Solace Quantified

Ever thought to yourself, finally the nightmare is over and boom hit by something much worse than the previous situation. I don't know about you guys but this is what I said when I saw Quantum of Solace.

I hoped that Bond may have made peace with his past and we would be treated to watching some uber cool gadgets. I forgot that the last Bond adventure ended at Bond deciding to take revenge.

Thus, he came out full throttle to avenge the death of his beloved. I was happy to see the last Bond movie as it told us about how it all started. This change is trend is quiet harmful also.

It seems like the change of production house means starting things afresh. Thus, we get a whole new series on how it all started with Bond and how our dear Commander James Bond chose to be a playboy instead of a one woman man. If that is true, I would wish that the production sell it that way.

If we are to go down memory lane then I would suggest using props that belong to those times. Can't fit modern props into a movie about old times. This is something that even our larger than life Hindi movies keep in mind. I don't like to see Bond without his sauve nature, gadgets and women.

I read "Who Moved My Cheese" a few weeks ago and I know it says we should accept change as its inevitable. Even then, a change in Bond that makes him look geeky and fixated on one woman isn't the kind of change I want, when I watch a Bond movie. The only changes that should happen are his gadgets, women, enemies and martini. I mean, come on, Bond can't be rustic and un-sophisticated. How's he going to win over the women and destroy his enemies. Also, this whole Bond being a one woman man is kind of a repeated story.

We have already seen On Her Majesty's Secret Service, where Bond was married, wife gets killed by archenemy and bond avenges the death. I know a lot of you might beg to differ, and I totally respect it.

Last words, Commander Bond is making it very difficult for me to like him. Commander, please fast track and give us a window into your present if not the future.

Dark Knight - Finally a comic for grown ups

I had the good fortune of catching this movie at the theaters last week and I regretted not watching Batman Begins. Dark Knight was brilliant. Heath Ledger was very very convincing in his slimy Joker character. According to me though, the heroes of the movie were the editor and the background score musician. The movie was simply brilliant.

Yes ladies and Gentlemen, if you had the misfortune of missing Batman Begins (like me), don't miss The Dark Knight. My first reaction was that of awe and respect for Christopher Nolan (the director); what an imagination. I mean the guy took a simple comic book for kiddies and turned into a Comic book for grown ups without using the sexual connotations of Sin City. Its a good, clean absolutely entertaining movie. Once the movie got over, I told myself that in addition to V for Vendetta, Batman Begins and Dark Knight are also on my list of movies I want to buy for my personal collection. The characterization was perfect. Christopher definitely succeeded in getting the best from his crew, and yes, Heath Ledger was exceptional.

Ledger's Joker gave me the perfect slimy feeling that the director was aiming for; a very different characterization compared to Jack Nicholson's Joker in the George Clooney starer Batman & Robin. Ledger's line "Why so serious?"- gave me goosebumps every time I heard it in the movie. There were some people even more brilliant than Ledger who the made the movie the hit it is - The editor and The Background Score Musician.

The background score of the movie was haunting, perfectly suited for the mood at each scene. During the action scenes also, the background made quiet an impact. Saving the best for the last, 3 cheers for the editor of the movie - what a skilled technician. The editing was slick, to the point and no time wasting at all. According to me, Chris Nolan should thank his editor for doing such a stupendous job. If Chris Nolan was able to keep me at the edge of my seat, it wasn't just because of the story or the way he took a shot, it was also because of how the movie was cleverly edited and each scene was sharp and crisp; making the movie a crunchy delight to the last bite. There is always a second side to the coin and so is true for the movie too.

There were goof ups, bloopers and as I was read on a couple of reviews forums, a lot of them. Also, when the movie started I felt slightly lost as I wasn't introduced to the characters; but it doesn't take you more than 10 minutes to figure out the history. Its actually a good thing because Chris Nolan has succeeded at what most directors have failed since the last part of Godfather - Making a Sequel.

Kudos to Chris Nolan and his team. In retrospect, all I can say is, its a brilliant movie - Go Watch It, you'll enjoy it. You won't feel like a grown up at a kiddie movie.

Everyone's a Winner

"Everyone's a winner" - something we all get to hear from each and every the judge and "celebrity guest" of the dozens of the reality shows running on zillion Indian tv channels. I believe I've finally cracked this mystical coded sentence.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I believe I can say "Eureka" - I have the answer. After investing much time and effort into this thorough research, which did include the torture of watching these shows, I have finally understood what the judges and celebrities mean when they say this mystical phrase.

This phrase "Everyone's a winner" isn't meant for the contestants, but actually for the us poor tv watching audience who believe that we control the fate of the participants through our SMS votes. Everything is scripted- every violent emotion, every hot temper and every tear. Its scripted because, these shows are big money shows and thus can't afford to miss the TRP top charts to keep themselves in business. Generally they have been able to hide this fact from the people, but bad actors like some contestants of Indian Idol 3 and Ravi Kissen at Yeh Hai Jalwa gave away this strategy. Not digressing from the point, I believe our celebrities and judges do understand that their fans are listening to the show and may be they feel a responsibility towards us and don't want us to spend too much money in voting by telling us the truth.

The truth is that, well trained singers (like Toshi, Sharib, Karunya, Amey, Mussarat) showcase their talent and get an opportunity to be in the audience's mind even before they record their first song and bad singers (like Sandeep, Aneek) atleast get some money and a car to keep themselves afloat for a while. And that my friends, is the truth behind these shows. So, I would suggest following the democratic setup of country and just voting once, so that you vote for your favourite contestant without adding a big number on the balance sheet of the tv channels.

Shaurya: Its not "Few Good Men"

I will write about what I thought of the movie. Stop linking it with Few Good Men, its not a copy of it. Its a good movie, Watch It.

If you ask me, I loved the movie. The basics were right, yes the director didn't steer away from the formula of small budget multiplex movies. Samar Khan has repeated his brilliance of Kuch Meetha Ho Jaaye (KMHJ) with keeping the story simple and to the point. He has also learnt from the his mistakes
of KMHJ and paid attention to the screenplay as well. The screenplay was tight and put in just the right amount of time in explaining the context to the viewers. The actors were very good with Deepak Dobriyal, playing Capt Javed Khan, shining over the rest of the lot even my personal favourite KK Menon. KK Menon seemed a little uncomfortable and dis-interested in his role. It was refreshing to see Javed Jaffrey in a serious role, haven't seen that since Meri Jung. He seemed slightly at ease with his character of the responsible friend of Rahul Bose. Rahul Bose played his character of a young carefree army officer a slight notch below perfection, but is was good. Minisha Lamba reminded me of Kareena Kapoor's "Geet" from Jab We Met. Amrita Rao was very convincing as a young widow mother and Seema Biswas played her part well as Deepak Dobriyal's mother. The background score amalgamated perfectly with the narrative. The music composed was good too. Saving the best for the last, the cinematography was breathtaking. I've always said that I've only seen the beauty of J&K in pictures, movies and in my parent's narratives. So, 2 extra points to Samar Khan for walking me through the crown jewel of the Indian Republic - the state of J&K. I was absolutely stunned at the shot where Rahul Bose is standing in "the Khaai" looking up at the mountains - what a brilliant shot? I just feel bad now that I wasn't back home and I missed watching this movie at the theaters. And thanks to the so called "film critics" a well deserved movie wasn't able to sustain too long at the theaters.

I was very angry with the critics instantly comparing it to the Tom Cruise, Jack Nicholson starer Few Good Men because it was a court room drama about Defense forces. It only reflects the poor knowledge of these critics about the movies. Consider, the following points:

1. Few Good Men was about US Navy where as Shaurya was about Indian Army. Being an ex-defense officer's daughter I'll break into a hysterical laughter if you tell me that Navy and Army aren't different wings of the Defense forces.
   
2. Few Good Men was about improving the mental and physical toughness of a soldier by ragging and troubling the living daylights out of him. Shaurya, on the other hand, was about the issue of Culpable Homicide and Ethnic Cleansing.

My respect for the critics would've remained if they had said that is was an adaptation of Few Good Men, which I believe it was. Some scenes had a very distinct flavour of Few Good Men. Even then, labeling it as a copy of Shaurya is robbing the crew of the credit they should get for this effort. I've realized the lack of knowledge of critics now and also understood why many mainstream directors don't lend an ear to the critics. I was amused by one particular statement made by for brother's former favourite film critics Rajeev Masand - "The climax was pretty cliched with same old Hindu-Muslim thing," - I wanted to ask him; Mr. Masand do you understand the meaning of Ethnic Cleansing in the Indian context? After watching the movie, my brother lost all respect for Rajeev's film critic abilities.

In conclusion, I would like to say to all of you, if you haven't seen Shaurya - watch it. Rent a DVD and watch it. As for me, that's one movie for my private collection. When I go back home, I'm going to Music World and buying the original DVD. I would just like to end with the couple of lines of a dialogue which I absolutely loved - "Shaurya kya hai. Shayad ek hausla. Shayad ek himmat. Hamare bahut andar. Mazhab ke banaye dayere ko todkar. Kisi ka haath tham lene ki himmat. Goliyon ke betahasha shor ko apni khamoshi se chunauti de pane ki himmat. Shaurya kya hai. Aane wale kal ki khatir apne is kayanat ko aaj bacha lene ki himmat."

Remake or Translation?

Last week, I went through the painful experience of watching the latest Priyadarshan botchup - Mere Baap Pehle Aap (MBPA). The phrase "Lost in Translation" is a perfect fit for this project. Additionally, Priyadarshan got his basics wrong for making hindi movies. Though, the movie does have its moments, but was generally quiet painful. Watching the movie on TV, the only thing I was happy about was that I didn't go to the theaters for this one.

I have total respect for all who dared to sit in the theatres to watch this mess called MBPA. As I was watching the movie, I skipped through all the songs and was drifting in and out of the room running some chores as well. The movie wasn't strong enough to captivate the audience. The narration had a distinct South Indian cinema flavor to it and looked like a literal translation of the original Malayalam movie.

Priyadarshan, in my opinion, got his definitions of remake and translation mixed up. If I know my movie lingo correctly, a remake is an adaptation of the movie, the director's interpretation of the original work where as a translation would be just to take the script and translate word for word into a different language. A remake has to be adjusted to the situation and the audience. There is a fine line of difference between the two and thus probably hard to differentiate. Though, Priyadarshan is used to treading this line - Hungama, Hulchul, Garam Masala. With Garam Masala, though I felt, he did come pretty close to cross over into the translation territory and he bailed out safely at the last minute. However, he couldn't resist the temptation this time around with MBPA. It was almost like he blanked out on the basics of Hindi Movie Making.

Nothing seemed right with the movie, except a few scenes. The script, screenplay, dialogues and songs and the name of the movie too seemed liked a literal translation of the original. Though, Priyadarshan did save himself in the scene where he explained why the whole cast is attending a Malayali wedding given that they are all North Indians. It almost felt like Priyadarshan didn't have enough money to make the movie so he just hired a translator to translate the script, screenplay, dialogues and songs in hindi. The movie might have been very successful in its original form, but was completely off-mark in the Hindi version. Priyadarshan should've known better. I understand his eagerness of remaking his hit South Indian movies into Hindi, so that he can penetrate the different segments of audiences. In this eagerness, he can't forget that he has to treat his remakes as completely new projects and also remember the context of the movie. One thing ticked me off the most - the word "Baap". It isn't considered a good word in civilised Hindi and that is where I thought to myself that Priyadarshan has finally lost it. This is the most basic thing - the word Baap will not work at all. I'm suprised how Akshay Khanna and Paresh Rawal also failed to realise this fact.

To conclude, I would only say, "Priyadarshan sir, I love watching your movies but please come back in form. Its heart-wrenching to see that a director who made Hungama and Garam Masala gave us MBPA."