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Film

Review: Shutter

A film about four people trapped by circumstances and forced to adapt to a strange situation, this one’s a must-watch.
by Ravi Shet

Rating: 3 out of 5

Shutter is directed by VK Prakash, who has remade his own Malayalam film by the same name. The movie starts with Pari, the oldest daughter of Jitya bhau (Sachin Khedekar) who is often away on work. Pari is rehearsing for a Super Singer Radio City competition, and her father has just returned on vacation. He is unhappy with her antics and decides to get her engaged to his friend Hemant’s son before he resumes work again.

Ekya (Amey Wagh) is an autorickshaw driver and one of Jitya’s close friends; his dearest ambition is to work outside India. Meanwhile, a struggling film director (Prakash Bare) takes Ekya’s autorickshaw and forgets to take his bag along when he alights; the bag contains a film script he is working on.

One day, Ekya, Jitya and his friends are partying in Jitya’s shop, when the two friends take a ride in Ekya’s autorickshaw to fetch liquor. At this juncture, a sex worker (Sonalee Kulkarni) enters the scene, starting a rollercoaster ride in the lives of Jitya and Ekya. A turn of events end up in the sex worker and Jitya being locked up in the shop with scarce ventilation and no food. Ekya, meanwhile, goes to fetch food for the duo and meets the film director who is still looking for his bag. At this juncture, Ekya is arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol. This is the focal point of the story.

 

Sachin Khedekar and Sonalee Kulkarni essay their roles to perfection with great intensity, and are ably supported by Amey Wagh and Prakash Bare. The direction is top notch, as is the cinematography by KK Manoj. My only grouse with the film was that it should have had no songs – these only take away from the overall fast pace of the film. Overall, this is a great suspense thriller. Go watch it.

(Picture courtesy in.bookmyshow.com)

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Listen

Attend: ‘Bandish’ comes to Mumbai

Kick off the monsoon season with some awesome performances from the best in Hindustani classical music. Do not miss it.
by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

The monsoon brings with it a fresh wave of the best in music every year. This year, too, Mumbai is lucky to have the chance to hear the best of Hindustani classical music’s doyens show us why they are at the pinnacle of their careers.

Starting today, the NCPA kicks off ‘Bandish’, which showcases legendary musicians. The festival has been on since July 2010, when the NCPA launched it first.

The word ‘Bandish’ essentially means a ‘well structured composition’, based on which a raga can take shape. A composer (vaggeykar, nayak, rachnakar) as the creator of both lyrics (sahitya) and melodic or rhythmic content is a much revered figure in the Indian classical music tradition. The collective works of many composers through the ages have given rise to a vast repository of musical ideas that constitute our musical heritage today.

The three-day festival showcases some of the most treasured works of great composers, presented by eminent artistes. Uday Bhawalkar and Ashwini Bhide Deshpande perform today, July 3, while Shubha Mudgal and Ajoy Chakrabarty perform tomorrow. Shankar Mahadevan rounds up the performances on July 5.

Head to the NCPA today and all days at 6.30 pm. 

(Picture courtesy NCPA)

Categories
Tech

Review: Nubia Z9 Mini

We take a look at Chinese company ZTE’s new phone and find a great camera and just about passable features.
by Manik Kakra | @Manik_K on Twitter

ZTE is a Chinese company that’s into 3G dongles and smartphones, but like a few other brands (Micromax has YU), ZTE too, is now out with a separate sub-brand that caters mainly to online retailers. The Nubia Z9 mini, available exclusively on Amazon, is a mid-range Android 5.0 smartphone that the company says is more than any other smartphone launched in this price category. But is this claim really true?

The looks. The Nubia Z9 mini (NX511J) follows a rather premium design and feel. As soon as you hold it, you will notice its double glass back and front (both are prone to smudges) as well as metallic rim across its sides, and if you don’t spot that rear-cover slot, you may conclude the cover doesn’t come off. The front has three backlit capacitive touch keys — you can change what function other two buttons perform (Menu/Options or Back), the circular Home button is more prominent and doubles up as LED notification.

Above the 5-inch full HD screen, you have an 8 MP front-facing camera, speaker grille and sensors. On the back, the 16 MP camera as a Red outline, LED flash, Nubia logo in horizontal all over a nice dotted pattern from the phone’s black colour. Removing the back cover reveals the microSD card and non-accessible 2,900 mAh battery unit. The right side has volume rockers and Power/ Lock key (both are tactile), and the left side only has SIM card tray (two nano SIM card slots). At the bottom, there’s the chrome-outlined microUSB port, loudspeaker jack and primary mic; while the top has 3.5mm headset and secondary mic.

The screen. The phone’s 5-inch full HD LCD has good bright colours. It can handle HD content, but struggles with its viewing angles. For general photo viewing and Web browsing, it is just as good a screen as any in this price range.

Camera. The phone boasts a 16 MP (f/2.0) camera, and here are a few sample images.

The camera is the best thing about this phone. The rear camera takes detailed shots with good contrast levels. In daylight, photos came out saturated, while low-light, too, wasn’t bad. There’s a Pro mode that lets you play around with camera settings among other modes like Field of Depth and HDR. This is surely one of the best phone cameras available under Rs 18,000 today.

Audio. The loudspeaker at the bottom isn’t great. It performs well for pop music, but is extremely inadequate for rock, something that I haven’t seen on phones for a while. In-ear voice quality, though, is on par and so is network reception. The only connectivity issue I found was that the phone just won’t switch off location (GPS). It will keep showing you the GPS icon in the status bar even when you have manually switch it off.

Battery. The phone struggled to last 20 hours on a full charge. With brightness at around 25 per cent, two Email Accounts in sync, a lot of Twitter and some YouTube videos, this phone’s 2,900 mAh battery is not meant for a full day’s use in case of heavy usage.

Software and performance. The phone is equipped with a Snapdragon 615 SoC (1.5 GHz quad-core + 1.1 GHz quad-core processor, Adreno 405 GPU) along with 2 GB of RAM. The device runs on Android 5.0.2 with Nubia 2.8 UI on top. In terms of general performance, I found the phone to be initially pretty responsive. But once you have a few apps opened and Webpages on browser, it starts to slow down a little. It worked fine for baisc apps but does get a little hot when playing games.

Nubia UI follows no separate app launcher pattern, and is mostly made of Red and White gradients. Apart from a few grammatical errors in the OS and weird-looking pop-up box for Shut down and battery low message, Nubia UI seems aesthetically nice. Nubia UI has similar customization options as most other Android OEMs today and nothing much that stands out or is worth mentioning here. However, the company could certainly try and fix bugs like clearing Recent Apps list doesn’t work from the clear button in horizontal list or from the toggle button. The user gets about 11 GB of storage space, which can of course be further expanded using a microSD card.

Thus, the Nubia Z9 Mini is a mixed bag. It has a great camera, good screen, standout design for this price range, but average battery life and passable software. It really depends what your priority is — camera, looks and screen, but if not, you may prefer looking somewhere else.

(Picture courtesy www.gizchina.com)

Categories
Film

Review: Insidious Chapter 3

Far from being scary, this film falls flat in several places and does not hold the audience’s attention for long.
by Ravi Shet

Rating: 2 out of 5

Making his directorial debut with this horror film, Leigh Whannell brings Insidious Chapter 3, a prequel set a few years before the haunting of the Lambert family. The film begins with a young girl, Quinn Brenner (Stefanie Scott) approaching a psychic Elise Rainier (Lin Shaye) for a chance to talk to her late mother Lillith (Ele Keats).

Quinn thinks that her mother has been trying to reach out to her through the world of spirits and Elise can help her through the reading. Elise refuses, however, but she agrees later. But she is not able to complete the reading, since she hears a demonic presence that threatens to kill her. She advises Quinn not to reach out to her mother on her own. Regardless of the warnings, Quinn still attempts to reach her mother which opens doors that are meant to be closed.

She starts hearing noises in the night and the next day, she notices a dark figure waving to her offstage before going onstage for an audition at the theatre academy in New York. While crossing the street, Quinn again sees the same dark figure waving to her and she stops to look, but a speeding car hits her. The accident temporarily leaves her bedridden and she is looked after by her father Sean (Dermot Mulroney); however these problems are nothing in comparison to the ones she faces when she is tortured by demons trying to get at her soul every night.

 

This film provides no chills and thrills and is not likely to stay with you once it’s over. There were just two scenes of note – onen where the demon grabs Quinn and attempts to pull her over the ledge, and the other, where the spirit of Black Bride nearly kills Elise. Curiously, there is not back story for the demon in the film, though it is a burnt victim with a breathing mask. The end of the film signals the hint of another installment coming audiences’ way; however this installment of the Insidious series falls flat when compared with its previous two fellows.

(Picture courtesy trrdatfiltz.890m.com)

Categories
Event

Rural Maharashtra plays rugby in Mumbai

Maharashtra Mini Rugby 7s tourney kicks off today at Bombay Gymkhana grounds; 16 teams will compete for the top honours.
by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

Maharashtra Olympic Association (MOA) recently announced a month long celebration of Olympics starting from Olympic Day, June 23, 2015. As a part of this celebration, The Rugby Association of Maharashtra (RAM) is hosting the Maharashtra Mini Olympics Rugby 7s tournament for senior Men and Women at Bombay Gymkhana Grounds, CST, Mumbai on Saturday, June 27 and Sunday, June 28, 2015 between 10.00 amto 5.00 pm.

A total of 16 teams will battle for the honours in this championship. As per their ranking, only eight teams from each category qualified to participate in the Mini Olympic 2015 in Rugby 7s discipline. In the qualifiers, 23 teams from across the state competed in Ambarnath, Thane on May 8 to 9, 2015.

The qualified district teams for the Mini Olympic 2015 are, Men’s category – Pune, Mumbai, Mumbai Suburban, Nashik, Kolhapur, Gondia, Thane and Jalgaon. And in women’s category – Pune, Raigadh, Mumbai Suburban, Jalgaon, Gondia, Chandrapur, Thane and Nandurbar

Speaking on this occasion, Sandeep Mosamkar, Joint Secretary- RAM said, “Olympic month is an effort to encourage the sentiment of introducing sports in the lives of youth across the nation. Rugby has been instrumental in transforming the lives of youths across various parts of the State. “As a representing body that is passionate about developing the game of Rugby in India, RAM is delighted to be actively involved in the Olympic month celebrations by hosting the Mini Olympics Rugby 7s”.

He added, “There is no dearth of talent in rural Maharashtra. Youth from various regions displayed extreme passion and enthusiasm during Rugby qualifier matches held in Thane. We are confident that tomorrow’s championship will be the key to discover the potential of the next breed of national players from across the State.”

The Maharashtra State Rugby Team has brought laurels to the State by winning the Gold Medal on two consecutive occasions; the Rugby Sevens Event of the 33rd and 34th National Games of India held in Guwahati (2007) and Ranchi (2011) respectively. And have continued the momentum by winning Silver (Women) and Bronze (Men) Medals in the 35th National Games of India, held in Kerala (2015).

(Picture courtesy www.afternoondc.in. Image is a file picture)

Categories
Film

Review: Welcome Zindagi

A fresh look at many current happenings in society, the film gives the message of hope to the broken hearted.
by Ravi Shet

Welcome Zindagi directed by Umesh Ghadge is a remake of the Bengali film, Hemlock Society. The film starts with a discussion on love and relationships followed by a song (featuring Prashant Damle (Prashant) in a club. Meera (Amruta Khanvilkar), a fan of Prashant who never misses his shows is also shown in the same frame enjoying the moment.

Meera is a journalist by profession, who catches her fiancé cheating on her just 10 days before her wedding. She is already feeling lonely and ignored since her father, Dr Rajwade (Vivek Lagoo) has remarried after her mother’s death. On top of everything else, she hears that her boss is about to fire her from her job. Cornered in every possible way, she decides to end her life. For this, she meets her father and asks him for a prescription of sleeping pills on the pretext that she isn’t sleeping well. She thinks overdosing on sleeping pills will be a quick way out.

But at the moment she attempts to consume the pills, somebody rings her doorbell. That somebody turns out to be Anand Prabhu (Swwapnil Joshi). He enters the house and sees the bottle of sleeping pills, which he promptly flushes out. However, Anand does not tell her not to end her life – instead, he advises her to do it in a systematic way.

 

It turns out that Anand is the founder of Happy Ending Society, an organisation that believes every individual has a right to decide his or her destiny. He convinces Meera to enroll in three-day ‘suicide camp’ which will teach her many ways in which to end her life systematically. Convinced by his proposal, she leaves with him for the camp.

The pace of the movie is well maintained and the dialogues are crisp. There are few good cameos by Bharati Achrekar, Mahesh Manjrekar and Mohan Agashe; however the film truly belongs to the lead pair. This film is recommended for family viewing – it is humorous but sympathetic of all the issues we face in our lives, and gives hope to all those going through problems.

Rating: 3 out of 5

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