India Masala
Bollywood and culture in an emerging India
IIFA Diary: Notes from Colombo Day 2
When I left Mumbai for Colombo, I was going to cover a film awards function but two days into IIFA and I can hardly see any “film” in the event. Instead there is politics, business and even cricket, but films are missing from the scene entirely. Is that the way it is supposed to be?
Films were definitely not part of the agenda at the FICCI India Sri Lanka Business Forum on Friday morning, with the focus mainly on promoting bilateral business ties.
The presence of Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa and a host of other dignitaries meant the tone of the session was very serious. But besides a lot of rhetoric about exploring tourism potential and improving business relations, there wasn’t much done, so we moved on to the charity cricket match between celebrities and Sri Lankan cricketers.
The match itself wasn’t open to the media (one of many such events) but outside the venue, there was enough action to keep the cameras interested.
Even as the media waited for the stars (very few of them) to arrive for the match, a huge cheer went up from the watching crowd when there was no visible star around.
It turns out the cheer was for TV star Ronit Roy, who also runs a security company and is in charge of star security at IIFA.
Indian soaps, especially old Ekta Kapoor soaps are very popular in Sri Lanka and TV actors like Roy and Shweta Tiwari are well liked. I had several people asking me about Tiwari’s marital status and whether Ekta Kapoor was making any more TV series. Well, it seems “saas-bahu” stories aren’t an Indian phenomenon alone.
IIFA Diary: Notes from Colombo on Day 1
The first day of the 11th edition of the International Indian Film Academy (IIFA) Weekend has been as chaotic as it has been revealing. From early morning chaos over accreditation and access to venues, by evening it had turned into excitement as the stars starting pouring in for the three-day event.
The centre of the chaos — the Cinnamon Grand hotel has become the ideal ringside location if you want to catch a glimpse of your favourite star and Bollywood crazy Sri Lankans weren’t letting go of any chance. By afternoon, the sprawling lobby of the five-star hotel was packed with eager fans, cameras ready to click and craning their necks to see if any star had arrived yet.
Even the slightest of familiar faces got a cheer from the crowd. However, the most popular star, at least according to an impromptu poll, is Shah Rukh Khan, who will not be making it to the event.
“He is so good-looking,” gushed a volunteer to me. “I wish he would have come.” The Bachchans seem to have been forgotten.
Even if one Khan is missing, there are others to make up for it. The other big Khan, Salman, is a prominent face at this year’s IIFA and it seems when you are a Bollywood star in Colombo, you get treatment meant for heads of states and VIPs.
On our way to a village where Salman was to participate in an initiative for Habitat for Humanity, we spotted a huge motorcade, complete with gun-toting commandos, three black-tinted cars and several police jeeps speeding through the streets of Colombo.
Traffic police cleared the way for the motorcade asking other vehicles to stop. We assumed it was the President who was passing by, but turns out it was Salman Khan. Being a star does have some very good perks.
What kind of video camera do you use for these videos? Thanks.
Kites: Romance is in the air
It has been such a long time since Bollywood has made a true-blue romance that purely on that merit alone, “Kites” is worth a watch.
Passion, chemistry and the cruel world against true love have become secondary when it comes to matters like reforming our education system or discovering new worlds.
Anurag Basu’s “Kites” makes no such pretences. It is about a boy and a girl madly, passionately in love who have to fight to stay together. There is no larger message business here.
What there is instead is crackling chemistry and beautifully shot scenes and a reminder of the good old 80s and 90s when love was the main theme in Indian cinema, making you forgive many of the obvious flaws in the film.
Hrithik Roshan plays J, a dashing but slippery customer who bides his time by marrying immigrants for green cards and teaches dance classes while he waits to hit the jackpot at the many casinos of Las Vegas.
When one of his students, the daughter of a rich casino owner falls for him, J plays along but his plans go awry when he falls for Linda (Barbara Mori), the fiancée of the casino owner’s son.
Desperately in love and on the run from her furious, gun-toting fiancé, they hit the road and in spite of the fact she can’t speak English and he doesn’t understand a word of Spanish, fall even more in love with each other.
Not much of a story line but Hrithik was beautiful to look at. His dance scene at the start of the film was embarrassing – he can do so much better. The romance was contrived. And the Spanish actress looked like Stacey in Eastenders (for those who watch soaps in the UK).
Of Sholay and Sambha
The lines “arre o Sambha” (hey Sambha) bring back instant memories to a whole generation of Indian moviegoers.
The person they were addressed to, perched on a craggy rock toting a rifle, played a miniscule role in the film but his character went on to be one of the most loved of our times.
When “Sambha” (or Macmohan as he was known off screen) passed away on Monday, we lost one of the iconic characters in “Sholay” and also one of the few remaining character artistes in our films — the ones who would always be the villain’s cronies or the neighbourhood doctor who announces that the heroine is pregnant.
I think Ramesh Sippy’s “Sholay” was the huge hit it was partly because of the “repeat value” dialogues it had — so many of them.
Right from “Ye haath mujhe de de thakur” to my favourite “Tumhara naam kya hai Basanti”, there were such gems throughout the film.
And even today, these lines will be repeated whether at a dinner party or in any casual conversation you might have, in any context.
So many people love this film for its action and the character of Gabbar, but for me the comedy in “Sholay” will always remain top-class.
I believe Sholay was one of the few films that incorporated all the elements that everyone likes to watch. While its no Godfather, it is an amazing potboiler. However, as far as dialogues go there are movies like ‘jaane bhi do yaaron’, ‘Andaz apna apna’, ‘Mr India’ and others that have managed to generate their own set of iconic dialogues.
It’s a Wonderful Afterlife: Too little laughter, too much curry
Gurinder Chadha’s “It’s a Wonderful Afterlife” (‘Hai Marjaawaan’ in Hindi) is a comedy about a harassed Indian mother, who is so obsessed with marrying off her only daughter that she kills off anyone who dares to reject her.
Those killing methods are so corny, you want to puke when you see a victim’s stomach burst open due to an overdose of curry and another one stabbed with a skewer of chicken tikka kebabs. The victims come back to haunt her, chicken tikka skewers intact. They cannot be reincarnated unless their killer dies but Mrs Sethi doesn’t want to kill herself before her daughter is “settled”.
So the spirits and Mrs Sethi (played endearingly by Shabana Azmi) set out to look for a suitable groom for her daughter, leading to a somewhat comedic situation.
The problem here is that the comedy is as laboured and forced as the make-up job on the spirits and laughing becomes a chore. Chadha does bring in some of the sharp, British humour that characterised “Bend it like Beckham” but those moments are few and far between. For most of the time, there is only curry flying in all directions, making you think about the colossal waste of food shooting for this film would have involved.
Also, just because it is meant to be a comedy doesn’t mean you can account for a nonsensical storyline. Most of the events don’t make much sense and plot points are explained away by the flimsiest of excuses.
Azmi does play her role well and Sendhil Ramamurthy as a police officer investigating the attacks is good, but watching the film is such a laboured exercise that these two don’t quite make up for it.
I had been really looking forward to this film. As a British Indian, I always look forward to the Indian-English fusion movies as I seem to be able to identify with them more.
However I found this film apalling. It was full of cliches and tired outdated jokes that caricaturised Indians.
We need to move on and find a new Indian comedy and fresh humour, more in line with the 21st Century…
Housefull: Turn down the volume!
There is a song in Sajid Khan’s “Housefull” with the lyrics “volume kam kar” (turn down the volume). Wouldn’t it be nice if the director and actors had imbibed this simple message? That would have made this alleged comedy easier to tolerate.
Instead every character in the film either screams, laughs or cries so loudly, and for seemingly no reason, that you want to hit the mute button.
Unfortunately, the noise pollution shows no sign of stopping and also puts an end to any hope of genuine comic moments. Director Khan sacrifices clever lines for loud and mostly unfunny gags, which if you saw his first film “Heyy Baby”, wouldn’t come as a surprise.
Akshay Kumar plays Aarush, who believes himself to be a human jinx, bringing bad luck to all around him. He quits his job at a casino in Macau and comes to London to spend time with his friend Baburao, better known as Bob (Riteish).
Bob’s wife Hetal (Lara Dutta) is supposed to be a waitress but can apparently afford designer handbags and luxury trips to Italy.
In spite of having no job and home, Aarush manages to land himself a rich wife, merely by virtue of being Indian, but it turns out she only got married to get hold of her father’s fortune.
His last chance for love comes in the form of Sandy (Deepika Padukone) who falls for him but has a strict brother.
I’m gay, says new Archie comic character
It’s official. Eternal teen Archie Andrews will soon be joined in his escapades at Riverdale High by an openly gay friend — Kevin Keller.
Kevin is the latest fictional character to have come out of the closet in a world where good always triumphs over evil.
As more and more cartoonists and comic writers embrace the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) theme, usually kept out of the purview of young audiences, readers weigh the merits of an all-inclusive world against traditional morality.
The outing of Albus Dumbledore, headmaster at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in the Harry Potter series, caused an explosion of interest on the internet in 2007.
Most fans who loved the eccentric headmaster from the day he started the school feast with the words “Nitwit, blubber, oddment, tweak!” till the day he died, did not seem to care if Dumbledore was straight or gay.
As Herge’s immortal reporter Tintin celebrated his 80th birthday, former politician and writer Matthew Parris in a tongue-in-cheek article raised a lively debate over the cartoon character’s sexuality.
Thank God For Archie Comics. Not only do they make us laugh and feel good about life in this cynical world they espouse a realistic attitude of tolerance of diverse groups such as racial and sexual minorities. And as Rituparna Bhowmik rightly says in her enjoyable blog, it makes business sense as gays across the world are an important customer segment. Maybe Archie Comics now can tackle the real issue of the need for young people to practice safe sex to avoid unwanted pregnancies and HIV. Sometimes, funny messages can be very effective.
One hopes the bigoted goons and self-appointed moral custodians (thugs) who harassed and hounded poor South Indian actress Khusboo for her comments on pre-marital and extra-marital sex should learn a lesson about tolerance from Archies. Kevin Keller, I hope you find your guy even if it means breaking Veronica’s flighty heart!
Phoonk 2: Hardly scary
I hate watching horror films. I am easily scared and even the most innocuous sounds or predictable of horror scenes make me flinch.
Milind Gadagkar’s sequel to “Phoonk”, imaginatively titled “Phoonk 2″, is however less about the thrills and chills and more about unnecessarily loud background music, badly made- up ghosts and an inane storyline that has no beginning and no end.
The film takes off a couple of years where the first film ended, with Rajeev (Sudeep) and Aarti (Amruta Khanvilkar) move to another house in a remote area, surrounded by forests and sinister looking dolls who emit weird sounds.
They soon discover that the ghost of Madhu, the villain who was killed in the first film, is out to get them. After some anti-climactic scenes, like the one where a little girl is shown staring at a wall, only for the viewer to realise the thing scaring her is a lizard — and one that doesn’t even look real.
It is left to Rajeev to save his family from the ghost and her evil machinations, but not before she kills a bunch of characters and tries to harm the whole family.
Gadagkar makes the story very, very predictable and there is hardly any element of mystery or surprise left in the second half, when it is most needed. It is almost as if he gave up on the film halfway.
The ending is so ridiculous you don’t know whether to be happy the movie has ended or you should wait for someone to tell you the solution to the problem presented in the film.
Paathshala: Punished for three hours
If any real-life kids went to the school shown in Milind Ukey’s “Paathshaala”, you can be sure they would hardly get any studying done. Instead they would be busy dancing, singing, ogling at teachers, romancing and participating in reality TV shows.
The teachers in this school aren’t any better — they also sing, dance, wear inappropriate clothes and generally do everything but the things you are expected to do in a school.
Director Ukey may have wanted to make a film on the ills of the education system (like “3 Idiots”, “Taare Zameen Par”) but instead manages to make a manual on “how not to make a film”.
“Paathshaala” starts off with the principal of a boarding school, Aditya Sahai (Nana Patekar), calling his staff and telling them the school would be undergoing some changes in order to “progress”.
These changes include the students giving up studies and participating in reality TV shows so that the school gets publicity (Yes, really).
They also involve the kids being made to participate in auditions for TV ads and cruel directors who want the kids to get hurt and cry so that they will get higher TRPs. Where do they come up with such things?
As you can imagine, “Paathshaala” is an incoherent mess of a film which takes a serious issue and manages to run it to the ground.
I haven’t watched the film but if Shilpa has written so then I would appreciate the total outcome of the film-”Paathshala”. I mean why we all study?? to earn our livelihoods in a better way so what if the Principal of such school is preparing children from the beginning and the aspiring truth about Indian Studies in general is you mug up all and puke some in the Exam-Hall. Remember some and forget all. Look around and you will find MBA’s everywhere but what they do? MNC’s in the name of aspiring career give them targets, HR guys has the target of recruitment/finding right guys/interviews besides daily routine operations within, Finance guys are now not left as they are part of Global Marketing Department and not much difference has been left between Sales & Marketing and Finance guys. Journalists- scoop, scoop, scoop and more scoop….
So, its all about boasting yourselves, be a part of recognizable society, being in the news, being one of the known personality.
So you have to decide whether to be like me commenting some blogs or “Shilpa Jamkhandikar”- a journalist writing some Masala Blogs or “Shahid Kapur”- hearthrob of India. No Offense Shilpa
Jaane Kahaan Se Aayi Hai: Alien disaster
The first few scenes of Milap Zaveri’s “Jaane Kahaan Se Aayi Hai” are actually quite funny. The dialogues are fairly okay and at one or two points you actually smile. Maybe this will actually turn out well, you tell yourself.
But when has life ever been that simple?
Especially a film critic’s life. Of course the film goes unbearably downhill from there and you want to throw something at the screen at the end of the two-and-a-half hour screening.
So, very reluctantly you follow the story of Rajesh Parekh, your average love-starved young man, whose only pre-occupation seems to be “pyaar” and how to fall into it. In his spare time he also functions as assistant director to Farah Khan (playing herself).
So desperate is our hero for love that one look at a pretty new assistant director and he decides he has fallen in love with her, only to have his heart broken when she rejects him. (Who wouldn’t, after all the inane dialogues he recites at every given moment on “pyaar”).
So what does a dejected, spurned lover do? He heads straight to the nearest deserted drive-in theatre to wallow in his grief and waits for a beautiful girl from Venus to fall into his arms and make him believe in love all over again. Well, guess what? That is exactly what happens.
Only the alien in question, who Rajesh names Tara (because she came from a star you see) wants to go back to her planet and take back some of the “pyaar” on earth there, because on Venus, as she explains earnestly to Rajesh, they have forgotten how to love.
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The Wall
