as Dhaal as it gets

[cross-posted on the Passion For Cinema blog]
Responsible for Divyashakti, an adequately downbeat tale of revenge driven by principles and loss bolstered by an interesting villain, Tau (pronounced: taauu), played by Amrish Puri and two films with Akshay Kumar and Saif Ali Khan (Main Khiladi Tu Anari, a rip-off of The Hard Way and Keemat), Sameer Malkan was last heard of when he finished a songless thriller shot in New York City and Philadelphia called Lips: The Kiss Of Death starring Anuj "KKusum" Saxena and Maushmi Udeshi. Despite getting the skin bits excised and getting slapped with an A certificate, the film reportedly still hasn't made it to the marquee (or did it just quietly get out on DVD?). The film's about the development and consequences of the crush an illegal Indian in the US has on the enigmatic young sexy wife of a middle-aged millionaire.

aparaadh tabhii ruk jaaye jab ye kaalaa koT ban jaaye khaakii vardii kii Dhaal

That's the tail of Raza Murad's voiceover, which builds a crescendo to the opening titles for Dhaal, a film that, as the tagline tells us, is about the battle of law against law. Someone must've found the premise thrilling: On one hand we have the police officer's uniform representing the honest losing struggle against social evil; on the other, the lawyer's coat representing the abuse of legal manoeuvres that kept the evil-doers of society out of prison and powerful in the streets; Justice would truly be served (with fries and a drink, no doubt) when the lawyer's coat wrapped the police officer's uniform (not unlike paper wrapping stone) to protect it and strengthen its endeavours instead of pre-empting its every victory with bail applications and dismissed cases.

The need to subscribe to the Bollywood formula and an attempt to find a solution to the knapsack problem of clichés, however, can only mean that the idea was destined to go to seed at the first cry of "Action!" Having Sunil Shetty (as Suraj) on the cast roster only seals the deal. Despite being sandwiched between the likes of Vinod Khanna and Danny Denzongpa, this well-done beefcake manages a coup with the stuff he pulls off on the reels:
* he gets to romance the likes of Anjali Jathar
* he gets to write "Anjali Dewan" (Anjali Jathar) as the amount on the clichéd blank cheque that Danny offers him (Java programmers will note that this would cause a NumberFormatException)
* he gets framed in an illicit situation with the likes of Kunika
* he gets tons of tips on life from the likes of Ram Mohan
* he gets to lip-synch to songs sung by the likes of Anu Malik and Kumar Sanu
* he gets to fake it at playing the violin (while la femme Jathar does the sax-y honours)
* he gets to call Dewan (Danny) up and tell him that he plans to rape Anjali (Anjali Jathar)
* he gets to use a rod to knock a plane out of action and cause it to screech to a halt with the sound of car brakes
* he manages to rope in his garment outlet "Mischief" as one of the costume suppliers

Anu Malik's contributions to this tank of tropes cover some more requirements:
* dil maa kaa diinaa (one of many Macarena rip-offs): introduces the hero to the audience, serves as a plug for Air India, gets on your nerves especially when the music director steps up to the microphone
* gussaa ussaa chho.D / dil na meraa to.D (with lines like "just shut up and get lost" and "drop dead" tossed in for effect): introduces the romantic(!) pair, features the obligatory perfunctory anger that melts away
* whisky whisky whisky whisky whisky kisane bolaa whisky hai risky: reiterates the importance of liquor in movies about family, friendship and felons, provides another example of how difficult it is to be convincing as a tipsy toot
* haasil mazaa hai terii mulaaqaat kaa mujhe: attempts to cover the need for a fantasy sequence that emerges as a non sequitur in the narrative, provides evidence of the inability of the lead pair to pretend to play one or more musical instruments
* chhuo naa chhuo naa (with a female chorus lending conviction to refrains like "the night is young, touch me, touch me" and "the night is young, look at me, look at me"): serves as the item song in the presence of the villain of the film, serves as a chance for the actor playing the villain to warble, should he choose to (and in this film, he does)

In fulfilling the need for a comic track that doesn't need to have anything to do with the rest of the film, the film manages a coup by eliciting the services of the late Laxmikant Berde to play the villain's annoying son Dodo (that's his name; I kid you not), who keeps bringing prostitutes home as prospective spouses.

tumane apane paa.Nv se utanii dhuul nahii.n u.Daayii hogii bachche jitanii daulat hamane apane haatho.n se u.Daaii hai

(Dewan to Suraj)

One of the most extended pieces of product placement ever seen in Bollywood comes for Pari Basmati Rice (YT is unsure if this is a real brand or something made up to fill reel time and space in the film). In a scene set in a godown and sporting one of Anil Dhawan's many forgettable cameos, the merits of this brand are extolled ( pure white baasamatii rice, dii best chaawal in the world) and pun-laded groan-inducing one-liners are tossed at the helpless audience within and without the film ( log to pulis kii aa.Nkho.n me.n dhuul jho.nkate hai.n magar ham pulis kii aa.Nkho.n me.n chaawal jho.nke.nge). Anil Dhawan's character Sachdeva notes that although he doesn't drink, he will definitely relish the biryani made from this rice. This serves as a cue for some verbal diarrhoea from the villain dedicated to plugging the brand:

bhuuk lage to chaa.nd bhii roTii nazar aatii hai
(haa haa haa haa haa)
aage hai zamaanaa par bhuuk piichhe piichhe
saarii duniyaa kii baadii are do roTii ke niichhe
are chama.De kii jhopaDiyaa me.n aag lagii hai bhaiyaa
barkhaa naa bujhaaye bas bujhaaye rupaiyaa
aur phir bhii bhare na peT
to yaad aatii hai yaaro.n parii rice plate

Arun Govil might rank second only to Parikshit Sahni in playing characters who are destined to die in the course of a film. He does not disappoint here as he plays the world-weary Devdhar, who pulls out a tuft of hair from a goon's head near the opening of the film and then meets his end several reels later when a truck runs him over. It is probably only when this happens that we find out what his character's name is. His dying nonsense about living an empty life, however, seems like an unnecessary attempt at character development too late in the game. This is Arun Govil. He was meant to die. No words are necessary.

Director Sameer Malkan, writers Rajeev Kaul and Praful Parekh and dialogue writer Madan Joshi seem to have decided to devote all their creative attention to the villain of the piece, Pilot Baba, a name that came from the desire of his father, an airplane mechanic, that he become a pilot. Pilot Baba never managed to learn to fly planes (hawaaii jahaaz u.Daanaa), but managed to earn his chops bumping people off (aadamii u.Daanaa). Amrish Puri plays Pilot Baba with hammy relish right from his introductory scene in a cemetery on a rainy day. Dressed in a pilot's uniform (something that never changes until the end of the film), he looks on as a guy digs his own grave. When the guy protests that it's not right to bury a living man, Pilot Baba settles the issue with cold logic and a fatal bullet and then mouths the first of many snatches of dialogue laced with aerodynamic references: hamaare take-off me.n rukaavaT paidaa karane waale kaa yahii hashr hotaa hai kyo.n ki pilot baabaa kii flight me.n kabhii brake nahii.n lagatii. When one of his aides, who wears a red jacket in what might be an unintentional tribute to the phenomenon unleashed by the original Star Trek, is found to be guilty of betrayal, Pilot Baba snuffs him out and intones usane gaddaarii kii isaliye pilot baabaa ne usakii zi.ndagii kaa engine switch off kar Daalaa . Two of his other metaphor-laden lines appear later, one when referring to Inspector Varun Saxena (Vinod Khanna) (usane mere gusse ke gas station ko maachis dikhaayii hai) and the other when talking to Dewan (Danny) ( chalo mere saath fauran waranaa mai.n usake puliis sTeshan par bulldozer chalaakar use runway banaa duu.Ngaa).

It is with Pilot Baba that this film strikes gold. Aside from that, the iTrans-friendly title and a vertigo zoom in the final moments, this presentation from the JVG Group (which also manages to sneak a shot of its office in the film) suffers for focusing on the clichés instead of the camp.

it's much better to be in india for interesting hindi movies

The recently revamped tridium of Galaxy Cinemas seems to have decided not to exploit the multi in multiplex. While multiplexes back home have allowed films like Johnny Gaddar, Manorama Six Feet Under and Loins Of Punjab Presents to breathe at the marquee, the Atlanta tridium of sub-grade desii viewing stalls continues to rely on big names and standard business patterns to choose filmi fare for viewers willing to shell out $$ to sit in passable seats laid out in a cavernous viewing hall with a sound system that barely meets the minimum statutory requirements. The recent playlist includes such memorable fare as Dhol, Dhamaal and, of course, the releases for this week, Bhool Bhulaiya and Laaga Chunari Mein Daag. Gone are the days when something like Darna Mana Hai would hit the marquee or when something like Ek Hasina Thi would show up at the now-defunct Marietta Star Cinema.

vishal bhardwaj's next: julia

The "?" from the last post about this film may well be laid to rest. Vishal and Matthew Robbins were spotted in West Bengal scouting locations for Julia. Since he's signed on Franka "Lola" Potente for his docu-drama Julia, can we assume that this is the songless film he was talking about (link courtesy: LL) and not the musical he co-wrote (link courtesy: LL) with Matthew Robbins?

On an unrelated note: The wonderful soundtrack No Smoking, his latest collaboration with Gulzar and his second effort for Anurag Kashyap has been released and is as addictive a stimulant as the villain of Kashyap's film.

a momentary lapse into literature

Thanks to samples from Aranyak, I now have another poet's work to explore -- Constantine P. Cavafy. The official website dedicated to his life and work offers his canon for perusal. Here are a few samples.

And he thinks of Prudence, how it fooled him,
how he always believed—what madness—
that cheat who said: "Tomorrow. You have plenty of time."
from An Old Man

A month passes by and brings another month.
Easy to guess what lies ahead:
all of yesterday’s boredom.
And tomorrow ends up no longer like tomorrow.
from Monotony

In trepidation and amid suspicions,
with agitated minds and frightened eyes, —
wasting away, — we plan how we should act
in order to escape the obvious peril
that so calamitously threatens us
from Ended

when will the drums signal curtains for priyadarshan?

[last post in thread]

La gazza General returns to his pilfering ways with Dhol his newest stinker that hit theatres on Friday. His treasure chest is the ouevre of writing duo Siddique-Lal, which has previously yielded raw material for Hera Pheri (Ramji Rao Speaking), Hulchul (Godfather) and Bhagam Bhag (Mannar Mathai Speaking). He unearths In Harihar Nagar and proceeds to effect his own transformation, even though the path was already charted in the early 90s with Parda Hai Parda by K Bapaiah, the maker of such influential works as Mawaali, Majaal and Pyar Ka Mandir. That plagiarist duo Anand-Milind from Parda Hai Parda are replaced by the solo entrepreneur Pritam might be an indication that Priyadarshan might have chosen Bapaiah's effort instead of going straight to the source.

the spelling bee stings cobb again

The Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre only proves that the use of British spelling was not an anomaly. Perhaps there's something in Cobb's legislation. After all, they banned peanuts and peanut butter in Nickajack Elementary School.

another little lift in zinda

A connection was forged between Darren Aronofsky and Sanjay Gupta thanks to the familiar Bollywood practice of appropriation without credit. The lounge version of Shibani Kashyap's zi.ndaa huu.N mai.n on the soundtrack for Zinda featured a male voice that ran through a list of medical treatments, which, presumably, given the content of the film, seemed like topical balderdash. The gnawing feeling that this had also come from something in Sanjay Gupta's DVD collection never went away. I wasn't wrong. The phrase in question (beta blockers, calcium channel blockers, adrenaline injections, high-dose ibuprofen) comes from Aronofsky's Sundance winner Pi, which achieved more with a slim budget and innovative cinematography than Gupta did with the money at his disposal and the DVDs he had (this film and Oldboy).

stairway to discovery

Running through a set of covers of Led Zeppelin's Stairway to Heaven, I found a few interesting takes and names. The most interesting name would have to be that of a Norwegian cowboy orchestra -- Dusty Cowsh*t. The other one was Richard Cheese and Lounge Against the Machine. While the name of the band plays on the name of RATM, the leader's name is a pseudonym that also doubles as a slang reference to nutzerella. Every other band member's name is also a pseudonym honouring the cheese motif and when people leave the band, their replacements continue to sport the pseudonym: Gordon Brie, Buddy Gouda, Frank Feta, Bobby Ricotta. Turophiles will probably remember the grandiose exploration of cheese in the Monty Python Flying Circus Cheese Shop sketch [transcript] [youtube video].

november 26, 2007: celebration day

Page, Plant and the elusive Jones have confirmed a reunion for a gig at The O2 Arena in memory of Atlantic Records co-founder Ahmet Ertegün. Bonzo's son Jason fills the spot at the skins. Ahmet was responsible for signing Led Zeppelin on after hearing their demos, convinced that he was onto something big. In an ironic echo of Communication Breakdown, the rush of an estimated 20 million people to claim 20 thousand seats in the arena brought the concert's website to its knees.

Dancing days are here again. Dance in the dark of night as the drums shake the castle wall and sends your head humming. We're gonna groove. [link courtesy: Amogh]

rgv kii aag ke gole: why bappi was not part of this sholay

While RGV faces the greatest drubbing since Daud and Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag gets set to depart from the marquee, one burning ember of a question still glowed for a while: Why did the soundtrack not feature a single song by Bappi Lahiri despite reports to that effect having circulated a long while ago? The rechristening of the film's principal characters and the consequent scramble seemed to have been responsible. As TheThiefWhoSuedAPlagiaristAndWon notes:

When we recorded the three songs, the movie was titled 'Sholay' but then it was suddenly changed to 'Aag'. Consequently there were modifications in the song situations in the scripts and my three compositions had to be withdrawn with my consent.

Thereafter Ramu and I amicably decided that we would use the same tune-tracks maybe with altered lyrics for his upcoming movies instead, since the melodies are really mind-blowing.

One awaits the explosion of the mind, unless the narrative ruin in The Factory portends economic bankruptcy.

Bappi takes a potshot at the quartet (Amar "Silencio" Mohile, Prasanna Shekhar, Ganesh "G" Hegde and Nitin "Mughal-e-Azam" Raikwar) responsible for the songs, while also indulging in his usual brand of self-marketing and explaining why he wasn't disheartened that his songs didn't make it to the track list:

because I have had a golden jubilee musical super-hit 'Aag Hi Aag' way back in 1987. On the flip side, I feel this exclusion was a blessing in disguise. Honestly speaking, I was not comfortable sharing my composing credits in the movie 'Aag' with those who are not the regular top-ranking music directors

We must also not forget the other fiery flick, Aag Ka Gola, which saw Bappi in fine form delivering songs like taubaa re taubaa haaye mere rabbaa ye kyaa Gazab kiyaa/jisako banaanaa thaa la.Dakii usako la.Dakaa banaa diyaa, sharaab chiiz hai burii, sharaab piinaa chho.D de and aayaa aayaa wo aayaa, a rip-off of the Hasan Jahangir hit hawaa hawaa ai hawaa. Such are the gifts we must cherish while we await the first(?) partnership between the self-deprecating maverick and the megalithic musicaster.

pluralist pleasure

[last related post]

The word data has been losing its status as a plural noun steadily. The last place I remember seeing a determined attempt to stop this descent was in the textbooks from Ullman, Widom and Molina at Stanford University. A fragment in Who's afraid of Google?, which appeared in the September 1st-7th issue of The Economist (the dead trees version of which came thanks to VKG's subscription), however, seems to indicate that the battle is still on:

Google's business model [...] assumes that people will entrust it with ever more information about their lives, to be stored in the company's "cloud" of remote computers. These data begin with the logs of a user's searches (in effect, a record of his interests) and his responses to advertisements. Often they extend to the user's e-mail, calendar, contacts, documents, spreadsheets, photos and videos. They could soon include even the user's medical records and precise location (determined from his mobile phone).

whacko titles

In 2005, Shravan Rathod (the right hand side of the hyphenated Bollywood soundtrack generating entity Nadeem-Shravan) decided to produce a movie along with Tabun Sutradhar (he whose dil went hello how are you). The leads were Aditi Sharma and Sarwar Ahuja, joint winners at a 2004 talent and TRP hunt conducted by Zee TV to unearth the stars of the future. It's been a long time since July 25, 2005. The two managed to hit the silver screen with Khanna and Iyer. But there seems to be hope for what would have been their screen début vehicle with music by Tabun and Shravan's plagiarising progeny Sanjeev and Darshan. Unfortunately, perhaps because it's helmed by Basu Chatterjee, the film's been rechristened to the innocuous Kuch Khatta Kuch Meetha, making it the male twin of that Rahul Rawail howler based on The Parent Trap. The original title offered more promise than this film is destined to: Ek Ladki Bholi Bhali Si - Adds Spice To Your Life.

johnny gaddaar: the retro vibe continues

A special trailer's been cut for the title track on Sriram Raghavan's crime caper Johnny Gaddaar and you can catch it over at PFC. The teaser opened with a snarl from the Vijay Anand classic Johnny Mera Naam; the trailer opens with a John Wayne voice bit from McClintok!. It uses Mumbai Mirror headlines to great effect -- they serve as narrative hints as well as marketing blitz. The name of the James Hadley Chase novel's also clear now -- The Whiff Of Money -- and it's quite appropriate. Oz has a post loaded with a pointer to the ultra-cool poster as well as a video of the launch of the mini-disc bearing the sole single (that's Walk Don't Run by The Ventures you hear in the opening of the segment). A speech bit indicates that Sriram Raghavan shares Hitchcock's idea of suspense.

The Big Music CD cover uses red instead of yellow and red dominates the theme in the sleeve and inlay. Releasing singles is a great innovation for soundtracks; the last one-song soundtrack album I remember was Tathastu (discounting the remix of the sole qawwaalii composed by Vishal-Shekhar), but the T-Series CD release padded the disc with other tracks in its kitty from the same genre.

Shankar, Ehsaan and Loy have also notched another record by snagging a stake in the royalties for the soundtrack. Ehsaan notes that there are 4 tracks in all (not counting remixes) including a track featuring Hard Kaur.

The title track has an adventurous melody founded on an extremely catchy riff and some nice delicate flourishes on the cymbals and a strong aggressive beat along with chords punched out on the trusty electric guitar. Akriti Kakkar's been a Himesh regular. Suraj Jagan's the more interesting one. Those lucky enough to own or to have heard the unsung Ranjit Barot soundtrack for Brides Wanted will remember the voice on the song zi.ndagii. Reportedly, he used to be the lead vocalist in the Indian rock band Krysis and later (in a second coming) was part of Chakraview; I remember Chakraview for their Marathi rocker aalaa sherapaa zhapaaTalelaa. The band was led by guitarist Dhruv Ghanekar, who's better known for his soundtrack collaborations with Ashutosh Pathak (Bombay Boys, White Noise, Mera Pehla Pehla Pyar aka MP3). The drummer on the track, Darshan Doshi, who has also featured on the soundtracks of Black and Sarkar, is Ranjit Barot's student and a Limca Book record holder. Small world.

It's been a long journey since the first notes in 2005 about the film, the change of guard from UTV to Adlabs along with the hint that the "only two songs" in the film, which were "remixed numbers" might be recorded by Vishal Bhardwaj, the possibility of having a soundtrack from Vishal-Shekhar or from Sandesh Shandilya (who was an early choice).

Time to return to the SEL groove with Jaideep Sahni's loopy lyrics: chhoTii-sii zi.ndagii gaharii-sii jeb hai / baaqii to jaan-e-man baato.n ke seb hai.n [nit: as AJ notes, Suraj Jagan incorrectly ends the first line with a hai.n instead of a hai].

[september 08, 2007]: The vibe continues on the wonderful portal for the film -- that zipper reminds me of the cover of Sticky Fingers.

smoking!

The trailer for Anurag Kashyap's surreal No Smoking is up over at PFC. Travis Bickle, Mark Renton, Bob Fosse, Richard Morrison, Josef K and more. Eagerly awaited. It's also my first peek into the lyrical web that Gulzar's woven for the film thanks to jab bhii cigarette jalatii hai, which has Adnan Sami doing the honours as club crooner -- wouldn't this mark the first collaboration between Sami and Vishal? A Vishal interview elsewhere indicates that there are five songs on the soundtrack including a Bipasha Basu item number. An old post hereabouts has more on the other songs.

elsewhere on PFC: The No Smoking Diary

the beast of yucca flats: man's inhumanity to man

In this film that marked the beginning of the abysmal oeuvre of cult filmmaker Coleman Francis, Tor Johnson, a Swedish wrestler and one of the many lucky people to star in Plan 9 From Outer Space, plays a Soviet scientist Joseph Javorsky, who has defected to the United States. Fleeing from some KGB assassins with a briefcase presumably full of Russian military secrets, he wanders into the desert (supposed to be Nevada, given that it's supposed to Yucca Flats) close to a nuclear test site; as a reward for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, he is transformed into a beast. The film then explores the familiar arc laced with victims, a hunt and the eventual death of the monster (complete with a hint that there was some good left in him by having him kiss a passing bunny before breathing his last).

As an added bonus, he also gets to be the only person in the film to have his lips seen on screen when mouthing dialogue (growls, to be precise). The film was filmed as a silent movie with all the aural attributes looped. Given that money was not really a key contributor to this film, all the scenes are filmed so that there was no problem synchronising audio to picture -- you never see someone's face when he/she is speaking, you never see firearms fire (you only hear sounds), you don't even see the tips of the guns.

Augmenting the experience of viewing this low-budget wonder are the pre-credit sequence and the terse, omniscient, redundant voice-over narration, whose script comes close to being an aural equivalent of the inter-titles in silent movies.

The film opens with a sop for those that patronised such B-movies in return for some salacious goodies: accompanied by the eerie (yet rather effective) diegetic ticking of a clock, a woman emerges from the shower. After she has treated viewers to a nip slip, the dame's subsequently strangled to death by a mysterious pair of large hands and laid to rest on her bed. Even though those hands look like Tor's, there is nothing to prove that this sequence has anything whatsoever to do with the rest of the film.

The pièce de résistance is the narration that mixes socio-philosophical commentary with irony and combines prolixity and a Hemingway-esque style to produce a collection featuring riffs on progress:

Vacation time. Man and wife. Unaware of scientific progress.

Joe Dobson. Caught in the wheels of progress.

Another man caught in the frantic race for the betterment of mankind. Progress.

Boys from the city. Not yet caught in the whirlwind of progress.

notes on cause and effect:

Touch a button. Things happen. A scientist becomes a beast.

A man runs. Somebody shoots him.

notes on social habits:

Vacation time. People travel east. West. North or south. The Radcliffs travel east, with two small boys, adventurous boys. Nothing bothers some people. Not even Flying Saucers.

There's an argument to be made for the intent of the voiceover and it's interesting to see the similarity to silent movie inner-titles, but it's hard to keep a straight face listening to short bursts of words that distract you from the surreal speechless low-budget action on the screen.

Having relished this shorter-than-an-hour challenge to science (radioactive fallout can lead to necrophilia in large heavy men) or family norms (kids are extremely stupid and annoying, can't really figure out when they're lost and don't have a clue about caves), one is keen to explore the other gems in Coleman's canon (some of which even made the grade on MST3K)

new contribution to the song of the fortnight: aayegaa mere sapano.n kaa raajaa / Kaun? Kaise?

{previous post in thread}

At long last, another new article of mine has surfaced on the Panchammagic Song of the Fortnight page:

aayegaa mere sapano.n kaa raajaa / film: Kaun? Kaise? (1983) / lyrics: Gulshan Bawra
In the prelude, Pancham builds up harmonies around a vocal refrain (pam-param-pam) in three sections, each containing two renditions of this refrain accompanied by a IV-V chord progression. The first section has the bass (in the lower register) and the female chorus (in the higher register) playing in octaves accompanied by arpeggios from an electric guitar with a flanger. Another female chorus line enters in the second section to provide a two-part harmony with the thirds. Asha is heard in the third section adding the final line for a three-part harmony with a two note fifth/third descending part. The last segment continues as electronic percussion and the hi-hat enter. A short phrase on the bass introduces the string section. A short run on the strings, accompanied by a tap on the cymbal, closes the prelude accompanied by a IV-I progression.... [more]

[PS: The article gets a more permanent archive URL once a new post goes up; I'll update this post when that happens]

indian ocean in atlanta: august 17, 2007

They're finally coming to Atlanta courtesy Vibha and the IIT South East Alumni Association. More details here. There are hopes of hearing tracks from their soundtrack for Shoonya. If you're a resident of the sprawl, hesitate no more. Grab yourself a ticket.

elsewhere in the past: A review of the Black Friday soundtrack.

partner: boregasmic boeotian waste of time

David Dhawan's "adaptation" of Hitch has unfortunately served only a reminder of the excruciating time I had watching the original. It even makes that piece of rejectamenta look like a masterpiece in modern romantic comedies. How hopeful I was that the manic electric hyperactive low-brow Govinda had returned to deliver the belly splits. Alas, Sanjay Chhel ain't Anees Bazmee and Salman Khan hogs most of the footage. Govinda, sadly, turns in a performance that shows with its effort and grates enough that you'd want to institute a rehabilitation programme just to remind him of how hollow a shell he has become of his former self. On the lass front, Lara Dutta turns in the most bearable performance, while the PG-rated vacuous Katrina Kaif competes with nails scratching a blackboard. Rajpal Yadav's chhoTaa Don is an unfunny appendage that competes with Uday Chopra's footage in Dhoom 2 for incongruity and induced exasperation. It would be a threat to one's blood pressure to even begin to revisit the formidable weapon of torture to the senses represented by the pipsqueak playing Lara Dutta's child. The dialogues are loaded with the kind of triple and quadruple rhymes that have inundated other successful moronic attempts at humour as Garam Masala, Kya Kool Hain Hum, Masti and No Entry.

There are precious pearls that might have worked in a film that didn't seem to want to try and be a respectable middle-brow affair instead of the basket of street-smart silliness that it should have been: jisakaa pyaar ho backbone to tuu kaun aur mai.n kaun, agar wo qaabil hai to tuu kaabulii chanaa hai, dhuup me.n isakaa chashmaa banuu.Ngaa baarish me.n isakaa chhaataa and there's only one thing i cannot stand it's a one night stand. Sajid-Wajid's peppy songs are the only things to survive this mess and the rest of the film is a bus ride in ennui in slow motion from one song-and-dance sequence to the next. One begins to long for the Govinda of Shola aur Shabnam, Aankhen, Coolie No. 1 and Raja Babu, when, as if on cue, Govinda's character in the film broke into a spectacular Taporii dance as sarakaaii lyo khaTiyaa began playing on the music system. It's a sad day when the best thing in a Govinda film is the sight of Govinda hanging it loose to a song from his better days. The other moment (when Salman Khan spoofs his ready-to-strip-waist-up image at airport security) is marred only by the fact that the film plays the joke several times before this point.

The narrative wears its incoherence on its sleeve as each plot point pops up as either a non sequitur or a reeking cliché. Even playing the products-and-names game (Bournvita, Pizza Hut, XBox 360, the Times Of India) gets unexciting pretty soon. The Scholarly Subtitle Staff continue to transcend new nadirs of grammatical correctness, homophonic consistency and translational liberty: journalist becomes generalist and names get mangled several times over. Govinda's character's name (Bhaskar) services several excursions into double entendre and even supports a reference to Hrishikesh Mukherjee's Anand. There's a promising dig at the special fondness for boys among priests. There's also the obligatory Sholay reference for the brains that have survived the pounding. Such sops are hardly sufficient to save this sinking ship.

The reincarnation of monty oberoi: surroor reborn

[last sneeze in this thread]

According to news items tumultuously laced for shock value, the most successful Nose of South-East Asia is all set to reprise Rishi Kapoor's role in the Satish Kaushik-helmed remake of Subhash Ghai's 1980 "adaptation" of The Reincarnation of Peter Proud, Karz (here's an old note about its "haunted" theme). After playing himself in his wildly successful début as a leading man with protection, Aap Kaa Surroor - The Moviee - The Real Luv Story, the "Michael Jackson of India" (a moniker more appropriately associated with the boneless dance-floor wiz, Prabhu Deva), He Who Shall Not Shave returns in a version of his rock star persona (Sniffle Stardust?). In a way it is an appropriate film for him to be associated with: after all, is it a coincidence that the name of his biggest hit Aashiq Banaya Aapne appears in the lyric of the Rafi song dard-e-dil? (refresher: pahale to mai.n shaayar thaa / aashiq banaayaa aap ne)

In the absence of He Who Refuses To Reveal His Hairstyle, Satish Kaushik nimbly takes over the responsibilities of generating self-aggrandising gas:

on the choice for Simi Garewal's role: It has to be [sic] lady with a great grace, poise, mystique and seductive quality living alone in this secluded mansion. I've to find someone who fits the bill fast. (try Sylvia Kristel or Georgina Spelvin)

on rumours that Ravi Verma (Raj Kiran) and Monty Oberoi (Rishi Kapoor) will be modified to a double role for He Who Was Unveiled In Ajmer: No. We'll have another actor for the first role, while Himesh will play the character reborn as a rock star. I'll try to stick to the spirit of Subhash Ghai's film as much as possible. What a film that was! Will I be able to do justice to it? (Hint: No)

on what made him qualified for the job: I think it was the way I filmed those lavish songs and dances in Roop Ki Rani Choron Ki Raja. Karz requires a lot of on-stage direction. (whatever that means)

DOA: the national film awards for 2005

After rumours and a stay order, the National Awards for 2005 (aka the 53rd) are finally official. No changes in the roll call and the smell of stale milk is faint. The official rants about Black can begin, although, at this point, everyone has probably moved on to bigger fish. There's a PDF with the complete list for those who'd just prefer the chase and not the chaff.

The coolest entry in the list, however, is one that's likely to get missed by most. The eminently readable entertaining erudite Baradwaj Rangan wins the Award for Best Film Critic (as the citation goes "for intelligent and reader-friendly reviews of popular cinema with a depth of understanding of the form, a discernible passion for the medium bulwarked consistently by a knowledge of the trends and
touchstones of global cinema"). Damn! He also won at the 2006 Indibloggies. Way to go, BR!

update [august 13, 2007]: Apparently, the winners haven't received official word that they've won. There's also an interesting note in that news item about a news channel declaring, some years ago, that Vishal had won an award for the screenplay of Maqbool. Alas, unlike the awards for Raveena Tandon and Anil Kapoor, this one was not to be.

it's not the age, it's the mileage

It's good to know they still write lines like that. Step over to PFC the unveiling of the exclusive trailer for Sriram "Ek Hasina Thi" Raghavan's finally-set-for-release flick Johnny Gaddar. Lovely pulpy titles, a host of great names on the roster (Vinay Pathak, Zakir Hussain, Dharmendra), a new face (Neil Nitin Mukesh, son of Nitin Mukesh and hence grandson of the late Mukesh) and a lovely theme on the background (I'm not sure if credit is due to background music man Daniel George -- is this the Daniel B George responsible for the wonderful soundtrack for Sehar? -- or music directors Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy?). Fans of heist flicks, Quentin Tarantino, Guy Ritchie and Matthew Vaughn will feel right at home. The vibes are good and hopes are high.

If someone can figure out the name of that James Hadley Chase novel seen briefly in the clip, drop a comment on this post or drop me a line.

Cash: the music: it's a gas

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

black friday, devdas, onir and a palanquin for a bad song

last post in this thread

There's an interesting thread over at the PFC portal with second thoughts about Black Friday. Now that the film has finally made it to the marquee (sans requisite fanfare, one might add) and even to DVD (as quietly as could be), the hype's had time to die.

Mr. Kashyap, meanwhile, is all set to take Abhay Deol's idea of a contemporary version of Sarat Chandra Chatterjee's Devdas with Dev.D. His post on PFC offers a sample of the usual interesting unease he was greeted with as he bounced the idea off various people in the industry. Some more information about the film may be found here and here.

Onir (My Brother Nikhil, Bas Ek Pal) inaugurates his space on PFC.

And finally, in order to prevent this post from being a PFC springboard, let me direct your attention to a fine discovery of a bellyache-inducing compositional flourish called when hiir sat in the Dolii. It's from a 1993 film called Raunaq (has anyone seen a DVD anywhere?). It's a familiar Punjabi ditty on a surreal linguistic romp. [link courtesy: TDQ]

[july 13, 2007]: Holy Double Feature! Santosh Sivan opens his space on PFC with an extended introductory flashback.

ghutan: breathe easy or die laughing

[cross-posted on the Passion For Cinema blog]

tum dono.n ne use zi.ndaa kabr me.n dafanaakar ek ghuTan-bharii maut dii hai; aur ab tum log is khulii hawaa kii har saa.Ns me.n har pal ghuTan mahasuus karoge
(father james/ amit shankar)

Before they clashed at the boundary of life and undeath in this Ramsay flick, Aryan Vaid and Heena Rehman already had Fun - Can Be Dangerous Sometime in common. Since Payal Rohatgi featured in the cast of that film, it is safe to assume that it wasn't a complex layered film that intelligently explored the shifting dynamic of human relationships.

you devilish devil to the blood
(father james / amit shankar)

Heena Rehman having learnt from her dismal début in I Proud To Be Indian was quite happy swapping her husband, played by Aryan Vaid, with Siddharth Koirala. Acting as a pouting, piano-pumping spouse who gets bumped off by her husband and returns to haunt him and the audience was a natural step forward.

it's loud and clear in the pages of Holy Bible ... ki marane ke baad ruuh jism me.n daakhil nahii.n ho sakatii; it's anti-Christ
(father james / amit shankar)

Aryan Vaid's oeuvre sports an element of confusion. Mixed with movies like the husband-swapping excursion just noted, Chaahat: Ek Nasha and Market are endeavours like Makrand Deshpande's Danav. There's still a conflict of desire: to be an actor or a buffed toned B-movie staple. But the singular quality that might prove useful for Mr. Vaid in years to come is his resemblance to Arun "VikRam" Govil. The day will come when a biopic is dedicated to the life and career of the man who could play Lord Rama, King Vikram, ill-fated police inspectors (like Inspector Deodhar in Dhaal) or elder brothers and even a mute (Himmatwala). Until then Mr. Vaid can thrive on the loyal following for movies like the suffocating subject of this post.

wo ghuT-ghuT ke marii hai; wo hame.n ghuTan-bharii maut degii
(priyaa / pooja bharti)

While Keshu and Tulsi have moved out to production, Shyam Ramsay continues to take the Ramsay horror train forward. His latest scripted/directed effort Ghutan offers enough chortles from its comfortable opening to the final credit, its[sic] RAMSAY entertainment, which fades to black as a church bell tolls. Fans of Bollywood's First Family of horror will be disappointed by the low coefficient of skin (just some bareback work from Heena Rehman and Pooja Bharti) and the almost complete absence of the incongruous song-n-dance breaks. There are other things that persist, however: The lack of anything remotely scary, the absence of any attempt to invest money in sets that look realistic and the insistence on reusing familiar elements (sudden visitations, a lass in a bathtub being dragged under, an exploding bed) in a most unimaginative fashion.

you're a blind man; your eyes are open; but you see nothing
(father james / amit shankar)

Shyam Ramsay wastes no time by opening the film with a minivan approaching the gates of a cemetery. Womaniser Ravi Kapoor and his like-minded friend Jaggi are here to bury Ravi's wife Catherine. After some drama and exposition, it is evident that she ain't quite dead yet. The solution: coerce her into the coffin, strangle her close to death and drop in a torch for company (mai.n chaahataa huu.N tum apanii maut roshanii me.n dekho). Despite all the ghoulish looks and shoddy mise-en-scène, the scariest moment comes when you hear a background female vocal that sounds suspiciously like Anuradha Paudwal.

Ravi and Catherine spend most of their screen time together tossing abuses at each other. He calls her a bitch (even refers to her as such in her absence) and she calls him a bastard. The smart subtitling department, known for raising the ante of obscenity for innocuous dialogue, decides to pay tribute to Thomas Bowdler here. After all, they figured, only the hearing impaired were going to watch this film. So bitch becomes fool, idiot or woman, while bastard becomes scoundrel.

tum hii ho na? jo ravii ko roz (beat) roz ek nayii la.Dakii supply karataa hai? ... you bloody supplier!
(Catherine / heena rehman)

Mr. Ramsay is not interested in exploring the dynamics of inter-faith marriages. He is, however, keen on exploiting the rich Goan/Christian stereotype. He does this using the supporting cast: there's Catherine's faithful maid Nancy, who gets to scream, witness a murder, walk around drenched in shadow and gloom, get possessed and, as the flying leaping lunging screaming clawing launching Nancy, participate in some of the worst wire stunts in recent times; she even gets to pound her legs furiously against the ground accompanied by the electronic sound sample used for punches in video games. Then there's Catherine's uncle Tom NoLastName (played by Gufi Paintal), who doesn't have too much to do except insist that he always compared Ravi to a rotten apple and fake the clichéd Goan/Christian talk spouting axioms like are tum jaanataa hai na ki jab inasaan God ko pyaaraa ho jaataa hai tabiich candle jalataa hai?.

The film's leading lady Heena Rehman has a lot to do: she has to dress in seductive black, look sad and lonely, play Anu Malik's favourite chord progressions on the piano using actions that would lead you to believe she was doing push-ups, lie on her back quoting poetry by Mirza Zaafar Ali 'Hasrat' ( tumhe.n Gairo.n se kab furasat / ham apane Gam se kab Kaalii / chalo ab ho chukaa milanaa / na ham Kaalii na tum Kaalii) and in the next shot vent her frustrations to the calm Father James. After being buried alive during the opening credits, she appears to break free just like Beatrix Kiddo did in Kill Bill 2's The Lonely Grave of Paula Schultz, only to discover that she's merely experiencing a post-death out-of-body experience. The conversation between her and Father James on the subject of her reuniting with her body features some sparkles of dialogue (including some of that old first-English-then-Hindi business) and ghastly grammar:

Father James: Galatii se bhii ye Galatii mat karanaa waranaa tabaahii aa jaayegii
Catherine : why father why? why can't I enter my body?
Father James: because it's against nature; ye kudrat ke Kilaaf hai; ek baar ruuh ne jism kaa saath chho.D diyaa to jism miTTii ho jaataa hai aur aatmaa parawaaz; agar tuune apane jism me.n dobaaraa daakhil hone kii koshish kii to teraa jism zi.ndaa to ho jaayegaa par tuu inasaan nahii.n shaitaan ban jaayegii; an evil; a living dead

Shortly after this, Catherine's spirit heads to the cemetery screaming "I want my body! I want my body!", echoing the thoughts of the few drooling dudes in the nearly empty theatre that may have dared to screen this film.

Although Amit Shankar imbues Father James with a quiet calm reading and manages a good imitation of Sanjeev Kumar with the angry dilated eyes look, he still can't help sticking to that silly "an evil" bit throughout the film. "An evil what/who?" remains unanswered. He also lends the character's authenticity a much-needed kick in the rump by taking the Lord's name in vain. The other bit player who lends his role some gravitas is Shahbaaz Khan who plays the investigating officer Inspector Shaukat Khan. Most other players are limited to ephemeral appearances: Himani Shivpuri as Priya's mother, a well-dressed widow spouting the usual "your father left behind only debt for us" nonsense) and the randomly introduced Professor Siddarth Nath Bhattacharya, who vanishes after delivering one of the film's most promising lines.

is ulajhan ko sulajhaane ke liye ek gaharii concentration kii zaruurat hai
(Professor Siddharth Nath Bhattacharya)

As the film draws to a close with our lead pair back in the cemetery, you realise that you haven't seen a single song-n-dance sequence. As if to make amends, music director Vishwanath Dixit unleashes one of his creations upon us. The plaintive female voice (Alka Yagnik) belting out what proves to the title song offers a howlarious complement to Aryan Vaid racing to Catherine's grave in slow motion. It's not as funny as what Steven Soderbergh did with Berlin's Take My Breath Away in Ocean's Eleven, but it will have to do. If you manage to sit through all this, don't miss the end credits, which give the title song a chance to breathe again. It's part of that rare breed of film songs that drop crucial plot hints (in this case, the ending) and make for a poor listening experience, if you haven't watched the movie:

ye merii kabr me.n mujhako dafanaa diyaa
dekh phir bhii tujhe mai.nne apanaa liyaa

jo thii merii ghuTan ab hai terii ghuTan
(ghuTan hii ghuTan hai ghuTan hii ghuTan) * 3

remembering the boss

[the post from last year]

On his 68th birth anniversary, the first thing one notes is the number of articles online paying tribute to the late great Rahul Dev Burman aka Pancham. One of the longest threads on RMIM (courtesy: Vinay) also ends up (fortuitously) discussing the numbers (useful when you get into debates comparing Pancham and the other great musical directors of yore).

It's been a long while since a compilation CD hit the stands with some of his minor works dusted and cleaned. It's not too much fun to take solace in MP3s ripped off vinyl by considerate fans. There's a certain glee in seeing that bespectacled cheerful enthusiastic face staring back at you on a spanking new CD on the shelves (not to mention the private ego boost at being the only one in the store to not just recognise the songs listed but also to have sat through the reeling wrecks that didn't really deserve them). But the day also makes listening to the scattered nuggets in his ouevre and marvel at the creative verve that makes them shine: the frenetic electric guitar giving way to a crooning Asha Bhosle in a.ndheraa a.ndheraa (from Rani Mera Naam); less-heard mujaraas like aap aaye GariibaKaane (from Sitara) and raajaa ke a.nganaa (from Yaar Meri Zindagi); the unreleased kisii Gariib ke dil se (from Sitamgar), the best song (perhaps) that Shailendra Singh ever sang; the creative hubris of ek hasiin gulabadan (from Karishma); the energy of sharaabii aa.Nkhe.n (from Madhosh); jaa re jaa mai.n tose na boluu.N (from Mr. Romeo), perhaps Pancham's only foray (ironically, given his nickname) into jhap taal... mahafil kaa ye ra.ng na TuuTe jab tak subah na ho. The list could go on. You've been gone over 13 years now, Pancham, but there's still a lot to cherish and discover in your musical legacy. Here's hoping that the fruit of your adventures in song survives the spate of Revivals and Rare Gems compilations and finds a host of new listeners. A high five to the sultan of song.

wo jinakii na_ii hai ye duniyaa, ma.nzil hai na_ii
piichhe nahii.n dekhaa karate mu.D\-mu.D ke kabhii
sajate hii chale jaate hai.n jiivan kii galii

bag of links: Rishi Kapoor talks about how much Pancham's music contributed to his image | The debt the remix crowd owes him | Gulshan Bawra's reminiscences hosted on indiaFM and the TOI.

The TOI version of Bawra's flashback includes an interesting note about the compilation that I've heard mentioned (perhaps at the PanchamMagic shows):

Then suddenly, in 1994, there was a void. So, I took out all the tapes of our dummy song recordings, which also included our informal conversations, arguments, fights and jokes, and began hearing them. Everytime I miss him, I take out the tapes and listen to them. Aur aankhon mein aasoo aa jate hai," recalls Gulshan.

It was these chats and recordings that gave Gulshan the idea to compile these moments into an album. A unique album that comprises not only R D Burman's classics, but also actual conversations between R D and Gulshan, the creative clashes the two had while making songs and a whole bunch of trivia on Pancham Da.

That's a CD worth looking forward to, if the snatches from the sessions for mai.n huu.N lily (Bond 303) the alternative melody for ruup teraa mastaanaa from the sittings for pyaar hame.n kis mo.D pe (Satte Pe Satta) are any indication.

attack of the animated surroor

[many caps taken off in acknowledgement of JR's early announcement explaining the strange image I saw in news articles]

Since we last mentioned the protean agony incumbent upon us courtesy He-Who-Sings-From-The-Nose, His Mucorrhoeal Vanity has decided to unleash his nasal nuke upon the cherubic promise of the next generation as well. In a supposedly creatively innovative move, He-Maize and his director/comrade-in-ears Prussian Cheddar have found a way to attack the sensitive ingenuous eyes and ears of children using a cartoon featuring the Nose's animated alter ego, HR2 (the second human resource?). The pain of listening to a remix of a passionately snorted ye teraa meraa milanaa is offset by ghastly sights of budding love, synchronised toon dancing, bottle juggling and generous shots of one of the ugliest bearded caricatures in recent toon history. Thanks to the proliferation of information aided by technology, this travesty of techology is available for your viewing pleasure on YouTube. Watch, weep or wrawl. When, according to the Gospel according to Matthew (Chapter 19, verse 14), Jesus famously said "Suffer little children, and forbid them not to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven." he used the word suffer to mean permit; the barbate bellwether needs to get his Bible right. Teach your children well. Don't mishear his mayhem.

collateral damaged: the killer

A modified version appears on Desicritics.org

I submit that the core appeal of The Killer (in which we give you the pioneering rip-off of Michael Mann's Collateral by the Dhaaper Duo of Hasnain Hyderabadwala and Raksha Mistry and not the John Woo classic) lies in how subliminally Irrfan and Zakir Hussain seem to be undermining every pore of Emraan Hashmi's being on film. Listen carefully to the dialogues and you might walk away from this farce with a smile of satisfaction. While the Liplocking Loser preens, pretends to drive a taxi and offers enough proof that he's as capable of acting as men are of giving birth, Irrfan and Zakir Hussain deliver their bits with paycheque-earning delicious slices of stoked ham.

Zakir Hussain's interpretation of JABBAR (the capital letters come from the strange choice of case in the middle of a newspaper headline seen in the movie) derives from all the footage of Brando's egoistically extravagant contribution as Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now combined with the axiom that just being in the same frame as Emraan Hashmi would beat standing in the middle of the dumping ground at Deonar. Irrfan's character, since it's based on one of the two main characters in Mann's original, gets some help from the writer's department. Hyderabadwala and Mistry take the prevailing Vincent, rechristen him as the strong Vikram, give him a passport in the name of Roopchand Swaroopchand, confer upon him a varied taste in music (Begum Akhtar, Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, remixes), an interest in urdu poetry and even give Irrfan a chance to sing (which, in keeping with the character, would invite responses like "aaj gaane kii zid naa karo"). Did I mention that the two things his smart-talking wisecrack-spouting Intel Centrino Duo-using contract killer doesn't like are garamii kaa mahiinaa aur A/C me.n pasiinaa? The aforementioned laptop is also the victim of the most egregious bit of product placement in a while. It's bad enough that you can read and figure out what laptop it is; what's worse is that the filmmakers choose to cater to the reading-impaired market (the grotesque subtitles cater to the hearing-impaired cognitively dysfunctional segment of the populace) by giving Hashmi's character the subtle line " Intel Centrino Duo; Good Choice."

Which brings us to Hashmi himself. His presence in the film is assurance that Bollywood refuses to abandon its desire to make the "star" (a term loosely applied lest it offend reasonably good-looking and more deserving peons in government offices around the country) more important than the character. Hashmi plays a cab driver (first gulp) named Nikhil Joshi (second gulp). The name has no bearing on what are essentially the same rabbits jumping out of the same rejected magic hat that he peddles for his multitude of adoring fans. The effeminate woman-abusing platypus is rewarded by the writers with an annoying pet phrase ("correct boluu.N?") and invocations like "e hello! hameshaa khulii rahane waalii khi.Dakii!"

Which was addressed to Riya, played by Nisha "Strut-My-Stuff" Kothari, the latest bag of chaff from RGV's Factory (whose assembly line has been producing only interesting character actors and mostly moronic lead players). She's a bar dancer -- an inspired migration by the writers of this flick from the seemingly less noble federal prosecutor played by Jada Pinkett Smith in the original. Kothari embellishes the sparse opening credits in a dance number set to abhii to mai.n jawaan huu.N with her brazen jiggle and wiggle. Had this been the extent of her involvement in this star vehicle for the ragpickers, one could have rested easy. Alas, she attempts to act. This proves to be a development as disastrous, perhaps, as India's exit from the recent World Cup was to television advertising.

This wet dog gets a bonus shower thanks to the inclusion of a Dubai cop who utters lines in Urdu and then proceeds to translate them into simple Hindi, a counter official who thinks he's God's gift to cool, the predictable Bollywood song sequitur that transports our hero to the sylvan desert and the brilliant deduction made by investigating officials that Vikram is a professional killer simply based on the bodies found. A glimmer of hope comes when the film features a clip from the Sunny Deol starrer Indian featuring the classic snatch of dialogue " mai.n sirf ek police officer nahii.n huu.N; indian huu.N ." Alas, 'tis but a glimmer. If you're still thinking of catching this reeling migraine, I have a tip and a reference. The tip is, dear worshipper of Hashmi's stubble that he does not indulge in his trademark unobfuscated osculations in this film (this is revealed at the end when he says to the drooling camera, "abhii nahii.n"). The reference is to a Gaalib quote that Vikram drops in the film: dil-e-naadaa.N tujhe huaa kyaa hai.

Given that Hyderabadwala and Mistry are devotees of the Bhatt Camp of Inspired Filmmaking, their second release The Train [more about that earlier] is also a filch. The source is the Clive Owen starrer Derailed, which already found a local cousin in Gautham Menon's Pachaikili Muthucharam [more about that here]. Irony rears its ugly head thanks to the rest of the film's composite title: Some lines should never be crossed. Cross ye kiyaa re, kiyaa re!

they were the wonder years

What would you do if I sang out of tune .... Joe Cocker's impassioned voice ushered in the opening credits of The Wonder Years, one of the gifts of the old Star Plus (specifically the early 90s, but in general when no one would have thought that it would devolve into yet another Hindi channel). Of course, when I first caught the show, I didn't know who Joe Cocker was. I didn't even know this was a cover. I hadn't even heard Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (just how bad things were without the Internet and streaming audio could be the subject of an entire post). I loved the Beatles, but all I knew about their albums was what I read in books in the reference section of The British Library (A series of lucky hunts in small little music stores around town in Pune greatly help restore balance in the universe). I was clueless as a dead robin. But that didn't take away the appeal of the show. I remember awaiting each episode, remembering the characters and their quirks (this, I take it, is standard TV show viewer procedure that has seen new zeniths and nadirs thanks to the K-soaps and other detergents). Subconsciously, I was also getting an education in rock n' roll. The series boasted an extensive set of songs playing in the background; Tragically, the music rights have prevented this series from being released on DVD (the two best-of sets were watered-down sops).

In April 2007, ION Television began airing reruns on weekdays (Monday through Friday) with 2 episodes a day from 2200 to 2300 Eastern Time (Star Plus had pulled a similar move with their reruns of Star Trek:TOS. I plopped before the TV set excited to uncover old memories and see if the show had stood the test of time. While nostalgia hadn't embellished my memories of the show (Winnie Cooper blinking because of her contacts, Joe Cocker's cover, Turn! Turn! Turn!), a few things felt like fresh discoveries: I didn't remember the voiceover being so fast; the soft filters(?) that underscored the TV show sheen of the proceedings. It was also a relief to watch a show free of the one-liners, slickness and references to pop culture falling like raindrops that inundate a lot of the shows of today. But despite the joy of watching each episode, I tuned out after a couple of weeks. I had given up on television a long while ago, getting by with the occasional rerun of shows I watched while I still gave television its due. Perhaps there was a dim hope that this show would find me back before the idiot box, but that was not meant to be. Just as time changed the characters in the show, it had changed me. I should probably be glad I wasn't succumbing to the "evil of television," but I think I lost something valuable. Childhood's end perhaps.

not beer, not speech, just fine print

Cairbou Coffee offers FREE Wandering WiFi . This ain't gratis or libre. This is RTFP (Read The Fine Print). The ** accompanying the offer should be a useful hint; the essential bit reads: One free hour of WiFi usage per customer per location per day (24 hour period) at which point customer must enter a WiFi access code. Code is obtained by making a minimum purchase of $1.50 (including tax). So, essentially, it's not free for long. Strange things can happen when you use such "free" WiFi. Consider the case of Sam Peterson II in Sparta, MI (yes, the thread already has enough Sparta jokes).

If you want nice coffee, free WiFi and an interesting non-franchise place to spend some time, try Octane (a bucket of thanks to Amogh for discovering the place and recommending it through word and deed). It won Best Coffeehouse in the 2006 edition of Creative Loafing's Best of Atlanta awards, so one hopes that more people will be curious about the place. The WiFi enablers are Ripple (FKA 3rd Wave Hotspot), who've been enabling free Wifi hotspots over Atlanta for a few years now.

The EULA's another manifestation of RTFP. Heck! They've even got a community in Texas called Eula.

hatless himesh: dismal dirge of the decapitated drone

It wasn't enough that rediff.com's staff was fawning over the Abhiwarya affair, or the Fardeen knot, or the Karisma knot and not-knot; the absolute pits may have been achieved with the unveiling of what purports to be a photograph of the Toparch of Tristisonous Tautophony himself sans the trademark baseball cap laced with sweat, grime, musical mucago, dulcet dandruff and fabulous fanfare. The person responsible for the accompanying text makes the crucial mistake of assuming "Everyone is curious about how Himesh Reshammiya would look without his trademark cap"; Not so. Hapless readers like YT would like to request more proof that this is same individual responsible for launching Nostril-To-Ear missiles while preening like a rapper swan wearing the same cap and different long jackets. This looks like Suniel Shetty after a bath and some foundation. Should this indeed be The Nose and not Mr. Mischief Dosa, we have an interesting premise for a movie starring the two as twins, distinguishable solely based on bathing habits and choice of headgear.

Elsewhere: notes on the soundtrack and the auto-rickshaws.

super spider me: now wonder i'm going batty

Most of us know about Superman starring Puneet "I punched Amitabh and he still lived" Issar as Clerk (no typo intended) Kent and Dharam paajii as the desii version of paapaajii Jor-El. If you need a copious refresher, check out the Stomp Tokyo breakdown.

Some of us have even been blessed with (as a friend had noted) the unfortunately less-touted collaboration between DC Comics and Marvel Comics on Indian soil: the song tuu meraa superman / mai.n terii lady / ho gayaa hai apanaa pyaar already from Dariya Dil featuring Govinda and Kimi Katkar dressed up as Superman and Spider[Wo]Man respectively (if you don't believe me, check out the LP cover or the video of the song). Now that the poster of this film featured in The Namesake (you don't catch that did you, dear reader?) one can hope that more people get a chance to view this classic.

For those of us deprived of either pleasure, Fool N Final (release date: today) promises to make up for it. This is choreographer Ahmed Khan's second directorial effort (the first one was Lakeer: Forbidden Lines -- portentous title that -- with a background score that ripped off Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit", a Sunny Deol stunt that filched from John Woo's HARD TARGET and a subtitle that read ""are you angry? (reel 4)"). Reportedly, a sequence in the film features not one or two but four entities from the DC and Marvel universes. Take a look.

Ahmed Khan seems intent on riding the homage bandwagon that Farah Khan unleashed with Main Hoon Na. How else does one explain the presence of a character named Gunmaster G9 (played by Jackie Shroff) in the film? This reeling assault on the senses even dares to invite the rage of fans of the original Gopi aka Gunmaster G9 (from Surakksha, Wardar and, to an undocumented extent, Sahhas).

The jazz chameleon at the Atlanta Jazz Festival

Herbie Hancock was the final act at Piedmont Park on Saturday, May 26, 2007 as part of the 30^th Atlanta Jazz Festival. Although the bill read "The Herbie Hancock Quintet", there were just four people on stage: Nathan East (more familiar to me as EC's regular bassist) on bass, Lionel Loueke (guitar), Vinnie Colaiuta (drums) and the man himself challenging time and harmony with the piano, a Korg synthesizer and a strap-on synthesizer that he wielded in a question-answer jam like a guitarist. The set was short, thanks to delays that seemed to set in early in the day (the band didn't get on stage till about an hour after schedule). They started off with Actual Proof (from the 1974 album Thrust); two tracks came from his 2005 CD Possibilities with Nathan East offering some wonderful vocals on both: Stitched Up and an engaging improvisation on When Love Comes To Town. Wonderful jam-a-thons took off from the classic Watermelon Man and Cantaloupe Island; an inebriated dame and her beau put paid to part of my concentration and I think I missed out on the promised 17-beat cycle experiment that the quartet attempted during Watermelon Man. The most interesting track of the evening belonged to Lionel Loueke whose "soup" (as Herbie Hancock refers to it) was a two-course journey beginning with a blend of African vocal refrains and sounds (clicks, pops, growls) mixed with various sounds elicited from his electric guitar (taps, muted note sequences) (did he also elicit the aid of digital samples in all this?) and moving into a crescendo of improvisation led by some breathtaking work from Vinnie Colaiuta on the skins. I think the name of this track is Virgin Forest, but I'd have to listen to the cut on Loueke's album to know if I'm right or wrong.

I've been reading reports of other concerts by the Quartet (was there ever a fifth on this tour?) and can't help wondering if the constraints on time denied us an encore that might have featured Hancock's famous electronic jazz-funk classic Chameleon. Sigh.

One must note the usual annoyances: the usual crowds, the drunk dodderheads lacking basic social etiquette, clogged streets, lack of suitable parking (a general NP-hard problem with the sprawl and a specific problem for the park -- the proposal for a parking deck faces opposition from the Friends Of Piedmont Park). Something similar happens on game weekends and good sense is slated never to prevail. A future of a wave of cars drenched in strata of smog losing the race to a snail awaits the sprawl.

inconsistent googling

Google recently revamped its search portal to allow you to issue searches across more of its data stores. This extends behaviour you saw before when you extended searches from the Web to Google Groups. All you had to do after seeing the Web search results was to select the Groups option from the dropdown at the top and Google would issue the search across all the newsgroups it offered/archived. You could then select the Web option to return to your original search results.

The recent portal changes have affected that final return. If you now select the Web option to return to your original search results, Google takes you to its main page with the search words intact in the text box, but you have to click the "Google Search" button again in order to see your Web search results. Minor usability annoyance. Things work fine if your order of operations is Web->Groups->News or Web->News->Groups. Consistency begs that the extra click for the Web path be eliminated.

update [june 05, 2007]: I just played with the sequence of operations and it looks like the inconsistency has been addressed. Cool!

subtitillation

[cross-posted on the Passion For Cinema blog]

Bollywood DVDs continue to scale new depths in transfer quality and new heights in the quality of subtitles. The people working on these subtitles seem to have no clue about the language that the dialogues are being spoken in -- or if they do, they've decided that the original text was too boring and decided to improvise. Here are a few items collected from the numerous hours watching evidence that the idiot box deserved its name.

Consider the odes to surrealism served up in movies like Shabd (kyo.n becomes why? 53 15) and Shikhar (the appearance of the cryptic 0618 10:46:5:12 10:46:54:00).

Consider the influences of jazz in the improvisatory liberties taken on lines of dialogue or fragments of lyrics. In Zeher, saahil kii tarah kaaTe mujhako chaahat kii har lahar is translated as every wave of love hits me like a bank; In Chocolate, beggar outside a temple is offered as the subtitle of ma.ndir kaa pujaarii. The gargantuan Ek Khiladi Ek Haseena took sirf arjun chaahiye? usakaa to ham shaam ko hii ##encounter## kar dete hai.n? and gave us why don't we kill his friend Shyam?. Jaan-E-Mann offered several howlers: ye kitaab mai.nne chaar baar pa.Dhii hai became i've read Picasso four times and i like self-made men became i like good manners. Shrabani Deodhar's made-for-TV-but-didn't-even-deserve-that Pehchaan (The Face of Truth) didn't stop at kachchii umar hamane saath guzaarii hai becoming we spent our prime together; dialogue in the courtroom scenes suffered as well (acts like a drug on the brain becomes the radical astra-block in the brain). In addition to being laden with belly-aching tropes of stupidity, Madhur Bhandarkar's Aan: Men at Work offered a lyrical experiment: ek lailaa ne dil uchhaalaa hai/saare aalam ko maar Daalaa hai ... haaye haaye re cha.Dhaa (etc etc) nashaa nashaa nashaa morphed into one juliet has offered her heart/she has killed the whole atmosphere ... hey, the inebriation has taken effect.

Subtitlers love dealing with profanity: they often bowdlerise screen dialogue, but make up for it by introducing cuss words in subtitles for scenes that were milder in contrast. In Lage Raho Munna Bhai baapuu ko jo karanaa wo kar le became the much stronger i don't give a sparrow's fart!. A wrong keystroke (intentional or not) often serves to introduce profanity in a harmless movie: In Sardar, the innocent junagadh's a mere pawn in the game of chess became the historically egregious junagadh's mere porn in the game of chess.

If you thought this was a problem assailing new movies, think again. In Yash Chopra's Kabhi Kabhie, har ik pal merii jawaanii hai in Sahir's mai.n pal do pal kaa shaayar huu.N got translated as i am the fountainhead of eternal youth. In Sitamgar, Majrooh's lyric took a severe beating (kisake liye marataa hai kaun / jhuuTh se log lete hai.n kaam / sab hai.n ta.Dapate apane liye / dete hai.n usako pyaar kaa naam became no one's dying for anyone / it's just a pack of lies .../ each to his own, orgasm... / yet they call it love...).

Consider now how names and numbers changed. You see a vehicle's licence plate on screen and yet the subtitle insists that it's another number. Mehra becomes Verma (Zeher), 987 becomes 973 (Aitraaz), Indu becomes Andy (Corporate), unniis saal becomes 20 years (Family: Ties of Blood) and Leela Sharma becomes Leela Heera (Film Star).

It ain't over yet folks. It wasn't bad enough that Jag Mundhra's Provoked took drastic liberties with the truth; the subtitlers had a ball twisting the lines of dialogue: they even offered alternative English subtitles to the existing English subtitles for the Hindi/Punjabi dialogue: we've had a tumultuous relationship at best became we've had multiple relationships.

Now's your chance to make a difference. Head over to Bombay TV's page dedicated to movie subtitling and take a shot at adding subtitles to a movie scene: you can choose to become yet another incompetent subtitler or you can do a world of good.

loneliness is killing

If you've been wondering what shocking vistas the Raja Of the Rhinogenous Roundelay has in store for you with Aap Kaa Surroor -- The Moviee -- A True Luv Story [remember the rickshaws], wonder and fear no more. The nimiety of narcissism is on display in video clips from the song sequences available online. The video clip for tanhaaiyaa.N, which features Il Naso in various poses that could be fuelled by self-absorbed angst or reticent rumination. The clip opens with a fusion of populist kitschy tasteless Hinglish and Shahryar's sher that was reused by Nida Fazli in a popular Hindi film Gazal:

bhagawaan kaa screenplay bhii ajiib hai
kabhii kisii ko mukammal jahaa.N nahii.n milataa

In deriving the infectious predictable annoying core of the song (a single word repeated ad nauseum), the Pinch Singer sought inspiration from a mix tape of recordings from Bruce Lee movies. What comes out is a fervent tan-a-haii-yaa.N (or in H-speak, ta.Nna.N-haii.n-yaa.N). Each time he hits the haii you can see bricks being shattered. As your ears cringe, your eyes are subjected to a blend of some of the most common, boring and predictable cutting approach (cut before each line or short refrain) and camerawork based on the misplaced swoops and looms recently seen in RGV's Nishabd.

Bollywood loves violins. So it seems like a good idea to cue up a bunch of fair-skinned lassies in black playing air violin (with real violins, no less) with such deadpan inspirational words as the following:

you've witnessed the agonies of tragic love stories
you've witnessed the ecstasies of immortal love stories
it's time you witnessed mine

One hopes that agony visits him instead of ecstasy.

An assault on the senses is on its way. One hopes that this film is adequately bad and that the much-hyped de-cap-itation is sufficiently hilarious and inconsequential. We don't want another Love in Nepal; we want intellectually depraved trash. kacharaa.N dikhaa.N jaa.N.

oz does dead trees

Oz, the engine driver of DesiTrain and vader of PFC is now a published author with The MBA Gang. Despite the eco-unfriendly vibes of the title of this post, the book, in accordance with current publishing practice, is also available in electronic form. Way to go! Hey JR, you've got company.

hashmi movie HOWTO: The Train as a case in point

The headlines/titles of articles dedicated to a movie featuring the Goofy Octothorpe (previously referred to hereabouts as the future of savvy) should be enough to help you get to the core of the film. Since this is Bollywood, be not surprised at finding no reference to a ghost of a plot, a whisper of a narrative, a whiff of a story.

The Train isn't just about adultery: aha! So it's basically about adultery and then some. {article}

Kissing Emraan wasn't that scary: Sayali Bhagat: a chill ran down your spine ... but a moment later you were fine.

Kissing is part of my job, says Emraan: merely reminding you, dear filmgoer, that your money might be better spent elsewhere (like paying someone to fill up the potholes in Pune -- a breeze of a task when compared with filling up the plot holes in Bollywood's flicked flicks)

I am attracted to negative roles: Emraan Hasmi[sic]: To be used in a term paper titled "Female roles in Bollywood: The dark side of orbicularis oris"

I'm building my career all over again: Emraan: Why bother? As long as you look like Dopey crossed with an emaciated camel, you'll be fine.

And then we have a set of headlines that tell a strange tale: It's a great opportunity to have Emraan as an onscreen husband ... / I said I won't kiss but I did: Emraan Hashmi / Lip lessons: Emraan turns kissing coach / When Sayali tought [sic] Emraan how to kiss! / Sayali Bhagat slapped serial kisser / 'I play the lead, not Geeta'/ Geeta Basra unhappy over being sidelined? / Kissing your co-star is a part of your job: Geeta Basra

Wimpy and The Nose parted ways on this project and Aap Kaa Surroor: The Moviee: The Real Luv Story (more about this film that has already won the award for Most Outrageous Title for 2007) and the foundation for the rift seems to have been laid by complaints from each side that personal styles and limelight were being usurped ("I thought I sucked on screen ... you tried to ape my moves and now you make me look good!")

This film is reportedly the first Hindi film to be shot in Bangkok's Sky Trains; The makers of this film also made The Killer, didn't they? Expect another filch.