Friday, July 04, 2008
JTYJN & 2050
Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na
Okay, let’s get the cribbing out of the way first—the plot of Abbas Tyrewala’s Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na is so overused, that at first when the ‘best friends who don’t realize they are in love’ stuff comes up, you want to run out of the hall screaming. The bunch of friends telling an outsider the big love story (like Chalte Chalte) does nothing to allay your fears. You are bugged that the lovely Kabhi Kabhi Aditi song is wasted on an inconsequential situation.
Then the quirkiness of the director, the effortless lines, the freshness of the characters start to grow on you; the unusual casting, the reality of ordinary people’s lives hits home and then you sit back and enjoy the rest of the film and come out smiling (in spite of that grr-inducing ‘Godot’ cleverness!)
Jai Rathod (Imran Khan) has been brought as a decent, non-violent boy by his slightly loopy mother Savitri (Ratna Pathak Shah) who fights with his dead father’s portrait. His best friend Aditi (Genelia D'souza) is a spirited and ill-tempered girl, whose favourite punching bag is her brother Amit (Prateik Babbar).
They have a ‘gang’ of loyal friends and everyone thinks Jai and Aditi are made for each other, except the two themselves. Jai falls for a soft, feminine Meghna (Manjari Phadnis), while Aditi is attracted to a macho type (Ayaz Khan).
How the two recognize their love for each other is what the film is about. But then, where else do you a see a brave activist mom like Savitri, whose constant battle with an inspector Waghmare (Paresh Rawal) is almost like a love-hate relationship? Where else do you see cool parents called “Peachy” and “Pumpkin”? Where else do a see a brother-sister team that has so much rage and so much tenderness. And where else can you see two mad Rajput cowboys (two Khan brothers in a whacky cameos)?
There is the very, very hackneyed airport climax; there is the very slightly disturbing thought that the film actually lists violence as a mark of manhood. But Jaane Tu… (the title from a song in Aa Gale Lag Ja, sung by various characters with various degrees of cacophony) is such a nice, clean, enjoyable film that you don’t really mind.
Imran Khan has the kind of looks that will be called “cute” but the teenage multiplex crowd that will throng to this film, hopefully he will be able to grow out of it. Both he and Genelia D’Souza with her make-up less, unaffected, tomboy look, have given really charming performances. Some of the other actors—like the gang, the brother and the two other partners are terrific too, so’re the seniors like Ratna Pathak Shah, Paresh Rawal and Rajat Kapoor in small parts.
Love Story 2050
If those who are still stuck in the past, make films about the future, the result is bound to be an in-limbo mess like Love Story 2050.
Aren’t we bored of poor little rich guys, of giggly trying-to-be-cute girls; guys chasing girls all over the place and then singing songs and not even asking for each other’s phone numbers and email ids! So then they have to depend on magical CG butterflies to help to reunite them. This is 2008, in case Harry Baweja forgot, as he was keeping an eye on the future!
Harman Baweja, given the very Bollywood-ish name Karan Malhotra, is the aforementioned rich guy; he has a long introduction sequence, during which we see small parts of his face, then profile and then, voila, the Face, which resembles Hrithik Roshan’s!
Karan whines because rich daddy doesn’t care about him, he talks to his dead mum and flips for girl in baby doll dress, chasing a butterfly. Now he chases Sana (Priyanka Chopra) up and down the streets, up and down a rollercoaster, and so on. This is most of the first half and we are still in 2008—in picturesque Australia where Karan’s Uncle Ya (Boman Irani) is making a time machine and Sana’s mother (Archana Puran Singh) speaks in an exaggerated Bhatinda accent.
Between one thing and another, and so as not to put in any spoilers, Karan, Uncle Ya (trying to be Einstein) and Sana’s kid siblings land up in Mumbai 2050. It’s Gothic hell, out of who-knows-how-many Hollywood sci-fi films and comics. There are cute talking robots and a masked villain like Darth Vader from Star Wars.
In 2050, Sana is an irritatingly self-obsessed, red-haired rock star Zeisha, and Karan has to make her fall in love with him and take her back to 2008. Now, even by the put-brains-on-hold logic of Bollywood cinema, Karan can’t stay on in 2050 because he will age by 42 years, but if Zeisha went back, wouldn’t she regress back into the womb?
Don’t argue, Baweja seems to say; just admire futuristic buildings, flying cars, a virtual reality Mortal Combat game, light sabre fights, weird outfits, music concerts in the sky and all that the special effects guys have painstakingly put together, and which the scriptwriters have wrecked with their lacklustre plotting. So the 2050 section becomes one long meaningless set-piece, with no emotional connect with the audience.
Harman Baweja is good-looking, muscular, standard-issue ‘hero’ of today. He can fight, he can dance, we’ll know from his next film if he can act as well... Priyanka Chopra still hasn’t got her act together. Anu Malik’s music could have been peppier, its pleasant enough, but not foot-tapping.
To sum up, sci-fi fans have seen far superior work from the West; if this is the best vision of the future Bollywood could come up with, we are better off in the past.
Okay, let’s get the cribbing out of the way first—the plot of Abbas Tyrewala’s Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na is so overused, that at first when the ‘best friends who don’t realize they are in love’ stuff comes up, you want to run out of the hall screaming. The bunch of friends telling an outsider the big love story (like Chalte Chalte) does nothing to allay your fears. You are bugged that the lovely Kabhi Kabhi Aditi song is wasted on an inconsequential situation.
Then the quirkiness of the director, the effortless lines, the freshness of the characters start to grow on you; the unusual casting, the reality of ordinary people’s lives hits home and then you sit back and enjoy the rest of the film and come out smiling (in spite of that grr-inducing ‘Godot’ cleverness!)
Jai Rathod (Imran Khan) has been brought as a decent, non-violent boy by his slightly loopy mother Savitri (Ratna Pathak Shah) who fights with his dead father’s portrait. His best friend Aditi (Genelia D'souza) is a spirited and ill-tempered girl, whose favourite punching bag is her brother Amit (Prateik Babbar).
They have a ‘gang’ of loyal friends and everyone thinks Jai and Aditi are made for each other, except the two themselves. Jai falls for a soft, feminine Meghna (Manjari Phadnis), while Aditi is attracted to a macho type (Ayaz Khan).
How the two recognize their love for each other is what the film is about. But then, where else do you a see a brave activist mom like Savitri, whose constant battle with an inspector Waghmare (Paresh Rawal) is almost like a love-hate relationship? Where else do you see cool parents called “Peachy” and “Pumpkin”? Where else do a see a brother-sister team that has so much rage and so much tenderness. And where else can you see two mad Rajput cowboys (two Khan brothers in a whacky cameos)?
There is the very, very hackneyed airport climax; there is the very slightly disturbing thought that the film actually lists violence as a mark of manhood. But Jaane Tu… (the title from a song in Aa Gale Lag Ja, sung by various characters with various degrees of cacophony) is such a nice, clean, enjoyable film that you don’t really mind.
Imran Khan has the kind of looks that will be called “cute” but the teenage multiplex crowd that will throng to this film, hopefully he will be able to grow out of it. Both he and Genelia D’Souza with her make-up less, unaffected, tomboy look, have given really charming performances. Some of the other actors—like the gang, the brother and the two other partners are terrific too, so’re the seniors like Ratna Pathak Shah, Paresh Rawal and Rajat Kapoor in small parts.
Love Story 2050
If those who are still stuck in the past, make films about the future, the result is bound to be an in-limbo mess like Love Story 2050.
Aren’t we bored of poor little rich guys, of giggly trying-to-be-cute girls; guys chasing girls all over the place and then singing songs and not even asking for each other’s phone numbers and email ids! So then they have to depend on magical CG butterflies to help to reunite them. This is 2008, in case Harry Baweja forgot, as he was keeping an eye on the future!
Harman Baweja, given the very Bollywood-ish name Karan Malhotra, is the aforementioned rich guy; he has a long introduction sequence, during which we see small parts of his face, then profile and then, voila, the Face, which resembles Hrithik Roshan’s!
Karan whines because rich daddy doesn’t care about him, he talks to his dead mum and flips for girl in baby doll dress, chasing a butterfly. Now he chases Sana (Priyanka Chopra) up and down the streets, up and down a rollercoaster, and so on. This is most of the first half and we are still in 2008—in picturesque Australia where Karan’s Uncle Ya (Boman Irani) is making a time machine and Sana’s mother (Archana Puran Singh) speaks in an exaggerated Bhatinda accent.
Between one thing and another, and so as not to put in any spoilers, Karan, Uncle Ya (trying to be Einstein) and Sana’s kid siblings land up in Mumbai 2050. It’s Gothic hell, out of who-knows-how-many Hollywood sci-fi films and comics. There are cute talking robots and a masked villain like Darth Vader from Star Wars.
In 2050, Sana is an irritatingly self-obsessed, red-haired rock star Zeisha, and Karan has to make her fall in love with him and take her back to 2008. Now, even by the put-brains-on-hold logic of Bollywood cinema, Karan can’t stay on in 2050 because he will age by 42 years, but if Zeisha went back, wouldn’t she regress back into the womb?
Don’t argue, Baweja seems to say; just admire futuristic buildings, flying cars, a virtual reality Mortal Combat game, light sabre fights, weird outfits, music concerts in the sky and all that the special effects guys have painstakingly put together, and which the scriptwriters have wrecked with their lacklustre plotting. So the 2050 section becomes one long meaningless set-piece, with no emotional connect with the audience.
Harman Baweja is good-looking, muscular, standard-issue ‘hero’ of today. He can fight, he can dance, we’ll know from his next film if he can act as well... Priyanka Chopra still hasn’t got her act together. Anu Malik’s music could have been peppier, its pleasant enough, but not foot-tapping.
To sum up, sci-fi fans have seen far superior work from the West; if this is the best vision of the future Bollywood could come up with, we are better off in the past.
Labels: Cinemaah
Monday, June 30, 2008
Thoda Thoda
Thodi Life Thoda Magic
There has to be a good reason for a director to pick up a really hackneyed subject to make a film—and that too in these times, when all its Hollywood source material (Sound of Music, Mary Poppins, Nanny McPhee, Enchanted) has been seen (or can be) on TV and DVD.
It’s either a classic he wants to reinterpret in his own way (danger zone!) or there’s something he wants to add to the formula. After watching the promos of Kunal Kohli’s Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic, you know exactly what the film is about, how it will go and how it will end. Then what’s your motivation for spending those big multiplex bucks?
Ranbeer (Saif Ali Khan), a surly businessman (he was orphaned in childhood and grew up with deep frown lines) accidentally kills a couple when his car crashes into theirs. The judge (Sharat Saxena) – like in the old hit Dushman—orders him to look after their kids, and do it well, or go to jail.
The four kids (Akshat Chopra, Shriya Sharma, Rachit Sidana, Ayushi Berman), odious enough as it is, giving their relatives a hard time, hate him and go all out to make his life hell. Then God (a chubby Rishi Kapoor) sends an angel Geeta (Rani Mukerji) to earth to sort their problems. She lands up wearing a dress more hideous than her white chiffon angel costume and wins over the kids with magic.
She inexplicably speaks like a Punjabi housewife, takes an instant dislike to Ranbeer’s flighty bimbo girlfriend Malaika (Ameesha Patel) and manages to do the job of bringing kids and ‘enemy’ together, but, predictably ‘didi’ and ‘bhaiyya’ fall in love and it’s God’s problem to solve this one.
Of course, there are special effects, but there is such a thing as overdoing it. Geeta takes the kids to a museum and they get into outer-space, enter a war tableau, participate in the Dandi march, and you wonder why the pari is singing a patriotic song to entertain the kids? If the film was meant for kids, then why the erotic Lazy Lamhe number?
Kohli made the film with a checklist of ingredients, but didn’t get the proportions right – comedy not enough; emotions deficient; romance marginal; action none; performances: kids okay, Rani over done, Saif underdone. Forget Hollywood, see Parichay and Bawarchi—even today they can make the most jaded viewer laugh and cry. That is movie magic, this is just charlatanry.
Thodi Life Thoda Magic
The way television is today, it could be cinema’s favourite whipping boy, but then the film would have be really powerful, not some watery Network collides with Meet John Doe concoction.
The synopsis of Anand L Rai’s Thoda Life Thoda Magic sounds a lot more coherent than the film—it talks about a mysterious man who changes the lives of a bunch of TV professionals, teaching them the importance of relationships and so on. Then, when you see the film, you feel, heck the actors are all there, but where’s the story?
Jackie Shroff plays MK, a vagrant, who is chosen to be the face of Indian Television when Naina (Meera Vasudevan) see him playing cricket with a bunch of street kids. She is involved with Roshan (Arbaaz Khan), a TV channel head, but walks out of the job to join the team that is producing this TRP-busting show for the channel.
Siddharth (Sahil Chadha) and his employers Mr and Mrs Singhania (Parmeet Sethi-Anita Raaj) do a lot of brainstorming, that sounds like they don’t know what they are talking about. Anyway, the jholawala vagabond is put into designer suits, made to host a TV show called Thodi Life Thoda Magic, and utter simple homilies. The show, as a vox populi shot on the streets proves, becomes very popular.
Now suddenly, for no reason that one can see or understand, Siddharth and Naina get very unhappy, think the show has sold its soul, and she spends the rest of the film snapping at the baffled Roshan, or staring at the camera and crying.
There is something very deep supposedly happening below the surface, but neither the writer nor the director can explain it on screen. And you come out the film wondering, what the hell was that all about? There wasn’t much life there, and certainly no magic. It was nice to see Jackie Shroff play himself, and Anita Raaj return to the screen after years, in great shape, but not much of a role.
Try figuring out this one, it’s a jigsaw puzzle with several pieces missing.
Via Darjeeling
If, by chance, you miss the name of the director in the credits of Via Darjeeling, you can still guess, it must be a first-time director—most probably from Bengal, cine-literate enough to want to do a Kurosawa.
All film buffs have seen (or heard of) Rashomon, and who can remain unaffected by the film, which put forward the simple, yet profound, premise that truth is relative—a matter of perception.
Arindam Nandy takes this idea to craft a clever, but rather pretentious, film in which a cop (Vinay Pathak) narrates at a party at his friends’ house, the story of a honeymooning couple (Kay Kay Menon-Sonali Kulkarni) in Darjeeling. He had investigated the case of the husband who went missing, and was never found.
By itself, the story is not shocking or unusual enough to dine out on, so it’s even more surprising that the hosts (Rajat Kapoor-Simone Singh) and other guests (Sandhya Mridul-Proshanth Narayanan) at the party are so fascinated that they put forward their own ideas about what might have happened.
Each telling, reveals much about the person talking, but confuses the picture further. By a far-fetched coincidence, it actually connects to at least one of the guests. After all the sham drama and mystery, there’s an open end, but with a twist, so that the audience is left to figure out for themselves what it was all about. But never once does the story affect them enough to want to solve the brain-teaser.
Well shot, with good performances all round – though the party folks have very little to do—the film is, at best, a one-time watch, if there is no other film worth watching at the multiplex.
There has to be a good reason for a director to pick up a really hackneyed subject to make a film—and that too in these times, when all its Hollywood source material (Sound of Music, Mary Poppins, Nanny McPhee, Enchanted) has been seen (or can be) on TV and DVD.
It’s either a classic he wants to reinterpret in his own way (danger zone!) or there’s something he wants to add to the formula. After watching the promos of Kunal Kohli’s Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic, you know exactly what the film is about, how it will go and how it will end. Then what’s your motivation for spending those big multiplex bucks?
Ranbeer (Saif Ali Khan), a surly businessman (he was orphaned in childhood and grew up with deep frown lines) accidentally kills a couple when his car crashes into theirs. The judge (Sharat Saxena) – like in the old hit Dushman—orders him to look after their kids, and do it well, or go to jail.
The four kids (Akshat Chopra, Shriya Sharma, Rachit Sidana, Ayushi Berman), odious enough as it is, giving their relatives a hard time, hate him and go all out to make his life hell. Then God (a chubby Rishi Kapoor) sends an angel Geeta (Rani Mukerji) to earth to sort their problems. She lands up wearing a dress more hideous than her white chiffon angel costume and wins over the kids with magic.
She inexplicably speaks like a Punjabi housewife, takes an instant dislike to Ranbeer’s flighty bimbo girlfriend Malaika (Ameesha Patel) and manages to do the job of bringing kids and ‘enemy’ together, but, predictably ‘didi’ and ‘bhaiyya’ fall in love and it’s God’s problem to solve this one.
Of course, there are special effects, but there is such a thing as overdoing it. Geeta takes the kids to a museum and they get into outer-space, enter a war tableau, participate in the Dandi march, and you wonder why the pari is singing a patriotic song to entertain the kids? If the film was meant for kids, then why the erotic Lazy Lamhe number?
Kohli made the film with a checklist of ingredients, but didn’t get the proportions right – comedy not enough; emotions deficient; romance marginal; action none; performances: kids okay, Rani over done, Saif underdone. Forget Hollywood, see Parichay and Bawarchi—even today they can make the most jaded viewer laugh and cry. That is movie magic, this is just charlatanry.
Thodi Life Thoda Magic
The way television is today, it could be cinema’s favourite whipping boy, but then the film would have be really powerful, not some watery Network collides with Meet John Doe concoction.
The synopsis of Anand L Rai’s Thoda Life Thoda Magic sounds a lot more coherent than the film—it talks about a mysterious man who changes the lives of a bunch of TV professionals, teaching them the importance of relationships and so on. Then, when you see the film, you feel, heck the actors are all there, but where’s the story?
Jackie Shroff plays MK, a vagrant, who is chosen to be the face of Indian Television when Naina (Meera Vasudevan) see him playing cricket with a bunch of street kids. She is involved with Roshan (Arbaaz Khan), a TV channel head, but walks out of the job to join the team that is producing this TRP-busting show for the channel.
Siddharth (Sahil Chadha) and his employers Mr and Mrs Singhania (Parmeet Sethi-Anita Raaj) do a lot of brainstorming, that sounds like they don’t know what they are talking about. Anyway, the jholawala vagabond is put into designer suits, made to host a TV show called Thodi Life Thoda Magic, and utter simple homilies. The show, as a vox populi shot on the streets proves, becomes very popular.
Now suddenly, for no reason that one can see or understand, Siddharth and Naina get very unhappy, think the show has sold its soul, and she spends the rest of the film snapping at the baffled Roshan, or staring at the camera and crying.
There is something very deep supposedly happening below the surface, but neither the writer nor the director can explain it on screen. And you come out the film wondering, what the hell was that all about? There wasn’t much life there, and certainly no magic. It was nice to see Jackie Shroff play himself, and Anita Raaj return to the screen after years, in great shape, but not much of a role.
Try figuring out this one, it’s a jigsaw puzzle with several pieces missing.
Via Darjeeling
If, by chance, you miss the name of the director in the credits of Via Darjeeling, you can still guess, it must be a first-time director—most probably from Bengal, cine-literate enough to want to do a Kurosawa.
All film buffs have seen (or heard of) Rashomon, and who can remain unaffected by the film, which put forward the simple, yet profound, premise that truth is relative—a matter of perception.
Arindam Nandy takes this idea to craft a clever, but rather pretentious, film in which a cop (Vinay Pathak) narrates at a party at his friends’ house, the story of a honeymooning couple (Kay Kay Menon-Sonali Kulkarni) in Darjeeling. He had investigated the case of the husband who went missing, and was never found.
By itself, the story is not shocking or unusual enough to dine out on, so it’s even more surprising that the hosts (Rajat Kapoor-Simone Singh) and other guests (Sandhya Mridul-Proshanth Narayanan) at the party are so fascinated that they put forward their own ideas about what might have happened.
Each telling, reveals much about the person talking, but confuses the picture further. By a far-fetched coincidence, it actually connects to at least one of the guests. After all the sham drama and mystery, there’s an open end, but with a twist, so that the audience is left to figure out for themselves what it was all about. But never once does the story affect them enough to want to solve the brain-teaser.
Well shot, with good performances all round – though the party folks have very little to do—the film is, at best, a one-time watch, if there is no other film worth watching at the multiplex.
Labels: Cinemaah
