratnam very wisely stayed away from it. 
The story ends
where Guru establishes himself as the number one business establishment in 
India and announcing
to the world that we are here to conquer the worlds no 1 spot!!

Story is not credited for and Screenplay & Direction is by Mani Ratnam. The 
director brought
best out of its cast and presented the story nicely . His selection of casts 
and location are
to be specifically mentioned. However, the script could have been improved. 
There are many
loose tags in the film, especially in the second half . While writing a script 
on a person or
incident what the writer has to keep in mind is that it is not necessary to 
detail and justify
all important incidents, but select a thread which will act as a core of the 
movie and work on
it. Like his earlier biographical film Iruvar (based on MGRs life) this movie 
also gone
descriptive to an extent in the second half. There are quite a few unnecessary 
characters with
whom the main theme do not jell with and quite a few questions the script left 
unanswered.
Other than that we should appreciate Mani Ratnam for his efforts.

Guru is an Abhishek Bachchan show all the way . Abhishek has grown as an actor 
and it shows. We
can see the glimpses of genius in this show, where he will be a contender for 
best actor in
2007. Except in a place where he was supposed to have tears in eyes which he 
failed to generate
naturally, the actor delivered a fantastic performance. Aiswarya is as usual 
delivers a fine
performance. Vidya Balan and Madhavan gave what the script required from them. 
After Chingari,
Midhun Chakraborthy delivers another fine performance in this film. Mallika 
Sherawat gives a
hot number in Turkish background.

AR Rahmans music is averag e. The big AR Rahman magic is missing. Choreography 
by Saroj Khan
and Brinda fails to make an impression. Though 2 songs (the dance number in 
Turkey and the song
at the time Ash leaves Abhishek) were above average. Rajiv Menon, the 
Choreographer shot all
the scenes with a natural background extremely well, especially the once in 
Athirappilly. The
other shots are done okay. Editing could be improved.

There are certain scenes in the film which need special mention.

1. Abhisheks visit to Manoj

Joshi in the hospital.

2. Abhishek & Aiswaryas love scenes (including the one in the bed)
3. Madhavan tells his love to Vidya Balan. The kissing scene between Madhavan & 
Vidya Balan.
(Oops! I didnt expect it from Madhavan!)
4. Abhishek dump all the polyster bags in the officers house.
5. Abhisheks reaction to the news that he got twin daughters (Buy one, get one 
free. No, it is
not boys, but girls)
6. Abhisheks reply to the enquiry committee.

The movie is very much for the elite audience. However, Mani Ratnam has added a 
lot of
ingredients to make it tasty for the masses as well. The movie is a class one 
and masses has to
decide whether they are going to shoulder it as well. Having said all these, 
dont expect a
Roja, Kannathil Muthamittal or even a Dil Se, but a film of differ

[arr] Bloggers review of Guru Movie 6

Dynamism is such a bewitching trait. And when it combines with large-hearted 
virtuosity, the
effect is quite heady.
This is precisely what makes Guru special. As a whole, the film suffers on 
several important
counts but what makes this film tick is a bravura performance by Abhishek 
Bachchan that grips
you by the heart.
Gurukant Desai (Abhishek Bachchan) is forever a man on a mission. Chasing his 
dreams with
relentless drive, passion and pluck, theres an ironic sacredness to Gurus 
ceaseless struggle.
>From very early on, Gurus self-belief is that theres no hurdle impossible to 
>conquer.
Everything comes with a solution and to his innocent heart, theres nothing 
unscrupulous about
his actions. This is one value system that Guru follows all through his life. A 
conviction,
that both makes him as well as threatens to mar him in the end.

When Guru finds himself short of funds for his business, he offers marriage to 
his friends
sister Sujata (Aishwarya Rai), in exchange of the prescribed dowry.
Gurus logic is simple. Some other guy would be getting the dowry anyway so why 
couldnt it be
him?

Sujata, a spirited young girl, is in a state of disgrace after she flees away 
from home for a
lover (who jilts her). When Guru accepts her, she is filled with gratitude, 
though she never
shows it. Proud and free-spirited, she is piqued when Guru decides to leave for 
Mumbai without
her. Of course, her reasoning with Guru at the station and eventually joining 
him is a
testimony of her innate courage.
Later on too, its clear why Sujata and Guru fall in love. Sujata sees Guru 
doing exactly what
she would probably do, if she were a man. She sees in him the same audacity, 
which she has to
curtail being a woman.
gurung2.jpg
Also, the discovery that he married her for the money, ironically, strengths 
their
relationship. Sujata is hurt but shes grown to love her husband by then. Mind 
you, when Guru
goes to fetch her back, he does it purely for love. Not because he repents his 
actions.

Guru has limitless ambition but hes still not what you can call, cut-throat. 
Hes soft with
people close to him, constantly overlooking their incompetence.

The roadblock to Gurus flourishing business is publisher Manikdas Gupta 
(Mithun Chakraborthy),
who starts off being his mentor (Nanaji). But when Gurus business expands at 
an alarming rate,
eyebrows are raised and the first one to expose him is Gupta, along with 
hard-as-nails journo
Madhavan.
gurung.jpg

The destruction of Gurus empire looks imminent to everyone, except him. In the 
end, Gurus
self-belief wins and effectively makes a point about how one tends to forget 
the larger
picture, in the pursuit of affected morality among other things.

So finally, what works? Most of it, especially the first half that is simply 
gorgeous. The
Abhishek-Aishwarya chemistry, that has always been a let down, sizzles on 
screen this time. The
songs(A R Rahman) are wonderful and blend seamlessly with story. Though I do 
feel that the
Bappi Lahiri track was completely out of place and not needed.

Again, though Mithun and Madhavan are competent here, I didnt quite fancy 
their characters.
Yes, they are idealistic (probably representing the old India and its ideals, 
standing up
against newly emerging materialism and its evil forces). However, their 
clinical crusade of
righteous justice against Guru, made them appear evil more than anything else. 
Somehow, these
characters didnt work for me entirely in the scheme of the story. The film 
doesnt capture
Gurus fall as adeptly as his
rise. Also, what the heck was Vidya Balan doing in this film? Theres no 
relevance to her role
here, unless Mani wished to establish Gurus bond with Nanaji better. Vidya is 
wasted, no two
ways about it. Also, the pace really drops at this point in the film. The 
second hald is NOT as
good as the first.

Aishwarya is marvelous in the first half and competent in the second.
gurung3.jpg<

Now, for the heart and soul of this film  Abhishek Bachchan. Move over Hrithik 
Roshan. Our
Krrish can look like a Greek god and fly across skyscrapers but I doubt anyone 
can deliver just
a real, straight-from-the-heart, superlative performance. Really, Guru belongs 
to one man only
and he makes sure(just like in the film) that Manis vision never crumbles. (it 
could have)

Rating: Three and a half

Box office prediction: Semi-hit to hit (the morning show was packed) 

http://www.naachgaana.com/2007/01/12/%e2%80%9cguru%e2%80%9d-hindi-2007%e2%80%a6the-event/

Re: [arr] IndiaFm Guru Review : Strongly Recommended,Go For it


though taran speaks truth in his review, it is interesting to c a review
from such a CRITIC..

On 1/12/07, $*$ PaVaN $*$ <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


  Chk this out Wonderfull Review by IndiaFm:

http://www.indiafm.com/movies/review/12838/index.html













--
Everyone is raving about the all-new Yahoo! Mail 
beta.

Re: [arr] GURU First bloom


"Music ...Suddenly there was loud noises and whizzles,   it was Rahman who
made  the  crowd to go wild."

this is why i starve to read reviews from rahmaniacs... i m totally
satisified with the GURU's GURU feast..

On 1/12/07, logesh kum-arr <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


  Hi Amigos ,

I had been waiting for this day for long time ...Had booked the tickets ,
checking every day when the window will be open for online booking in
sathyam ..finally i got the tickets ...
Well Guru had created so much hype ...

Maniratnam
Rajeev menon (after bombay , wonderful camera work)
Very own Rahman


well i jus wanted to be a film critic  for this film ...to observe
as any normal crowd wud watch ..( I had to forget that this was one of
Mani Rahman combo)
had to clear my pre conceptions ...
As i went into the sathyam cinema settled down ..
then started the song straightly ...mayya mayya  good picturization

then the crew names started to appear on the screen

Guru title comes ...
photography , direction lyrics ..
then Music ...Suddenly there was loud noises and whizzles,   it was Rahman
who made  the  crowd to go wild.

The movie gets going with the tint of old films , or rather different look
which is really nice work by rajeevmenon
long time since we see some good camera work  ..

beautiful locations ..man i wud watch the film again for the tint and old
mumbai locations ..

story is simple , though very powerful great message from
manirathnam..or may be same as Abdul kalam
go for ur dreams, or what ur heart says rather following the foot steps of
the normal crowd ...
I dont want to break the story line here , left for u guys to check it ,
dont read the reviews watch for ur self
u will feel better watching the movie , a motivational movie ..says when
you follow ur dreams ,
u wud face ups and downs in life but wait till the darkness pass ...there
you go , you will see your dream come true ...

BGM is great , i really like the bgms where gurukanth desai , gets up and
start waliking with confidence
now music is the part which conveys what he is up to a better life
waiting ...
music is apt ...dosent require those doom machale kinda songs ...need
decent music  which can keep the movie alive
and bring the emotions, I believe rahman has done it aptly , i want to
wait to see other praise for the sound of music ...

once again a great movie from mani's team .
this  is not a streotyped movie ... a film for guys who demand a movie of
great standards


Good work Mani , rahman, Rajeev ..team
I wud say my money was worth it .

Time will say it all



Kind regards
Logesh A


















--
best regrards
Logesh A

Re: [arr] Guru Movie is awsome, flawless and definitly a hit


that's a perfect ten!

On 1/12/07, Pravinder Sheoran <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


  hi guys
just saw first day first show of GURU here in Sydney, Australia.
& i could not stop myself from writing my review

(A) THE + POINTS
1. The movie is flawless. (Dil se and yuva had a few faults)
2. Biggest plus points are:
* Extremly dashing cinematography by rajiv menon
* Haunting music of course
* Very strong background score
* Out of the world performance by Abhishek bachan
* Equally well performances from aishwarya rai and mithun chakrboty
* Very very convincing art direction
3. Mani ratnam has come with superb screenplay this time. The whole
162 minuts you are equally intrested in the movie.
4. Songs are picturised very nicely, as alway in ratnam movies.
5. This time we can expect a comercially successfull movie.
6. Some very strong moments in the movie (specially in second half)
7. Guest performance by mallika is very hot
8. Some little moments of laughter throughout the movie (and comedy
is very natural).
9. Two new added songs are very nice as well.
10. I can keep writing but + points won't be finished.

(B) THE - POINTS
For Rahman fans there are two negative points in the movie.
1. The song BAZI LAGA is almost cut
2. The song E HARATHE ASHIQI is almost wasted as well.

Enjoy guys
Just go to watch next possible show of GURU. YOU MUST WATCH IT IN
CINEMAS WITH NICE SOUND SYSTEM.
Its a must must watch for all people (Does not matter if you are not
a mani ratnam fan)

Pravinder Sheoran

[arr] Passion For Cinema reviews Guru

Guru is a seasoned stroke from Maniratnam. More of a mature film that comes in 
the latter stage
of a celebrated makers repartee. it does not exist to satisfy the demands of 
narrative, say an
ABCDE(action background conflict development ending) or SBP(set up build up pay 
off) format,
character origin development and conclusions, and so on. By saying this, I do 
not mean that
Guru does or even try to redefine any given genre of biopic films, what it does 
rather
exceptionally well is being honest to whatever it attempts. The technical front 
is A-class. All
the rules in the book have been used to create life on screen.

There is hardly any thing that you like to point out if a film is consistently 
good, more than
the meek mention of the same. This film particularly is a collage of classic 
sequences,
dialogues, and steady, well-pitched, controlled gazes into the camera.
A film that will be talked about in appreciative hues and studied for its text 
book and
dexterous approach.

A quintessential element of a good film is that it will not leave you, if it 
will it will leave
you numb, lost, unsatisfied. When I saw The Departed I experienced the same 
feeling. I knew it
is great but I could not figure out slots to fit my favorites. I know Guru will 
linger on and
grow in my further viewings, I just am trying to find out why I call it great.

And you simply cant take away the undercurrent of Mani while watching Manis 
film. All of the
Nayakans and Iruvars will visit haunt revisit and rehaunt you over and over. 
And it is this
passion that makes the current film fade away pale in comparison to the greats. 
the paler today
the better tomorrow, might work, might not. one might jump and say I expected 
more, one might
point fingers at Why no long speeches?
There is a lingering optimism stuck to the flow, and that smells good even 
after the film is
over.

To make the name of a character unforgettable is the hall,ark of a any good 
story or any
character or any performance. Be it Bhiku Mhatre, Raghu Jaitley, Lallan Singh, 
Munnabhai, Samar
Pratap Singh, or now, Guru Kant Desai. This is where a film or a character 
takes larger
proportions than what it is. It creates imaginated memories, breathes life into 
written lines.
The streangth or perfection to which Abhishel Bachchan justifies Guru Kant 
Desai might be
contentious but he adds his unique smiling eloquence that makes one believe 
such a man once
lived, somewhere. The lack of Lallan Singh is made up for by Guru Kant Desai. 
There is a
contained beauty to the pitching and the layering of the characters and their 
voices costumes
blocking and their utilization in the seam.

To conclude, Guru delivers for the kind of expectations raised, but might not 
impress a Mani
follower to the tee.

Tushar Shukla

http://passionforcinema.com/guru-film-review/

Re: [arr] Guru Tamil Audio Released .... Wut about in Malaysia??


ya i felt that vairamuthu has done a commendable job.. most of his lyrics in
guru has blended with the tune. its tough to get the feel after hearing the
original version thousand times.. so, hat's off to vairamuthu..

On 1/12/07, Dinesh <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


  hey guys while Guru movie released and getting fantastic reviews!!
the tamil version of the audio is released 2 days back. here is my
small views after 10 times of listenin to it... im eagerly waiting to
buy its CD here in Malaysia, if anyone already bought it...plz mention
it here...im desperate to listen the songs in my own CD :)

Paisa Paisa sounds so weird... esp with simple lyrics with powerful
music Karthik & Madhushree did thier part great...

Jodi Jodi is simply amazing WOW the music suits tamil so
well!! and SPB did a fantastic job
lyrics was fun & yella yella yella yella sounded very rusty folk kind

Aaruyire has only 1 minus point... some parts by ARR the singer didint
sound rite & sweet... he sounded awefully sweet in Nuvve Lekha,the
telugu version ...other than that...the lyrics,chinmaye & the Dum mare
Dum mare chant is mesmerising just like the hindi 1... but overall the
original version scores the best!

Ye Manburu Mangaiye is simply amazing... breathtaking Srinivas did
an excellent job...im not missing hariharan here... sujatha did a good
job as well lyrics was bombastic!! very much in par with the
original version

Ore Kana has no minus poitns at all its sounded perfect & normal

Mayya Mayya Chinmayi shows she can sing item number songs as well,
but went overboard with her Arabic accent in some places...lyrics was
fine . the hindi version is much better...

Nanare no minus points in this too... sounded perfect & jus as great
as the hindi version... thanks to Sherya Ghosal & VM's lyrics

Re: [arr] RE : GURU REVIEW ( For Thulasi and group)


lets hope movie does great Gomzy..

On 1/12/07, Gomtesh Upadhye <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


  Hello Group,

I just finished watching the movie.let me put up the points one by one,

The movie starts off superb.The photography is breath taking.Mayya mayya
plays when credits roll.The locations and the quality of the movie
surpasses anything that Indian Cinema has ever seen.Abhishek is brilliant
and Aishwarya is surprising good too (i dont fancy her much).

The whole crew gets everything right in the first half.A R Rahman is at
his usual best with fulte pieces of barso re haunting you for 
sometime.Theoccasional humor is very good and the audience appreciates 
everything thats
coming in.

But but after the interval is what is a little disturbing. AB matures as
an actor at this point but the script weakens. And hopelessly at times. Mani
Sir, who had the audience glued to the seats fails to keep them from getting
restless.

No major events are depicted in Guru's bhais life and this will be the
downfall of Guru if it happens.The camera work (especially during the
court scene) gets a little shaky which was not actually required.

If this is not enough , ARR goes a little out of course himself. The Guru
theme by Blaaze is too repetitive if not annoying at times. Also the back
ground score during the court scene should have been there at all.

Mani Ratnam fails to use the same grip he had in the first half. This was
the problem with yuva too.He needs to concentrate to end the movie with
the same brilliance at which he starts off.

Kudos to all the actors (Mithun da is brilliant). A decent performance by
Maddy and Vidya.

All said Guru is a good movie but not extraordinary. Will it be a hit? I
will be pleasantly surprised if it does.

PS: Hopefully my criticism will have an adverse effect and you all love
the movie ;)



--
Regards

Gomtesh V Upadhye
--

Cell : +91 988 675 3639

E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Re: [arr] Birthday present from Me to Rahman and the Group... Mix60


http://www.megaupload.com/?d=6OSLGZ42

try this sanju... it works.. try to copy the links without any spaces

On 1/12/07, Sanju U <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


  Hi Kaisssiom,

The gift seems to be a perfect present for ARR.
Bur some how, I get the erorr message as:

*MEGAUPLOAD:*
*

  Unfortunately, the link you have clicked is not available
*

*Reasons for this may include:*
- Invalid link
- The file was deleted because of violating our *Terms of 
service*

Can you plz plz upload it one some other server.
Might be even coolgoose or some where esle.
Raam and Thulasiram,please see if you can help as well.

Thanks in advance
Rgds, Sanjay

- Original Message 
From: kaissiom <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: arrahmanfans@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, January 9, 2007 7:18:37 AM
Subject: [arr] Birthday present from Me to Rahman and the Group... Mix60

 Hello Rahmaniacs,

Upon many requests, my promise to extend the original 20 minutes
medley to 60 minutes is now fulfilled. After months of work, in and
out of the project, combining some 120+ musical masterpieces, I have
been able to somewhat celebrate Rahman in 60 minutes of this musical
journey called "Mix60 @arrahmanfans. "

I was working on two separate projects, the 60 medley and a separate
mix just for his birthday. At the last minutes I decide to combine
both projects. The mix that appears towards the last 4 or 5 minutes
of the medley was supposed to be the 2nd project, but there you have
it, both projects in one.. over 64 minutes of musical journey with
Rahman.

Just like before, test your knowledge of Rahman's music see if
you can correctly identify all the musical bits. And if you can,
you certainly deserve a pat or two on the back because only some
dedicated fans would know all the music bits, unless you are a new
fan. The 20 minute medley had some logic to it...it was a little
easier to identify all the tracks, but you'll find that the rest of
the 60 minute medley is all kinds of things mixed together. So the
first 20 minutes are somewhat logical but the rest is just a mess...
I just did whatever I felt like... some parts have come off well..
others.. I just liked doing anyway.

So, here's my Birthday wishes to Rahman, I wish him joy and even
more success in life and hope he continues to mesmerize us the way
he has. Happy Birthday Rahman.

Like always, your comments and criticisms are always welcome. Do
let me know how you like it. I have uploaded a low quality version
for space and piracy concerns, please e-mail me if you would like a
higher quality version. Please read the note before downloading.

NOTE: The content provided to you for downloading is strictly for
backup purposes. I, Kaissiom, certify that I own the original
content(CDs/ DVDs) and make duplicates for backup purposes only. By
downloading the content, you certify that you currently own the
original content and want to protect it from possible damage. This
is a free service, I'm not selling you music or distributing music,
I'm only providing backups of the music you already own. I,
Kaissiom, will not be held accountable for the downloader's use of
my backups. If you sell, trade, or forfeit your ownership of your
original software, you agree to destroy the CDR or any digital
backups of that title. You take full responsibility for your own
actions when using these back-ups and release Kaissiom from all
liabilities, which may arise - expressed, written, or implied. By
downloading the content, you are complying with these regulations.
All trademarks and copyrights are owned by the respective third
parties.

LINK:
http://www.megauplo ad.com/?d=6OSLGZ42

regards,
Wasim.



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Re: [arr] Hey One more bit from Interval of GURU....