AIDS KILLS.

This is not fear mongering but a simple fact of life.

BE SAFE. STAY ALIVE.

USE A CONDOM.

MISINFORMATION AND NON-AWARENESS ABOUT AIDS KILLS MORE PEOPLE.

SPREAD THE MESSAGE.

SAVE LIVES.



Break Ke Baad: Movie Review

How About Giving The Audience a Break.

BREAK KE BAAD

*ing Imran Khan, Deepika Padukone, Sharmila Tagore

Music: Vishal Shekar

Directed by: Danish Aslam

Lilette Dubey is walking around among racks of clothes with an assistant.

A young girl comes up to her holding a blouse and complains,
"This is too loose.”

With a perfect mix of exasperation and derision in her voice, Lilette deadpans
“Someone get her some bigger boobs.”

Such a terrific line deserves a much better movie.

Break ke Baad is essentially about 2 losers.


Gulati (Imran) who is a sad little clingy puppy and Aaliya (Deepika) who is a lying scheming bitch.

It’s hard therefore to warm to such characters.

Obviously inspired by the Adi Chopra- Karan Johar school of filmmaking, this is a poor imitation with even poorer characters.

During an extended title sequence we see the 2 grow up as children when they shared Mr. India dialogues to their teenage years where they both jump on trampolines (here a young Imran is played by the cute kid from Kuch Kuch and Fanaa who has now grown into an awkward, lanky teen with a surprisingly hairy back).


Then come the lead pair.
Imran as a sentimental romantic who drives a yellow beetle and who ought to grow some balls and Deepika as a deflowered bitch who smokes cigars and calls her mother by her first name.

Changing gender characteristics must have seemed great on paper but is a total misfit when executed on screen.

Deepika has long legs. Seriously long legs. And that’s always an asset to have when our acting isn’t very good. Flaunt your legs to distract from your acting.
Ask Bipasha, she’s been doing it for almost a decade now.

So when Deepika tries to be sassy and comes across as sour-pussy just ignore her and focus on her legs.
If you really like your girls sassy, get a DVD instead and watch Jab We Met.

And which young Indian calls her mother (Sharmila Tagore as Ayesha) by her first name?

That’s not sassy, that’s just bad upbringing.

 The only good part about this mother-daughter story is that their being muslim is never made obvious. Infact till Sharmila talked about her ‘Abbu & Amma’ I hadn’t even thought of them as Mozzys. For a Hindi film this is certainly a big deal. After all isn’t that how we live our lives? Thank god for small mercies.


Imran helps his father run a cinema and seems bored doing so while Deepika wants to be an actress which her mom disapproves of. The mom seems pretty open minded and modern so I was not really sure why she disapproved? Maybe having been a superstar herself, she could see that her daughter’s acting abilities were limited.
Maybe…
Who knows?
Frankly, who cares?

Anyway she goes off to study Mass Comm at the Gold Coast University and puppy dog follows her there when he suspects she maybe be being screwed ‘in queue’.

Initially he drives taxis and even works at some forklift operation inside the airport. Driving License, Security Clearance… what’s that? Bollywood has never heard of these things.

Anyway there he finds his true calling and becomes a chef and opens many restaurants.

She meanwhile walks across a stage at a college play as an Egyptian (but dressed as a Greek) and gets offered an international film because, as the casting director helpfully informs us, they need an Asian character. Never mind the fact that while shooting the film she seems to be dressed more like an African safari than ‘Asian character’.

Once again people this is Bolywood so screw you for looking for reason and plausibility.
Characters here don’t have enough money for rent but get a beachside villa for 100$ a month. They fly business class to and from Australia like they were going from Chandni Chowk to Connaught Place.

 But by this time you are past caring…... About 2 ½ hours into a movie if your nachos have more crunch than the storyline….its usually not a good sign.

At one point when Imran is gloomily sitting after a break up, Lilette sighs at the drama queen and mutters.


“I blame these directors who keep re-making Devdas and turning our youth into such miserable characters”

Maybe she should look at blaming some other movies.

Afterall Devdas has only been remade thrice.

This DDLJ inspired trend however, seems to be never ending.

Kuch Kuch Hota Tha…… Aaj kal…. kuch bhi nahi.

Do ungrateful girls deserve diamonds???

UNGRATEFUL LITTLE WRETCH

Indian ads by and large are pretty good and constantly up to international standards where wit and originality are concerned. And yet a few slip through the net.


Last evening I was watching TV and multitasking as usual.

Unless it’s a really good program or something very interesting I usually do something while watching TV. Sometimes I’m on the laptop surfing the net and chatting with friends or most often I have a magazine or newspaper at hand. During ad breaks I usually continue reading till something catches my ear.
And most of the time it’s the really good things that get my attention.
Last night was the opposite.
There is a jewelry company called PC jewelers and their new ad is just plain stupid.


It begins with the wife at the mirror while the hubby is lying in bed.


“Your ears look rather small” he teases her.
“You should have seen that last year before we got married” she shoots back a trifle irritated.


He then places a beautiful diamond and emerald earring on her ear. She oohs and aahs.

Next Scene:


“Your wrists look a little small” he continues teasing her.
“You didn’t say that when we were dating” says stupid wifey who not only seems to have forgotten the earring she got but also the fact that it was a similar teasing which had gotten her those earrings.

As expected he slips a diamond and emerald bangle on her wrists.


Next Scene:


“Your neck is looking very thin” says the adoring hubby.
“Why did you marry me then” says the crazy bitch who clearly doesn’t deserve any of the expensive baubles that hubby dearest seems to be bestowing on her.


Of course he does slip on a huge whopper of a necklace round the neck of a wife who is either very very slow witted or just a bitchy shrew.

Crazy Woman!

If you are going to have s tory in your ad, is it too much to expect it to be sensible?

He should have just wrung her neck and given the jewelry to another girl.


Now THAT would have made a great ad.

a new beginning

"The secret to a rich life is to have more beginnings than endings."

- Dave Weinbaum

Dear All,

Welcome to the new look of the blog.

Its been many years and so i thought i'd revamp the blog a bit.... change a few colours, a few designs but the quality and style of writing (for better or worse) will remain the same.

Hope you like it and thank you once again for your regular visits. I promise to be more regular from now onwards.

With Luv as Always.

Vish







Guzaarish: Movie Review

GUZAARISH

*ing Hrithik Roshan, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan

Music & Directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali

When Guzaarish opens there isn’t the long mandatory casting, it’s just the producer’s logos and then the title and then the screen goes black. Pitch black.

Then somewhere from near the left, the screen seems to almost tear towards the middle and you realize its Sophia (Aishwarya) drawing the curtain in a paralyzed Ethan Mascarenes' (Hrithik's) room. Then with the eternal Charlie Chaplin song Smile (from Modern Times) playing you see a montage of shots of Ash caring for the quadriplegic Hrithik.

The movie is filled with such similarly stunning scenes which look like gorgeous paintings.

Sanjay Leela Bhansali can certainly frame a scene.

Pity there is not much more that he seems to be able to do anymore.

He is certainly not without talent. His Khamoshi (about the deaf & dumb) was way superior to the overrated and over styled Black and his Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam had more pain & longing than in all the garishness of Devdas. But here he seems to be like a wannabe European director.

I don’t want to sound elitist here but I have a strange theory.

All vernacular students always say they are as good if not better than the convent educated ones. Rich, spoilt snobs is what they usually refer to them as but somewhere deep down this animosity hides a want on their part to belong too.

To be one of the boys, to speak English as comfortably, to flaunt labels with élan (why else do you think small town boys and girls love their fake Versace’s and D&G’s).

SLB is also a small town boy and after his initial commercial success he has started to crave for critical acclaim. He wants to be the Indian Zeffirelli, the Indian Kurosawa, the Indian Kieslowski. It would be so much better if he just tried to be the Indian Bhansali.

Calling Bhansali a wannabe is probably a bit strong but just look at Guzaarish.

Hrithik’s house looks like an old church on the exterior but is styled like a Tuscan villa on the inside, the characters speak more in English than Hindi, they are all named Rosy, Maria, Sophia, Ethan or Neville, Ash plays a nurse but is dressed like a Spanish flamenco dancer who is ready to burst into song and dance at any moment (which incidentally she does do), her hair and make up is so perfect it’s a wonder she finds time to attend to him (which is probably why the poor guy hasn’t shown any improvement in 12 years) and with such a repertoire of Indian music at his disposal and for a avowed fan of Lata Mangeshker its strange he needs to use English songs like ‘Smile’ and ‘Wonderful Life’ (sung by Hrithik himself and sounding much better than his disastrous singing debut where he had droned on and on about some ‘Kites in The Sky’).

Hrithik is a very good actor and when he is not grinning maniacally, he actually manages to convey a lot of the pain and suffering like at the end of the Udi song or when he is interacting with Omar. But these moments are far and few in between.

Which brings us to Aditya Roy Kapoor.

This boy has a lot of talent and behind that strange afro is also a very camera friendly and charismatic person. He manages to steal almost every scene he is in and with Ash and Hrithik its saying a lot.

The Kingfisher swimsuit model Monikangana Dutta also makes her debut and while she hardly has a couple of scenes she is not as wooden as most models usually are. Infact when she is dancing (by the way why are Magicians dancing anyway) with Hrithik on stage she actually reminds you of heroines from the past. There is a certain timeless quality about her face.

Ash is as beautiful as ever but has matured into a more sensuous beauty and in some scenes she actually reminds you of Penelope Cruz in Almodovar’s films. But all she seems to be doing in Guzaarish is flashing her eyes; at Ethan, at Omar, at the Lawyer, at the Judge, at the servants, at everyone, so much so that when her husband arrives towards the end and slaps her, you almost thank him for putting us out of this misery of bad acting.

It is much easier to relate to a poor hardworking nurse if she is dressed like one and not in monochromed Sabyasachi creations.

Hell in the last scene she is dressed like a Latin seductress with Ukrainian hair.

Is there anything good about the movie I hear you ask?

Well there is a short 3 minute dance solo that’s shot like a dream with Hrithik floating and dancing with a ball and somehow not managing to look like a pansy.

There’s Ash dancing with her hands in a bar called Martins but which strangely has a big Buddha head on stage.

There’s the set design which, in isolation, is beautiful to look at. Isolation being the operative work here as it has no correlation to Ethan's supposed financial condition.

The saddest part is the whole thing about euthanasia. This has been trivialized so much that you wonder if it is just a plot move to dramatize the whole movie.

Of all quadriplegics, Ethan seems to have the least reason to petition for mercy killing.

He seems to be hale and hearty (inspite of what the podgy doc keeps popping up to tell us), he has the latest breath activated wheelchair, he has a nurse who hasn’t taken leave in 12 years and for a paralyzed man who cant tell when he has passed urine or stool he seems to always get aroused while getting a massage...... so apart from sheer boredom and/or sexual frustration I didn’t see why he needed to die so urgently.

Hell, he even has a radio show of his own. He is a frickin celebrity RJ.

The court scenes are a joke. The first one at court has the 2 lawyers behaving like juvenile kids emotionally screaming in the absence of sane argument. Then after Sophia has had her moment of screaming at the judge (in English) the next court scene moves to Ethan’s house.

Why?

Apparently because His Honor felt sorry for Ethan's outing but also because why should Bhansali have the drab courtroom and the dreary dock when he can frame his characters in the courtyard of the Mediterranean villa with Ethan seated at the foot of a sweeping staircase.

Its frivolous nonsense like this that makes this movie so sad.

Pretentious. Pretentious. Pretentious.

Shit even Golmaal is better than this. At least it’s not trying to be something it isn’t.

If we all petition Bhansali for a better movie next time will he listen to our Guzaarish?

If wishes were horses even Ethan would ride.

G'bye till next time.