Cinema and Life: Take 2.

............and cut it! Cinema and Life Take 1 complete. 15 minutes and we shoot the next and final sequence- Cinema and Life: Take 2." said the director and as usual I sat down by the busy set when I saw a young guy dying to meet the director but was forcefully being thrown back and not allowed to enter the set.

                                

 

Looking at him I went into a flashback and began thinking about the sacrifices and the confidence people have on their kids. Certainly, not every child stops themselves from pushing themselves into a career which has no certainity. In my opinion there are 2 major fields where a person has to 'risk' some years of their life into Cinema or Sport- 2 fields where it is all down to one's luck and willingness to take risk and 'invest' their lives.                                                   

                                           

Though, parents are very supportive of their child's dream to be in the film or sports industry all they want is that their child should have a "Major" degree which gurantees a job and then pursue cinema or sports, which according to me is NOT wrong. A child should understand that all their parents want is a 'good life'. 

 

But the generation today is confused because there are so many factors. A few quotations like "Try until you succeed." "Success is not easy, you need to put in labor.", Inspiring quotes by celebreties, their success story inspire people to a huge extent. The recently on-going "Following your passion." is also another thing that keeps fueling the youth's mind.

                                      

 

What saddens me a lot is that that our generation has developed such a huge generation gap, that it seems so hard to bridge. They have no understanding towards what their parents want from them. Sadly, they don't realise that our parents only want us to be happy.

This from no point means that the youth should at least try once. If things go their way, great but if not, they shall at least NOT regret "NOT TRYING" which most people do!
 

Suddenly the director says, "Time to shoot. Back in Action." And suddenly my attention goes to that boy and he has vanished...Gone somewhere, trying his luck. And I stood up, unlike other people to complete what I started.

Cinema and Life: Take 1.

"Life is a journey with problems to solve, lessons to learn but most of all, experiences to enjoy." "Cinema is a journey on life with all boring things cut."

Life and Cinema are pretty much the same as defined above. It has always been said, "Do Not Mix Real and Reel Life" speaks volumes of the impact of Cinema in the daily lives of people.

                                         

                                          

Sitting down on a movie set with a cup of coffee in my hand I transported myself into a different world of cinema. As a young child, all of us fascinate to be an actor but then we get a reality check. Cinema has penetrated into our livers from a very early stage of childhood until late teens when they come to terms with reality of cinema-Nepotism, Casting Couch, Star Kids etc.
                                        

As a child being an actor is our fascination- Camera, Lights, Stage, Applauding People, Love fascinate any person. After all, Who does not like getting attention? This world of glamour and glitter does have a dark side to it which none of us talk about. If one survives this dark phase of lies, deceit, cheat and hatred, either one becomes strong and survives to a Slyvester Stallone or simply becomes one of the souls living with regression throughout their life.

                                        
                                                          

What matters more is that many souls settle without even trying and that is what defines Failure.  Failures in the film industry are not that huge because a person can at least quit the industry without the regression of not trying. By now, the cup of coffee was over and then came a voice, "Cinema and Life-Take 1 Scene 1. Action."

Cliched Romances: Bollywood's fault or Audiences?

I would like to open with the lines, "Wahi kahani phir ek baar, majnu ne liye kapde phaad macha tamasha beech bazaar." This line holds true for the clichéd romances everywhere. In Bollywood, the romantic genre has gone out of hand. There is a "formula" which seems to be followed by every Bollywood director who is into making romance.
                                                         

To make a romantic Bollywood "drama" follow the following steps:

Step 1: Girl meets Guy.

Step 2: Sparks happens and songs are required for emoting love.

Step 3: There has to be a "tragedy" or a "bad guy" who shall not allow our lovebirds to be at peace.

Step 4: The Guy and the tragedy come face to face , there is action and bloodshed.

Step 5: A sad song re-asserting the guy and girl's love. Emotion also added to spice up.

Step 6: Girl and Boy triumph the world and happily ever after.

Viola! Here is a typical clichéd romance ready to serve.
                                                

Bollywood should grow up and stop recreating DDLJ in various forms. Befikre,  Dilwale,  Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania, Ramaiya Vastavaiya  etc. are all examples of different make-over of DDLJ. Some of them were hits but majorly most of them were flop.

                                      

Bollywood has sure grown up, but it seems to "feed" audiences with the same cliched writing and that has been too repetitive but when the audience response is great, the makers tend to make more of such cliched romances.  The biggest example being Aashiqui 2. A particularly cliched script and such a humongous response. So what and who is to be held responsible for this? As of now,  movies like Mirza Juliet, Laali ki shaadi mein Laddoo deewana which released recently have just cemented my belief that Bollywood is feeding audience with cliched romances.

                                                   

And as the tradition is, a person gets 'used' to eating what they have been fed with. That is what has seemed to happen with the audience. Constantly they have been fed with the same formulaic stories to which they have got used to. So it will not be wrong to hold Bollywood wrong for not innovating new stories. A particular out of the box love story, 'Lootera', was attempted which agreed was a slow movie but had a beautiful storyline, terrific storyline, cracker dialogues, soulful music but failed at the box office because our industry had already fed the audience with so many make-overs of DDLJ that they became a little too 'intolerant' to new ideas.

                                                                

 

Bollywood should also understand that romance is sea of expression which has a lot of potential. It is just that our film makers are just "too lazy" to explore and 'risk' into something new They may have a feeling "Jo chal ra hai wo chalne do. Baaki dekha jayega." And this feeling is the reason we fail the romantic genre.  Though movies like 'Piku' and 'Paa' had subtle undertones of romance. They did exceptionally well at expressing that.

                                                    

As it is said, "What's gone is gone let's look to the future." Alas, I would like to say that movies like 'Raabta', Raula' are releasing which may give a new ray of hope to the romantic genre.

 

                                                

 

P.S. Even to this day DDLJ remains every 90's kid's guilty pleasure. As of after 2010, Lootera is the best romance ever since 2010.

Begum Jaan Review: Begum has arrived! And she is here to take ur 'Jaan.'

Before watching 'Begum Jaan', I watched the movie that inspired this remake-'Rajkahini', a Bengali movie so there are going to be mentions of it in this review too. Rajkahini and Begum Jaan, both are lead by the same director, Srijit Mukherjee. It is suprising to see that the presentation of both movies differs drastically. Rakahini was led by the bengali actor, Rituparna Sengupta, Begum Jaan is lead by the super-talented Vidya Balan.

                                                     

 

Begum Jaan is superiorly backed by the ample of power packed performances. Vidya Balan playing the titular role can just be described in one word- Phenomenal. Though at times she goes a little 'too loud' but majorly she holds the movie together. With 16 characters in the movie, everyone having their share of screen time but Gauhar Khan as Rubina, Pallavi Sharda as Gulaabo, Ila Arun as Amma and Sumit Nijhawan as Salim impress the most. Though Ashish Vidyarthi and Rajit Kapur make an appearance, they disappoint. It won't be wrong to say that the cast at times went a little too overboard with their antics upsetting certain sections of the movie and Chunky Pandey as Kabir is the least menacing antagonist.

                                              

 

The storyline of the movie is amazing, but I wonder why did Srijit Mukherjee had to unnecessarily infuse his clichéd writing, which I didn't get to see in Rajkahini .Somehow Srijit did try to infuse emotions and get us connected to the movie but sadly failed. What started as a promising movie turned into a sadistic, emotional and a disturbing drama. The editing, the cinematography, the art direction were on point but the hazy, fidget camerawork turn this brilliant piece of cinema disappointing and at times, a test of patience. But still, the dialogues the soulful lyrics of and the melodious voices of Asha Bhosle in 'Prem mein Tohre', Rahat Fateh Ali Khan and Arijit Singh make this journey, soulful. The background score and the costumes are bang-on.

                                                  

 

With all said and done, Begum Jaan is not everyone's cup of tea and is a little overcooked with emotions and acting and at times goes overboard with the same but can be your watch for it's  brilliant premise, Vidya, Gauhar and music, which is not meant for mass appeal but the soulful voices infuse life and carry the movie forward. Begum Jaan also makes a strong statement about the condition of women in the country that much hasn't changed much since 1947. Begum Jaan is dark, disturbing but has its soul in the right  place especially in the last 8 minutes. Begum Jaan deserves a 3.5 stars and a score of 7/10. Begum Jaan is at par with Rajkahini, it's Bengali counterpart.

                                                     

P.S. Watch it only if you can handle exceptional noise and at times, over the top melodrama.

 

Indian Audience Overseas and Bollywood.

It has been 8 months since I came to Dublin. Since then, I seem to have grown some 'extra' fondness towards Bollywood. Over my period from September 2016 until March 2017, I have watched a lot of Bollywood movies at the theatres. The first movie that I watched after coming to Dublin was Karan Johar's 'Ae Dil Hai Mushkil'. Initially, I went to buy the tickets from the box office believing that the seats I might have got could be flexible (as in to change it).

                                                 

Upon entering the theatre, I was dumbstruck because the movie was housefull and I believed about KJo's ability and Aishwarya's star struck presence could bring audience to the theatres even abroad. The next movie that I watched was 'Dear Zindagi' which took surprisingly turned out to be housefull on a weekday. Here I believed it was SRK's star power that brought people into theatres.

                                                        

But after few such viewings, I realized that there are not many factors that come into play for the audience abroad. There is no doubt that the indian audiences abroad are driven to theatres on the basis of Star Power, to an extent the director and music. 'Dangal', 'Dhoom 3', 'Happy New Year', 'PK' etc are a symbol of Star Power majorly influencing box office overseas. Though this trend of star power being replaced by content has seen visible and effective changes in India but no such traces are seen abroad.

                                     

                 

What has been more upsetting is that the movies that receive international recognition like 'Masaan', 'Anarkali of Aarah', "Raman Raghav 2.0', sadly do not release for the audience overseas because of the tight budget and no international distributors, so even if an audience is eager for any such movie, they have settle for online watch. And it is this restricted distribution  that also promotes piracy because if a person has to, they will somehow watch it.

           

                             

                       

The youth overseas today is not interested in watching indian movies overseas because they may believe "Itni mehnat se bahar aayein hain, waapas Hindustani movie nahi dekhni......Homesickness hoti hai"  and because over 7 months of staying overseas I haven't seen more that 40% of a bollywood movie theatre occupied by youth. So instead, they watch Hollywood and stay content but deep down, they do watch hindi movies online though. Maybe the weak Indian currency comes into play for this one and maybe the reason that not a lot of the youth watch Bollywood cinema overseas.

                                             

Surprisingly, there is a lot of local crowd that I have observed, who come to see Bollywood drama. Though, Bollywood has a long way to go, a two hour long drama spiced up with action and emotions give a perfect blend to the international audience who according to me, refrain from expressing emotions. It seems to appear to me that they seem to be very happy when a character from the movies emote it. At this one might question "Why only Bollywood? Hollywood does it too." For this question, I just have 1 answer, "No one does it better than Indians." And since the indian audience has been a part of this expression, they feel that maybe they can avoid such movies at theatres which can be another reason for not watching a lot of Bollywood cinema outside.

                                             

With all said, I hope that Bollywood continues to find audience overseas even if they go a little overboard with their acting, music or content. The surprise super-success of 'Dum Laga Ke Haisha' which earned 300 million(30 crores) and 150 million(15 crores) overseas and 'Ranjhanaa' which earned 650 million(65 crore) domestically and 350 million(35 crore) internationally even gave confidence to the producers of Ranjhanaa, "Eros International" that indian audience overseas are beginning to appreciate content and not star power. Their "risk" had actually "payed off" well for them and we have seen a good risen trend of international releases from this particular production house. Such "risks" shoud also be taken by other production houses, they may not know the outcome of releasing their movies abroad. 

                                                

Maybe, the indian audience starts to visit cinemas overseas which might give a ray of hope to the producers that "times are changing" for good.

Cricket over Movies or Movies over Cricket?

The Indian Premier League commenced today. A question on the minds of most of the trade analyst throughout the seasons of IPL has been "Will the bat and ball Dent the ticket windows?" The answer to  this question lies on both- the 'type' of cricket played and the movies released during this  period. 

                                                  

                                         

On a lighter note, we can also say that IPL/any cricket league decides who is the real boss of the house- the husband or the wife. A self respecting man cannot miss the live telecast of the match and a woman can't let a man prevail with the T.V. remote.

                                                  

 

But on a serious note, these cricket tournaments have heavily dented the box office collections of the movies that 'dared' to take on this tournament. Movies like  'Tashan', 'Game', 'Thank You', 'Krazzy 4','Paathshala' flopped pretty much because of having horrendous performances or a clichéd script. But how can someone justify the failures of movies like ' 8X10 Tasveer', 'Go Goa Gone' 'Detective Byomukesh Bakshy' or lately SRK starrer 'Fan'?

                                             

 

But then there have been movies like 'Jannat', 'Housefull' ,'Vicky Donor', 'Heropanti', '2 States', 'Baaghi' and more lately 'Piku', that defied the myth of flopping during IPL and emerged successful at the cash counters. Not to forget, some of these movies had star power but most of them set the cash registers ringing because of their high appreciative/masala content.

 

                                           

The question after listing both the 'flops' and 'hits' is that "What does the audience really want?" If stardom, then why did movies like Fan and Thank You fail? They carried stardom of SRK and Akshay respectively. If content, then why did movies like Detective Byomukesh Bakshy, Go Goa Gone fail? They were lauded by almost each and every critic in the country. But then hits like Vicky Donor, 2 States, Baaghi and most importantly Piku question as to what do audiences actually want. They were given content but they rejected. They were offered mindless comedies which too they rejected.

  

                                        

Actually it seems after closely observing all the movies that were released during this period and became hits were not exactly high on content but they were actually high on something that movies are actually made for- Entertainment.

                                                              

Hence, it can be concluded that star power or no star power, content or no content, only those movies shall work in this period which provide Entertainment because not always do 4s and 6s impress/entertain.

 

                                   

 

 

Naam Shabana Review: Taapsee "pulls" you through this yawn fest.

Naam Shabana is the prequel to the much acclaimed thriller, 'Baby' which had Akshay Kumar in a lead role.'Baby' was written and directed by Neeraj Pandey who has written and directed movies like 'A Wednesday' and 'Special 26' and so one can imagine how high the pedestal was set for Naam Shabana. Though Neeraj Pandey has only written this prequel, there is no meat to the script. It is infact a crash course on "How to become a spy."

When the writing is poor, it all boils down to the actors and thee director to carry the  movie. Director Shivam Nair makes Naam Shabana an even "traumatizing experience". The abrupt switches from scene to scene, the connectivity between pre and post interval sequences seem to be missing and terribly hamper the viewing.

                                              

 

The only good point about the movie is Taapsee Pannu. She performs the role of Shabana Khan to perfection. She is vulnerable and emotional in the first half and her effort and dedication in becoming agent Shabana Khan is visible. She ticks all the right boxes and though the movie is slipping from her hand, she manages to keep a hold on the movie and also the viewers engaged.

                                              

Prithviraj Sukumaran as the baddie Tony is disappointing. A 'plastic' face with no expressions and the 'villainous look' required seem to be missing. Still he is fair when compared to other aspects of the movie.

                                              

Akshay Kumar, Anupam Kher, Manoj Bajpayee and Danny Denzongpa make an appearance but only Anupam Kher impresses in his 10 minute appearance. Akshay Kumar and Manoj Bajpayee seem to be monotonous in their respective roles and both of them are  unimpressive.

 

All other aspects of the movie like editing, screenplay and most importantly the background score are bad. A special mention to the background scorer, "Adding  the movie Baby's background score will neither increase the thrill nor will it improve this movie. It will just remind us of Baby more and more." Not only this, the background score is unnecessarily loud at times. Editing and Direction go hand in hand, when direction is not good, the editing is not good either. A very lousy screenplay comes to this point that it begins testing audiences' patience. There is unnecessary music also, which seems to drag an already 'seeming long' movie. Though, the camera work is better than these aspects. Cinematography and dialogues are average, at best.

 

Overall, Naam Shabana is a disappointment. A score of 5/10 and a rating of 2.5 stars can be given. This rating is only because of Taapsee and her brave act. Only and only the writer and director can be blamed for this. The stars are comparatively better.

                                    

P.S. Kushagr Sahu saved the day for me and my friends by providing us with the 'entertainment' the movie was supposed to provide us with. Thank you!