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November 24, 2007 at 12:04 pm · Filed under bollywood
To be honest, I didn’t really expect much from this director’s flick ever since he gave us Chocolate, which is probably the biggest rip-off in the history of Bollywood, I might add, not just the Usual Suspects bit, but the entire album is testimony to Pritam’s thieving capabilities.
But Vivek Agnihotri surprises me with Goal. Indeed, there are factual errors. Yes, it’s dramatic. And it might be the worst football flick to hit Bollywood. But - credit be given where it’s due - it somehow works, without evoking many yawns.
The plot is rather similar to Harimohan Paruvu’s ‘The Men Within’, except that - and this is an act of cinematic bravery in Bollywood - it’s based on football and not cricket, and based out of UK. Shaan (Arshad Warsi) is the captain of the Southall United Football Club, in a community that’s as British as the Old Pakistani Consulate area in Dubai. Yes, they’ve got Pakis, Bongs (east-Pakis?) and Indians who come together to unite in their passion for the game. Asians in the UK. Supposedly, victims of racism - or so we’re made to believe. Well, atleast that’s the driving force behind Southall’s thirst to win. It’s not about football - make no mistake.
And we thought, they were actually trying to save the ground. The Southall Chairman, in an ‘emotional’ moment, dies of an attack while Shaan is driving him home. Shaan sees the body go still, stops the car, the corpse’s head turns around, and the smart-ass midfielder is absolutely convinced that the man is dead. He didn’t feel the need to check the wrist for pulse, or anything of the sorts. Just breaks into tears, the director screams ‘cut’, and the next scene - the funeral - is already halfway through. Wow. How convenient.
Suddenly, the folks realize that they need a coach. Enter Tony (Boman Irani), who - for some ‘inexplicable’ reason - is trying to hide his identity. He agrees - after a few minutes of persuasion - and gets to work immediately.
So Shaan’s family is small and content. Wife Jenny runs a restaurant that fries Kababs, although spice has little place in the joint. Sister Rumaana (Bipasha Basu) is rather attractive, just out of college, a medical degree, and the new physio for the Southall team.
What the team need, however, is a striker. So, Coach promptly walks across to Aston and throws in a desi carrot or two, nearly saying ‘join us son, for here is where you belong’. To whom, you ask? Why, Sunny (John Abraham), of course, who is ridiculed - or he thinks he is - because he’s called a Paki. That’s bad enough for him to throw a few punches. But the striker isn’t joining yet, he needs a team, not a circus, he says. And that’s that.
Until, of course, Aston pick their team and Sunny’s name doesn’t figure. And folks capitalize on the racism issue. Colour. Coach makes the kid sweat for about 10 minutes in the rain, and he’s convinced. Southall it is.
Right, so with the new striker in place, Southall start winning. Football is a team sport, I heard? So one, good striker makes it a winning team? Heck, whatever. Marks to Agnihotri for making this ridiculous idea look a tad convincing on screen, and more marks to John and Arshad for making the viewer believe it all. All in all, worth a watch.
And the flaws, criminal ones they are. If only Goal had remained a ‘football flick’, we’d have loved it. Instead, there are shitloads of factual errors. Professional footballers, for the record, do NOT get drunk every night. Man United’s dressing room isn’t open to the general public, and is certainly not open to a Old Pakistani Consulate Southall soccer team. Paki girls don’t call their brothers ‘Bhaiyya’ as much as they’d call them ‘Bhaijaan’. A hairline fracture to the nose doesn’t result in fatality.
And hey, what was that? A tournament that lasts atleast seven months? Because - at the start of the it - Mrs. Warsi goes, “I’m pregnant”. She watches the finals with a stomach and a half. Right. And I’m President.
Yes, there is the typical Bollywood overdramatization too. Background score sets it up, Coach mumbles a few ‘inspirational’ words, and everything was done to evoke patriotism minus Vande Mataram going off in the background.
And the dilutions. A Qawalli, as absurd as it gets. The sub-plots. The father-son-relationship that ‘drives’ the climax. Chak De was that subtle recipe which had the right amount of ingredients, blended together extremely well. Goal, in contrast, is EVERY possible ingredient chucked in.
In spite of the drawbacks, if you are still recovering from the OSO-Saawariya trauma, then go watch Goal, atleast to bring back some faith in cinema. For the men, there’s the option of watching how Bollywood makes a mockery of soccer. For the women, there’s John and there’s testosterone.
Maybe it’s wrong to compare Goal with Chak De, but I will - sue me - and I tell you, while Boman-SRK comparisons can be made - because the Parsi actor has dome brilliantly well - the overall product is a couple of notches below Shimit Amin’s masterstroke. Arshad’s honest performance and John’s eye-candy help it along, but a hit it’s not.
And Bips, as she rightly self-proclaims, is very sexy. Ergo, watchable.
November 20, 2007 at 1:56 am · Filed under bollywood
Remember this Koffee with Karan clip, where Farah Khan suggests that film critics are retards, albeit in a lighter vein? And then, the same critics went all over the internet blasting her?
Personally, if she thinks that Om Shamti Om will improve things with the critics, she’s rather overoptimistic. Some flicks are destined to be bad. OSO, however, had potential to be a good, run-of-the-mill entertainer - the paisa vasool types that we all enjoy, a mix of masala and masti. And for the first half, it did, before deteriorating to forgetville in the second.
Yes Ms. Khan, thou hast committed a crime in ruining what could’ve been a good flick.
1970s - Om Prakash (SRK) is a struggling junior artist, in love with Shantipriya (Deepika Padukone) who is, to say the least, a star. She hogs the billboards, the premiers, everything. Om is, undeniably, crazy about her. As if talking to her poster wasn’t enough, Ms. Khan lets us in on the ‘finer’ details - junior-artist saves Shanti from a fire, mouths gibberish while she talks to him, and even does the ‘what-makes-her-happy-makes-me-happy’ act, because hey - Shanti is married to producer Mukesh Mehra (Arjun Rampal).
And to make things worse, she’s pregnant. When she goes, “I’m pregnant”, Mukesh goes, “What? How? When?”, and we start to wonder - did he, or did he not? First signs of a poorly written dialogue, incidentally, leaving it to SRK to carry it off.
Oh, the spoofs are awesome throughout. Deepika can dance, and she’s got eyes that captivate with a capital C. Too bad for her, and her Shanti, that Mukesh doesn’t think much of them anymore. The kid is a disaster for the actress, so - while saner men might have discussed an abortion - Mehra has nothing to do with such logic. Homicide, right away, as he burns a whole set and Shanti in it.
Yes, you guessed right, Om is at the scene, and tries to save her, but the Mehra henchmen arrive and ‘take care’ of the guy. Oui, he dies too.
And, in a ‘brilliant masterstroke’ of coincidence, the audience is slapped baited fed stuffed with the idea that SRK dies at the same hospital where another child is born. Re-birth. Apparently, in Farah Khan’s Bible, re-birth needs some kind of physical proximity, the rest of the logic be damned.
So, why am I bitching about logic in this masala flick? Because, really, if it stuck to being a masala-flick, I’d enjoy it.
Instead, it crumbles downhill as it gets more serious and ‘intense’. The dialogues get more predictable, and as SRK realizes his past, the audience realize their mistake. OSO gets a tad boring, and if it wasn’t for SRK and his mere screen presence, it certainly would’ve sunk.
By the way, there are goofs. And rip-offs. To begin with, security at the sets, back in the 70s, didn’t have the grey uniform with red straps. Apparently, in Farah Khan’s 1970, almost everyone have sideburns and checkered trousers. Also, an explosion sends SRK flying a hundred meters out of a building, but he lands as safe as a cat, and gets up immediately with hardly a limp. Perhaps he’s a superhero after all.
Taran Adarsh, in one of his shit reviews, suggested that a movie should enlighten us. Well, OSO does enlighten us to one fact. Deepika Padukone’s make up isn’t affected one bit by a surrounding fire. Not at all. There’s fire all around her, she’s running and screaming, but not a drop of sweat, and the make-up - intact. Worthy of an Oscar ramp-walk. Damn.
Now, the lines. Remember ‘The Alchemist?’. Remember Paulo Coelho? And this famous quote, ‘When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you get it?’. Right, so the OSO dialogue-writer apparently loves this quote. Takes it, translates it - literally - and sprinkles it all around the script.
And there are a set of scenes in OSO where the reborn Om enacts the whole Shantipriya murder scene to remind Mehra of the crime. Hamlet, anyone?
While on the subject of rebirth, the ‘realization’ bit was very Karan-Arjunish, I’ll tell you that. Worse, SRK’s shift from Om-2K to Om-70 was rather abrupt. Like, he suddenly realized that’s he’s someone else - and started to believe it from the word go. And hey, they’ve also ripped this scene.
You see, I can go on with the flaws, but I’ll stop right here.
Credit ought to be given where it’s due, and I’ll be honest, sitting through the songs, this was vintage Farah at her choreographic best. The spoofs, like I suggested earlier, were awesome, and while the Manoj Kumar bit might have seemed overdone, as long as it contributes to good humor, we’d buy it.
Double credit to SRK for making this believable, and for saving this near-disastrous ship from sinking. In Shreyas Talpade and Kirron Kher, King Khan finds an able support cast, and they not only make this ride bearable, but their natural expressions leave little to criticize. Arjun Rampal treads into territory I’d safely call ‘overacting’, but hey, he’s always been more hunk than actor.
Right, and the dame. Fine, so Deepika Padukone is hot. H-O-T. I agree. She can dance, the babe can swing her lovely hips, I second and third that. And … er … act? Perhaps, she can. She’s not really the next-best-thing in Bollywood - no - but her expressions are fine, she’s got a killer-bod and a killer-smile, and I’m even willing to forgive the fact that this chick who lives down the street steals my nickname. Everyone know the real Sandy anyway.
We digress - just like the movie did, from humor to intensity, where it shuts itself down. Nice try folks, but skip the second half and you might just like this.
And Farah, maybe I’m half a critic. That makes me half-retarded. Your flick was half-fun, wasn’t it? So, would you be half-kind and half-honest, and sweetheart, give me a half-refund dammit?
And maybe I’ll just half-sue you for half the crap. Next time you publicize your flick so much, make sure it’s got meat. Half-cooked ain’t edible.
November 9, 2007 at 8:49 pm · Filed under bollywood
I’ve relocated. Bed 7, Ward 12, Wockhardt, Cunningham road. Fun Cinemas? A block away. Emergency, it seems. I was told, when I regained consciousness, that I had poisoned myself.
I’m trying to figure out why. Oh, what’s this in my pockets again? A cinema counterfoil? Audi-2? Saawariya - first day, first show?
Ouch. Like they said in the movie, very sad-sad.
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The set is almost like a mixture of a city decked up in Renaissance art, forced amidst a Venetian lagoon - a town that is generously showered with rain, snow and prostitutes. Really. Barring the lead and support cast, every other woman in that ‘magical’ world is a hooker.
One of them, incidentally, is Gulabjee (Rani Mukherjee), with a subtle touch of the deep-red lipstick that you associate with the likes. Unfortunately, that’s the only bit of subtlety you would find throughout the flick. We digress, or maybe, we don’t.
So, Gulabjee introduces us to her world. This place, apparently, you don’t find on a map. No siree, ‘coz it’s in her dreams. One night, at a bar, the woman meets Ranbir Raj (Ranbir Kapoor) - RK bar’s lead vocalist, as we stop to wonder and marvel at SLB’s genius at name-selection. R.K. bar, indeed. Raj is the kind of lead-vocalist who has milk at night before sleeping. He doesn’t booze. The decent-types, boy next door, single and ready to mingle. You get the picture.
And he has a heart. So, when Gulabjee flashes her smile and (sorrowfully) talks about what the prostitutes go through every day (or perhaps, every night), Ranbir breaks into a song. A rather Pied-piperish one at that, he gets the whole mohalla-ke-sex-workers to raise their palms at the moon and acknowledge ‘hope’. That things would change.
For now, however, Ranbir needs a roof. He promptly walks down the road to the old landlady (Zohra Sehgal), the one he affectionately calls ‘Lillypop’. He mouths lines from the overwritten dialogue, and by the time we’re done with our yawns, the bloke is in the house. All goes well, so in maintaining loyalty to the script - and White Nights - Ranbir falls in love.
The girl is Sakina (Sonam Kapoor), umbrella-in-hand, but oops - she runs away from him. The arbitrary laughter suddenly flies in (and unfortunately, remain throughout the flick), as the kid-duo break into giggles at will. Almost out of sheer madness, as the audience starts to relate. Through Sakina, we’re introduced to the Muslim bit of this world.
So all goes well - Ranbir bumps into Sakina, they share stuff, walk through the rains, and even go all by themselves up to a Big Bennish tower from where the whole town is seen. Right here, Sakina shares a big secret with Raj, and shucks, oops, ouch, it’s a triangle after all.
Oui, enter Iman (Salman Khan). So, fair and smily Sakina loves him beyond anyone else, and while SLB tries to make this revelation oh-so-astounding, we shrug in boredom.
Ranbir, meanwhile, is heartbroken. SLB tries too hard to evoke sympathy. Too bad, it doesn’t work. We almost wish Sallu would arrive and walk away with the dame, and the movie ends like way before the interval. Unfortunately, it doesn’t.
Mr. Bhansali, at this stage, let me tell you this: I don’t have a problem with unrealistic cinema. Atleast, coming from the guy behind Devdas and Black, couldn’t you make it slightly convincing?
Interval it was, and I asked the woman who forced me to go with her for this flick - my mother - ‘ma, are you staying back to watch the rest of the flick?’
Her response was a cold ‘yes’ with the I-kept-you-in-my-stomach-for-nine-months look, so, um, I grabbed a Pepsi for company and saying three Hail Marys, I sat through.
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Forget this flick. The editing is lackluster, the dialogues are horrible. Overwritten, overmouthed, and just too stereotyped. Too predictable. The performances, however, add some respect to this ‘flick’. Ranbir tries to honestly portray his Ranbir, and overacts one too often. Sonam Kapoor’s Sakina is pretty - she’s fair, riveting hair, the works. Attractive? Yes. Actress? Not yet. Although, definitely, the fault must go to SLB for inviting the poor soul to act in this disaster. Rani Mukerjee tries too hard to laugh too much. Salman Khan has about three minutes of screen-time with no songs, where all he does is sleep, hug the dame, or just look at her and go ‘MashaAllah’ in an unruffled, uncomplicated manner. Mercifully, his shirt remains stuck to his frame throughout. That’s a first.
Zohra Sehgal churns out the best performance. Genuinely sweet, it’s that little pinch of salt that would have otherwise made us leave this dish to rot. Not that it’s edible anyhow.
The set is awesome. The direction - brilliant. Artistic, aesthetic. But, seriously, what’s the whole point? This is a movie, SLB, not a showcase.
Folks, stay away from it. If you still want to watch it, make sure you’ve written your will. The only reason I didn’t walk out after this two-and-a-half-hour flick that seemed like an eternity, was because the Nachos at Fun Cinemas is saltier than the others.
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Remember what Gulabjee said? You won’t find anything this on any map? Because it’s all a dream?
Gee, sweetheart, that must be one helluva nightmare.
October 15, 2007 at 11:58 pm · Filed under bangalore, bollywood, movies, telly
Just so many flicks, so many reviews and so much to write about. Which is why, I now bring you Showbiz Sporadics - rantings, rumblings and other randomness from the world of Cinema and Telly.
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Laaga Chunari hasn’t exactly opened to good reviews - but it’s a Pradeep Sarkar flick, so I’ll check it out anyway, although I might steer clear of Bhool Bhulaiyya - or what they also call Bhoolshit Bulaiyya. Priyadarshan needs to get new wine.
Looking at the horrible flicks lined up, I might be tempted to catch the Loins of Punjab Presents yet again. Atleast I get to see Shabana Azmi addressed as a you-know-what. And, hey, the ass-wiping too. If you’re lost, it’s probably ‘coz you haven’t seen it yet, so yes - you deserve to be lost - in which case, go watch!
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This weekend, however, was all about the SaReGaMaPa Finals. Aneek Dhar won - congrats chief, you’re technically tops amongst the trio although I really thought Raja was the better singer. Amanat Ali has it all to connect to his audience, and when he sings with the heart, that’s a killer. In the end, it didn’t really matter who won, although many have used Aneek’s victory to spark of a racist issue.
Apparently, a ‘Hindu’ won over two ‘Muslims’, and that makes it uncomfortable. And I thought we had a singing competition here. It’s just sickening. Folks are out there making their names with the ’singing’, I repeat, ’singing’. Doesn’t matter if you’re a poor Poonam, a Muslim Amanat or a NRI Dave. Himesh can rant all he wants about Aneek being the youngest of the finalists, but we ought to pick the best one there, period.
No racism, no religion. Just music. Easy, no?
Which reminds me, folks, does it help that Akshay Kumar went on stage and switched between ‘Eid Mubarak’ and ‘Hare Krishna Hare Ram’? That, if any, is some indication of what we all know at Mutiny as ’secular fundamentalism’. Oh, and Akshay Kumar said ‘thank you’ thrice, and even offered to clap for them. He did look like he was a tad sloshed. Until Vidya Balan walked onto the stage. Women like that can knock sanity into men and lose it at will, especially when clad in a black sari. We digress, but you get the idea. And we were just dying to know about Bhool Bulaiyya, weren’t we? As Akshay says, ek sachi kahani hai jo kayyrala mein hui thi. It’s Kerala, sloshy. Vidya Balan dropped in a word before the teasers - please do watch it, bahut pyaar se banaye hai hum ne.
No kidding?
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Did Aditya Narayan actually render ‘This Love’, or was he lip-syncing? My hunch is that it’s the former, and if that’s really true, that’s one hell of a performance! Your dad really rocks kid, but if you go on singing like that, whew! No wonder you seem to have Mauli Dave all over you, and speaking of the girl, did she really have to walk in a little-under-nothing - and shake that booty - to kick-ass with Mayya Mayya? Er, oops, I forgot - it wasn’t a singing competition after all. My bad.
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The only thing that Rakhi Sawant needs to get into Hollywood seems to be English. For her sake, for Nach Baliye’s sake, and for a whole country’s sake, will someone please teach her the language? Heck, Rakhi, just drop in home yaar and I’ll educate you on the few ABCs I know. I really do want to see you in Hollywood.
That’ll hopefully ensure we see a lot lesser of you back home. Read the rest of this entry »
June 20, 2007 at 10:40 pm · Filed under bollywood
Q: What’s worse than wasting 90 bucks on an awful work of cinema?
A: Living through the trauma.
Because, really, this is a joke. I was mistaken — thought YRF couldn’t get worse after Neal ‘N’ Nikki. Oops — they can.
It isn’t funny. It isn’t emotional. It’s silly, and it’s not even slapstick — just plain silly. Two-odd hours of absolute wastage, where cinema, art and entertainment are assassinated to a horrific death. The story is missing, and if it wasn’t for a recognizable cast, the execution would’ve gone begging too. The designer looks like he had a ball — with the costumes plummeting down from the heights of creativity to the depths of absurdity. Lime green shoes, for Pete’s sake?
Oh, the ‘plot’ (for lack of a better word). Ricky Thakural (AB Jr.) is a fun-loving Punjabi to his fingernails. Just that, we aren’t convinced, which is why we’re forced to consume a Punjabi-coated ‘Blimey’ every minute or so. And oh-so-coincidentally, he consistently bumps into Alvira Khan (Preity Zinta), before finally sharing a table at a London tube stop. He tries to sweet-talk — she thinks he’s a flirt, and shows him a ring.
‘Listen, I’m already engaged.’ in an accent that would do Posh Spice proud. But like everything else about JBJ, it’s damn artificial, and it’s bloody flawed.
And the Brit-wannabe follows suit, before they get into their respective narrations, on how they met their soul mates — and the works. Ricky starts with his fiancé, Anaida (Lara Dutta) — French, plastic and dressed in little. Hotel Manager at the Ritz. A song is thrown in, Ticket to Hollywood — and it makes you cry in anguish. Sign numero uno of bunking the rest of the flick. I had guts and coffee for company — I stayed back.
And just when sanity was restored, Alvira starts off with her tale. Steve Singh (Bobby Deol) — a lawyer who saves her from a Superman statue that nearlly fell and creamed her at Madame Tussaud’s. She sues, they win — and predictably, they’re together in love. Another song, ‘Kiss of Love’, and while I wonder what other emotion deserves a kiss, there’s a hint or two in the lyrics:
‘Oh teri aankhon mein jab bhi jhaakun
Mein saaans atak jati hai
Oye band karle oye bandkar yaara
daka dalti di aankhein
Kiss of love, Kiss of love, Stay away from the Kiss of love’
(damn right — we should’ve just stayed away — but I stayed on)
Post-interval, JBJ crashes to absolute crap. Because, oops — spoiler warning — Ricky and Alvira fall for each other. And they try and work it out. Just that, they got to lose their — another spoiler — fabricated partners.
And that’s what JBJ is all about. Fabrication. Nothing substantial, really, because this isn’t a movie. It isn’t. Maybe it’s an extended ramp-walk of four stars, the costumes having enough colors to fill an all-time Wikipedia list. And they’re mixed and matched like never before. Or maybe, JBJ is a showcase for Big B’s refreshing and rather ridiculously bizarre get-up (albeit pleasant — in the context, mind you).
But a movie, it’s not, and for the very reason, deserves more than a miss. AB Jr. makes the ride somewhat acceptable until the first half, and Bobby Deol in the second was passable. Preity does what is expected of her — act silly, while Lara’s just about eye-candy. The support cast hang around for a bit — but there isn’t anything with substance.
The music by SEL, shockingly, is awful, barring the title track. Perhaps, the filmmakers realized this — and the song was played oh-so-many times, reused and abused until we puked and screamed ‘mercy!’. And honestly, somehow I felt Daler Mehndi should’ve sung it after all.
In the closing moments, we got Big B laughing like a madman, looking at newspapers, comics and correlating them with the ‘plot’. And it hits him, he laughs like a madman. At wit’s end, really — like the rest of us.
Worst movie thing in theatres this year, and heck, I’d be damned if it deserves a single star. Hate-mail is welcome, indeed.
