Early Tollywood: M MOHAN BABU

9.22.2009

Krishna Vamsi's MAHATMA Audio Release Function - Coverage

Music of Mahatma movie was launched today at a function organized in Novotel hotel on the night of 21 September. Tushar Gandhi (great-grandson of Mahatma Gandhi), Mohan Babu, Nagarjuna, Venkatesh, Ravi Teja, Nagababu, Allu Arjun, Tarun, SS Rajamouli, Charmme, Allu Arvind, Achi Reddy, Muthyala Subbaiah and Tammareddy Bharadwaja attended the function along with the cast and crew members.

Vijay Anthony scored music in this 100th movie of Srikanth. CR Manohar produces it in the direction of Krishna Vamsi. Supreme music bought the audio rights.

Mohan Babu launched the new logo of Supreme music on this eve.

Tushar Gandhi launched audio and gave the first unit to Mohan Babu.

I am obsessed with Gandhi since childhood - Sirivennela
Speaking on the occasion Sirivennela said, "I asked Krishna Vamsi why he tends to make these kind of movies. I think he doesn't belong to the herd to churn out commercial movies. He has shown the new dimension of Mahatma Gandhi in this movie. A normal human being has it in to become a Mahatma. Krishna Vamsi narrated this point in a convincing manner. Mahatma Gandhi written a book called 'My Experience with the Truth'. Krishna Vamsi's Mahatma encompasses the gist of that book. Vijay Anthony was a sound engineer and sound mixing specialist before becoming the music director. And I am glad that he composed songs in such a way that music never dominated the lyrics. I am shocked at the intensity of dialogues written by Paruchuri brothers. Balu song a vital song that is penned by me. I am obsessed with Gandhi since my childhood. I am feeling fortunate to pen a song on him. The entire Gandhi's gist is encompassed in that 3 minute song. Srikanth gave a superb performance."

Srikanth is ajatha satruvu - Mohan Babu
Mohan Babu said, "Srikanth is a good actor and we acted together in a movie tiled Tappuchesi Pappu Koodu. Srikanth is also a good human being and he has no enemies. He never speaks ill about others. I am always fascinated by Krishna Vamsi's work and I wish that he would give a role to me in his movies. I wish that Srikanth's 100th film will run for 100 days."

Venkatesh said, "I worked with Srikanth for three movies - Kondapalli Raja, Abbai Garu and Sankranthi. Srikanth is the only hero in this industry who is friend to everybody. From the trailers, i made out that Mahatma is an intense movie and I am sure that it will become a big hit."

Tammareddy Bharadwaja said that Krishna Vamsi is the director whose films reflect Telugutanam after Bapu's.

I would runaway from directing films like Mahatma - SS Rajamouli
SS Rajamouli said, "I met Krishna Vamsi when he came to meet Gangaraju Gunnam at his house. I was working as an assistant director at that time. Krishna Vamsi delivered Gulabi and he was working on the script of Ninne Pelladatha. At that time he asked me to pen dialogues for Ninne Pelladatha movie. I was really surprised at his guts of offering a struggling assistant director to pen dialogues for such a big star's movie. If somebody asks me to direct a subject of Mahatma movie, I would runaway. But Krishna Vamsi is such a director who loves to make meaningful movies."

Allu Arjun said, "I had become more patriotic after watching Krishna Vamsi's Khadgam. My favorite movie of Srikanth is Operation Duryodhana. Srikanth is the only hero in Telugu film industry whom I call as Annayya."

A film like Mahatma should be encouraged - Tushar Gandhi
Tushar Gandhi said, "Initially I was skeptical about Mahatma movie because lots of people tried to contact me for various films made on Mahatma in the past. Lots of unnecessary liberties were taken. When these people contacted me, I asked them to send me the synopsis. I was surprised after reading it. Bapu always believed that even if there is some percentage of goodness in a human being it can be cultivated to drive out all other evil forces. Bapu always believed in the power of change. A film like Mahatma should be encouraged because it it communicates the principles of Mahatma in a language that a common man could understand."

Music director Vijay Anthony who is basically a Tamilian surprised everybody by speaking in complete Telugu. He said that he understood the potential of Mahatma when he was doing re-recording. He expressed his confidence over the commercial success of the movie.

Entire credit of Mahatma should go to Krishna Vamsi - Srikanth
Srikanth said, "I am very happy today. It was Ramoji Rao who encouraged me into films with Peoples Encounter. Tammareddy Bharadwaja made me hero with 1/2 movie. Rama Naidu gave a hit to me as hero with Taj Mahal movie. SV Krishna Reddy and EVV consistently cast me as hero in their movies. I would like to thank all the people who supported me throughout the journey. I am proud of doing Krishna Vamsi's Mahatma. The entire credit of Mahatma should go to Krishna Vamsi. It is a huge budgeted film and my friend Manohar came forward to produce it against all odds. I also want to thank my brother Anil for helping me."

Krishna Vamsi concluded it by saying that Srikanth is his friend for the past 17 years and Mahatma is going to be a memorable gift to him.

6.18.2009

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Mohan Babu's RAJU-MAHARAJU Review By Greatandhra

Film: Raju Maharaju

Rating: 2.75/5

Cast: Sharwanand, Surveen Chawla, Tashu Koushik, Mohan Babu, Ramya Krishna, Brahmanandam, Sunil, Dharmavarapu, LB Sri Ram, Rani, Jayasudha (guest role), Raghu Babu, Jayaprakash Reddy, Nutan Prasad etc

Dialogues: Jeevana Satyam

Choreography: Nobel, Tarun, Prem Rakshit etc

Fights: Kanal Kannan

Editing: Kotagiri Venkateswara Rao

Cinematography: Ramesh Babu

Music: Chakri

Producer: Kuamara Swamy Paththikonda

Story, Screenplay, Direction: Durga Shankarnath

Release Date: 18th June 2009

Sharwanand starring ‘Raju Maharaju’ has arrived today. Let us see how far the flick entertained the audiences.

Story:

Kalyan (Sharwanand) is an arrogant for being the younger brother of a damn rich business magnate Chakravarthy (Mohan Babu). He wanders aimlessly and plunges into all sorts of pleasures along with his spoiled friends. He is so selfish that he wants only pleasures for himself and never bothers about other’s lives.

Sneha (Surveen) a girl happens to encounter this vagabond. Kalyan loves her but the latter denies him knowing his character and public behavior. He becomes love-sick and becomes dipsomaniac. Noticing that Kalyan’s elder sister in law Ramya (Ramya Krishna), the wife of Chakravarthy, requests Sneha to act as if she is friendly with Kalyan for 10 days so that she would set things with a new girl meanwhile. Only on humanitarian grounds, Sneha agrees for that. But she loses soft corner on Kalyan when he commits a road accident and kills a person just in front of her and never bothers about him.

Who is the person killed in road accident? The real story starts from then. How Sneha plays with Kalyan’s adamant nature and keeps him in his control? That forms rest of the story.

Performances:

Sharwanand is at his best in this film. He is showing lot of maturity and improvement in his performance from film to film. The best point in him is his voice and dialogue delivery. He is good with dances as well. His appearance in different get ups for a few songs shown him different and proved better choice for young mass hero roles.

Surveen Chawla was given a role that has very good scope for performance. She is ok with expressions and needs to work on lip sync and required momentum with dialogue. Tashu Koushik is just for glamour quotient in the film and she has nothing big to play. She pleased the senses of a set of audiences with her hot appeal in a couple of songs.

Mohan Babu is majestic as usual with his role. Ramya Krishna also looked beautiful and pleasing on screen. Jayasudha’s appearance in guest role happens in climax.

Comedy track between Brahmanandam as Om Raj and Sunil brings some laughs.

The main predicament with this film is the presentation. Comedy should be slapstick for this sort of films. Story line is ok but the exercise should be better to bring it to the entertainment limits of audiences. Dialogues are also not up to the mark leaving just one or two exceptions. The best part is picturization of songs and Sharwanand’s performance. Production values are really good and every small trivial role was played by established artistes.

Dialogues:

Mohan Babu: “Naa Meeda Cheyyi vesthey okka kshanam aalochistaanu. Naa vaalla meeda cheyyi vesthe okka khsnam kooda aalochinchanu”

Mohan Babu: “Puttedi aado-mago telusukovaalante 9 maasaalu wait cheyyali. Aa puutina vaadu prayojakudu avuthodo ledo, asalu vaadi lkashyam emito choodalante paathikellu wait cheyyali. Anukunna lakshyam neravaruchukovadaaniki kondaru jeevitha kaalam wait cheyalsi vasthundi” (as an answer to Sharwanand who expresses his disgust in waiting)

Analysis:

First half of the film goes insipid till the interval twist. Comedy could have saved that part if worked well. Second half is heavy with sentimental dose. The hard ships faced by lead role to prove his sincerity and love are shown in the best way possible in this part. Heroine appears like a villain in this part who takes revenge on lead in every aspect. The movie ran by leaning on the shoulders of Sharwanand in this part. He carried that dexterously.

There are no films with sentimental dose in recent times. This may fill that gap. But how far the majority audiences get connected to this family sentiment has to be wait and seen. This may appeal for B,C center audiences if publicity goes stronger.

The title is obsolete and has got no crowd pulling energy. Only the star value on posters with Mohan Babu and Ramya Krishna should pull a set of crowds. Sharwanand’s performance should carry good word of mouth publicity. The plight of the movie depends on those factors.

3.19.2009

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Happy Birthday To Dialogue King Mohan Babu

3.13.2009

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MESTHRI Review : By Greatandhra.com

Film: Mestri
Rating: 1.75/5
Banner: Siri Media Pvt Ltd
Cast: Dasari Narayana Rao, Mohan Babu, Srihari, Sujitha, Vijay Kumar, Pradeep Rawath, Rahul Dev, Sayaji Shinde, Chandramohan, MS, Giri Babu etc
Music: Vandemataram Srinivas
Cinematography: C H Ramaraju
Editing: Gautham Raju
Art: B V Rao
Story, Screenplay: Dasari
Director: Suresh Krissna
Producer: K Ramakrishna Prasad
Release date: 12/03/2009

It was with a great anticipation that ‘Mesthri’ was awaited since the buzz was it had a lot of dig on Chiranjeevi and his political debut. Also, the combination of the Congress sympathizers Dasari, Mohan Babu, Srihari generated enough excitement for political undertones. How much of it is actually true, let us see.

Story:

Palakollu (Dasari) joins the shipyard as an ordinary loader and in no time, he uses his wit and intellect to arrange for a land to the workers so that they can build their homes. As expected, he becomes the ‘Mesthri’ for them. However, he has obstacles in the form of their boss Subbaraju (Pradeep Rawath) and his brother Adiraju (Sayaji). After the death of Subbaraju, in the hands of Mestri, the flashback is revealed that Mesthri is actually Major Narasimham and he is there to take revenge on the murderers of his disciple Major Devaraj (Mohanbabu). Srihari played the role of a suspended cop. In between all this, there is a Gandhian Gopalakrishnaiah (Vijay Kumar) who helps Mesthri in one of his court cases. But who is Gopalakrishnaiah? That’s suspense. Does he get successful in his revenge seeking mission? All this forms the rest of the story.

Performance:

It was a Dasari show as is the case with most of his movies and he carries out his role with fair standards. His dialogue delivery in some scenes were impressive, Mohanbabu has a whirlwind appearance and he has his share of strong dialogues, Srihari looked handsome and though his performance was subdued, his action sequences were alright, Sayaji was regular, Vijay Kumar was average, Pradeep Rawat was mediocre, Sujitha looked sweet, Rahul Dev came and went, MS was usual, Giri Babu and Chandramohan did their bit as required. The others were filling the screen with their presence. The director has come up with a routine storyline but he managed to keep things going during the first half with a decent screenplay and good pace. However, the narration went really messy during the second half with a lot of drag and some illogical climax situations. The presentation was good as the music and the background score was impressive and the cinematography has captured the angles and the emotions correctly, even the lighting effects have been neat. Editing could have been a lot better during the second half, costumes for Mohan Babu should have been more disciplined in his army uniform, and the art department has done an okay job. The dialogues were filled with enough punch and ammunition and it got few whistles and claps from the front benchers. The script had flaws and the screenplay could have been much better.

Analysis:

The first half of the film was able to keep the curiosity factor high and it looked like the second half will have some good momentum to culminate a good climax and give a thoughtful message to the audience but then the last 30 minutes of the film was a major drag and as it is the content part was not much so the film depended a lot on a tight screenplay which went haywire during the thirty minutes. Though many from the camp were denying that the film did not take a dig at anyone, a fair share of dialogues was spoken that gave a stick to Chiranjeevi and his political role. Literally, the song ‘Nagamalli daarilo…’ looked like a tribute to Chiru, not stopping at that, few scenes with Vijay Kumar and the repeatedly spoken words such as ‘Master’ ‘Andarivaadu’ pointed fingers only in one direction. Even the TDP folks were not left out in this party as references have been made using terms like ‘Tiger’ ‘Garjana’ , Telangana issue and few other aspects. It is also amusing to hear Dasari say that the character played by Mohan Babu gets killed because he is a Dalit and that too by the upper caste. Well, the issue was about the land and caste and creed has nothing to do with the killing. Just when audience was hoping that Dasari will not show his eccentricity, he came up to his original antics in the second half and that too in the climax. How ridiculous can things get when a song sung by Dasari is played on the screen in a public meeting when the time comes to expose the villain instead of showing the evil acts of the bad man. A good thing was the song on the essence of Telugu which was quite patriotic and commendable, written by C Na Re. The film is an outright mass treat and it could have been better had the second half been handled well. Though the content part is meek, it is the presence of the stars and the dialogues that provide some solace. The criticism on Chiru and other parties looked quite evident enough.