My World This Month

Its been a while since I have written about things going on in my world. I have been distracted for a while with the crazy downloaded Hindi movies and the awesome twenty20 cricket played in the World Cup. Still cannot believe we are the world champions. The last time this happened was when i was 4 years old and too young to understand the euphoria. Hopefully soon we shall win the real thing, the ODI World Cup as well as the Test Series against the Aussies in Oz.

Here is my world this month.

1. Congress jump onto the Dhoni mania by referring to Rahul Gandhi as the Dhoni of Indian politics. I am not sure if Dhoni would actually be thrilled by this comparison.

Now that the Italian Madam has a puppet President and a Prime minister, and a party filled with people willing to lie prostate at her feet and obey her every command, she has now chosen her son as the successor of a party. Her mother in law has taught her well. Nepotism does reign supreme. :p

2. The communists are opposing the Nuclear Deal. Nothing new with that. All they know is how to oppose anything and everything. I wasn't too sure initially about the Nuclear deal either but once I heard the communists were opposing it, I knew it definitely had to be good for the country.

3. Mayawati's ambition is to be the Prime minister of the country some day. Kanshi Ram jee what have thy unleashed. I would rather have a slightly corrupt yet suave educated PM than someone like her. Imagine Mayawati having to address a G8 summit in Geneva, it would be somewhat similar to how Aamir Khan acted at a 5 star restaurant in Rangeela. "Idhar misal paav nahi milta ???? :o , kya ghatiya jagah hai yeh".

4. Congress Goverment claim they are firm on the reservation issue. The latest news is that they also declared that from now onwards reservations would be extended to sports as well as entertainment. As per the new notification, cricket team will have 50% quota for the lower castes. One opener, 2 middle order batsman, 1 fast bowler and 1 spinner would hence be reserved for the under privileged castes. This affirmative action shall help in elevating the status of the reserved castes. Movies and television shows will from now on have quotas for the scheduled castes and OBCs.

5. Just watched a Hrishikesh Mukherjee movie, "Kisise Na Kehna" starring Farooq Sheikh, Utpal Dutt, Deven Varma and Deepti Naval. A typical Hrishida movie, the characters are real, genuinely heart warming and funny. There is no over the top humor nor any contrived situations, no one falls over a banana skin nor does anyone scream thru out the movie at the top of their voice. I wonder if either Priyadarshan or David Dhawan decide to remake (read massacre) this movie. Imagine Salman doing a Farooq Sheikh and Katrina Kaif trying to play the gaon ki ladki Deepti Naval. Sigh.

6. Saw Close Up Antakshari on Star One today. Must have seen this after almost 7-8 years. This was a special on school children from different zones. Not a single song sung in the entire show was from before the year 2000. I guess nowadays on TV the old classics comprise the songs from 95-2000. Gosh I feel old. Is it just me or are all TV shows a lot more flashier, increasingly superficial, way way more melodramatic, way way more over the top and completely crazier than before.

7. These days weekday evenings are spent driving around parts of Long Islands and trips to different malls. I have realized the side effects of getting a car. More time on hand, so more trips to malls, so means spending more on stuff that otherwise you wouldn't have spent on. Miscellaneous Expenditure multiplication.

That is all for now.

Dho Daala !!!!!

India - World Champions

So much has been written about the subject of the miracle story of the last 2 weeks. A team of youngsters without any prior experience in the twenty20 format, headed by a new skipper, traveling without a coach and not expected to go beyond the second round, wins the WC in style trouncing the choking South Africans, the rampaging Aussies, the talented Pakistanis and the British who invented the sport. Dho daala.

Also a special mention for the Hockey team that won the Asia Cup and the Soccer team that won the Nehru Cup for the first time ever in front of 20,000 fans.

We Are the Champions of the World. Chak De India !!!!!!

2011, here we come for the ODI World Cup.

ps: Irony - Sachin Tendulkar has played 17 years in 5 world cups, hit over 40 centuries in One Day Cricket, has been the highest scorer in World Cups ever, but still has never managed to get his hands on some WC silverware, but someone like Yusuf Pathan, playing his first match ever, scores 15 runs, bowls a decent over and has a World Cup medal to report for it.

SRH ke Cholaaaaaaay - Part 2

Continuing my post from last week, here’s more inside scoops on how some of our distinguished directors were planning on re-making the classic Sholay.

4. Farah Khan:

The focus shifts on-campus. Jai and Veeru played by SRK and a long haired Zaheed Khan are young freshmen at a colorful high school located in Panchgani but filmed in Malibu, California. They work part time in the school cafeteria and are just able to afford the bare necessities in life, a Rolex watch, a new red Enzo Ferrari and clothes designed by Versace. Popular with girls they are the life of every singing dancing event in school. This film has everything, a forgetful Thakur who’s the ex-school principal, his hard core party going daughter in law, Gabbar who’s the head of an evil Fraternity that wants to put an end to World peace using Kryptonite and a Merc cab driving Basanti. Also features, a parallel story line about how Jai and Veeru are in reality not only long lost brothers working undercover as students but also miraculously turn out to be the Thakur’s sons.



5. Sanjay Leela Bhansali:

Radha (Rani) is deaf and blind, Basanti (Aishwarya), the Thakur’s daughter drives an old Rolls Royce, Jai (Amitabh) is a forgetful aged teacher, Veeru (Salman) almost drinks himself to death for the love of his life, Thakur (Vikram Gokhale) is an old generation classical singer living in a grandiose haveli and Gabbar (Devgan) was Thakur’s ex-student who fell in love with the Thakur’s daughter and thus was banished from the haveli. At the end of 100 glycerin bottles and being hurtled thru the time-space conundrum from one lavish poetic set to another, the audience is left befuddled and in tears. The movie ends up winning the best filmfare and is India’s official entry into the Oscars.

RGV ki Aag

Anyways, I did end up watching RGV ki Aag last weekend. And believe me when I say this but it definitely is the worst film ever made. RGV came close with his remake of Shiva as well as the irritating James but he has topped himself. This is a cult classic, almost comes close to the Gunda, the epitome of everything that could go bad in a movie. However at least Gunda entertains with its inert stupidness and cheapness, RGV ki Aag does neither. Its the one movie that I could not even watch beyond 20 minutes, and the very fact that RGV had the insolence to claim its a remake of the best hindi movie ever made is sheer blasphemy. The camera angles that RGV uses as a director is an insult to film-making. Whatever happened to the guy who once made Rangeela, Satya and Company.

Heyy baby

Well since we could not tolerate RGV ki Aag beyond 20 minutes, we ended up watching Sajid Khan's disaster so called family comedy "Heyy Baby". Now this is a guy whose only fame to claim beyond being Farah Khan's brother was the show that he hosted in the 90s making fun of hamming in movies. Heyy baby was one of the worst comedies I have ever seen in my life. A cheap re-make of the excellent 3 Men and a Baby, this movie is both cheap and un-funny. The actors do a decent job, but the scriptwriters were probably on vacation. Imagine a movie about a baby, featuring item girls and stressing thru the movie on one night stands. Family film my foot. Besides this he's made it into an emotional melodrama towards the end. Sigh, the Karan Johar influence never stops does it.

Dhamaal

Another remake of an English movie and inspirations from a dozen other. Creativity is dead in Bollywood. Maybe they could just release the dubbed versions in India, they would at least be good. Fortunately I wasnt able to watch till the end of this movie but this movie was way over the top, almost as much as Partner. I still want to watch this movie till the end.

1. Basic Premise - Its a Mad Mad Mad World.

2. Scenes Copied Frame by frame from - Road Trip

3. Zip It scene - Austin Powers

4. Scenes of Mr. Bean

5. 3-4 jokes were popular Sardarji jokes that you must have heard as a kid

And all this was within the first hour of the movie. This is the first movie ever that I have differed with Rajeev Masand's views.

Phew, thats enough of Bollywood for a month, I need to recover some of my senses after watching all the nonsensical fare dished out. Well the Indian team is doing pretty well in the World Twenty20 cup as we speak, so will have something on that front next. ;)


ps: * SRH -> Sourabh R Herwadkar

SRH ke Cholaaaaaaay - Part 1

It’s finally here, the most un-awaited movie event of the year. RGV (Ram Gopal Varma for the uninitiated) finally released his version of “Sholay”. Its one thing to be brave (read crazy) enough to remake a classic but to be audacious enough to remake the best Bollywood phillum of all times is sheer foolishness. But then for his staunchest fans, there was always the slightest hope that if the Godfather had inspired RGV enough to come up with Sarkar, perhaps Sholay would inspire him to come up with an effort that if not close enough to the original, at least would be worth a “dekho”. But that was before he announced the ‘mis’-casting and the name of the movie, the narcissistically titled “RGV ki Aag”.

Now this release got all the Gen Next of directors thinking. In an industry which works entirely on inspired creativity, all of them got a creative jolt at the same time. Why not attempt to make their own version of Sholay, in their own inimitable styles, a certin recipe for success. The scripts were written and the casting was done. Shooting on each of these projects was scheduled to begin shortly.

However yours truly managed to get an insider scoop on the projects and the highly secretive scripts. (Yup, this time these directors were not taking any chances and actually did have page long scripts) So here we go.


1. Karan Johar

Dharma Productions was one of the first to get the cast ready. Karan didn’t have to look too far to get his usual stellar star cast. SRK promised to play the role of Jai, Saif plays Veeru. Unlike the original, Jai and Veeru are a couple of young NRIs in Manhattan clad in Gap jeans and Tommy tees. Their usual job is to con the wealthy single women in NY out of their riches and go party at a local desi night club. As with previous Karan Johar movies that do not have a shred of violence in them, the character of Gabbar Singh played by Amitabh has undergone a radical shift. He’s no longer a violent man. Gabbar Singh and his associates play a team of goons who own a restaurant in Queens that regularly fleece customers.

On the other side of the block there is a friendly Punjabi family living in the vicinity who sing and dance at the drop of a hat. Anupam Kher plays an ex-principal named Thakur and Jaya Bachchan his wife live with their kids, Preity Zinta and Abhishek (in a guest appearance). One day to celebrate his green card, Thakur takes his family to the restaurant mentioned above. At this point there is a kahani mein twist. Gabbar and his cohorts charge them a 25% tip on an already overpriced menu. Abhishek is deeply affected by this atrocity and gets hit by a car in his moment of anguish, while the principal loses his pinkie toe trying to save him. Thakur plots revenge. How he gets his emotional revenge with the help of Veeru and Jai forms the rest of the story.

As the tag line says, it’s all about loving your neighborhood Principal. The film also deeply explores the relationship between Jai and the principal’s newly widowed daughter Preity and the story about Veeru and a garrulous desi NYC gal cab-driver Basanti, played by Rani. Heavy on emotions, this is a surefire hit for the summer.

Ps: The sequel will explore the tensions and relationships that occur when a married Veeru gets tired of his wife Basanti’s continuous chatter and falls in love with the quieter re-married Preity.


2. Ram Gopal Varma

RGV was saddened when critics slammed his film, RGV ki Aag. So he decided to make a remake of his own remake of Sholay. Since he was confident about his direction and his script, he decided to change his cast. Abhishek was asked to play the role of Jai and Viveik Oberoi, the role of Veeru. Urmilla was cast as the chatterbox rickshaw wali while Ramu’s favorite pin up girl Nisha Kothari gets her 25th lease of life as the widowed mini skirt wearing Radha. Amitabh is cast as Don Gabbar Ibrahim and the movie is based in the heart of the Mumbai underworld. Gabbar is a more realistic ruthless don this time around and shows no mercy to the commissioner or his family. The commissioner plots revenge with the help of Jai and Veeru.
Needless to say, the critics slammed his film yet again and as of now, the buzz is that he is planning a remake of his remake of his remake of Sholay with Amitabh reprising his role of Gabbar. He also has plans for the sequel and plans to cast the entire Bacchan family, Shweta Bachchan and Aishwarya Bachchan included. His few staunch fans keep hoping that third time is lucky for remakes.


3. Ashutosh Gowarikar

Now this is a surprising development since Ashutosh is known to make original movies. Common, I am sure he hadn’t watched Die Hard before he made Baazi. Just plain ugly co-incidence. Anyways Ashutosh himself decided to make his own version of Sholay. Aamir, his best friend was immediately cast as Veeru and Hrithik as Jai, while the rest of the cast was handpicked by Aamir himself mostly featuring new comers since the other actors don’t usually prefer working with him.

The film itself is set in the 19th century and Gabbar Simpson is played by a sadistic British Officer. He defeats an Indian team led by Thakur Singhji, India’s first great cricketer by using unsavory tactics like bodyline permanently injuring him. His son, a promising young cricketer is killed when hit on the head by a beamer (we are not talking about the BMW here), widowing Thakur’s daughter in law, Radha played by the girl from Swades. Thakur plots revenge by hiring Jai and Veeru who are a couple of fodder stealing villagers. Jai and Veeru train the villagers with the help of a bail-gaadi waali played by the girl from Lagaan and challenge the British to another match, captained by the handless Thakur himself. In the end, Thakur manages to hit catch Gabbar Simpson out of the last ball latching on to the ball spectacularly with his mouth.


(to be continued)

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