India Masala

India: More than just call centres

India is the land of colours, sound, and call centres — or at least, that is what Western popular culture has been trying to reinforce over the past few years. “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel“, starring Judi Dench, is Hollywood’s most recent expedition to India, and it sticks to the formula.

The film is a comedy about a group of British retirees, shunned or underestimated in their own country, rediscovering their desires and ambitions in India.

They are lured to Jaipur, the city of palaces, with an online advertisement of a hotel that promises a life of leisure to the elderly — only to find themselves in a building on its last legs, run by an incompetent, hyperactive Sonny, played by Dev Patel of “Slumdog Millionaire“. Patel’s love interest is a modern young girl who works at a call centre.

Made on a modest budget, the film is a commercial success and is inching towards the $100 million mark in ticket sales — a remarkable run for a movie that has senior citizens as its main cast.

Like other Hollywood films such as “Outsourced” and “Slumdog Millionaire“, this one ascribes mainly two roles to the local population — the poor, downtrodden Indian and the English-speaking, call-centre agent — and therein lies a problem.

While it is true that India is an outsourcing hub, it is not as if every college graduate aspires to make sales over the telephone. Only about 350,000 Indians are employed as call centre agents — a minuscule percentage in a country with nearly 1.2 billion people. We have many more doctors, lawyers or school teachers, to name a few professions.

Neither is becoming a call centre agent the most desired or prestigious career choice because it could mean a lifetime of night shifts and having to deal with abusive customers.

Waiting for Mr Cruise

Spending Sunday evening standing in a dusty, arid place, waiting more than three hours for one person to show up, is certainly not my idea of fun. However, when the person in question is Tom Cruise, the equation changes.

Mr Cruise was to turn up at a red carpet event in Mumbai, organised before a fan screening of his latest film — “Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol”

But in comparison to the many red carpet events I have seen, this was in complete contrast. There were no crowds outside the theatre, and hardly any inside the arena. In fact, organisers were seen herding people into the fan arena and handing them paper, so that they could write slogans on it and hold them up for Cruise to see.

In spite of all that effort, though, when Cruise did land up, the red carpet had none of the buzz you see abroad. A few fans shouted ‘Tom, we love you” half-heartedly and waved some posters, but that didn’t help much.

Cruise had his usual dazzling smile in place and stopped to sign autographs at the fan enclosure, but minutes before he walked the red carpet, organisers were urging fans to fill up the fan enclosure, assuring them that it was an once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

That’s surprising, considering Cruise was the first A-list Hollywood star to land in India for a promotional tour and has legions of fans worldwide. You’d think some of them would be in India – a market that is growing in terms of Hollywood releases.

If only Bollywood had discovered Freida

When Freida Pinto made it big on the international stage with “Slumdog Millionaire“, there were quite a few who couldn’t quite believe her success.

While she was feted all over the world, found herself on prestigious magazine covers and on high-profile red carpets, in the country of her birth, there was some reluctant praise and a lot of silence which is unusual for a country that “adopts” anyone who sounds remotely Indian and is a success in the West.

After ‘Slumdog’, Pinto got to work with two of Hollywood’s biggest directors, Woody Allen and Julian Schnabel (“The Diving Bell and the Butterfly”), and I think I have seen more press about Anil Kapoor playing a bit role in the American TV series “24″ than Pinto’s appearances in these two films.

And now that the two films have done the rounds of the festival circuit and the reviews haven’t been too good, there are media reports again — almost writing her off as an actor.

I wish we would appreciate that she has been where even the biggest guns from Bollywood tried to go and failed. She has shared the stage as an equal with names such as Anthony Hopkins and didn’t have to rely on being the geeky Indian friend/sidekick kind of roles to make her foray into Hollywood.

I think we just can’t believe we didn’t discover her first.

Robin Hood: This Robin is more Gandhian

Errol Flynn’s Robin Hood and Kevin Costner’s Robin Hood are looking over the shoulder of Ridley Scott’s Robin Longstride.

So rather cleverly, the movie is a sort of prequel to these and may justly be titled “The making of Robin Hood”. It ends at the beginning.

This is the twenty-first century Robin Hood — an older, cynical, born-again-democrat Robin, who robs the rich to give to the poor, and sleeps on the couch while Marion takes the bed.

Russell Crowe is here in his “Gladiator” avatar — fighting and winning. Every time.

But not so much and as violently as you would probably like him to. The violence here doesn’t even come close to what we have come to expect from say India’s own outlaws — the Maoist rebels.

This film’s Robin is more “Gandhian” than “Gandhian with a gun”.

The fight sequences are what you have come to expect of Hollywood’s period films — longbows and swordplay and horse riding — pretty standard and good-while-it-lasts but nothing you will take back home from the theatre.

And the Oscar goes to…

Pulitzer prize winning film critic Roger Ebert says he can’t remember a year when it was easier to pick the Oscars.

Iraq war drama “The Hurt Locker”, which has picked up key awards in the run-up to the world’s most prestigious movie awards, is the favourite to bag the Best Picture trophy, with all-time box-office king “Avatar” the other contender.

The best actor award is expected to go to Jeff Bridges for his role as a country singer in “Crazy Hearts” but Morgan Freeman could prove the dark horse with his portrayal of Nelson Mandela in “Invictus”.

The best actress trophy is a toss-up between double Oscar winner Meryl Streep for her role as a chef in “Julie & Julia” and favourite Sandra Bullock for “The Blind Side”, in which she helps a homeless boy become football star.

Austrian actor Christoph Waltz’s performance as a Nazi officer in the World War Two fantasy “Inglourious Basterds” could earn him the trophy for best supporting role while in the women’s category, comedian Mo’Nique is the frontrunner for her role as an abusive mother in “Precious: Based on the novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire”, a movie about an abused, obese teen.

Notable among the best film nominees is animated movie “Up”, which is the only movie ever nominated for both best film and best animated film.

from MediaFile:

Bollywood to plagiarism: Bye bye?

Filmmakers in Bollywood, India's movie industry, are notorious for borrowing liberally from foreign films far and wide, especially Hollywood.

Even when they don't copy an entire film frame by frame, Bollywood directors often borrow from several films at once, melding story lines and adapting them to an Indian setting, complete with song and dance. They do this, of course, without buying the remaking rights. Despite a lot of original cinema coming out of Bollywood, plagiarism is rife.

Hollywood hasn't cared until now, The Washington Post's Emily Wax reports. Twentieth Century Fox recently settled a lawsuit with BR Films -- a well-known banner -- over its remake of the 1992 hit "My Cousin Vinny." Fox accepted $200,000, paving the way for a release of the Hindi version, called "Banda Yeh Bindaas Hai" or "This Guy is Fearless".

The Times of London has reported that a lawyer representing major American studios has recently sent warning letters to producers who he believes are copying Hollywood films. Among the titles are "Ghostbusters", "Jerry Maguire", "The Departed" and "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button", the paper reports.

Will Fox's action finally put a stop to the widespread plagiarism in Bollywood? More likely, Bollywood producers will just have to cough up the money to buy remaking rights, which is how it should be.

Keep an eye on:

• Nokia plans to tackle Apple's iPhone with a bet on Linux software. (Reuters)
• Channel 4 will drop Big Brother as it focuses more on public service broadcasting. (Financial Times)
• Alcatel-Lucent shares jump on rumors of Chinese bid. (Reuters)

Kambakkht Ishq: You have to see it to believe it

A feeling of numbness and disbelief is not uncommon after a movie-watching experience. Sometimes you are awed by the sheer vision of the director or the depth of a particular performance. Sometimes, it is a thought expressed, or an expression that stays with you.

But after watching “Kambakkht Ishq”, I was left numb at the thought someone could make such a bad film.

Yes, there is no other word for it. This extremely expensive film, with cameos by Hollywood stars and flashy fight sequences, isn’t quite the entertainer it promised to be.

Akshay Kumar is Viraj Shergill, a stuntman in Hollywood who likes to play the field. Aftab Shivdasani plays his younger brother, Lucky, who falls in love and gets married to Kamini (Amrita Arora).

Kareena Kapoor plays Simrita Rai, Kamini’s best friend and a part-time model and medical student who has a militant hatred of men, believing that they want “only one thing.”

Of course, in the tradition of Bollywood love stories, Viraj and Simrita hate each other at first sight and indulge in some mindless bickering in the first half.

Chandni Chowk to China: Sticking to the formula

If you are looking for intellectual stimulation at the movies, watch Clint Eastwood’s “Changeling” or wait for “Slumdog Millionaire” — “Chandni Chowk to China” is definitely not what you are looking for.

It’s the first big release of the year, is produced by a big Hollywood studio looking to enter the Indian market and has one of India’s most bankable stars. But it also has a lot of Bollywood “formula”.

Now whether you like this film or not depends on whether you like the “formula”. Do you like the twins separating-at-birth-and-meeting-20-years-later formula? Or perhaps the I-will-avenge-my-father’s-death formula? Take your pick because “Chandni Chowk to China” has taken each and every cliché from Hindi cinema of the 70s and 80s and repackaged it.

Akshay Kumar plays Sidhu, a simpleton cook in Delhi’s famed Chandni Chowk, who fumbles his way through life and is waiting for the stroke of luck that will change his life. Through a chance encounter possible only in Hindi cinema, he meets two natives of China. They are convinced Sidhu is the reincarnation of the ancient warrior Liu Sheng, who will rescue them from the clutches of evil villain Hojo.

Somewhere along the way we also learn of Inspector Chang, whose family was separated because of Hojo. Chang’s twin daughters, Sakhi and Suzie (played by Deepika Padukone) are separated while he loses his memory.

To attempt to explain the story beyond this point is difficult, because the plot gets too convoluted and loses itself at many places. Except for the 20 minutes in the second half, where Chang is training Akshay in the art of kung fu, the rest of the movie is one chaotic scene.

Is an Oscar next, Mr Rahman?

His voice is soft over the phone, almost inaudible. He has just done a lot of interviews, and the tiredness in his voice is clear.

There are no niceties, no formal hello; instead he plunges straight into the agenda of the day — that’s a typical A. R. Rahman interview for you. The 43-year-old music composer is as humble as he is talented, as unaffected by success as he is successful.

“Unbelievable,” he said as he stood on the podium with a Golden Globe statuette in his hand. And it was. That an Indian composer could win such a coveted international honour for what is essentially such an Indian soundtrack — and do it all with a minimum of fuss, is a matter of pride for all Indians.

“If I win it, it will be a surprise,” he told the media the day he was leaving for Los Angeles. “But if I do win, I want to win for India.”

He didn’t forget to mention his country in his acceptance speech on Sunday, thanking the “one billion” people of India for the praise.

Those one billion will now be egging him on for even greater heights — don’t forget, the Oscars are just a little over a month away, and to see an Indian composer hold that coveted trophy in hand is something we could only have dreamed of — until now.

Join us in congratulating Rahman and wishing him all the best for the Oscars. Jai Ho!