notes on the songs of Game

(buried in a lot of information about Bapi-Tutul and Sandeep Nath)

Lyricist Sandeep Nath and the brothers Bhattacharya Bapi-Tutul started off together with din hai na ye raat in Bhoot, Paisa Vasool (for which Nath reportedly signed on before Bhoot) and then Ek Hasina Thi, where Bapi-Tutul managed a coup with Pt. Jasraj lending his voice for the cue in puuryaa dhaanashrii over the opening credits. The RGV camp that marked Bapi-Tutul's foray into Bollywood also boasted other collaborations on Sarkar and si.nduurii aasmaan in James.

Sandeep Nath also managed to collaborate with Shameer Tandon, Madhur Bhandarkar's music director of choice, on Page 3 and Corporate. He even collaborated with Robbing Hood Pritam on Agnipankh (where Pritam converted Abrar Ul Haq's bhiigaa-bhiigaa-sa into a patriotic chant a year before he filched it more brazenly in Chocolate).

The composer duo scored with Khosla ka Ghosla last year and reunited with their songwriting partner on a couple of films that would probably interest B-mongers: Hot Money (whose distinction, despite delivering the goods, was of being directed by Rakesh Sawant, and sporting an item song featuring his sister Rakhi "Item" Sawant) and Game (featuring Mona Chopra, who figures in the eagerly-awaited-and-still-unseen Naughty Boy that would mark the return of Rahul Roy).

All this now brings us to Game, which earns some witless cribs from the Capitulating Critic:

With absolutely nil hopes from the album due to the genre of the film and other credentials, one plays on the album with much apprehension. In the end it turns out that it was good to be apprehensive in the first place itself since Game indeed doesn't have much to offer.

We must remind you that the extract above came from a music review.

All this seems to be unfairly building up to the song of the post, chhuaa mere dil ko, which owes a big debt to Mark Knopfler. When Vishal-Shekhar reinvented themselves with the lounge/club shower of Musafir, they gave us tez dhaar, which blended elements from Knopfler and other famous axemen. But Bapi-Tutul's effort leaves us without doubt. When you first hear that short turnaround lick from Sultans of Swing, you're inclined to credit the guitarist with a quote. But at the 3 minute mark, a prominent riff inundates the song; it's a riff that marginally differs from the riff that swells up in On Every Street. This doesn't take away the merits of good arrangements and rendition from the song, although one wonders if a now older Shaan is positioning himself as the new Kumar Sanu. I could have sworn I was hearing Sanu with a clear nose when the voice broke in.

bhiige nainaa gives KK another nice melody to swing his voice about; I haven't come to terms with Deepshikha Sharma's voice on the female version of the song. Shreya Ghoshal ruins the duet version of chhuaa mere dil ko by deciding to phone in her patent-pending screeching girl child impression. Sunidhi Chauhan faithfully renders yet another song in her item kitty, maregaa maregaa bewafaa maregaa. Listen carefully and you'll hear part of the sample that figured prominently in A R Rahman's hammaa from Bombay.

Time to dig out Hot Money and listen to daulat hai nashaa and dhakkam dhakaa.

coming soon: black friday

This has definitely got to be a first. Imagine saying this for an Anurag Kashyap film. It's about time, I say. February 09, 2007's the day. Those who've seen the bootleg can take heart that a longer cut's on the way. Prayers rise and fingers cross. Meanwhile, here's a PFC post featuring a video of AK unveiling the film's poster and a wonderful shot of the poster itself.

previous item in thread: Anurag Kashyap begins blogging on PFC.

update:[jan 12, 2007]: Adlabs has acquired the worldwide distribution rights for the film. One prays that they don't sully the print with their watermark -- it destroyed Mixed Doubles for me.

whither chhatrii

It's cloudy outside and there have been short spells of rain, but, as JR woefully tells me, there's no sign of The Blue Umbrella (contrary to expectations). However, there's a two-part interview with Pankaj Kapur over at Rediff [Part I, Part II ]. My favourite nugget:

You do commercial cinema very rarely. But then after a film like Maqbool you go ahead and do a Dus. Now how does a role like that compare to your repertoire? Or do you merely look at is as a fun assignment?

As far as Dus is concerned, I think it was a fairly etched character. Excepting the end development of the character, about which I had a series of discussions with the director [Anubhav Sinha] about where he is taking the character eventually. At the end of the day, it's the director's call. As an actor I can only suggest, discuss and leave it to him.

To me, whether I am playing a part in commercial cinema or, if you'd like to call it, middle-stream cinema, my attempt is the same. It depends on how the circumstances of the director permit him to understand what one is pointing out to him and incorporate the same into the script or not.

And sometimes even the best efforts of the director and actor may not sketch out the way you would imagine them to be for various constraints, but then you have to live with the kind of world you are in. And you tell yourself, 'Okay, there would be a Maqbool, a Blue Umbrella, but there would be a couple of commercial films as well.' And the idea of doing those films is to reach a certain audience that maybe does not, in the immediacy of time, watch a Blue Umbrella. For them, it is to make them aware that I exist in that cinema as well, so that maybe at some point in life they sit up and say 'oh, the same actor is there in this film, lets go and have a look at it.' So it is to maybe, partially increase the number of people who watch your work in the other kind of cinema.

In rather unrelated news, Sakshi Juneja unveils the first part of a 5-month old interview with Anurag Kashyap, just about a year after a nice interview with Kay Kay Menon. Aside from some more insight into the genesis of Paanch, the chief trivia tidbit would be "I left Mission Kashmir half way because I was not happy with the way things were shaping up..."

addendum: JR's gentle nudge (a comment on Sakshi's page) and an old blog post that leads from Socha Na Tha to Star Bestsellers offer more information about the short film that Kashyap did with Kay Kay. Now if only I can get my hands on the series ...

And here's a much-delayed pointer to a clip from "Four Step Plan," Chaitanya Tamhane's documentary critiquing the plagiarism in Bollywood.

RGV's Sholay: some narrative strands

Oz points to the plot preview hosted on indiafm.com; the familiar elements are there and you also get a glimpse of some of the upgrades in RGV's overhaul. We all know how many that have been screaming about how this remake/adaptation is sacrilege (an argument most likely fuelled by nostalgia, having little to do with understanding the creative motivation). Perhaps we can expect some of them to come forward and complain that Baldev Singh has been renamed to Ranveer. For them one envisions a billboard reading "Look Ma, no hands."

another GRINDHOUSE preview hits the block

Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez are baiting enough curiosity to give ailurophobes a breather. Their double-feature Grind House is laced with homage in every department: the casting, the frames, the music, the cinematic devices. Even those fake previews that are promised are enough to make you drool if you always secretly dug exploitation cinema (or, like YT, have occasionally been gauche enough to admit to it). The old teaser packs in a lot of stuff for the eager one, although most of it seemed to come from Rodriguez's segment Planet Terror in addition to packing one of the fake previews (They Call Him Machete). The new one that's hit the e-sphere is a tad more organised, has some bits in common with the first, and truly, madly and deeply kicks gluteus to a maximal pulp. Love the sounds of crackling film and the cranking projector, but I don't think I want a gun for a leg:)

very odd, what happens in a world without children's voices: notes on Children of Men

[Cross-posted on the Passion For Cinema blog]

Alfonso Cuarón achieves a rare and deeply satisfying balance between form and content with Children of Men, a tale set in a dystopian future (2027, we are told) plagued by infertility and hurtling to doom as people and lands are devastated by war, civil and political breakdown and terrorism. We are in the London of the future. The urban landscape is bleak, polluted, filthy and shrouded by depression and gloom. Despite this being years into the future, the vehicles don't look futuristic at all, but merely aged versions of their current selves -- double-decker buses look just as dusty and mundane; only advertising seems to have made big strides: billboards and bus signs are now animated. One of the advertising spots running even informs us that The world has collapsed; only Britain strives on. A nationalist government is aided by a brutal police force and all foreigners are regarded as illegal immigrants and refugees are subjected to shame and torture in camps across the country. The government also disburses anti-depressants, perhaps in response to the widespread apathy and depression; yet, ganja is still illegal. Somehow media spectacle doesn't seem to have ceased: in the opening moments of the film we see people reacting to the death of Diego Ricardo, the youngest person on the planet, who was 18 years, 4 months, 20 days, 16 hours, and 8 minutes old.

All this is part of the texture of the film itself as is the soundtrack that features Deep Purple, King Crimson, Radiohead and John Lennon as well as an evocative use of Franco Battiato's cover of Ruby Tuesday. The content and narrative derive a lot from the P. D. James novel the film is based on, but there are significant differences that necessitate the evaluation of the film on its own terms. Emmanuel Lubezki's camerawork merits recognition and accolades of all kinds for the consistent palette of greys that make London look just as war-beleaguered as it did during the second World War. The Orwellian echoes from 1984 resonate in the trash-laden streets and dark alleys, the woods and fields on the outskirts of the city, the grime and grief of the internment camps for the refugees, and the police officers patrolling the roads with dogs.

Set design plays a crucial role in the film, because a lot of exposition comes not from dialogue, but from the spaces that we see our characters in: the salvaged art represented by Michaelangelo's David (that's missing a leg) and Picasso's Guernica (not to mention the flying pig that shows up, perhaps as a nod to Pink Floyd's Animals), the television ad for a suicide drug called Quietus, the graffiti on the walls.

The cinematographic choices are what seal the deal as far as balancing form and content is concerned. Cuarón eschews quick cuts and dramatic close-ups of any kind, preferring instead to use a lot of extended shots with handheld cameras, thus giving scenes a sense of verisimilitude, honesty and earnestness. Consequently, the film boasts two spectacular sequences. The first one is a 12-minute uninterrupted sequence of dialogue and action filmed from within a car carrying passengers. This employed a modified vehicle as well as a special camera rig and the results are simply astounding. The second sequence, a more explicit example of the cinéma vérité sensibility that Cuarón's approach lends the film, has us following characters through the streets, ducking under and into buildings and eventually making their way into a building, and then back out, all amidst continuous gunfire and explosions. In a spectacularly real stroke of luck, the camera lens is spattered with some (fake) blood and dirt at one point, thus shattering the fourth wall; the spatters vanish subsequently during a transition across a dark space, thus conveying the possibility that a silent cut happened. Not since the continuous opening shot from Orson Welles in Touch Of Evil has the extended take augmented the emotional core of the narrative so much, Scorsese's memorable excursion in Goodfellas notwithstanding.

The performances are all first rate; all the actors seem to have been picked for their ability to inhabit characters instead of being recognisable faces and personalities on screen: from Clive Owen's warm wry Theo Faron, whom both humans and animals seem to trust, to Michael Caine's hippie and former political cartoonist Jasper, to Julianne Moore as Theo's ex-wife Julian Taylor, who is now an underground revolutionary, to Danny Huston as Theo's cousin Nigel, to Claire-Hope Ashitey as Kee, Chiwetel Ejiofor as Luke, Pam Ferris as Miriam, Peter Mullan as Syd, and Oana Pellea as Marichka.

There is a reluctance to reveal more about the elements of the narrative and the plot. I went in to watch the film with just the premise of it being a tale of fading hope in a dystopian future. The rewards of not being forewarned about the details were immense. To find a film that's both intellectually and emotionally rewarding, a film that is compelling both in its content and the stimulating technique employed to present it is rare enough to want to go in blind. I was glad I stayed away from plot synopses (although I wish I had been prepared for the technical wizardry I was about to be treated to). Without revealing too much, I'd have to say that it also became the perfect Christmas Day movie for me.

mr kashyap pops up in the most interesting places

Baradwaj Rangan's interview with Gautham Menon (Kaakka Kaakka, Vettaiyaadu Vilaiyaadu) sports an interesting detail about Menon's next film Pachaikili Muthucharam:

...Gautham is now busy with the release work for Pachaikili Muthucharam, which is expected around Christmas. He calls this an adaptation of "Derailed – the book, not the film. I've totally worked from the book and I've given it a very Tamil, very Indian feel." We got around to talking about this because he mentioned that he was reading a lot of books of late, wanting to adapt them, trying to pick up rights, "which is how it works in Hollywood." It was Anurag Kashyap who gave the book to Gautham, suggesting a possible film version, "and I said let's buy the rights. We contacted the publishers, but they said Hollywood has already picked up the rights. I still thought I could make this with Kamal sir and release it before Derailed gets released. I'd give credit to the writer." But, of course, Kamal sir said no. And meanwhile Derailed, the film, came out. "I sent my assistants to watch it, and they said it was quite different." Gautham makes a point of this because "I have a problem if people say I took off from the movie. I generally don't do that at all. [..]"

vishals scores at CIFF; and an interesting brochure

Screened on November 30, 2006, Omkara got Vishal an award at the 30th Cairo International Film Festival. The Prize for the Best Artistic Contribution, according to the awards page was presented for Music, Cinematography and Art Direction to Vishal for [his] inspired use of a sweeping epic score, extraordinary photography and art direction, which come together in perfect harmony.

In other news, the brochure for The Blue Umbrella (slated for a January 05, 2007 release) has been designed to mimic a children's story book. The question remains: how does one get hold of it? The Omkara coffee table book is all set to become a dream.

sholay me.n tum gaan me.n tum

RGV's Sholay is ending up as a project more interesting in its making than the final outcome. One hopes that it doesn't turn out to be the filmic brother of Duke Nukem Forever.

With the casting boat having rocked a few times, Sushant Singh came on board as saambaa; reportedly, RGV and Bajpai met up after years of a cold war, Bajpai wanted to play jay, RGV wanted him for saambaa, and soon it was yet another edition of The Long Goodbye. Kaif was out and Sushmita Sen seems in for playing the widow raadhaa (rechristened devii). Nisha Kothari still holds the fort as devii ghu.Ngharuu (aka basa.ntii 2007). RGV's blue-eyed Mohit Ahlawat was the next one to leave the project (again, RGV's comments are funny, and Mohit's indicate that more is afoot). Enter model Prashant Raj Sachdev ("just call me Raj").

And then there's the soundtrack. After roping in NeighSel Grossenschade to lend a contemporary nasal spin on RDB's impassioned mahabuuba, The Nose was no longer part of the project; out went Asha Bhosle as well. Enter choreographer-turned-musician Ganesh Hegde (have you heard "G" lately?), and we now have Sukhwinder Singh and Sunidhi Chauhan; junior B seems all set to reprise Jalal Agha's cameo (and this would mark another musical item featuring the two Bs, although Gabbar Bachchan ain't likely to shake no leg).

Ye want more laddies and lassies? Well, the one and only Original, Bappi Lahiri's reportedly recorded two songs for the film (he says RGV's roped him in to do three).

The article referenced by that last link also provides us with the juicy tidbit that Bappi's beTaa Bappa is all set to plant his stake as a film music director with Dus Kahaniyaan, Sanjay "Original" Gupta's several-shorts-make-one-film venture. One awaits the soundtrack of another Gupta production Shootout at Lokhandwala directed by yet another Bollywood Original, Apoorva Lakhia (MSAMD, Ek Ajnabee/Man On Fire). The soundtrack features the likes of Indian Ocean, Euphoria, Strings and Shibani Kashyap (the last two were also on the Zinda soundtrack). Although the film is supposed to be based on a real-life police encounter, there are rumours that the real source is ... SURPRISE! SURPRISE! ... a foreign film. This time it's Johnny To's Breaking News.

elsewhere hereabouts: RGV's reaction to the scent of a suing Sippy

update [dec 19, 2006]: Here's more about Bappi's efforts as well as a little something about Prashant Raj Sachdev

thirsting for pyaasa

what we make today is not cinema but superficial, downright dumb drivel is the byline for some impassioned vitriol from Sudhir Mishra in an opinion column for Outlook India. The article notes the ignorance fuelling Bollywood's auto-fellating spirit, the stronghold exercised by the stars and a ray of hope represented by a new breed of filmmakers who're more interested in telling stories instead of churning pages of captions accompanying polaroids of stars. My favourite nugget is a bit devoted to the industry reaction to Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi:

The continuing tragedy of Hindi cinema is that it is in the grip of the hegemony of a few stars, who patronise a select few filmmakers, often resulting in the tripe that is offered to the public. I was told by two of these megastars that Hazaaron Khwahishein was one of the worst scripts they had ever read. What these stars did with their next films is a part of history that I don't wish to dwell on.

related reading: An article that offers a comparative analysis (see page 2) of financial success in Bollywood and in the south indian film industry.

elsewhere hereabouts: notes on Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi, easily the best Hindi film of 2005 and one of the best Indian films of the year | a review of Bhansali's Black that includes a pointer to Sudhir Mishra's caustic take on the film and the fawning industry reaction to the film.

and if this ever-changing world in which we're living makes you give in and cry JUNG

Revisiting a classic dud

First, some disambiguation is in order. This is not the 2000 film directed by Sanjay Gupta that filched from Face/Off and Desperate Measures. This is the truly original 1996 vehicle bearing the likes of Ajay Devgan, Aditya Pancholi and Mithun Chakraborty. Yes, this is the Jung that filched Rahman's tilaanaa tilaanaa (from Muthu) and made it diiwaanaa diiwaanaa (persons responsible: Nadeem and Shravan and lyricist Anand Bakshi). This is that T Rama Rao film we talked about a few years ago. Since enough venom has gone under the bridge, one may be tempted to ask why. Now this is a question that has plagued viewers (like YT) of Bollywood's folderol for eons. However, in the context of this Rambha rompfest, an answer is available: we failed to address the greatness of the film; we merely scraped some flakes off the tip of the smallest ice cube floating at the surface of this cesspool.

It's a portent of slippery times ahead when the movie is presented by someone called Dinky. Then you have a villain (good old Sadashiv (H)amrapurkar) called chakradhaarii chaudharii, who spouts the following delicate ego-fondling nugget:

is sa.nsaar me.n do hii to chakradhaarii hai.n
uupar sudarshan-chakrawaalaa
aur niche mai.n usakii Takkarawaalaa

Everyone's favourite pillar of superhuman honesty and integrity, Mithun Chakraborty, plays eii!-CP arjun (translation: bright, shining, radiant), an honest, sincere, A-grade cop. Ajay Devgan plays his younger brother ajay (translation: he who cannot be defeated; also: we were too bored to think of a name for his character, so he kept his own), who, pursuant to the Bollywood Cliché Act, is an honest lawyer (which, is a contradiction in terms, and hence makes this stock character unique). Aditya Pancholi rocks the joint in a double role: we have the innocent fair-complexioned raam (translation: dark/black [according to wikipedia]; pleasing/charming according to another page), wrongfully accused, tried with the secular docket number 786/25, and rotting in the oft-worn outfit of prisoner #117 in a prison on some backlot; and we have billaa (from the genus of Bollywood villains that inundated movies like Gardish and continue to haunt us even today with Musafir), the villain who decided to rob a train and then frame train-driver raam (aah the trains of coincidence) for his misdeeds. In keeping with tradition, billaa and Co. also tie raam's pregnant wife siitaa (meaning: furrow; straight out of the epic to the railway tracks. The framed siitaa dumps her baby at the doorstep of lakshmii (translation: wealth, fortune), the wife of ACP arjun and manages to flee prison.

In order to get a tax exemption from the CoincidenceMeter by providing a stellar implementation of the StronglyConnectedCharacterGraph, screenplay writer Santosh Saroj (translation: lotus of happiness ... or is it the kiLukkam-e-kamal?) whips out his Kevin Bacon strips and links our characters up.

Like free cable, ajay, convinced of raam's innocence, begins to represent a ray of hope for him (that is, to say, on a professional level). He takes up his case and thus aligns himself in conflict with arjun, who's busy filing his nomination for the Guinness Book of World Records for arresting raam over and over again. Meanwhile, wifey dear (who insists on conjugating English verbs to the continuous form ostensibly as an attempt to provide some humour) hires a nanny for the baby -- if you haven't already figured it out, sitaa's the lucky nanny. Also in the mix is a jallaad (translation: executioner) played by Tinnu Anand, who also has his own axe to grind with billaa (the man responsible for his son's death). On the artistic front, Rambha plays madhuu, over-fed romantic foil for ajay; madhuu also happens to be the daughter of chakradhaarii. This sets up a rich interlocking set-up of Kekule closures and things begin to boil slowly with a rising conflict of truth, justice and melodrama.

Those looking for a simple dramatic narrative will find solace in the number of twists and coincidences that the film sports. Santosh Saroj also scores a coup with lines like kisane mere pyaar ke tave pe paanii chi.Dakaa diyaa? ye ##papa## nahii.n paapii hai, and mai.n har hi.ndustaanii kaa bhaaii huu.N magar tujh jaise gaddaaro.n ke liye kasaaii huu.N. The scenarists do well with their limited supply of spiked lassies by writing a historical voyeuristically satisfying scene featuring madhu bathing against the aural background of Hotel California (appropriated without due credit, but you already figured that out). As if this wasn't enough, Rambha shows up again later dressed up as a Sikh pilot. The giddily swinging cake gets its cherry with Ajay Devgan's drag act.

This belongs to the equivalence class of Mithun films where everyone else seems to get more screen time than the Bengal Tiger himself. Such movies work best when they sport enough villains to fill up a lunch thaalii, but we have a shortage here. The combination of the doppelgänger, the benzene bonds among the characters, the faux physics of the collisions and the visually overwhelming Rambha-nctiousness augment the value of this ham sandwich just enough to make it memorable as events draw to a close with a crackerjack emotional ending where a mother donates her biological baby to its surrogate mother. It's time to catch the 8:55 goods train to Pune.

vishal bhardwaj's next

[a generous tip to JR for remembering a fragment and prompting a frantic search for the newsitem]

After Omkara, Vishal's been producing Anurag Kashyap's No Smoking (besides doing the honours on the song front with Gulzar) as well as the song for RGV's Nishabd. Although a third edition in the Shakespeare canon (Julius Caesar) was hinted at, his next directorial project seems to be "a period drama set in the days of World War II on the Burma-Japan border." Here's where you can read all that and more from lyricist Gulzar who's doing the lyrics for this venture as well.

what the ba.njar!

Raghav Sachar does a fine job with his songs for Kabul Express. kah rahaa meraa dil (with its clear prominent acoustic guitar and suspended chords) and haa.N ye mai.n aayaa kahaa.N huu.N (with some nice harmonies, accidental chords and an a cappella coda) are personal favourites. It's a bit annoying to hear the fake accent and inflections that Sachar infuses the opening track (kaabul fizaa) with. The instrumental theme stirs memories of Morricone (Once Upon A Time In The West perhaps, but I'm not sure).

The pièce de résistance, however, is the song called ba.njar (meaning: barren). The song features in three versions: one sung by Shubha Mudgal, another by Sunidhi Chauhan (which, for sheer verve, wins top spot for me) and the third by KK (coming a close second). The title of the song becomes a motif so blatant that the other words in the mukha.Daa feel like window dressing:

ba.njar ret hai zamii.n ba.njar hai
ba.njar aasamaa.N ye ghar ba.njar hai
ba.njar dil ye nain ba.njar
ba.njar nain ke aa.Nsuu ba.njar hai.n

refrain: is ba.njar shahar ke dil me.n Dhuu.NDhuu.N mai.n giilii miTTii kaa ma.nzar

ba.njar lamhaa hai waqt ba.njar hai
ba.njar waqt-sii ye raat ba.njar hai
ba.njar raat Kwaab ba.njar
chaa.Nd-taaro.n kaa saath ba.njar hai

refrain: is ba.njar shahar ke dil me.n Dhuu.NDhuu.N mai.n giilii miTTii kaa ma.nzar

bridge:
ba.njar ret ba.njar zamiino.n ke is daur me.n
ba.njar man ba.njar dha.Dako.n ke is shor me.n
ba.njar ehasaas me.n ba.njar saa.Nso.n me.n
ik safar zaruurii banataa hai jo dilo.n ke dam pe chalataa hai

refrain: is ba.njar shahar ke dil me.n Dhuu.NDhuu.N mai.n giilii miTTii kaa manzar

With so many ba.njars, how the hell does a song remain ba.njar?

(That extract above has been shorn of repeated lines, in case you were interested in counting the total number of ba.njars).

Very ba.njarous.

please welcome the new wave of bollywood high concept

The resounding success of a piece of trash like Krrish and the incumbent success of Dhoom 2 [rejected title: Dhoom and Dhoomer] are enough indicators that Bollywood's laying claim to yet another Hollywood bastion: the high concept flick. Preliminary optimistic analysis predicts a return of Rs. 90 crore. Baradwaj Rangan's review notes the Gandhian aspect (walking, puTTan, walking) of the characters. Oz, on the other hand, notes venomously: But there is a difference between "Not using brains" to "View" a movie AND "Not using brains" to "MAKE" a movie..

The paying masses meanwhile are glad to have their fill of starry eye candy and Ms Rai's smooching coup. Expect Uday Chopra to indulge in method acting in a forthcoming sequel.

While on the roof, please allow me to recommend the book High Concept: Don Simpson and the Hollywood Culture of Excess. I also recommend the opening scene of Robert Altman's The Player. And if you're looking for a breakdown of the requirements for pitching a project in this vein (since, presumably, you're an aspiring writer who has the perfect script for the Dhoom franchise), kindly refer to Steve Kaire's article on the subject. Now if you will excuse me, I have to work on the climax of the sequel to Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna (it's The Sound of Music meets Cliffhanger meets Classic Dance of Love).

the making of SATYA

Kindly head over to the PassionForCinema blog where Anurag Kashyap has just begun to describe the experience of making Satya, one of the best and definitive Indian films ever. It's just the first part, so if you can't stand the suspense, stay away till the last post is in. Hopefully, we also get more on the creative enigma that is RGV.

addendum: Part II is up.

RIP Altman

The master of the ensemble is no more. Elsewhere in the archives of this blog, you will find notes on M*A*S*H and Gosford Park.

yellow midday

Oz's Passion For Cinema portal's been getting some press thanks to Anurag Kashyap's No Smoking Diary. Oz has also managed to get two other filmmakers on board: Pavan Kaul and Suparn Verma. But some of the press hasn't been good. A recent Midday article (ePaper URL) fails to do its research and merrily concludes that Pavan Kaul's merely copying Anurag's move to blogging. Oz's impassioned post has more details. Feel free to voice your opinion in the comments; suggestions on a course of action (accounting for things like the Indian judicial system that seem to offer no solace) are also welcome. Outrage might just make up for the hurdles in mounting a legal attack.

RGVishal

The Big B seems all set to sing a song titled rozaanaa for RGV's forthcoming is-this-based-on-Lolita-or-not Nishabd. Vishal Bhardwaj returns for an RGV-fronted venture for the first time since Satya (he did the songs for LKLKBK, but RGV only produced that venture). This will also mark the first collaboration between Vishal and lyricist Munna Dhiman since Ramji Londonwaley and the hard-to-find album Aasma.

On a related note, Vishal's returning with Gulzar for Anurag Kashyap's No Smoking. If you haven't already heard about it, allow me to direct you to The No Smoking Diary for more.

While on the subject of Vishal, one must also note with hope that The Blue Umbrella is slated to be the inaugural release in January 05, 2007 for a new sub-division of UTV Motion Pictures created to "promote experimental and unconventional cinema, making it accessible to a broad audience." The sub-division's strangely called "UTV Classics." Presumptuous perhaps; however, one welcomes any opportunity for more interesting celluloid fare. There's more about the film elsewhere hereabouts as far as the national awards and the Pusan International Film Festival are concerned.

a racemiferous return

[aka I have a few links for you]

Manish trashes aspects of Umrao Jaan that don't seem to have been part of J P Dutta's game plan.

JR has a growing series of posts on the music of Mani Ratnam's Iruvar. So far we have the introduction, the players and notes on narumugaiye. As of November 16, 2006, we have a post dedicated to Poo KoDiyin Punnagai.

Coincidentally, Baradwaj Rangan has resurrected an old article of his on the same film.

With his notes on Vivah, Baradwaj Rangan gives me food for thought and an incentive (where there was none) to watch the flick (I'll still wait to build up my resistance though).

Gaurav gets his first taste of the business venture menace ... or should I say the menace gets a taste of Gaurav? [my personal saga ended here]

In other news, as G P Sippy's grandson Sascha Sippy is hell-bent on tossing legal hurdles in the way of RGV's take on Sholay, RGV notches up a winning retort: With his fertile imagination, aggressive attitude and way with words, he'd be ideal to write dialogues for movies. And I'd be happy to let him do the needful in my next film, provided he can look beyond his uncle's 'Sholay'

RGV continues to make more interesting news and less successful movies. He's got a PNC production coming up called Sex Haazir Ho (aka "Sex Present Yourself"). That English title alone merits an award.

yawn-thony kaun hai

[september 03, 2006]

{notes about who is cletis tout? and its Bollywood bastard^[0] Anthony kaun hai?}

Raj Kaushal hits an all-time low with this Sanjay Dutt-Arshad Warsi vehicle that continues the growing tendency of current Bollywood filmmakers to reference and quote from film history to elicit some support on the grounds of nostalgia. The narrative references Yash Chopra films^[1], the guy caught on video killing a girl^[2] is called Lucky Sharma^[3], Gulshan Grover's character hums old Hindi films songs^[4], albeit grossly out of tune, the dead guy is named Anthony Gonsalves^[5], Sanjay Dutt's hitman is named Master Madan^[6] (and he watches Bollywood movies^[7]). Warsi's character's name (Champak "Champ" Chaudhary) raises a laugh once and then proceeds to become just as irritating as a persistent itch.

Spotting Ravi Baswani convincingly impersonate a piece of prime ham will induce more grief and anguish than watching European art cinema without subtitles. VJ Anusha Dandekar, who shows up as Rosa, the former object of Champ's attentions, merely serves as the object of ogle-aasans by a drooling male audience. Minissha Lamba, who, by deductive logic, is the "heroine" of the piece, replaces Rosa as Jiya and offers some pelvic^[8] perspective in compensation for oomph.

There are bad lines but these rarely transcend the sporadic genius of "the kiss of conjugal bliss." If you think that's enough reason to watch this enthusiastically excerebrose jejune jaunt, I have to say no way, no way^[9].

This has been a floccinaucinihilipilification of farraginous film.

[0]: more about Daddy-O

[1]: Dutt's character gets Warsi's character to revisit his flashback in the style of the Chopra style of films; it's an inspired touch and marks one of the few specks of originality that the film can sport (even though the joke doesn't fly higher than an ill-fated chicken fleeing about at a poultry farm)

[2]: When we see Lucky kill the girl, we also see our friend Anthony filming the whole deal. All this is done through a series of edited shots. In a spectacular exploitation of stochastic serendipity, the video that Anthony films also contains the same set of edited shots. This not only gets POV wrong, but also makes the evidence inadmissable (because it was doctored); you would think that something as simple as a video clip would not be subjected to the machinations of the gangrenous minds of Bollywood filmmakers, but ... whom am I trying to kid here??!! (October 27, 2006: JR gently notes that everyone's favourite black comedy Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro also featured a similar abuse of POV and montage when the bridge havaladaar recounts his encounter with Vinod and Sudhir on TV: I could now eat humble pie or claim that this was a creative exercise mixing surrealism (um, who was on the bridge filming this anyway?), parody and expressionism (yeah! right!); I choose the latter.

[3]: The clean-shaven twin who woos the rich gardener's lass in Gol Maal

[4]: Songs include and ham hai.n raahii pyaar ke and suhaanaa safar

[5]: The Christian third of the most popular ternary secular offering from Bollywood, who gatecrashed an Easter party in a tux with gibberish to boot

[6]: This is culturally the most egregious nod, but one must not err on the side of purism by condemning the perverted reference to the child prodigy

[7]: very few really, given that such an embellishment would distract our furacious friends from their mission of furnishing us with specious flummery

[8]: She, who is obsessed with her growing hips

[9]: The opening credits are accompanied by an impassioned attempt at cool that sports these words as lyrics. The Nose^[10] strikes gold with this film, and people who ignore the warning during the opening credits are served a reminder at the end of the film in the form of an incongruous (does that surprise you puTTan?) music video featuring Dutt and Warsi and a sea of thongs; As if this wasn't bad enough to jar your sense of time and space, another music video hits you: this one features The Nose with cap and coat rendering another cover of "The Rhyme Of Runny Nose"^[11]

[10]: 'nuff said

[11]: The song's ishq kiyaa kiyaa, or, to be precise, i.Nshq ki.nyaa.N ki.nyaa.N; and you've really had enough with the footnotes, haven't you?