Archive for: March 2007

With Bollywood films offering the same old wine in a new bottle or sometimes in the old bottle itself, the audiences have become frustated and are rejecting the films completely. The Indian audience too needs creative and innovative films to see. Don’t they?

Deepa Gahalot mocks over the films released this year. Read it…. promise you that it is fun.

The dialogue between the makers and stars of the film with the audience might go somewhat like this:

Kudiyon Ka Hai Zamana:
It’s about Rekha trying to get Mahima Chaudhary married before she turns 25. Its great fun, come see it people.

Audience: Ha ha, you’re joking, right? Mahima and 25?

Guru :
It is not the biopic of Dhirubhai Ambani and Amitabh Bachchan on TV swears it is Abhishek’s best performance. Look Abhi and Ash even got engaged to please you mass types.

Audience (Doubtfully): Isn’t that pushing it a bit too much? Why, what is the film lacking?

Anwar:
It’s about this guy who is mistaken for a terrorist, and then there’s this cop, and a TV reporter and…
Audience: Don’t get us all mixed up. Just play that Maula song.

Risk :
It’s about this honest cop who takes on the underworld and….
Audience: So what’s new?

Salaam-E-Ishq :
It’s got all these stars, and Priyanka playing Rakhi Sawant, and Anil Kapoor kissing Anjana Sukhani, and the John-Vidya affair gossip was spread to whip up curiosity…. please see the film, people.

Audience: We’d rather see the real Rakhi Sawant. And Emraan’s kissing is better, thank you. And we know John is with Bipasha, don’t fool us.

Parzania:
A little boy goes missing in the Gujarat riots.
Audience (Petulantly): Don’t remind us of it, give us entertainment.

Traffic Signal:
Hey, all of you, it’s about people begging at the traffic signal and how the Dubai bhais get the money.

Audience: Maaf karo, aage jao

Kya Love Story Hai is a film about a care-free and rebellious youth, Arjun (Tusshar Kapoor), who experiences love at first sight with Kaajal (Ayesha Takia) but too afraid of conveying his feelings.

He follows her for some time before breaking the ice. For Kaajal, Arjun is a mere acquaintance.

A situation arises when Kaajal comes across a love letter written by Arjun. The letter is not addressed to anyone. So Kaajal is not aware whom he is referring to.

Deliberately, Arjun asks her how she would reciprocate to his love if she were the girl he was in love with.

Kaajal’s reply leaves Arjun stunned with silence. What’s more, he mysteriously disappears from her life for a short period.

The promos of Kya love Story Hai are creating quite a buzz in the Bollywood circuits. Kya Love Story Hai is an out and out romantic comedy and has Ayesha Takia (sporting a new look) and Tushaar Kapoor as the lead pair.

Kya Love Story Hai is directed by Lovely Singh who had earlier assisted Satish Kaushik. Lovely and Tusshar go back a long way as they had worked together in Mujhe Kucch Kehna Hai.

The music of Kya Love Story Hai si given by Pritam and is already creating waves. The song “I Miss You Everyday” is already being played over radio stations all over. Personally I love the mushy romantic song “Gum Sum Hai Dil Mera”.

The movie has also generated hype because of an item number that will be performed by Kareena Kapoor. To be choreographed by Bosco, the picturisation will be against an extremely grand and expensive set. Apparently called “It’s Rocking”, Alisha Chinai will provide the vocals for Kareena.

Bollywood is known for it’s double standards by it’s actors. They pretend as if they are dying to act in different kind of character oriented roles but once they get critical acclaim for their roles. They drift towards the big production houses for their big moolah. Hypocritical is the best adjective that would describe these stars.

An avid bollywood buff Saakshi Juneja writes about the double standards by actors and the Big Brother played by a few big production houses.

You don’t need to be Einstein’s long lost cousin to know the fact that no matter how forward or open minded we appear to be getting in relation to “cinema” or more correctly “Hindi Film Industry” - we still end up at point zero.

Last year when I met up with Anurag Kashyap, he didn’t leave any stone unturned in explaining the Big Brother role played by a handful of individuals. His very words were:

“You look at it from any which way, you have these few families in this industry who run the show. They are actually like a mafia and they are the bullies and they play like bullies and that’s the sad part. There is so much talent but it gets lost in these fringes. We have more hypocrisy and bifurcation and that’s the main worry for people like me.”

She has always made films that have something new to say and now director Mira Nair has her fingers crossed for her home country’s reaction to her film The Namesake.

Archita Kashyap: How real are the characters of Ashima, Ashok and Gogol? You have lived in the US and seen Indians there, how much of reality exists in a character like Ashima even today?

Mira Nair: These characters speak volumes because they are utterly real and the fact is that the more local and specific one becomes in filmmaking, the more universal it is. This film is doing overwhelmingly well at the box office in America. They are amazed and so am I. I feel so happy because there are no goras in this picture which is set in the US.

Archita Kashyap: Your films have a touch of people going away from home, re-settling and the confusion that follows such a change. Is this a subject that is close to your heart?

Mira Nair: Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake is such a stunning story. But at its heart it’s about losing your parent in a country, which is not your home. And I had experienced that loss. It was in that moment of mourning and grief that I read The Namesake and that is when I felt that I should drop everything and make this film.

Apne starring the Deol family will be Anil Sharma’s next big venture. After Gadar, which went on to break all sorts of box-office records, Anil sharma has not got it right at the BO. His next two films Hero- Love Story Of A Spy and Ab Tumhare Hawale Wataan Sathiyo despite having huge stars and great production values bombed miserably at the box office. Now lets’ see if Anil Sharma gets third time lucky with Apne or does he complete a tilogy of flops with Apne.

Apne Movie Cast

Dharmendra, Sunny Deol, Bobby Deol, Katrina Kaif, Shilpa Shetty, Kirron Kher, Victor Banerjee, Javed Shaikh and Aryan Vaid.

Apne Movie Preview

Dharmendra plays the character of ex-boxer Baldev Chaudhury who has a stain in his boxing career. He dreams to wash it with his son Angad’s (Sunny Deol) success, but financial incapability kept him away from achieving this dream. Baldev never forgets the person who ruined his chance to wash the stain.

A ray of light emerges out of the blue for Baldev in terms of a TV show. He trains a local boy to get into this media hyped boxing show, but is ditched for a better coach at the last minute. Baldev’s younger son Karan (Bobby Deol) has just launched his first music album. Realizing his father is in crises of his life, he gives up his dream of a musical career to get into the game of boxing.

After Gangster and Murde, Anurag Basu is back with his new film Life In a Metro . It’s UTV who shall be producing the film and not Anurag’s favorite Bhatt clan. Metro has a horde of talented but not so very big stars. Wait a minute Metro, does have Shilpa Shetty, who until yesterday was nobody but thanks to Big Brother, she has become an icon. So Metro does seem to be an exciting offering with a gripping emotional story tale.

Metro Movie Cast

Shilpa Shetty, Kaykay Menon, Konkona Sen Sharma, Shiney Ahuja, Kangana Ranaut, Sharman Joshi, Gautam Kapoor and Irrfan Khan

Metro Movie Preview

( Spoilers Included Read at Your Own Risk)

The world is becoming smaller. Cell phones have cut down distances. Low cost airlines have got cities closer. There’s less time for breakfast. Even lesser time for dinner. And no time for lunch. The sensex is rising. Malls in every corner. Multiplexes, the only way to watch movies. The seven year itch has come down to seven months. Or lesser. Depending on how ambitious one is. We are getting bored too soon. Too many choices. Too many dreams. Not enough sleep.

Rahul (Sharman Joshi) is one such young man with dreams. Working as a call centre executive in a BPO in Mumbai. He silently loves his boss, Neha (Kangana Ranaut). A smart young woman who has made it up the ranks in a very short time. And hard work is not her only secret. Because her boss, Ranjeet (KayKay Menon) loves her and is willing to shower her with gifts and opportunities… only if she is willing.

Provoked directed by film maker Jag Mundra is soon to hit the Indian Screen. Starring Aishwarya Rai in the lead role, Provoked is based on the autobiographical book “Circle of Light” by Kiranjit Ahluwalia.

Music of the film is given by A.R. Rehman.

Provoked Movie Preview 

Unable to bear the brutality and repeated rapes by her alcoholic husband, a battered Punjabi housewife and mother of two, Kiranjit Ahluwalia (Aishwarya Rai) sets fire to her abusive husband, Deepak Ahluwalia (Naveen Andrews) and kills him unintentionally. Charged with murder, she is sentenced to life imprisonment where she befriends her cellmate, a wealthy white woman named Veronica Scott (Miranda Richardson), from whom she learns English. Her cell mate is so moved by her story that she asks her step-brother, Edward Foster (Robbie Coltrane), a highly respected Queen’s Counsel, to file her appeal. Her case comes to the notice of a group of South Asian social worker running an under funded organization called the “Southall Black Sisters”.

Sorry to disappoint you guys, this is no Kareena-Shahid controversy. It’s infact an on-screen kiss that’s being making news in the Bollywood circuits.

We are talking of the on-screen smooch between Sushmita Sen and Randeep Hooda in the film Karma, Confessions and Holi. Randeep Hooda was visibly disappointed by the kiss being used as a tool for publicity purpose.

“I’m disgusted by the producers. Surely they’ve got more to attract the public to the theatres than a kiss between two actors? By flashing one scene, they’re just being cheap and undignified in their promotion. May be they need a less cheesy publicity machinery,” Randeep said.

“The kissing scenes are part of the film. And I’m not in the least embarrassed about kissing such a gorgeous woman on screen”, says her ex-beau Randeep.

But considering the past relationship between the two was there any awkwardness about doing such scenes?

Picture this 22 actors, 5 directors and 10 stories. We are not talking about a film festival here, but a single film. Dus Kahaniyaan is going to soon make those numbers just told above seem true. With such a mammoth cast at hand, Dus Kahaniyaan does promise to be something really different indeed. Hit or Flop, Dus Kahaaniyaan will surely be something different.

Here’s the list of the entire starcast of Dus Kahaniyaan

   Sanjay Dutt, Sunil Shetty, Nana Patekar, Neha Uberoi, Dino Morea, Arbaaz Khan, Vidya Balan, Amrita Singh, Aftab Shivdasani, Neha Dhupia, Jeetendra, Mandira Bedi, Masumi Makhija, Rohit Roy, Ronit Roy, Manoj Bajpai, Dia Mirza, Tareena Patel, Jimmy Shergill, Sudhanshu Pandey, Arjun Rampal, Natassha, Soha Ali Khan, Vivek Oberoi, Tanushree Datta, Bipasha Basu, Esha Deol, Anupam Kher, Tusshar Kapoor