conscientiousness and convenience

There are those among us who do not have a washer/dryer unit in their apartment and tackle their laundry at laundromats either within the apartment complex or without. One of the things we have to remember to do when we toss our wet clothes into the dryer is to clean the lint filter. The conscientious ones in our midst also clean the lint filter after the dry cycle is complete. Since the conscientious continue to remain a minority (an empirical conclusion), we are rarely spared the need to clean the lint filter before our dry cycle. The conscientious way of life drives us to clean the lint filter twice, while a lack of conformance means that we skip clean the lint filter after our dry cycle. The suppression of conscientious feelings thus allows us to get away with cleaning the lint filter just once: when we need it the most. The conscientious are also probably fretting about the need for washing the lint filter regularly. This, perhaps thankfully, is out of our control, since the laundromats are managed by another entity, from whom we can expect some due diligence.

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)