PVR pictures’ latest offering is produced by Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra and directed by Mrigdeep Singh Lamba. Starring the best trio that comedy can ask for – the legendary Om Puri, the consistent Shreyas Talpade and the dependable Deepak Dobriyal, 3 Thay Bhai can possibly be this summer’s movie to watch out for. Loaded with lyrics written by none other than Gulzar, 3 Thay Bhai could be our very own desi Three Stooges ( that’s the first thing that came in my head when I saw the trailers).

Shot in Baramula district of Kashmir, the story is about the three Gill brothers – Chixie, Happy and Fancy, who haven’t spoken with each other for a long time. They are brought together by a clause in their dead grandfather’s will. Going by the trailer, it seems like a story of three brothers who have never got along with each other – reminds me of Darjeeling Unlimited. How amazing is that most comedies feature trios. And Teen Thay Bhai is no exception.

Om Puri is no stranger to comedy. ‘East is East’ is one of my very favourites when it comes to comedy, and his contribution to Indian cinema cannot be doubted. But the last few years of Bollywood has not been quite impressive and worthy of this man’s talent. Look at the last few roles he has done – London Dreams, Dabangg, Billo Barber and the very atrocious Action Replayy. It is refreshing and quite relieving to see him in a pivotal role position.

Similarly, Shreyas Talpade‘s career graph has enough peaks to make me overlook the shit he has been a part of viz. The Golmaal series, and other movies which appear and disappear within the blink of an eye. His comic timing is unquestionable, and his roles in Om Shanti Om and Welcome to Sajjanpur alone are reason enough for me to watch this movie.

Completing the trio, Deepak Dobriyal‘s dependable supporting roles in Delhi 6 and Omkara are unforgettable performances that we remember even today. His recent outing in Tanu Weds Manu was nothing short of an award nomination worthy performance, and I am certainly looking forward to more of this actor.

As for Ragini Khanna, she is looking like a Divya Dutta clone, don’t you think?

The trailer has many scenes of slapstick humour indicating this is either going to rip us apart with laughter, or it is going to be a eye-rolling bore-athon. Some images do remind me of the Lee Evans and Nathan Lane movie – Mousehunt.

I guess its the wooden cabin and the snowy setting that reminds me of that. The slapstick in Mousehunt was top notch.That is the blessing and the curse of slapstick. If it is done well, and manages to strike the right chords, it can turn out to be one helluva ride, and we hope that it keeps its promises. Judging by the man sitting on the producer’s chair, let’s hope 3 Thay Bhai is a laughathon. My only problem is the quite mediocre music given by Sukhwinder Singh and Ranjit Barot. Also, I didn’t expect Gulzar saab to write lyrics like – Listen Suno, Pigeon Kabootar. Hope they have kept the best to be revealed during the movie. Let’s keep our fingers crossed, and OKS will be back with the review when this movie releases in theatres countrywide on April 15, 2011.

Now this is a first. The power of social networking and the Web 2.0 is taking Bollywood by storm- with celebrities tweeting and movie publicities and marketing campaigns running through Facebook pages. But the new Studio 18 movie – Striker takes it to a whole another level.

The movie premieres on Feb 5th in India in theatres. But, the worldwide release will be on YouTube. As far as my knowledge goes, this is a first for a major Bollywood production, and apart from Sundance indies, we haven’t seen anything like this before even from Hollywood. Except for the US [where viewing the movie will cost 5$], viewing this movie on YouTube will be free [MUFT MUFT MUFT]

The movie will be screened here [ Studio 18's YouTube channel ]. There is a lot more on the channel – from exclusive footage of making of the movie, to Siddharth – the lead actor giving us reasons to watch the movie. There’s more to it – they have an iPhone app – a Striker version of the carrom game Now that’s another first.

So, what’s this #strikerwatchalong?

All across the world, awesome Bolly lovahs are coming together to watch this movie simultaneously, on Feb 7th, 6pm GMT and will also be group-chatting about the same on Google wave. Exciting stuff indeed.

The idea of the group chat wave for #StrikerWatchAlong was initiated by Beth and thanks to her, there are already 24 people who have joined the Wave, and still counting. It’s so awesome to see people from Abhu Dhabi to Australia to Dubai to London to Chicago to Germany.. you get it.

And if you feel like joining, just add your Google wave ID in the comments section below.

See you on the 7th awesome peeps.

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Some stuff about #StrikerWatchAlong on Beth’s blog.

Striker watchalong.

Update on Striker watchalong

Okay, I am running late with my dissertation. 35-40% complete with more than 10k words to go. But this stuff is pretty strong enough to keep away from. So I’ll be short. Dev Benegal – the guy who made English August with Rahul Bose in 1994 ( and still has to release the DVD, why this torture) is finally here with his new one. It’s called Road Movie and the cast list is bloody impressive: Abhay Deol, Tannishtha Chatterjee, Satish Kaushik (the previous two starred together in Brick Lane, ‘member?). It’s premiering at the Toronto Film Festival on September 18, 2009. Pretty darn interesting stuff. Have a look at the trailer below.

Road, Movie from dev benegal on Vimeo.

***And after the jump, do check out the 2 min Sneak Peek of the movie.***

Road, Movie 2min Sneak Peek from dev benegal on Vimeo.

I must mention that I am very impressed by the choices that Abhay Deol is making. It is a bit too early to say this I know, but he is fast becoming the new-age Naseer! And that is an awesome thing. Easily the best of the Deols…including Esha