If you are a Ram Gopal Varma fan, don't watch ‘Guns and Thighs’ trailer!

If you have watched that nearly 7 minutes long ‘trailer’ of his upcoming web series and the visuals of naked women and some of the dialogues focussed on female anatomy failed to titillate you enough to ignore sheer pedestrianism of his latest venture, you can only weep.

Coincidentally these visuals and probably dialogues have spurned many YouTube commenters to label this as “India’s Game Of Thrones”! And since many of our fellow country-people (see I am not saying ‘countrymen’, because gender-neutrality) believe that nudity and violence will make any thing GoT, is probably one of the reasons we will never ever have a series as captivating and as painstakingly crafted.

And the violence in the trailer is doesn’t even impact you like the violence in some of Varma’s movies. For that matter NOTHING in this trailer even seems to try to touch the bar his previous films have set. Or to be more precise, his films of last decade.

Yes, it was 2007 when his claim to infamy ‘Ram Gopal Varma ki Aag’ came. Before this he had hits and flops but even his failures were not due to lack of effort or mediocrity of his craft. The films that made us believe in him: starting with ‘Shiva’ and ‘Raat’, setting the pace with ‘Gaayam’ and ‘Rangeela’ and finally peaking with ‘Satya’ and ‘Company’. Even if you are not a cinema connoisseur or film buff, even if you have seen these movies just once there is a definite chance that you remember a character, a scene, a dialogue or one of the songs.

Now ask yourself how many of the 25 feature films he has made since 2007 you remember? Not all of these 25 films are worth forgetting. None of these 25 films can hold a candle to his better work.

If this trailer is anything to go by, this series is going to be worse than his worst film.

Where do I begin? The trailer which is laden with so many quotes that I both lost the count and the interest in reading these (seemingly made-up) quotes, starts with voice over of what seems like an old woman confiding to the viewers, the history of gangster-ridden years of Mumbai.

The narration tries too hard to make you sympathetic to the plight of the woman whose face we are shown once in a fleeting visual. However the narration (or is this internal monologue?) is so lame I could hardly care. And once the narration ends and story takes over, all hell breaks loose. One character speaks the same sentence which you have earlier heard during narration. I kid you not. And both the times this seemingly ‘hard-hitting’ statement falls flat on its face. The acting is uniformly terrible. A girl is made to sit in nude and talk to his boyfriend (who is fully clothed btw!) There are some close shots of women’s legs (‘Not A Love Story’ anyone?) and some amazingly terrible dialogues involving human anatomy because that is how the dialogue writers thought the gangsters speak.

This is Ram Gopal Varma we are talking about. The man who made Antara Mali, J D Chakravarti and Vivek Oberoi perform brilliantly on screen. The man who has given us quality acts from the likes of Amitabh Bachchan, Aamir Khan, Ajay Devgan, Manoj Vajpayee, Urmila Matondkar and several others. Now picture him dishing this drivel.

At the very beginning of the trailer Varma says that since for various reasons he could not show ‘the full story of Mumbai Mafia in its raw and real form’ in films, he is going to do it here. It is amply clear that the man is scraping the bottom of the barrels of his once-legendary craftsmanship. ‘Satya’ and ‘Company’ are classics and he is besmirching that legacy with cheap, lazy and titillating cinema.

As I said, if you admired his work then, now you can just weep.

(If you are tempted to watch the trailer to see naked woman, heed my advice and watch some porn instead. If you want to watch the trailer just to see how bad it is, please don’t watch it and save 7 minutes of your life. You will thank me!)

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India's Answer to Oscars!

“Call an emergency meeting of writers, reality, sales and EM. One hour. My cabin.”

Channel head ordered his secretary and replaced the receiver even before getting an ‘OK sir’. He had just finished watching Oscars ceremony on his 50 inch TV. Somehow he wasn’t very pleased with the picture quality but then he himself had got it purchased claiming it was 4K, 3D, OLED, UHD, PhD and God only knows holder of what other degrees.

Usually after watching the awards ceremony he would Google atleast the movies which were nominees for the best picture. Having a little idea about the plot and cast of these movies made it easier dropping their names during dinner conversations and parties and made him sound knowledgeable about cinema. This trick had worked well till recently when a rival channel CEO started talking about Oscar-winning documentaries and short films and acquiring their telecast rights for his channel. The head had to resort back to time-tested formula of flowing along with the life jackets of ‘ofcourse’, ‘absolutely’, ‘yes, that one is great’ and the best one ‘I am thinking about French and Iranian content’ which was the only sentence needed to show the world that you knew about quality cinema.

But today, he was in contemplative mood. His once ‘leading’ channel was now lagging even the channels showing reruns of old shows of rival networks. Neither any new interesting shows were being pitched to his channel nor the parent network was emptying their pockets trying to buy the rights of new blockbuster movies. Their library seemed like a DVD-rental store where people would never return the DVDs.

While watching the awards ceremony, he thought he had hit the jackpot idea. His channel would host an award ceremony that would rival Oscars in terms of quality, magnitude, content and everything else that Oscars could be rivalled about. He had called the meeting with writers, reality TV producers, sales and event management executives for discussing this idea and executing it quickly.

In an hour about 15 people were assembled in the not-so-large-but-decent-for-15-people sized cabin of the head. He gave them a one line brief of “an award ceremony that would be called India’s Oscars”.

One of the writers sounded confused, “Isn’t Filmfare already called that? And even IIFA?” The head stared at him but even though no sparks flew out of his eyes, the writer was incinerated.

Another writer sensed the opportunity “Arre, anyone can call themselves anything! Tomorrow if Times Now calls itself Fox News, will it become Fox News!”.

“Aren’t they already” someone quipped and table burst out laughing. But the laughter was short lived because everyone noticed that Boss was still serious.

One event management guy said “I think sir wants an indoor event with a great set and a red carpet event with extensive coverage of who was wearing what and who came with whom and …”. He was interrupted by a producer “Seriously? Which award night doesn’t have all of this? And doesn’t TOI give us every single detail next day. I think sir has something more profound on his mind.”

Everyone, except the guy whom the producer had interrupted, silently thanked him hoping this praise made the boss more effusive and reveal what the hell he wanted!

The head smiled and said “Yes, you are right Rajiv. I want something more classy. More refined. Different. Wait a second, they are Live, right? Why can’t we do a Live ceremony like them?”

No one spoke.

Another producer broke the silence “Sir, if we do live, how will we show Amitabh Ji and Jaya Ji when Rekha Ji comes on stage to give an award. Or Deepika when Ranbeer gets an award. Or the audience laughter shots? You know most of the jokes these days are so lame that only some of the stars actually laugh so usually we are just repeating shots for every joke. And most importantly what about the promos? How will we shoot the promo where two superstars are going to fight with each other when they are just acting according to the script and after the break it all unfolds as a joke.”

One of the sales guys also felt emboldened “Yes sir and the ads in those breaks sir. We won’t be able to have half hour long ads between award for best actor and best picture sir. You know sir, we aren’t selling spots at same premium as others these days!”

“OK, fine we won’t do live. How about a great jury and an award so fare that the quality becomes our USP. We might have ‘Fair and Lovely’ as our title sponsor also!” The head winked and everyone laughed at the joke dutifully.

After the laughter subsided, one of the writers said “Sir, in that case we might not have most of the stars attending the ceremony you see. The stars attend the show because we promise them that they will get an award. Only Amit ji comes in the hope of his son or daughter in law winning. Poor guy! And if awards are going to people like Richa Chaddha, Sanjay Mishra, Nawazuddin Siddiqui then stars won’t turn up and who will watch an awards ceremony without stars.” Most of the people on the table had never heard of any other name except that of Nawazuddin Siddiqui and that too because he had acted with Bhai.

Somebody added “Who wants to watch Nawazuddin give a performance in an awards night?”

The head was losing his patience now. “Seriously guys, 15 of you can’t think of ONE way to make an award night different from the trillion already on air!” His voice rose a decibel with every syllable.

A young new writer had recently joined the team “Sir I have some ideas.” 15 pairs of eyes got focussed on him.

He continued “Sir we can have better script. Did you watch Chris Rock delivering his monologue on opportunities for Black Actors and diversity? Why can’t we have something like that? Priyanka Chopra played a north-eastern girl in ‘Marykom’ when any north-eastern actor could have done that role. Somebody gave veteran Assamese director and National Award winner Jahnu Barua ‘Best Debut Director’ award for his Hindi movie! Can you believe it? We have so much diversity in India and yet we don’t have diversity in our cinema. There is raci..”

Chief writer felt that new guy is hogging too much limelight so he interrupted him “Oh sir, Priyanka Chopra was at Oscars too. This year we give her a special award for being first Indian to give an award at Oscars.”

This opened flood gates and ideas flew thick and fast!

“Sir we create a new award catgory for actors and actresses in Hollywood movies and TV.”

“Sir we create a new award category for kids of stars. Anyways they get awards once they start acting in movies. This way we will have dibs on them!”

“Sir we give an award to Sanjay Dutt for coming out of jail. And one to Salman Khan for staying out of jail.”

“Sir we give an award to Karan Johar for hosting so many awards. We call it ‘Lifetime Award Hosting Achievement Award’.”

For next 30 minutes cabin was awash with creative juices of the men and women in the room. Many more innovative ideas were given and taken for creating an award which would be termed as India’s answer to Oscars.

“Vimal Pan Masala presents Fair & Lovely Sony Cineblitz Cinema Excellence Awards powered by Kurkure and Nerolac Tractor Emulsion” is coming soon to a TV Screen near you.

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Dear Bollywood, mind your language (and accent!)

The first thing that impressed me in 'Shor In The City' was the immaculate American accent of Abhay (played by Sendhil Ramamurthy). Ofcourse Sendhil being an American actor helps but the point is that his accent brought to life the NRI character he was playing. Compare that to the American NRI that Abhishek Bachchan played in 'Delhi 6'! Abhishek's accent was limited to rolling his 'R's and that too for about first 5 minutes.

Another standout example from the same film is that of 'Sawan Murthy', a young cricketer who belongs to AP but is in Mumbai from past several years. He speaks fluent Hindi but still has got that tinge of unmistakable Telugu accent.

Talking of contrast. In Ashutosh Gowariker's 'Swades' the poor farmer who (whose home Mohan visits) speaks not only extremely pure but even poetic Hindi, strikes extremely jarring note in otherwise spotless movie. Even his most perfect film to-date 'Lagaan' was sort of inaccurate on this front with characters in 'central India' speaking Awadhi dialogues but it went on fine with the setting of the story and nobody complained. Similarly in RGV's 'Jungle' even though the forest was based somewhere in South India, the bandits spoke in Haryanvi(!) but it was passable.

The importance of correct language and accent can not be overstated but due to some unfathomable reason our mainstream movie makers prefer to take us, the viewers, in a world where people speak chaste Hindi and are completely unaffected by their surroundings and the people living in those surroundings. Wherever they may be.

So in 'Patiala House' even though Bau Ji's whole family has lived and grown up in Britain, they still speak that Punjabi mixed Hindi which Karan Johar made trendy in his NRI films. And in Priyadarshan's shameful remake (if they gave due credits)/ripoff(if they didn't!) of 'Children Of Heaven', 'Bumm Bumm Bole' the setting was definitely a place where they don't speak that good Hindi. (But to be fair in Priyadarshan's asylum of movie making language is perhaps last thing to worry about!)

Can you imagine how depleted would 'Peepli Live' be if Nattha and his village folks, specially Amma ji, didn't talk in that characteristic western U.P. accent, or if the Deccan accent is taken out of the dialogues from 'Well Done Abba'? Or the Himachali taken out of 'The Blue Umbrella'?

Perhaps in mainstream Bollywood, such things as correct pronunciation and proper dialect are somethings not to be fussed about much. Perhaps they still think that public to hero ko 'dekhne' aati hai!

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A tale of two tales. Dhobi Ghat and 127 Hours

Last week I watched two movies which evoked extreme reactions from movie goers: 'Dhobi Ghat' and '127 Hours', specially the former.

'Dhobi Ghaat' is a commercial success no doubt but Kiran Rao's maiden directorial venture is not your regular commercial film and with an abstract story line that tries to string the characters very loosely, it wasn't difficult to understand why people were restless. However being restless is one thing and being jackass is another. My whole experience of watching the movie was ruined by people chattering loudly about how lame the film is and laughing where I couldn't even spot the joke. Like a scene where classical music is playing in painter Arun's house. I mean WTF? Since when classical music has become a joke to be laughed at loud? And if you are so annoyed by a film, for God's sake get the hell out of the hall and let those who want to watch it in peace, do so.

It is a film where you have to go with an open mind and give the film a chance to work its charm on you. Prateik Babbar is enthrallingly fresh Monica Dogra get's lion's share of screen time and she is defintely good. However I liked the way the fourth story and character of Muslim girl (played by Kriti Malhotra) has been presented. As a fact this girl is not even a live character in the movie but she has been brought to life by her diaries and though her story doesn't have much of an impact on the course of the plot, it is very engaging and heart wrenching.

Yes, the film is a drag at certain points but then the amazing background score by Oscar winner Gustavo Santolalla is enough to enjoy even those parts.

Second film '127 Hours' didn't have to face such bad reactions however many people considered

it to be slow and dragging. My question to these people is: what the hell did you expect in a story of a man stuck for 5 days in a crevice? I am sure if it was a Bollywood/Tollywood/Kollywood film helmed by some masala director, there would have been plenty of flashbacks where hero's entire life would have been shown to us. A couple of romantic songs and if producer demanded, even an item number!

And the absence of all these distractions is what I loved most about '127 Hours'. Danny Boyle has kept the focus solely on the man trapped. The delusions and devils that are in his minds and how he resolves not to loose his hope and will to survive and how he tries to find humor even in his dire condition. My favorite sequence is when he believes that in his entire life, all his actions have been forcing him to this 'crack on the face of earth'. This thought is gut wrenching and coupled with spectacular shot of the crevice in the Grand Canyon it's impact is multiplied many fold.

Amputation scene is gross and I admit that I could not watch it. James Franco is adjective defyingly good and the cinematography by Anthony Dod Mantle and Enrique Chediak (the sequences shot at close quarters in the crevice are stunning) is superb. I had been hearing the OST of this film but to understand how impressive it is, you must watch the film. A. R. Rahman's music actually enhances the flavor of scenes. It may not win any awards but I really feel it is better than Slumdog Millionaire's.

One last thing. I think Leonardo di Caprio could have played Aron Ralston as good as James Franco, only Franco looks like carbon copy of Ralston. What do you say?

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Where have our singers gone (Part 1)

Shweta says new year party at HITEX is drool-worthy. I don't know as I have never been to any new year party ever. But if having Jasbeer Jassi as the lead entertainer is anyone's idea of having a party, leave alone 'drool-worthy', I am not that 'anyone'!

But seeing that once 'oooh-so-familiar' and now 'umm-somewhat-familiar' face of Jassi on the poster I wondered, where have these people gone? All those people who released albums in all possible genres most notably Punjabi pop and ruled the Indian music charts with alarming regularity, have they been relegated to only etc Punjabi?

Back then every one seemed to be a potential pop star. The success of Daler Mehndi lead to attack of clones and soon many sardars with opulent sherwanis and pagdis were crooning Balle Balle! Secular nature of the country struck back and Punjabi pop was not limited to only Sardar jis and people like Shankar Sahni, Jasbir Jassi, Sukhbir and Hans Raj Hans were the new kings of the block. Womenfolk were not to be left behind and after Alisha, Anaida, Anamika, Raageshwari, Rajeshwari and so many made a mark. The novelty factor of Indian Pop was all but over!

Then the remixes happened. Coupled with raunchy videos the remixes dealt a blow to originals. DJs were the new talk of town and instead of 'performers' (who sang as well as were presentable on the stage) the 'item girls' took the center stage. The Rakhi Sawants and Shefali Zariwalas were the hot cakes!

This was the phase when Bollywood was changing and so were the music companies. The corporatization was taking place and the music rights were being sold along with other rights in the bulk deals. I don't know if this was the reason that music companies decided that the money to be made was in the film music. Gradually there were hardly any remixed albums. The remixes became part of the film album only.

People like Shaan, Mohit Chauhan, Anushka, Daler Menhdi, Neeraj Sridhar and many others who had started as pop artists, now were mainstream Bollywood singers.

This was a good phase for Hindi film music.

(Concluded in next part)

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OkTataByeBye does a MMT with 'Gajodhar'

If anyone had any doubts of what a cult Aamir Khan's rendition of Surya's original outing in 'Ghajini' is turning out to be, the latest viral from OkTataByeBye.com is here to clear all of them!

This is absolutely hilarious stuff and brings back memories (after Ghajini this word has acquired a completely new meaning, isn't it?) of brilliant virals from MakeMyTrip.com and Airtel. And if you are not suffering from any kind of amnesia ('anterograde' or whatever!) you will remember that it was MMT only (another travel and tour related site) which started this trend of virals in India.

Incidentally the OTBB viral has been done by WebChutney.com who had done all the MMT and many other virals.

Watch ALL the WebChutney virals here: http://www.webchutney.com/virals/

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Movie Review: Dhan Dhana Dhana Goal

A bunch of part-timers solidifying into a team with sole aim of fighting the 'goras' to save their land. Underdogs beating the champions after the opposition's attempt of breaking the team didn't succeed. Ashutosh Gowarikar's Lagaan? Yes, and director Vivek Agnihotri's latest release 'Dhan Dhana Dhan Goal'.

Underdogs-beating-Champions is a perennial theme in the films of sport genre. You always know that in last 2 minutes the hero (or heroine) will hit the winning goal/claim the last wicket/score the winning run/reach the finish line or whatever and redeem the disgraced coach/fulfill the dreams of the community etc. etc.

What separates one good film from a bad one is everything else that goes on. And there is actually lot of 'else' going on. So much that game gets lost at times.

Goal introduces the UBCD (UK Born Confused Desi, the British counterpart of more famous ABCD, America Born Confused Desi) to Indian audiences, which could have been a good thing, had the director dealt it a little deftly. The film barely scratches this confusion because it is busy in digging up the issue of racism in English society, and this is precisely where it fails.

(My recommendation:watch 2004 Best Picture Academy Award winner 'Crash' if you have to watch a really sensitive film on the issue of racism)

The sensitivity required to portray the issue has been replaced with jingoism and unnecessary sense of nationalism ('Hindustan' and 'Hindustaniyat') which is so excessive (in reel-length if not content) that it puts you off. You can sense there is a problem when you hate the protagonists when they do the foul mouthing. There is hardly any viciousness in English racial slur ('Paki') and the pain in the hurt it causes.

And talk of the clichés. There is a disgraced coach (as I mentioned above!) who agrees to coach the team (and comes directly to ground) after refusing initially but giving in when captain calls him a failure and coward. Yawn!

Writing is at best patchy. If Rohit Malhotra and Vikramaditya Motwane's screenplay is overflowing with cliches and a sense of deja vu, Malhotra and Anurag Kashyap have done pretty good job in dialogues. (But I can't forgive 'alag alag rang ke phhol sath mein kitne achhe lagte hain')

The first half goes in establishing the 'team' and troubles facing them and is almost as lively as a dead turkey. Second half has lot more action in terms of happening on the soccer pitch as well as story movement. But again most of the moments are predictable. Climax is well conceived and executed but a coach and a 'physiotherapist' (-cum-girlfriend of the star footballer) lets him play a match which could be fatal to his life, is beyond my understanding!

But the film has its moments like the one where a child tells Sunny (the star Asian player) that he is his (Wayne) Roony. (Ohh how I wish there was this subtlety throughout and now I realise that this was one of the reasons I liked Chak De!)

Southall has been shot pretty well, but most of the football matches seem a lot to be desired. Casual soccer hobbyists like me may like the scenes of Manchester United club and ground. (You diehard fans would already have seen all this on ESPN-Star Sports!)

Unlike Chak De this film may be about a team game but not about team. There are team-moments but individuals always loom large: Shan, the captain of Southall United Football Club and part time Chef in his own restaurant and Sunny, the professional footballer who is the star. Count others: Tony Singh, the yesteryear great, now coach of this team; wives of everyone, and team members!

Arshad Warsi has been dependable actor mostly and he delivers. I just wish that his character was better written. Why does Shan hate Sunny even when he believes that only Sunny can fulfill his dream of winning Championship? Why does he not talk to his team mates when they don't play well but just keeps on shouting 'idiots'? John Abraham has got Rocky S to make him look good and he does that! He has already played a brat in 'Taxi No. 9211' and he does that here as well. Boman Irani stands out as coach, but his version of '70 Minute' (The pre-climax pep talk) doesn't actually stand out as good as that of Kabir Khan (SRK in Chak De)!

Did someone say Bipasha Basu? I guess UTV guys made director take her at the last moment at the last moment so that they could get a little air-time on channels as a John-Bipasha movie. She does nothing, except wearing a RN jersey and saying things like 'I am sexy and you too are sexy'. Shame. Among others Kushal Punjabi impresses.

To its credit Goal qualifies as a sports film and doesn't merely pass of the sport as a backdrop for the drama, but then it is not able to captivate the viewer throughout its length! Go for it if you don't have anything to do, otherwise better still wait for TV Premiere.

My rating 2 stars.

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