Ghajini

When I saw Lagaan, I thought this is the ultimate and one cannot do better that this. Then Aamir came up with Dil Chahta Hai and Rang De Basanti and I was in the same state – Nobody can do better than this. But, again to my pleasant surprise, he proves me wrong by coming up with Tare Zameen Par. This time also I was expecting Aamir to come up with something fresh, something different. But after watching Ghajini, I felt – Is this really an Aamir khan movie? How can he do such a bad movie which even a new comer in 80s would think twice before signing? The movie is by far the worst movie I have seen in 2008.

The only person acting in the movie was Aamir khan; the rest were overacting. The screeching body languages of the actors complemented the clichéd, needless, baseless and ridiculous dialogues. It appeared that no proper dialogue writer was hired for the film. The dialogues seem to be written by the spot boys and/or some struggling actor. Or it could be that a competitor exchanged every script before the shot. I am just trying to guess all possible justifications for such bad dialogues.

The actors, especially (Asin Thottumkal) Kalpana and Jiah, seem to be doing a lot of theatre these days. They looked completely oblivious of the camera infront of them. Nope, I am not complimenting them. They forgot the difference between theatre and motion picture. They were acing in the movie as if they were acting in a play where there is no microphone and they have to enact everything out to be double sure that the audience understand the sequence. Asin’s showing three fingers when talking about three ambassadors (now what’s wrong with that? How many fingers is she supposed to show?) reminds me of the song “Lambi Judai” where the ‘banjaran’ enacts the lyrics of the song.

Let’s take the plot now. Ghajini is introduced in the movie as the chief guest of a medical college fest. What kind of people do you expect to be invited as chief guest at a college fest? A scientist? A military personnel? An ex-student who is very successful in his field? A politician? No. You are wrong. This medical college has Gajni, a goon, as the chief guest! [BTW, a few of the readers said that he was introduced as a pharma giant. But this doesn't change anything. That pharma giant comes with gunman and himself carries gun!] This doesn’t end here. The host of the fest was a professor of the college! Script writer, did u ever go to a college fest or a college for that matter? Our script writer's fantacy doesn’t end here. He makes the professor, the anchor, ask the students to be silent when the chief guest, the goon, Ghajini was going to come. Lols.

Asin is cornered in the last of the go-through compartmenet of train by the gundas. Now she doesn't close herself in the bathroom which she had earlier done. But the muscle girl Asin opens up the shutter which separated two bogies with one hand very easily! Bravo. And guess what? There are military ppl on the other side! The director made even Aamir’s girlfriend so healthy. Sir, have you ever opened a shop’s shutter – which is opened and closed daily?

The end was even more hilarious. Aamir Khan has enormous strength. I particularly remember one sequence where he twists the head an ‘aadami’ of Ghajini by 180 degrees and he dies on-the-spot. Now when Aamir khan hits Ghajini, he does a lot of time pass where he could have killed him in just on go. This gives Ghajini enough opportunity to insert an iron pipe into Aamir’s stomach. But Aamir khan doesn’t die! He gets up and kills Ghajini. Now the best part, Aamir still remains alive and lives in an orphanage. I thought he required medical treatement or some rehab center but definitely not an orphanage. This hero-always-survives ending wouldn’t have been acceptable even in the 80’s.
I can keep going on about the pathetic treatment of each scene. Maybe, I’ll add it some other time.

The spiderman-types action/acting of Aamir Khan looked unwarranted. The action shown in the movie was too raw and unrefined. The action, nevertheless, was infected by the Rajanikanth-syndrome. The music didn’t really have any role to play. The songs were picturised in tollywood way. I remember watching a south Indian song where just the color of heroine’s dress changes automatically like disco light. Similar picturisation is shown here. This is okay. It wasn’t all that bad, if the other things were congruous.

The only nice part of the move was the flash back and the mild love story between Aamir and Asin. Yeah, that was the only thing in the movie which was not yelling.

If you have a colleague/classmate/neighbor who has been irritating you and you want to teach him a lesson, then gift him a ticket to Ghajini and you would have over compensated for his deeds.

- Cheers!

Telugu Rab Ne ...

Today morning one of my friends told me that Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi is more like a Telugu movie. In Telugu movies, the hero can disguise himself by just wearing a small mole on his cheek and alas! nobody can recognize him. Per him, by just shaving his mustache off, SRK has Telegu-cinemaically disguised himself :) This reminds me of Tashan where the trio wears wigs and nobody could recognise them! Amazing, isn't it? Couldn't help writing about this Telugu Rab Ne ... I was, literally, ROFL. BTW, is this disguise is what they are referring to when they say "Magic of Indian Cinema"?

- Cheers!

Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi

[This is for people who have seen the movie. I am not narrating the story of the movie here - rather sharing my after-thoughts]

Is there a Raj in each Suri? This is what struck me when I was watching the movie. Is it possible that a reserved person like Suri ever, no matter how hard he tries, be like Raj? But then I thought - there is this one self that we are, there’s this another person that we want to be and there is this third person that the world wants us to be. Our whole life goes in aligning ourselves with what we are, what we want to be and what others want us to be. Suri’s character was a depiction of this state. Raj personified what he ‘felt’ Tani wanted him to be. The Suri-from-Panjab-Power was what the world wanted him to be. And in between these two somewhere there was the real Suri.

It looks almost impossible how the same person can play both the roles (in the movie). How much can a person love someone so as to change to such an extent! Or was this what Suri always wanted to be at some corner of his heart – this just gave him an outlet? When, Vinay Pathak asks SRK to be Raj forever, SRK says that Suri cannot change (I don’t remember what exactly he said – but this is the gist if it). This shows the inertia – the importance he gives to his perceived image. Suri was always seen as an erudite, nerd person. That had become part of his self. He was ready to be a different person with a different name but was not ready to change himself as Suri – I know, this probably is too confusing and may not even make sense. These are my thought strung into words. The thoughts are way too sketchy.

Now let’s take the movie at its face value. The ending was too gripping. My mailbox was spammed with the story of the movie almost a fortnight before its release. Yet, till the last moment (almost), it was not clear how the movie is going to end. I found the movie's ending similar to Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam's. The heroine gives in to the sacrifices of her husband (in both the movies).

Acting of SRK was "A1" :). When I read the story in the mail, I was wondering how can Tani not recognize her husband! But considering the fact that SRK acted brilliantly in both the roles and also that they had hardly seen each other properly, it was well digestible. Vinay Pathak did full justice to his role. Anushka Sharma was good - the aesthetically shot scenes of hers were nice :-P

The music is good. The “aaa” (alap) which comes in between the song ‘tujhme rab dikhta hai’ looks like a direct copy of “aaa” (alap) in ‘aao huzoor – lounge remix version’. ‘haule haule’ reminds of Adnan Sami- Amitabh Bachchan song – ‘maula kabhi mujhe chhodna’. The choreography was good as well. ‘Dance pe chance’ could have been better choreographed given the lyrics and the situation of the song. Kajol looked amazing – perhaps, I am a bit biased here. Looks like there is some rift between Yash Raj and Amitabh Bachchan – ‘hum haii rahi pyar ke’ didn’t have any Amitabh Bachchan sequence!

All in all – the movie was a good watch. It, however, cannot be compared to a milestone like DDLJ. The movie is a typical bolywood masala movie with a dash of grayness. BTW, I was thinking shouldn't "ban di" be one word - "banadi"?


Cheers!

Raj Thackeray - An iota of substance

[The following is my response to the Raj Thackeray episode where he throws the non-Marathi low skilled labours off - It's copied from a mail i wrote on this issue]

I am not 100% against Raj Thackarey. There is some substance in what he's saying. But his course of action and, perhaps, his intentions are disgusting. The issue, indeed, is there. Not sure if Raj Thackarey had thought of it. It's something like this:

One part of the pond is "cold" - So the fish from that part of the pond goes to other parts of the pond. In that endeavor, knowingly or unknowingly, they make the other parts of the pond colder. Raj Thackarey is trying to remove the "cold" fish from the warmer part. But the solution is two-fold - (1) make the "cold" part warmer and (2) make provisions for native fish in the warmer part so that they are not affected just because some other part of the pond is cold. But doing (2) without one would be unjust to the "cold" fish. Doing (1) and (2) would be win-win for all. Hope the analogy is clear. If it's not clear, it's none of your faults :)

A good deal is always a win-win deal


- Think...

Paradise everywhere

Though, we may all agree that 9/11 gave terrorism a new shape, we must not forget that 9/11 was the ONLY major terror attack on the US. The Americans are safe as long as they are in their homes - as the terrorists have not been able to do them much harm in their homes. So, the terrorists target a Marriott Hotel in Pakistan or a Taj Mahal Hotel in India.

Please don't get me wrong here. I am not supporting/condemning the stance US had taken on terrorism. What i am saying is, irrespective of their stance, they are able to save their ppl.

For India, it's an utter Intelligence failure. For that matter, most terrorist attacks are due to intelligence failure.We like aping US in everything we do. We copy the way they talk, dress and eat. But we have not done a tenth as much as they have done to safeguard their ppl.

Terrorist attacks have become so commonplace that we are now on the verge of being comfortabely numb about it. Looks like we should rename all the cities to Kashmir.

- Think ...

Dostana

Awfully predictable and chewing gum stretchable.

The movie is:

Okay - if you are in a bad mood (you tend to feel good about your intelligence as you correctly predict not only the next sequence but also the next dialogue) and wanna just laugh at the suckers.

Not Okay - if you really wanna watch a good movie.

Okay - if watch it at a single screen theatre or at home.

Not okay - if u watch it at a multiplex < Not worth Rs 200 >

cheers!