Releasing June 2012

Psst... everything you want to know about the book (and even some of the stuff you don't) are there on the Bollywood Book page.  

SRK Bong Bang

This is not my post. It is a translation of a brilliant Bengali post by Tanmay Mukherjee, who decided to give Shah Rukh Khan some advice after the star was roped in by West Bengal's Chief Minister to 'promote' the state.
Essentially, it is a set of ten handy pieces of instruction for SRK. Since the instructions were in Bengali, it is obvious the star hadn't read them and had flouted them even. Therefore, my stilted translation...

*** *** *** *** ***
Shah Rukh-babu,
If you don't want to your brand ambassadorship of Bengal to go the same way as Hindustan Motor's Ambassador, you have to make some personal adjustments. Quickly, take a piece of paper and a pen. Note them down.

1. Learn to pronounce Kolkata. Right here, right now. (Trans: For the greater common good, it is Coal-Kaa-Taa with the T soft.)

2. Knight Riders without Sourav and Bongo without Poshchim is the same thing. If you want to dance the Bengal jig, you need a partner - Dada. Just as you need Thackeray to tango in Mumbai, you need Dada for Eden.

3. Read Lenin. Recite Ma-Maati-Manush. And avoid the stammer, please.

4. Have not seen any press release about your love for mishti doi and roshogolla. Give one, pronto.

5. Please sir, ditch that Korbo-Lorbo song. Its become a national joke.

6. Stop blowing kisses every second minute. We are an intellectual race, not SoBo sweeties.

7. Walk into a couple of appearances in Bengali films. Let our poor Tolly-wood also make a penny or two.

8. Next Durga Puja, do the traditional dhunuchi naach (ref: Sanjay Dutt in Parineeta) at Maddox Square and claim semi-Bengali citizenship.

9. No "Kimon achho Kolkatta" tweets please. We will make fun of it for the rest of our lives.

10. And yes, of course - Bengal is not Pepsi.  

Have you felt a Silk lately?

Starting from the Kuch khaas hai zindagi mein, Cadbury has done a stellar job in getting chocolates out of the kids' domain and making it 'cool' for people of all ages to enjoy. Be it the girl who danced onto the cricket pitch and into our hearts or the college kid who asked an unknown girl for something 'meetha' before doing something shubh, they became our favourite people. 

Cadbury now seems to have adopted a strategy of replacing the traditional Indian mithai in traditional situations - the after-dinner dessert, the mandatory meetha before beginning anything. 

So, a horny (but cutely so) guy is initially disappointed to hear about karela for dinner but then asks 'meethe mein kya hai?'. 

And then a sexy (but cutely so) girl practices breaking news of her pregnancy to her husband (or boyfriend? Why is she apprehensive?) when the guy offers her some 'meetha' instead of 'khatta'.  

To my mind, this is happy, safe territory. And no complaints because Cadbury's Dairy Milk is a happy, safe brand. It is an immensely feel-good snack and by keeping it in the enjoyment-celebration domain, Cadbury is doing absolutely the right thing. 

I always felt that when they launched Silk - a smoother, creamier chocolate (yes, I read the pack) - they should have positioned Silk as the choice of more devoted chocolate lovers and made the advertising a little more 'edgy'. It should be something I would be willing to give up a lot for. 

Instead the launch ad was a slightly unreal scenario of two Bharat Natyam dancers not going on stage so that they could finish off a bar of Silk. And a positively irritating ad about a mentally deficient boy who can't eat chocolate properly. (Statutory Disclaimer: I am a baby girl's father.)   

How is Silk good? A smarmy guy like that would do anything to be with a cute girl. He would even be okay with sharing Haldiram's chiwda, if that's what gets him lucky. 

I always felt that the Silk ad I liked best was never aired. 

You are happy. You have chocolate. What are you giving up for that? Nothing. Okay, cool. 

But here, the brand is saying, "Bugger, this Silk is so bloody good that you won't want to pick up your wife's call."

Wow. Like WOW! That's a claim worth sitting up and taking notice of.

And I also knew why they didn't air it. Because it was too edgy. It said all the wrong things. Abandoning your wife for some gooey chocolate? Hawww... 

I wouldn't have run this ad if I were the Cadbury Silk Brand Manager. But as a Cadbury Silk fan, I can watch it again and again. 

And call my wife back as soon as I finish the chocolate. 

This Vampire Film Lacks Teeth

(Published in City Express, The New Indian Express on 12 May 2012, retrieved from  http://expressbuzz.com/entertainment/reviews/dark-shadows/390817.html)

Cast: Johnny Depp, Eva Green, Michelle Pfeiffer, Bella Heathcote, Chloë Grace Moretz, Johnny Lee Miller, Helena Bonham Carter, Gully McGrath, Jackie Earle Haley

Director: Tim Burton

Rating: 3 stars

Since 1990’s Edward Scissorhands, Tim Burton and Johnny Depp have come together eight times, creating and recreating gothic favourites, inspired by their childhood fantasies and cult favourites. From that stable comes Dark Shadows, the story of Barnabas Collins (Johnny Depp), the scion of a wealthy fishing dynasty, Josette/ Victoria Winters (Bella Heathcote), the love of his life, and Angelique (Eva Green), the wicked witch whose all-consuming lust for Barnabas leads to vicious schemes that will destroy everyone and everything he loves. But she desires and despises him too much to kill him, condemning him to a vampire’s eternal existence.

The film begins with a stylised narrative that holds much promise. It introduces us to characters with great personality – the wraith-like Victoria with her powerful voice, the drunken butler Willie (Jackie Earle Haley) whose Cockney accent lends a sarcastic edge to grouchy lines, the old servant Mrs. Johnson (Ray Shirley), who’s “about as useful as a bucket without a bottom”, the sharp-tongued, nasty teenager Carolyn Stoddard (Chloë Grace Moretz), her cousin David (Gully McGrath) who talks to ghosts, the resident shrink Dr. Hoffman (Helena Bonham Carter) and the Collins siblings, Elizabeth (Michelle Pfeiffer) and Roger (Johnny Lee Miller).

But the story disintegrates into a far milder version of what it could have been, no thanks to a storyline that turns insipid, and underwhelming performances by most of the main cast – Johnny Depp is the only one who adapts to the part-satirical, part-intense tone that is a hallmark of Burton’s films. We’re pitchforked from 1760 to 1972, and though Depp does a remarkable job of portraying Collins’ bewilderment at modern life, it’s a routine we’ve seen too often to find funny. There’s a lovely quirky touch in his conversation with a bunch of hippies, but we must turn to well-timed one-liners for the humour.

Burton’s masterful art direction and his over-the-top sequences are complemented by the dreamy appearances and mysterious utterances of sundry spirits. But those – like me – who have a soft corner for his work may be stunned by the poor execution of certain scenes, especially towards the climax. Then again, those – like me – who are sympathetic to his style may perceive the drama involving a werewolf, vampire and human as a subversion of that horrific teen romance involving sparkling bloodsuckers.

With most actors struggling for a foothold, it doesn’t help that the plot seems to have holes in it. It’s hard to make sense of parts of the story without the context. We don’t quite understand Carolyn’s references to her father, or David’s to his mother; nor are we told how the Collinses endure, or where the “distant relatives” came from – the only inhabitants of Collinwood Manor seemed to be Barnabas and his parents.

The Verdict: There’s enough in the film to keep you engaged, but not enough to live up to expectations.

Girl, Regurgitated

(Published in The Sunday Guardian on 13 May 2012, retrieved from http://www.sunday-guardian.com/masala-art/time-travel-gone-wrong)

Cast: Karishma Kapoor, Rajneish Duggal, Jimmy Shergill, Divya Dutta

Director: Vikram Bhatt

Rating: 1 star

The string of expletives in my head is slightly lengthier than the painfully long Dangerous Ishhq, which follows a love triangle through six centuries of unconsummated pining. The good news is, there can be no sequel because the random witch’s curse that spawned this travesty of romance is broken at the end.

Karishma Kapoor is back, complete with prepubescent voice, shaggy eyebrows and pre-pregnancy figure. We meet her as Sanjana Saxena, Manish Malhotra’s showstopper. Sanjana happens to be dating Rohan (Rajneish Duggal), whose foppish disapproval of a female doctor wearing rubber chappals to a fashion show might lead us to think he drives on the other side of the road, nudge-nudge. Trouble brews in paradise when Sanjana wins a modelling contract with French brand Global Fusion (I know!!!) that’ll take her to Paris for a year.

She changes her mind when she sees a statue of Krishna on her way to the airport. Instinct tells her she’ll never see Rohan again if she leaves for Paris, so she comes running back. Wrong. Some folks in Taliban costume kidnap him anyway, but leave her to her devices. Lest you think this is Hindutva propaganda, let me assure you Krishna and Allah team up to beat the bad boys. Well, actually one bad boy, through several rebirths.

See, we’re used to seeing the likes of Nirupa Roy lose their memories when they bang their skulls, courtesy the villain, and regain their memories when they rebang their skulls, courtesy the villain’s son. But when Sanjana Saxena bangs her head, she remembers her past lives. Get out. And her enabler is BFF Neetu (Divya Dutta), a doctor whose circle of friends includes a shrink who dresses like she’s attending an art gala in Delhi and is into hypnosis, and a surgeon who has a penchant for roleplay.

You’ll know how bad this film is when you hear this exchange: “What’s wrong with you?” “I can read Urdu!” Facepalm. To his credit, Jimmy Shergill seems pretty embarrassed to be playing a cop who drags along two hysterical chicks to his stakeouts, and passes evidence to forensics after fingering it himself. And we are dragged into 1947 Pakistan, 1658 Daulatabad, and 1535 Chittaurgarh, where Mirabai makes a guest appearance. Oh, and Ravi Kishen pops in too, as a sexually frustrated senapati.

The Verdict: This orgy of bad graphics and corny dialogue only serves to remind us that the greatest service Karishma did cinema was to keep away from it for over a decade.

A Faint Shadow

(Published in The Sunday Guardian on 13 May, 2012, retrieved from http://www.sunday-guardian.com/masala-art/faint-shadows-of-a-classic)

Cast: Johnny Depp, Eva Green, Michelle Pfeiffer, Bella Heathcote, Chloë Grace Moretz, Helena Bonham Carter

Director: Tim Burton

Rating: 3 stars

“Blood is thicker than water,” declares Johnny Depp’s voice, as we’re swept into 1760 Liverpool, “It is what defines us, binds us, curses us.” The next fifteen minutes are hypnotic, as Barnabas Collins tells us the tale of his family’s journey to Maine, where they founded a fishing business that flourished so well it spawned the town of Collinsport, of the witch Angelique (Eva Green) whose obsession with him would lose him his loved ones and see him entombed for two centuries, of his “one true love” Josette (Bella Heathcote), whom Angelique torments.

Unfortunately, these are the best fifteen minutes of the film. When the vampire wakes up in 1972, the story falls back on formula, and there’s only so much Depp’s nuanced facial expressions can do to salvage a tired screenplay. There is hilarity in the timing and dialogue – watch out for Collins’ first encounter with a car. His horrified, “What sorcery is this? Reveal yourself, tiny songstress!” as Karen Carpenter sings Top of the World on television is the highlight of the trailer. Sadly, the funniest parts of the film are in the trailer, and this kills some key moments.

The minor characters turn in the best performances – Jackie Earle Haley as the grumpy souse Willie
Loomis, and Ray Shirley as the mute and wizened Mrs. Johnson excel in the few scenes they get. Chloë Grace Moretz as the eye-rolling Carolyn, teenage daughter of Elizabeth Collins Stoddard (Michelle Pfeiffer), fits into her role as naturally as she did in Hugo. Gully McGrath as troubled child David and Johnny Lee Miller as his father Roger Collins are the only other characters with any conviction (aside from Johnny Depp, of course). Pfeiffer, Green, Heathcote and Bonham Carter try to emulate Depp’s stylised acting, but end up being stilted where he is arch.

The film has all the Burton signatures – seemingly comical scenes suddenly turn sinister, the music is a treat, the wordplay tickles, and a couple of Addams Family references are slyly slipped in when Barnabas sits at the piano. The execution of gothic fantasy is exquisite. But the vapours and the moors and desolate plains and lonely houses and forbidding cliffs lend the film atmosphere, without enough substance. The translation of the 1000-odd episode long TV series into a 3-hour film leaves one feeling parts have been fast-forwarded. The most frustrating aspect is the wasted scope of Alice Cooper’s guest appearance, which is lost to cheap comedy. It’s left to the lone vampire to lift the film.

The Verdict: Not the best Burton-Depp collaboration, but the art direction and one-liners make it worth a watch.

The Mothers' Day Post... Mandatorily

My mother is happily on Facebook, making a list on the best courtesans of Hindi cinema. To those of you who were wondering where I got the idea of writing a 'book of Bollywood lists', I hope you have got the answer. She's the one who ignited and fanned my near-obsessive love for Hindi cinema.
I have made a couple of Mothers' Day posts in the past about the Most Memorable Moms of Bollywood. And every time I wrote something about Mothers, I thought this was the last time as I must have surely exhausted my reserves. But as it goes, Bollywood doesn't let mother content finish. Ever.

This year, I thought of my five favourite 'Mother' scenes. Coincidentally - or naturally - most of them are big hits with her as well.

I had written a post on her birthday once (six years back, incidentally). That post was triggered by a Sunday viewing of Karan Johar's super-weepie, Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham.
KJo had exaggerated a mother's intuition manifold and yet created a bloody effective scene (see from 1:50 onwards) in which SRK entered a mall and Jaya sensed his presence from afar. By intercutting the scene with images from SRK's entry scene of the movie, Karan Johar managed to create a scene that never fails to grip me (however much I hate the other parts of the film).

Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na had Ratna Pathak Shah as the ultimate cool mom. Being a single mom is nowhere close to being easy but she managed to maintain a perfect balance between being a mentor and a confidant.
As she lay on the sofa reading Naomi Wolf's The Beauty Myth, her son entered whistling and obviously happy with the first flush of love. She managed to capture the emotion with a wonderful line - "Honthon pe seeti, chaal mein uchhaal. Maajra kya hai?"
Nothing could have explained the mother-son relationship better than this one scene. (Watch from 1:08:40 onwards.)

Reema Lagoo in Maine Pyar Kiya was the first 'cool mom' of Bollywood. She understood her son and knew about his love perfectly well but decided to play a small prank on him. Despite it being slightly contrived, I had watched the scene so many times that I could recite the dialogues without a thought or a pause.

The most iconic mother film of all times - Deewaar - had several scenes where Nirupa Roy had the best lines and was the centre of attention. Though funnily, the most famous mother line in Hindi cinema - "Mere paas maa hai" - doesn't have the mother present.
Neither does my Mom scene from the film. As Nirupa Roy remained unconscious in an ICU, her atheist son climbed the stairs of 'her' temple for the first time in his life. And did something we never imagined possible - he vented his anger at God. In the most touching display of a son's devotion toward his mother, Amitabh Bachchan told God that he was willing to turn himself in if only he gave him his mother back.
Whenever - in the last 37 years - Amitabh Bachchan has gone on a world tour, he has been asked to perform this scene. And for the last 37 years, there hasn't been a dry eye in the audience.

Aradhana was the first film that she recommended that I watch (preferably unblinkingly). And I obeyed her and understood the charisma of a filmstar for the first time. Especially in this scene.
Sharmila had just been released from prison and she was taken to an Air Force base by her foster-niece, who wanted Sharmila to meet her fiance. As a side-actor (called Subhash Ghai) announced the arrival, the familiar background score of the film reached a crescendo, the mother saw the smartest Air Force officer walk towards her.
You know the context. You know the scene. Let me not spoil it with my blabbering.

And while I am at it, I might as well link to this exquisite P&G film.
When I first saw this, I - quite strangely - did not think of my mother but my wife. Probably because my sister and I were such angels (koff koff) that my mother's job couldn't have been the toughest in the world. My wife - on the other hand - has her task cut out with two of the world's naughtiest kids. Hopefully, they will end up on an Olympic podium one day.

Happy Mothers' Day! 

Do we really need beef and pork festivals?

(Published in Sify.com on 11 May 2012, retrieved from http://www.sify.com/news/do-we-really-need-beef-and-pork-festivals-news-columns-mflbOSdajgf.html)

(Picture Courtesy: Sify.com. Unauthorised reproduction of this image is prohibited.)

I may as well begin with full disclosure: I turned lacto-vegetarian over a decade ago, and it had nothing to do with my religious beliefs. I stopped eating animals for the same reason that I stopped wearing them. I don’t buy silk, leather, or wool, and I prefer animals off my plate. So, I’m being honest when I say I see no difference whether one is eating cows, pigs, dogs, fowl, fish, crustaceans, goats, cats, or reptiles.

What I find disgusting about university students organising beef-and-pork festivals is that their self-proclaimed assertion of their dietary culture, or cultural diet, or whatever they label it, boils down to deliberate provocation. Neither Osmania University nor Jawaharlal Nehru University prohibits students from eating any organism outside campus – or, as far as I’m aware, even in their rooms. Do universities not have a right to decide what to put on their mess menu? And does the menu matter enough to disturb the already shaky equilibrium of persuasions in this country?

It’s easy to equate protests against beef and pork with religious fundamentalists. But, doesn’t waving these “forbidden meats” at people who subscribe to those beliefs qualify as secular fundamentalism? Do the “rationalists” who organise these festivals not know that militant youth wings of political parties will oblige the stereotype by vandalising property and attacking individuals at these events?

Let’s dismiss the rumours about the meat melas being driven by political agenda and power struggle. Students of these universities are not the first people to have organised beef-and-pork festivals. Atheist centres have been holding them for years. But the statement that these festivals are simply a call for respect for people’s traditional food habits is either naïve or ironic.

The idea of respect for people’s dietary preferences is particularly laughable because festivals that celebrate food that’s banned by certain communities are essentially trampling over the sentiments of those groups.

What is it about us Indians that makes us want to needle each other? In a country that’s united by such a fragile fabric, where differences in language, religion, ethnicity, and appearance leave us with little more in common than nationality, in a country that several states want to secede from, in a country whose states several regions want to break away from, do we need yet another reminder of why we’ve been partitioned so many times?

Celebrating diversity is all very fine, but highlighting dissonance cannot end well. And in India, we jump at opportunities to do the latter. We have been for decades, if not centuries. It was part of the reason for our repeated enslavement by colonial powers, and part of the reason we splintered even as we were liberated from foreign rule.

The reason I think this is a specifically Indian trait, one that we’re prone to when we live in this country, is that it hit me when I returned home after a couple of years abroad. We find it impossible to assert ourselves without offending others.

In the multi-ethnic ethos of London, where I would hear five languages while walking from my dorm to Sainsbury’s, I saw how diversity can actually be celebrated, and more importantly, respected. I’m not claiming London is free of racists, but I was lucky enough not to encounter any. My life was, for the most part, that of a university student.

My flatmates were from Japan, Engand, Switzerland and Pakistan. Most of my friends were from the Middle East, and there were some intelligent folks who weren’t atheists. And we could share meals without upsetting each other. It wasn’t because we followed the same diets, or chose “neutral” food. It was largely because we were polite about it.

Omnivorous friends of mine would ask me if I minded their eating meat in my presence, and we would ask teetotallers if they minded our downing a few. The consideration for other people’s beliefs touched me, especially because ever since I’d turned vegetarian, I’d had people practically rub dead meat in my face. I stopped taking people out on my birthday because I didn’t like paying for something that went against my conscience. And I didn’t enjoy having a lard-laden fork thrust at my face, courtesy some grinning moron who wanted to know whether I was “tempted”.

I wouldn’t want to give anyone the impression that the consideration and politeness came only from people from “developed” countries. It was something of a given in the student body, which leads me to think it’s the natural inclination of anyone thrown into an unfamiliar environment to tread a little carefully. And it was in that unfamiliar environment that I made a conscious effort to say “idiot!” or “ass!” in place of “pig!” (which is my favourite chiding term) in gatherings were pigs weren’t kosher. It was also where I figured one could be politically incorrect, as long as one’s intent wasn’t malicious.

It’s the inherent malice in beef-and-pork festivals organised in India that I find repulsive. If we were once slaves to validation by foreign powers, we’re now slaves to endorsement of our own ideologies.

I discovered that this isn’t a pan-India syndrome yet, during my travels in the North East, where most people do eat both beef and pork. And although I had more varieties of vegetables piled on my plate during a single meal in that region than I did in a week back home, my hosts would be apologetic; they didn’t need to be. I wasn’t in the least offended by their dietary habits, but I was moved by their efforts to ensure I wasn’t. And student politics in that region is largely about saving the environment from being destroyed by mindlessly rapid industrialisation.

Maybe the reason students feel so triumphant about organising this food festival of theirs is that their lives are so untroubled by bigger concerns that they feel compelled to get pig-headed about holy cows. Maybe rebellion to them is about fighting communalism by enraging conservative Hindus as well as conservative Muslims. And it’s precisely that kind of misguided foolhardiness that the likes of Bhisham Sahni and Saadat Hasan Manto wrote about. We should probably ask ourselves whether we’re willing to pay as heavy a price now as we did then.

Of Rajesh Khanna's fan-tasies and IPL's delusions

By Ogle Bunkraker


(Published in Sify.com on May 7, 2012, retrieved from http://www.sify.com/sports/of-rajesh-khanna-s-fan-tasies-and-ipl-s-delusions-news-columns-mfhme9dggdc.html)

So, the new thing in the experts studio, or whatever they call it, is a stand-up comedy act before the match. Like there aren’t enough jokers in the game. Thankfully, though, this act is only slightly more repulsive than the sight of seven girls making pom-poms dance toChikni Chameli. And it’s slightly more entertaining than last week’s – or was it the week before’s? – discussion on Adam Gilchrist’s dismay at having to miss a match for the first time in sixteen years.

If you want to analyse the psyche of players, why not choose Munaf Patel and Harbhajan Singh? I mean, it’s like their IPL agenda revolves around fighting with any current or prospective national teammate they can spot in the opposition. Or better still, slap them, but it’s been years since that happened. The only physical contact Bhajji seems to make with players now is encouraging pats to the backside. I don’t get that, but then again, I don’t play a sport swimming in machismo. And Munaf Patel’s taken to arguing with umpires, which is probably the wiser thing to do.

But if you want to bring entertainment into the pre-match discussion of a Mumbai Indians vs. Chennai Super Kings game, you should probably just bring in seven men who can do the two-metre coffee thingy in sync. Would be a mighty sight better than fourteen pom-poms trembling to an item number.

The ones who really get it wrong during the IPL, though, are the admakers. What happens to them this time of year? Do they assume just about anything goes when people are watching a bunch of has-beens and wannabes play each other? Or do they assume people won’t be watching the ads anyway? Or, is it a Communist plot to turn all of us off the products the manufacturers are advertising? Because I’ve decided not to buy a lot of this stuff simply based on the ads.

Idea 3G? I mean, forget it. It was bad enough when I had to see three Abhishek Bachchans on screen. Now, I have to hear him try to sing, while cheerleaders from heaven mope around him? Or fat angels die? Right, we get that he’s finally the breadwinner of the Bachchan parivaar, but I find myself wishing for the first time that someone would give him a movie to kill time with.

And then, there’s Ranbir Kapoor, out to prove that the stand-up act from last season is not the worst he can do. Yes, he can play a slow waiter, a menacing waiter, and every other character that fake hair and a rubber belly can conjure.

Then, there’s the Big One of the Season. Rajesh Khanna and his “fans”. What was he thinking?! So, this guy walks into an auditorium that is empty, but for battery-operated objects, and assures us that no one can take his fans away? Wrong, pal. That borderline psycho ad just lost you your last, menopausal fans. And what were the admakers thinking? Crazed yesteryear actor who is obsessed with table fans for want of human fans can sell the appeal of electronic fans?

It’s almost like cricket is the least illogical thing about the IPL. And I write this on a day that the French-sounding Francois du Plessis turned in arguably the best fielding performance of the game. It also happens to be the day a man called Hollande became president of France, but that’s irrelevant.

My favourite thing about the IPL, though, is that it fancies itself the equivalent of every football premier league there is, simply because it sees fit to throw larger sums of money at fewer men. Forget that football’s been around in those clubs for about a century longer than the IPL, allowing anthems to evolve, and a fan base to build up.

But, no, our IPL has the fans anyway, and the cameramen will prove it, focusing on women who look like they’ve just watched their first-borns sacrificed every time their team loses a wicket. And the team-owners, who will smile and wave anyway, because that’s what actresses do. And the WAGs, most of whom are unrecognisable, because – unlike the football WAGs – very few of them are famous in their own right.

And let’s not even get started on the Champions League!

Good Heavens!

(Published in The Sunday Guardian, on 6 May 2012, retrieved from http://www.sunday-guardian.com/masala-art/good-heavens)

Cast: Emraan Hashmi, Randeep Hooda, Esha Gupta, Manish Chaudhary

Director: Kunal Deshmukh

Rating: 1 star

As I write this, I’m not sure whether Jannat 2 was intended to be a comedy, thriller or action flick. I’ve just sat through the film thinking the female lead was Sunny Leone, partly because of her expressions, and partly because she plays a doctor called Jaanvi Singh Tomar, whom Sonu Dilli (Emraan Hashmi) fantasises about.

Of course, a story about gun crime is set in Delhi. Which means there will be chases in Chandni Chowk, a Sufi-meets-Punjabi song in Dilli Haat and India Gate, a love song in Qutub Minar and Humayun’s Tomb...hell, even the Airport Express is not spared.

The sleekest part of the film is the opening montage, where Sonu Dilli, KKC (apparently kutti-kameeni-cheez) rants about a world in which everyone including doctors and engineers wants a gun. He’s in the illegal gun trade, and his front is a cut-piece shop we see him at only when he’s romancing his scantily-clad doctor-muse. We know he’s a good guy because he’s in the gun trade for the right reasons – if people didn’t have guns, they’d kill each other with knives; if they didn’t have knives, they’d kill each other with truncheons. Guns are the quickest and least traumatic. Awww.

Enter Pratap Raghuvanshi (Randeep Hooda), a fiery ACP whose fantastic entry is ruined by a weepy back-story. Poor Randeep Hooda ends up, yet again, being a good actor in a bad film, and one can sense him trying not to puke through tender moments with Emraan Hashmi. Yeah, the cop-informer relationship is fleshed out far better than the gangster-doctor affair in this sordid underworld tale where kohl-eyed Muslims are the small fry, and kohl-eyed Durga-worshipping Mangal Singh (Manish Chaudhary) is the big fish.

The sad thing about Jannat 2 is that the framework could have made for a neat, tight thriller, if it hadn’t been weighed down by lard. Sonu Dilli breaks into song more often than he uses the C-word, and the only memorable one is Shafqat Amanat Ali Khan’s Tu Hi Mera. Unfortunately, this song highlights the stupidity of the only doctor who doesn’t own a car in Delhi – she takes an auto from Dilli Haat to Qutub Minar while her lover dances alongside. Throw in a comedy track that stars two bumbling cops and relies on stereotyped accents for humour – need I say more?

The Verdict: The only intentionally funny scene in this film occurs a few seconds before the interval. And you’ll probably catch it flipping channels on TV a few weeks later.

Safe isn't Quite Sound

(Published in The Sunday Guardian, on 6 May 2012, retrieved from http://www.sunday-guardian.com/masala-art/no-action-all-noise)

Cast: Jason Statham, Catherine Chan, James Hong, Sándor Técsy

Director: Boaz Yakin

Rating: 1 star

When you want a good bad guy to beat up bad bad guys, who better than Jason Statham, huh? After making the sort of entry Indian heroes did for decades – only, here we’re introduced to his rather nice back, and not his rather brown boots – Statham does what Indian heroes did for decades – wield guns. Sadly, most of the struggles in Safe, which could have been a fest of kicking and walloping, involve loading guns and delivering clichés.

So, I get that guns look cooler on a poster than contorted faces, but a film’s off to a bad start when you feel cheated of a good fistfight in the first few minutes. Here’s the deal: When the ruthless administration turns Luke Wright (Jason Statham) into a scum-disposing machine, he quits working for the cops and turns to cage-fighting. Great, move from the mayor to the mafia.

Naturally, he falls foul of Russian don Emile Docheski (Sándor Técsy), who promptly relieves him of family, home, purpose and prospective buddies. But our constantly-watched hero takes so long to reach the obvious conclusion – suicide – that he meets a 12-year-old who will fill his life with light again.

This is the premise of the film – why trust Siri when you can simply abduct a genius kid (Catherine Chan) to function as a memory palace instead? Mei’s been kidnapped by Han Jiao (James Hong) and his Triad – yeah, Hollywood’s hatred for Commies has expanded to include the Chinese now, which conveniently posits the action in New York’s Chinatown.

The action largely involves gang-walk set pieces, car crashes that are far less horrific than the cheesy lines everyone bites out (one scene involving a sandwich reminded me of Don 2), chronological switches seemingly designed to confuse the viewer, and a mounting body count. By the time you figure out what the three sets of bad guys involved want, a third of the film is over. And the rest is spent on pulverising logic to the extent your brain cells take a hike, and you just may find yourself sticking a straw into your popcorn.

The cleverest thing about this wannabe-non-formulaic film is its title. Best thing about the movie – Statham punches people before they can complete bad quips. Worst thing – who wants to see him try to cry? I do want to know whether he pronounces “numbers” in as many different accents as Anil Kapoor did “millionaire”, though. Moral of the story – you’ll never walk alone, even if you’re American enough to only associate Liverpool with the Beatles.

Verdict: If you – like me – find balding tough guys hot, you’re better off renting just about any Bruce Willis film.

A Botched-Up Tragicomedy

(Published in The New Sunday Express, on 6 May 2012, retrieved from http://expressbuzz.com/entertainment/reviews/jannat-2/388872.html)

Cast: Emraan Hashmi, Randeep Hooda, Esha Gupta, Manish Chaudhary, Brijendra Kala

Director: Kunal Deshmukh

Rating: 1 star

The opening of Jannat 2 sets the tone for the rest of the film – a chase, a face-off, and a con, at the rate of forty swearwords a minute. There’s promise in the montage that follows, with saucy camera angles and trendy artwork, but sadly, the story fails to deliver. Sonu Dilli (Emraan Hashmi) has a lengthy soliloquy, in the course of which he boasts about his “degree” KKC – kutti kameeni cheez. Worse, he has a simpleton bachpan ka dost who pipes up on the rare occasion Sonu Dilli plays modest. An illegal gun seller with a chamcha. Great.

Just when you’re about to yawn, cool cop Pratap Raghuvanshi (Randeep Hooda) makes one of the best entries I’ve seen in recent times. Hooda lifts the film for a good bit, with his hard-ass manner, motor-mouth and been-there-done-that attitude. However, the moviemakers decide to reinforce the B-gradeness of the film by supplying Raghuvanshi with a heartrending back-story, crazed obsession, ill temper and alcohol dependence. He’s in that special division of the police force that dispenses with uniforms and chats up informers, and travels with an entourage even when he’s suspended. Part of this train is Brijendra Kala, who turned in such a convincing performance as the journalist in Paan Singh Tomar. In this film, he’s consigned to the role of a caring auntyji type.

Which brings me to one of the film’s biggest let-downs – the characters are all staples, from the small-time gun dealers who run little shops in Delhi’s Muslim ghettos, to the Hindu fanatic who actually controls the trade. And our introduction to big boss Mangal Singh Tomar (Manish Chaudhary) leaves us counting the clichés – the aarti before Ma Durga, the random act of brutish cruelty, the intense staring into the camera.

Sonu’s love interest Dr. Jaanvi (Esha Gupta) seems to have been written in as an afterthought. As if to make up, she’s OTT. What can you say about a doctor who flips for a man who slashes his palm upon falling in love at first sight? Who begins to fall for him when he drops a bundle of ill-begotten cash into her hand after learning she’s scouting for funding to keep her hospital alive? Who fantasises about him, and dresses like a drag queen as often as the plethora of song sequences will allow? Who’s fought with her rich Daddy, though her actions lead us to assume it was his money that got her the medical degree her brains couldn’t have earned? Who goes from laundiya to bhabhi in five minutes?

The film kills its own potential, and a cast that could have carried a thriller is left floundering. The twists are predictable because of early giveaways. However, there’s one sequence where Randeep Hooda’s evil grin and Emraan Hashmi’s horrified face make one laugh with the film. But for this scene, you’ll only crack up if you’re the kind that cackles at cuss words. Or when the temperamental cop turns sentimental friend.

The Verdict: The film has the right ingredients in the wrong proportions. As it stands, you’ll have to depend on hecklers for entertainment.

Where Machines Build Dreams

(Published in The New Indian Express on 5 May 2012, retrieved from http://expressbuzz.com/entertainment/reviews/hugo/388565.html)

Cast: Asa Butterfield, Ben Kingsley, Sacha Baron Cohen, Chloë Grace Moretz, Helen McCrory, Christopher Lee, Jude Law

Director: Martin Scorsese

Rating: 4 stars

Through the 200,000 or so arresting frames that make Hugo emerges a single mental image – that of Martin Scorsese rolling his eyes, and saying, “So you want 3D? Let me show you how 3D’s done.”

And so, we’re taken on this unbelievable journey where we’re ducking fire and teeth, and sliding down surfaces that jolt our bodies, all the time in awe of how these sequences were even conceived and shot. We’re pitched high up into the sky, and dragged down into a train station in 1931 Paris, where we make our first acquaintance with Hugo Cabret (Asa Butterfield).

There’s something about him that speaks of a sad life, of past happiness, of defiance, of bewilderment, of resistance. Everything about this film is stylised, from our introduction to Station Inspector Gustave Dasté (Sacha Baron Cohen) and the grumpy shopkeeper (Ben Kingsley) to the hunting down of orphans and vagabonds, and one is likely to be pleasantly lost for the first ten minutes.

The film absorbs one so completely that the carelessness of the dialogues and the paucity of characterisation appear only as self-mocking checkboxes. One finds oneself empathising with lines like, “Maybe that’s why broken machines make me so sad. They can’t do what they’re meant to do”, which then leads to the redundant, “Maybe it’s the same with people. If you lose your purpose, it’s like you’re broken.”

So, what is Hugo about? Well, machines and dreams, and how they make each other possible. It’s also a cinema about cinema, a film that engages the latest technology to capture the oldest, a movie that harks back to a time when the filmmaker Georges Méliès made fantastical silents, sitting down with his cast and crew to hand-paint each frame.

Scorsese’s interpretation of the period novel by Brian Selznick is loaded with themes and subtext, and you can take away what you want to. At one level, it’s about documenting, preserving, and celebrating the struggle that carried cinema from its early days to the current era – a journey that witnessed reels of film being turned into heels for shoes, as war-weary people shoved aside fantasy for footwear. At another, it’s about personal relationships, and how they affect individual emotions.

Asa Butterfield and Chloë Grace Moretz (who plays his friend Isabelle) are quite brilliant, exercising the restraint that is so rare in child actors, and fitting into their characters seamlessly. The entire cast is outstanding, with actors grabbing their own moments in a film that is so over-the-top it can only be described as a spectacle. Sacha Baron Cohen, underrated and underutilised in his career so far, has a lovely tragicomic role that reminded me of some of Hugh Laurie’s early skits. Most of the humour in the film rests in his bizarre conversations with various characters.

To say any more would be to spoil the film, because there’s a special surprise in the manner in which Scorsese has restored iconic works. When you walk out of the theatre, you walk out of a magical fable whose futuristic contraptions somehow make you reminisce about a time when your idea of bliss was an ice cream cone on a hot day.

The Verdict: Hugo is one of those special experiences that can make you feel, for a few hours, that you’ve seen everything.

Of Didi, Mujras and TV Hysteria

By Ogle Bunkraker


(Published in Sify.com on May 1, 2012, retrieved from http://www.sify.com/sports/ipl-of-didi-mujras-and-tv-hysteria-news-columns-mfbleedahid.html)

In an era when everyone has incisive insights to offer on the IPL, I might as well tell you they call me “The man who misses nothing but the point”. Well, okay, I call myself that. I’m not sure what it means, but it sounds stupidly unimaginative enough to qualify as cool – like “Inside Edge” or “Third Umpire” or “Silly Point”. Ironically, no cricket show has called itself “Silly Point”.

And a man who’s paid to comment on the game that made the likes of Jacques Kallis and Rahul Dravid score at over a run a ball has to sound flashy. I don’t have at my disposal the power of metaphor that shot Navjot Singh Sidhu to fame, or the ability to spout rhetoric that threw the non-cricketers in the commentary box into the big league.

But hell, you don’t need expertise to comment on a game that put the likes of Mamata Banerjee and the cheerleaders in bikini-based renditions of the sari on the same dais. That makes me wish I’d been around when that happened with the Dalai Lama in Dharmshala. Wait, did that happen? Was he on the dais with the cheerleaders? Damn, no, that was the World Cup last year.

On the subject of things I miss from last year, who was that South African cheerleader who went on about the girls with the pompoms being treated like pieces of meat? Boy, an exclusive interview with her would have been lapped up, huh? I bet she has her own show now, in South Africa. Or on that channel in India that tried to get Rakhi Sawant married off multiple times, and managed to get Rahul Mahajan married off on his first attempt at a second innings. Is that the one that closed down?

Anyway, never mind. It so happens that the only games I’ve managed to watch this season involve the Kolkata Knight Riders and the Punjab Kings XI. I can’t turn away from those. It may be the combined ugliness of the uniforms. I mean, shining golden borders on the one side, and torn knee caps on the other. What kind of style statement is that, anyway? Bollywood opulence vs. austerity drive? You know a team’s cutting corners when their captain is their coach. Or are those guys supporting some cause with the torn knees? They seem to be doing something with green caps, but I can never figure out what they’re saying in that ad – it’s full of garbled accents, of which Gilchrist’s is the most articulate, and that’s saying something.

And there’s something about ‘Punjab Kings XI’. It’s like they had to throw in the number there, just in case they got mixed up and dragged the twelfth man along on to the field. I wouldn’t put it past them this season, you know. How often do we see Gilchrist miss two stumping chances in the same match? Off the same ball, I think.

I like them for their scandals too, but what do you expect when the team’s owned by Preity Zinta? Or any other Bollywood actor? And when half the teams in the IPL are owned by Bollywood, the rumours are far more interesting than the cricket.

Which brings me to the WAGs. Finally, cricket has that glamour factor. Leave aside the lasses braving schizophrenic weather in their loud lingerie – there are enough wives and girlfriends to fill a budget issue of Vogue. And I keep seeing cricketers interviewed along with their consorts. I wonder what they ask them. You know, experts never listen to commentary, or chats – which is why we get told the same things about five times in the course of a match.

I have to admit I love watching IPL on TV in mute. You know that girl with the dhol and facepaint who appears during the titles? Under different circumstances, she could’ve been yelling “bachao!” in a Hindi movie. Unless she’s playing a ghost, in which case she’d wear the same expression – and facepaint – to chase down a man screaming “bachao!” Of course, the man would have had to have killed his girlfriend first in some lonely haunted castle in the middle of a jungle, where their car would’ve obligingly broken down.

 Then, there’s the second set of titles, where the broad guy with the awkward jaw and the skinny guy with stringy hair whom I last recall as the paranoid actor in A Wednesday flap their jackets and twirl about.

Next, there’s that song Pyaar ki Pungi from Agent Vinod, which was “inspired” by the Farsi number Soosan Khanum, to which a group of cheerleaders perform an epileptic mujra, while the “experts” lean back against imagined bolsters on barstool-like chairs. My favourite moment of the year was when one of the coat-flapping men was gawking so intently at the girls, he had to make a very un-quick recovery when he realised the camera had been on him for about ten seconds.

That kind of thing sort of makes up for the waving wrinkle bags that count as celebrity sightings.