Bhindi Baazaar Inc.(2011) : Movie review

Bhindi Baazaar Inc. is an upcoming Hindi thriller directed by Ankush Bhatt and produced by Karan Arora, starring Kay Kay Menon, Piyush Mishra, Prashant Narayanan, Deepti Naval,Shilpa Shukla, Pawan Malhotra. The film is set in the underbelly of Mumbai, between the infamous by-lanes where crime is prevalent as a way of life. The film was announced at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival. The film is slated to release in April 2011.

The film revolves around gangs of Mumbai who have embraced pickpocketing as an art and a means of earning a livelihood. They use their intelligence as a canvas and their spontaneity as a brush to survive in this dangerous profession. ‘Bhindi Baazaar Inc.’ is the story of a pawn and his calculated moves to reach the other end of the chessboard. Revolving around vicious crime syndicates, the film starts with a game of chess being played between two characters; ‘Shroff’ and ‘Darzi’. It highlights the ambitious and planned moves of a pawn to reach the other end of the board. Their every move in the game correlates with life in the real world and how people are used or killed as the game progresses. The story is based on the quest of a small time pickpocket ‘Fateh’ and his ambitions to become a MAMU (local area don). The screenplay underlines the gritty politics, feared hierarchy, unspoken rules, authoritative commands, shrewd intelligence, crafty wit and cold blooded betrayals, within the business. The film was shot on various locations in and around Mumbai's densely populated Bhindi Bazaar area, and a 30-day final schedule began 15 April 2010.

The cast of the film is:

• Kay Kay Menon as Shroff
• Piyush Mishra as Pandey
• Prashant Narayanan as Fateh
• Deepti Naval as Mamu's wife - Bano
• Pawan Malhotra as Mamu
• Shilpa Shukla as Fateh's girlfriend - Kanjari
• Vedita Pratap Singh as Shabana
• Caterina Lopez as Special Appearance
• Gautam Sharma as Darzi
• Shweta Verma as Simran

Mars Needs Moms (2011) : Movie review pics images 2011 star cast

Mars Needs Moms is a 3D computer-animated sci-fi film based on the book by Berkeley Breathed. It is set to be released on March 11, 2011 by Walt Disney Pictures and is directed by Simon Wells. The film stars both Seth Green (performance-capture) and newcomer Seth Dusky (voice) as the main character Milo, and is produced by Robert Zemeckis and his studio ImageMovers Digital. 

Milo (Seth Green- voice)  is always being nagged by his mom (Joan Cusack – voice) to eat his broccoli, do his chores and when she sends him to bed with no TV one night, Milo gets into a big fight with her and tells her to her face he wished he didn’t have a mom. Ouch.

So when the Supervisor (Mindy Sterling – voice) has been monitoring the Earth to find good moms to abduct and come steal their memories and download them into their nanny bots, she sees her chance in grabbing Milo’s mom. Milo, a little while after their argument, feels bad and wants to go apologize to his mom. Good thing he did, because he hitched a ride on the space ship when they were taking his mom away.Through some crazy turn of events, Milo finds the only other human on Mars, a flashback to the 1980’s astronaut named Gribble (Dan Fogler – voice). Gribble is so happy to see another human that he pegs Milo as his new BFF. Milo has to convince Gribble to help Milo save his mom, and according to Gribble’s calculations, he has only 6 hours to do so, until she becomes Martian toast. Milo, Gribble and with the help of fellow girl psychedelic, flower child/ graffiti artist Martian Ki, (Elisabeth Harnois – voice) race against the sunrise, other crazy female Martians, and the odd, Rastafarian male Martians and the scary Supervisor to save Milo’s mom and get them back to Earth before it’s too late. Will they succeed in time or will Milo have to live together with Gribble in the trash heap forever?

I think all kids have a tendency when they get frustrated with their parents or even their siblings, to wish that they were not related. What Mars Needs moms does is weave a great story complete with amazing animation and special effects to bring a heartwarming message or two that will please the parents and resonate with the kids. If parents can only get the key message of the movie, then everyone comes out a winner (No Charlie Sheen is nowhere to be found in this film). In a rather unusual move, the filmmakers decided to use two actors to portray the central character – with Seth Green acting out the role and Seth Dursky providing Milo’s voice. Green does an excellent job of becoming this enthusiastic, plucky young boy, with the actor’s expressive performance mirrored by Dusky’s energetic voice work. Cusack and Tom Everett Scott are solid as Milo’s concerned parents, while Mindy Sterling turns in an impressively vicious performance as the film’s larger-than-life villain. And although Fogler is initially somewhat grating as Gribble, the actor manages to transform his lonely character into a figure worthy of the viewer’s sympathy. 

 Mars Needs Moms is hardly in the same league as Pixar or DreamWorks Animation, but then, it doesn’t really seem to be going for that kind of a feel. Instead, Wells and his team have crafted a fun, consistently entertaining adventure film that feels like a throwback to the summer movies of the 1980s – including The Goonies, Gremlins, and Back to the Future. And while the film is by no means perfect – it does feel a little long at times and Gribble’s lair is almost oppressively grungy – Mars Needs Moms is a solid computer-animated flick that should leave adults just as satisfied and entertained as kids.