Hello all you beautiful people. It's been almost 5 months since I brought out my blah blah. I don't know how much you people missed me but I missed talking to all of you terribly. What to do? Exams coupled with anxiety followed by holidays filled with gaiety ate away most of my time. Also, the movies that release these days are so uninteresting that I totally lost the enthusiasm to write some trivia about them. But, today I decided to pull up my socks and share my blah blah about one of the eagerly awaited movies of this year.

After watching many insipid Telugu films during summer, I was expecting Sooraj Barjatya's film 'Main Prem Ki Diwani Hoon' (MPKDH) to give me the much-needed respite. Usually it is Rani who literally drags me to Hrithik Roshan's movies. But this time it was the other way round. I almost filled her brain about this movie and she finally ended up accompanying me to the movie. Little digression here, Rani adores Hrithik and cannot stand Kareena. I don't like Hrithik mainly because Rani likes him soooo much (after all every man has certain amount of ego, what say?) and at the same time I sing praises about Kareena (just to irk Rani : ). But those were not the only reasons for watching this movie. Sooraj Barjatya, who made blockbusters like Maine Pyar Kiya, Hum Aapke Hain Kaun and Hum Saath Saath Hain, was coming back after almost 4 years with this grand movie on his family banner Rajshri Productions.

It is said that it took over 3 years to make this film. Probably that is the reason why this film has a duration of 3 and half hours. Did you know that Chiranjeevi's Anji was in the process of making for the past 6 year. What would be the duration for that film? May be I should leave the guessing part to you.

The story of MPKDH is set against the backdrop of a small town called 'Sundar Nagar'. This Sundar Nagar is so sundar [beautiful] that it has Alps like mountains to ski, crystal clear waters where one can actually see the bottom of the sea, multi-colored trees and fragrant flowers … ooooh. And you thought such cities existed only in fairy tales? Well, Sooraj's movies have always been larger than life but this one goes much beyond that. I am risking the danger of turning a poet describing the beauty of Sunday Nagar (I better save my energy to describe Kareena later. Tsk!). Sooraj is known for playing around with human emotions and relationships in his movies but in this movie he plays very liberally with World Geography too. How else could he pass off New Zealand, Mauritius as Sundar Nagar, a small town in Uttar Pradesh?

Do you remember the incident where our own Sallu bhai went to jail because he killed a black buck on his shikaar few years back. This tragedy event (to Salman? or to the black buck?) took place when Salman was shooting for Sooraj's earlier film Hum Saath Saath Hain. His co-stars Sonali, Tabu, Neelam and Saif were so loyal to the title of the film that they went saath saath with Salman on his shikaar and got into trouble themselves. Well, its been a custom for Sooraj Barjatya to include pet animals in his film like white pigeon (Maine Pyar Kiya), a Pomeranian dog (Hum Aapke Hain Kaun). I guess, because of the bitter experience with black buck, he did not want to have real animals in MPKDH. Also, there are animal right activists like Amala (Blue Cross) who care for the pets. (Do you know that Amala sent police to the sets of 'Ghatotkachudu', which had Nagarjuna and a cheetah in a special song, because the mouth of cheetah was brutally stitched by its instructor?) Hmm! Sooraj Barjatya, who already went into a lot of trouble with the black buck case, did not want to use live animals. At the same time, he wanted to use his pets' sentiment in this movie. So, he went the 'hi-tech' way by bringing in an animated parrot. There is also a cute dog in this film that is called Johnny. Just like Pawan's film Johnny which had a good packaging but empty and contrived stuff, this dog though cute gets on to your nerves at times. It seems all the weird things done by this dog were animated on the screen. Thanks to computer graphics, Sooraj not only had pets in this movie but also had them the way he wanted to (the parrot in this movie is a panchavannela ramachilaka - has five colors) and made them do things the way he wanted to.

After working with Salman in his earlier 3 films, Sooraj seems to be reeling under Salman's effect. Other wise how would he justify baring the chest of Hrithik at the drop of a hat in this film. Forget about the hero, what about heroine Kareena and her spicy girl friends (who appear as dumb as Charlie's Angels). These girls bared their skin so much that you start wondering if at all we are watching a Rajshri film. Rajshri films are known for their traditional dresses (at least for the women in their films) and strong Indian values. But with this film the director seems to have realized the real definition of 'Show business' as nothing but 'Showing skin business'.

Chiranjeevi did the scene of Bungee Jumping long back for a film called 'Bavagaru Bagunnara'. Of course, later on NTR did the same in Subbu as well. The concept of Bungee jumping was not popular in AP at the time of 'Bavagaru Bagunnara'. Hence, bungee jumping looked really heroic and thus justified the entrance of a hero in the film followed by hero's introduction song. At that time, lots of people (including fans) thought that it was a graphic effect. But these bungee jumps look like minnows in front what Kareena and Hrithik did in MPKDH. They bungee jumped (individually and together as well) from a flying chopper. Thrilling is it not? It must have been a spine chilling experience for Kareena and Hrithik. I wish I could say the same about me after sitting through the entire movie.

Coming to the story of the film, I am told that this film is a freemake of yesteryears super hit film 'Chitchor' by Rajshri Productions itself. I wonder why Sooraj had to remake it again and that too in this manner. I guess Bollywood directors' better copy films from Hollywood than Bollywood.

The climax of this film resembles Trivikram's climaxes. The girl gets engaged to a different guy and when they were about to tie the nuptial knot, its time for the hero to take away his girl. But after watching films like Nuvve Kavali, Nuvvu Naaku Nachchav, the climax of MPKDH does not look convincing at all!

Lets talk about the remakes. I guess the Hindi film industry is reeling under the remake effect now. I saw MPKDH in Sensation theater. In the interval, trailers of a couple of Hindi flicks were also showed. These flicks are Qayamat and Hawa. Anybody who saw those trailers could easily guess that these films are straight lifts of Hollywood flicks, 'The Rock' and 'The Entity' respectively. Our Telugu film makers copied the climax for Rock for a film titled 'Sulthan' starring Bala Krishna in dual role.

Outside the theater I saw a couple of posters. One is of 'now playing' (MPKDH) and another is of 'Coming next week' (Hawa). Do you know the similarities? Both these posters show a lot of skin. Hawa poster had Tabu with a taboo sentence written on it 'Sexual Violence'. The MPKDH poster had a bare chested Hrithik inching close on to helpless scantly-clothed Kareena lying on a beach. And the tint given to both these posters is 'blue'. For a difference, the MPKDH poster had a neat caption 'I will love him till the end of time'. Even the most prestigious banner like Rajashri is getting desperate to lure men and women to the cinema halls.

This summer has been very dull with many poorly made Telugu films releasing in quick succession. When we (Rani and I) were looking forward to Sooraj Barjatya and his mammoth production house Rajshri to provide us with some good entertainment, this movie disappointed us greatly. If you are so much a diwana of Rajshri films or the name Prem you might instead watch Salman as Prem in MPK, HAHK or even HSSH. Two Prems (both Hrithik and Abhishek are named Prem in this movie) are too much to take and if you add Kareena's over the top acting to it then what you end up saying is 'Main Prem ka Diwana/Diwani Tha' (and not any more!!!!)

Bye for now folks,
Budugu

Past Budugu Trivia
Manmadhudu
Chennakesavareddy
Indra
Jayam
Allari
Santosham
Vasu
Aadi
Nuvvu Leka Nenu Lenu
Takkari Donga
Seema Simham
Adhipati
Nuvvu Naaku Nachav
Akasa Veedhilo
Naa Manasista Raa!
Bava Nachadu
Prematho Raa!
Kushi
Eduruleni Manishi
E for Elopement
Narasimha Naidu
Murari