CroreHit Shetty goes to Hollywood

New York Depress starring Brave Willis and Emma Wandson

Crore-Hit Shetty was pacing worriedly in his office. His last 7 movies have been blockbusters, generating revenues of over 100 crores each. Producers were falling over each other to make a movie with him. Top actors were rubbing their nose on his toenails to give them a chance. Recently, Kamsina Kaif had a massive heart attack when she was approached to do a dance number for his movie. She was overwhelmed to death.

Suddenly the phone rang. It was his dear friend, Safe-Run Khan.

“Are you taking me in your next or not?” Safe-Run shouted the moment Crore-Hit picked up the phone.

“Oh! You won’t believe what I am directing next. I have a Hollywood offer!” Crore-Hit blurted out. He could not hold it any longer.

“What!?!? Please take me! Please! I will dance in all the weddings of your family. Tell me you are not joking!”

“No, I am not! I have been approached by Hippo Searchlight to make an international movie for them.”

“So what is the problem? Why do you sound worried?”

“I don’t have a story!” Crore-Hit said exasperatedly.

“Bah! But you never did! Come on! Pick up any older movie of yours. Pick Chennai Depress. Turn it into New York Depress,” Safe-Run suggested.

“Oh my Crores! You are a genius! I will give you a role in it,” Crore-Hit said and kept the receiver back. Safe-Run wanted to tell him that he would be happy to play even a telephone booth in his movie, but he kept that for later. 

Crore-Hit started working on the modifying the script. He took help of his lungi friends like Sajid Crap, Sajid’s sister Farha Crap, and Arbaaz Crap. The first thing they did was to take away all the South Indian characters out of Chennai Depress and fill them with stereotyped Caucasians. Then the locations of all the romantic songs were changed. There was one song atop the New York subway now and another one where the actors hang upside down from the Golden Gate. Just-Teen Burger was roped in to lend his voice to the lead actress while Yo Yo Donkey Singh was finalized to playback for the male lead.

“What about the crappy one liners and stale jokes?” Crore-Hit asked the Crap clan.

As an answer, Farha Crap took out the ‘Stereotype encyclopaedia for Blondes’ from her bag. The elite directors spent the rest of the day digging out jokes from the book and fitting them in various parts in the screenplay. 

“Have they finalized the starcast yet?” Karamchand, the editor-in-chief of Film-unfair asked Crore-Hit Shetty in a page 3 party.

“Yes, they are taking Brave Willis and Emma Wandson.”

“Isn’t Brave a bit old for the role? And Emma is 1/10^th his age,” Karamchand said.

“But the audience loves old men and young girls. It’s aphrodisiacal,” Crore-Hit said flashing his teeth. 

Finalizing the actress for the item number was a monumental task. Crore-hit finally decided to hold a dance competition and invited Brave Willis to judge it with Farha Crap. It was a disaster. Three actresses shot each other with machine guns while one of them had her eyeballs clawed out. One actress was found naked tied to a commode while another one’s hair caught fire mysteriously. Another one died in a landmine blast just outside the venue. It was finally decided that an international celebrity should be taken. Sunny Lube-onee was finally signed because of her varied ‘exposures’ in the field. 

The movie went on floor and the Hollywood production house was pleasantly taken aback by the amazingly grotesque treatment of the subject. Crore-Hit convinced them that this is what the audience want nowadays. He told them that they leave their brains at home (India’s latest contribution to the list of Idioms) and laugh at all jokes from the Stereotype Encyclopaedia. The highlight of the movie was Brave Willis pelvic thrusting a song in the voice of Yo Yo Donkey Singh on top of a subway train as Emma Wandson quivered semi-naked in front of him. She lip synced Just-teen Burger’s rendition of the duet as a group of hundred dancers gyrated with her atop the train. The whole of New York was out on the streets to see this unbelievable spectacle. 

The movie earned billions of dollars. Crore-Hit Shetty was rechristened BullShit Shetty in international circles.

Safe-Run Khan loved his promised cameo in New York Depress. He was the one who helped Emma Wandson get on the train by giving her his hand, followed by Emma doing an ‘Obliviate’ on him. He looked forward to promote the movie in India by appearing with the lead star cast on the best television shows like See.Eye.Duh and ‘Niyati entangled in the whirlpool of relationships’.

Meanwhile BullShit Shetty was offered to direct the next part of Aven-jerks – The rise of Loki, Tinda and Tori. 

A chat with the Seducers

They have been entertaining us for years. You cannot imagine Bollywood without their gyrations. In this nation where an average Indian struggles for a meal, they are like a shining beacon in cold nights giving equal respite to the underprivileged and the privileged. Why would I like to chat with them, you may ask? It is to know their secret formula, to know what makes them thrust, to know what inspires them to do jiggle their assets.

It was an honor to be connected to the Seven Sexy Seducers on WeChat and talk to them. Now won’t it be best if I share with you our chat history? That will give you enough fodder as to why I was jumping with joy when I got this opportunity.

Oh! But before that, let me introduce them to you.

Me : Hello Ladies. This is history in the making.

Mehbooba : History? Are you trying to insult me by telling me that I am old now?

Chikni Chameli : LOL

Me : No! I meant this is history in the making because all of you are here chatting together.

Mehbooba : Ah! And Chikni Chameli, show some respect. I have done more dance numbers than the number of clothes you are wearing.

Badmaash Babli : ROLF! Mehbooba, like seriously! Do you live in a cave? Chances are that Chikni Chameli is hardly wearing anything.

Ku Ku Ku : Mehboobaji, girls nowadays do not wear skin colored clothes like in your times. They aren’t hypocrites and of course they do not have any respect.

Me : Ladies! Really, this is a most interesting cat fight but can we just chat? Can all of you share your thoughts about what drove you to do all those dance numbers?

Mehbooba, Laila, Badnaam Munni, Halkat Jawani, Chikni Chameli, Badmaash Babli, Ku Ku Ku : The love of Art.

Me : Wow! 5 minutes into the chat and I have tears in my eyes. What else? You all know that the men in our country love you to bits. Movies make crores because of you. Your item numbers are the first ones to be aired to generate enough testosterone to make families come and watch the movie. So what else makes you gyrate in addition to love of art?

Laila : *blush blush*

Halkat Jawani : Why are you blushing? The last item number you did was in 1980.

Ku Ku Ku : RESPECT ladies!

Chikni Chameli : Is it because you are soon going to join their ranks? LOL!

*This was not going the way I wanted it to*

Me : Ladies, can we get back to the question?

Laila : I did it for fame too. There. I said it. We all do it for fame. We love it when men fall over each other to touch us and our bodyguards fling them in random directions. It is addictive.

Badmaash Babli : See, the basic fact is that a majority of the people are sexually starved and we capitalize on it. There is no harm in it. The whole world capitalizes on things that can be capitalized upon.

Mehbooba : I never thought about it that way. I loved dancing.

Badnaam Munni : I think the whole concept has evolved over the years. The dynamics and the stakes have changed. Heroines never did item numbers earlier. Now we do not need someone like Mehbooba. I think it started changing during the time of Laila.

Me : But the item number is not about dancing anymore, isn’t it?

Ku Ku Ku : No it is not. It is more about profits now. It is about gathering as much people as you can to recover your production costs. It is more about moving parts of your body in unimaginable ways to arouse men.

Me : And all of you know that?

Halkat Jawani : Of course we know that! Who do you think we are? Paris Hilton?

Me : Ok. Forget about all the statistics but is it exciting to know that lakhs of men lust after you? That given a chance, they will pounce on you?

Laila : Sweetheart, a man who has to pounce on you will pounce on you, irrespective of the item number. The world is abundant with pouncers. 

Me : But given the fact that an average Indian male is sexually oppressed and consider all women not related to him as objects, don’t you think that you are fanning the fires here?

Badmash Babli : Look, it is a simple demand and supply phenomenon. Stop watching movies with item numbers and Bollywood will stop making them. We are just riding on the tide.

Me : What about morality?

Halkat Jawani, Chikni Chameli : Fu*k morality.

Mehbooba : Jesus!

Badnaam Munni : LOL! Let who is without sin cast the first stone.

Chikni Chameli : Cigarettes cause cancer but we still manufacture them. Alcohol is injurious to health. Why do we manufacture guns and bombs? Why do prostitutes exist? Darling, you are talking about morality in a world that has buried it long ago.

Laila : Do you really think our society will turn Mother Teresa if item numbers are banned?

Me : I believe that they are a part of the problem. And I don’t believe morality is dead. There are people who still swear by it and are fighting for its existence. It is a matter of talking sides. It is a matter of convincing yourself that there are things more important than money. 

Chikli Chameli, Ku Ku Ku : Ha!

Me : All right ladies, lets not be so serious. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity. Mehbooba, tell us what you think about the new girls?

Mehbooba : Too bold for my taste. And I do not understand the concept of wiggling bosoms. I think it was Ku Ku Ku who started it and now everyone is giving the twins a roller-coaster ride.

Laila : Exactly. If we line all the ladies up against the Great Wall of China and let loose the tremors, the wall will have a gaping hole in minutes. Why is everyone doing that?

Chikni Chameli : Laila, now really! You have subjected people to enough horizontal wiggling in your songs.

Badnaam Munni : I guess people like it. And lets not talk about morality again.

Me : It is a two way road. I think a society where actresses fall over each other to do an item number says a lot about the society as well but there has to be a sense of responsibility in the industry too. Actresses are not machines on a production line that have to manufacture a product that they are designed for. It is not a simple demand and supply. We are humans with brains.

The third Raaz of making Garbage

Let me categorically state that I had no intentions of writing about Raaz 3 but the movie was so downright stupid that how could I let go of a chance to butcher it with my bare hands?

*This post is not full of spoilers but is one big spoiler*

So, the movie begins with a top Bollywood actress cheekily called Shanaya (Bipasha Basu) desperate to get an award as she thinks she is falling behind in the race as new young and fresh actresses like Sanjana (Esha Gupta) are replacing her. She goes to astrologers and Babas and recites ‘Gayatri Mantra’ before opening the door of her car in the award function.

[Aren’t there around 163 award functions every year in Bollywood? If Shanaya could not get even one of them, maybe it was  time to quit?]

Shanaya also have this problem with Sanjana because they are step sisters with a common father. The paparazzi and the rest of the world is blissfully unaware of this fact. Aditya (Emraan Hashmi) is a successful director (!!) and gets awards too (!!!!!!!!!). Shanaya of course does not win and the award goes to – guess who – Sanjana. As Shanaya stomps out of the venue, an old servant of her (who is stalking her and lurking on the red carpet) gets all sentimental and asks her to visit a ghost who lives in a small pond inside a chawl (!). Shanaya meets the ghost, who has covered the entrance to all the temples of the chawl with black cloth so that the Gods do not disturb him and who is in the mood for philanthropy and agrees to help her. He gives her some water and asks her to give a few drops to Sanjana every day.

[Why will a ghost do black magic instead of simply scaring the shit out of Sanjana himself is a mystery]

Shanaya plants Aditya at Sanjana’s house after copulating with him and irritating him so much with her passionless kisses that he agrees to help just to get rid of her tongue cleaning his face again and again.

This is my happy face!! Now I will finally have my revenge!

Sanjana stays alone with her maid and sleeps with all the doors and windows of her house open and has a photograph of a Joker scaring her when she was a child on one of the living room walls. Weird girl! As she unknowingly drinks the black magic-ed water everyday she starts screaming and running with such alarming frequency that the audience starts laughing instead of sympathizing with her.

 – There are televisions turning on and worm infested hands coming out of them.

– Her maid dies by stabbing herself with gigantic shards of glasses and then as if that was not enough to kill her, she hangs herself from the fan and switches it on.

– Then there are cockroaches coming out of the wash basins and carry out a coordinated attack on Sanjana during a party. Sanjana, dumb as she is, is not able to locate the bathroom door and ends up removing all her clothes to get rid of all the cockroaches who are now trying to get inside her from every possible opening in her body. Finally when she has taken off everything, she is able to locate the bathroom door and runs out naked in the party, gets on a table and slaps her butt numerous times, much to the amusement of the guests and the paparazzi.

Busy screaming eh? The door is right behind you.

– In another incident, Sanjana enters an empty shooting studio. Now instead of smelling something fishy and running out immediately, she ventures inside and finds a Joker running after her and scaring her to death. After she is scared enough, she finds the door.

Sanjana decides to take the help of a Baba types who sends his disciple into the world of the dead by making him sit in a graveyard/morgue and tying his wrist to Sanjana’s by a thread and mouthing a clichéd ‘Om Him Cream Chamundaay Viche’. This is like an anthem to communicate with ghosts and you will find it in all horror movies. The disciple ends up being decapitated with a shocked expression on his face. Sanjana goes crazy with horror and is calmed down by a sudden thrust of the infamous Hashmi tongue in her mouth. Even though she has just seen a man’s head fly off from his body, sex soothes her. Jab Hashmi Kare Pyaar, to koi kaise kare inkaar? (When Hashmi says go baby go, then how can the baby say no no no?).

Kiss me!! Kiss me!!! I just saw a headless body!

So Aditya falls in love with Sanjana, which pisses off Shanaya so much that she goes ahead and has sex with the worm infested ghost who promises to kill Sanjana for her. The ghost reaches the hospital and turns into a centipede and gets inside Sajana’s brain. Sanjana goes into coma and the doctor says that she won’t survive the night.

[Now if the ghost was bloody capable of doing this, why the hell did he waste my time by doing that water drops drama? Hrrrmph!]

So, our brave hero goes into the world of the dead to save Sanjana from the ghost. Bollywood finds its first doctor that believes in ghosts and he takes the hero to the morgue which is the perfect place to go in the world of the dead. The Baba types rub some gangajal on Aditya’s wrists (which he had conveniently forgotten in the case of his own disciple)  and gives him some superpowers. Our hero kills the ghost (it was a cakewalk) by just punching him with his gangajal soaked hands and finally by landing an axe on his head which he borrows from a Ganpati statue in the Ghost world! He also injures Shanaya in the process because she is now one with the Ghost after riding him. While our hero is beating the shit out of the ghost, Shanaya too is flying like Harry Potter and banging on walls in the real world.

In the end, Shanaya puts acid on herself and goes pitter-patter-splutter-hissssss and you are left wondering that why the hell didn’t she do that in the beginning of the movie when she didn’t get that godforsaken award?

The movie had loads of ‘Did you know’ moments like :

• Ghosts can be stupid.
• Bipasha’s thighs are huge. Like really huge. Just like those four pillars of the Taj Mahal.
• You can use the swearword ‘chutiyapa’ in front of two women in a fit of anger even if you are a sophisticated director.
• Doctors can believe in ghosts.
• Ghosts can be horny and you can have sex with a ghost whose body looks as if he was burnt for dowry and has worms slithering all over him.
• Ghosts can lift objects with their hands and even make calls by public telephones.
• Having sex will make you forget about a headless body.
• When scared, a woman can never find a door out of a room because she is busy screaming.
• The world of the dead is as shabby as ours.
• Kutta aur baccha pyar ke bhookhe hote hain (A dog and a child are hungry for love). *Who wrote this shit?!?*

After the numbness left my brain and after much pondering, I decided that Raaz 3 was THE worst movie I have seen in a theater. Ever. I had to come back home and watch Sophie’s Choice to calm my brain.

[Images from 1,2,3,4]

Vicky Donor – Movie Review

A few days back I posted this on my Facebook wall – “How is one supposed to leave his brain behind while watching a movie? This is one art I have tried to master numerous times and failed miserably.”

Everyone thought I might have seen Housefull 2.

Well, I am glad that I went to see Vicky Donor despite all my apprehensions because I laughed, not because I had paid 200 bucks for the ticket and had no other option. And the feeling was running throughout the crowd sitting with me. Everyone was enjoying the movie as if they were thankful that they were not forcing themselves to laugh. I heard a lot of claps and whistles too which are quite rare nowadays.

The movie tells the story of an unemployed youth Vicky (played by Ayushmann Khurrana) who is chased by doctor Baldev Chaddha (played by Annu Kapoor) who has a fertility clinic and is desperately in need of a super good sperm donor. He accidentally meets Vicky and convinces him to donate his sperms. What happens next and how ironical Vicky’s own life turns out to be is the story.

I have always underlined the fact that the most important actor in a movie is its story. The issues raised in this movie was a serious one. It was about how our society looks down upon sperm donors. How people have misconception about the whole process and what it entails. Even though the topic was a serious one, at no point the movie turns into a documentary. It never misses its funny undertone. Of course there are a few glitches but you won’t get much time to think over them.

There are so many small nuances in a movie which elevates the whole product and this movie is filled with them. The scenes between Vicky’s mother and grandmother are the soul of this movie and extremely hilarious. Annu Kapoor is perfect as Baldev Chaddha and I especially liked the sperm hanging in his car (I am still laughing when I am writing this). Vicky’s love angle played by Yami Gautam brings with her the side-splitting clashes between her Bong family and Vicky’s loud Punjabi family. It’s not only the actors who bring life to the movie but the dialogues too, which set the impeccable mood of the movie.

The movie turns a bit serious in the second half but it doesn’t drag and the climax will touch your heart. Ayushmann and Yami Gautam are consummate performers and are really good, well supported by the rest of the cast.

This was an extremely enjoyable movie for me. And I say this about Bollywood movies as much as you have seen Manmohan Singh open his mouth. Which is not very often. Go and enjoy yourself.

Rating – 4/5

Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu & Dinner table discussions

Who could have thought that Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu will spark off dazzling dinner table debates at home? I saw the movie with mom, dad, sis and Geet (yeah! Polly has been rechristened Geet. It was long overdue). Although the movie was above average, it broke many boundaries around how girls are expected to behave in our society. The movie projected the female protagonist as someone who had 6 past relationships, who had a great capacity for beer, who likes her personal space, is not worried that she is 27 and not married and can talk freely of sex and can rate a guy’s and her own butt.

*spoiler ahead*

I loved the fact that even though the guy acted like a typical guy and took she-is-roaming-with-me-and-introducing-me-to-her-family as she-loves-me, the girl stood her ground and did not buckle under the pressure. She wanted him as a friend and that’s that. They still annul their marriage. And she does not care that he is super rich.

*spoiler ends*

We have seen similar movies before – Salaam Namaste, Mere Brother Ki Dulhan, Kya Kehna, Jab We Met and many others where the female leads are strong. Similarly Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu made the female protagonist much powerful than her male counterpart which is very rare in Bollywood movies. It gave her the right to decide in the end.

Now, before I indulge you with our dinner table debates, I must tell you that dad is quite cool with guys and girls befriending each other and going out for movies and parties. He has never stopped me or my sister from enjoying ourselves, although they are more cautious with sis. They are also comfortable with the whole girlfriend-boyfriend-affair-shaffair scenarios. Of course, dad and mom say things like it’s against our culture and stuff but they hardly believe it themselves. They just have to say it to maintain the Indian-culture façade (the same way you mechanically brush your teeth when you wake up) so that we don’t mistake them to be dangerously liberal.

The whole debate was about Dad having a problem with couples staying together without marriage. Okay, I know this doesn’t go with what happened in the movie but he was commenting about Kareena Kapoor and Saif Ali Khan. He could not understand Bipasha and John also who were together since the Big bang and then separated. He might have a point here but then I reminded him that everyone in question were adults and we do not have any right to question what they do in their personal lives. You know where this is going right?

Dad thinks that we live in a society and we have to live by its rules. Why do you have to live with a guy for 5 years and then jump partners after you get bored with him (he meant – after you had sex with him)? There is nothing sacrosanct in the whole affair.

I told him (in less obvious terms) that maintaining your virginity before marriage does not make the whole affair sacrosanct. That is a bit outdated. Secondly, everyone look out for new partners if things do not work out between couples. You don’t have to turn into a nun after your first breakup. Thirdly, our society is the most nosey and hypocrite society in this world. We are fine with girl infanticide, child labor, rapes, corruption, riots, dowry and so many other evils but we find it very objectionable when two consenting adults (who have the right to choose our Prime Minister) live together. It’s actually none of our business. *mom, sis and Geet nodded vigorously*

And this went on and on. It was funny because although dad saw my point in the end, my parents find it very hard to believe that our society has changed so much. I did not tell them that a lot of people have sex with their partners before they get married. I also did not tell them that Geet and I saw a college going couple kissing each other for 1 ½ hours as we watched Source Code in the theatre. It might be too much for them.

I can understand where he is coming from. He was brought up by a disciplinarian who locked up his daughter in the toilet if he found her talking to a boy. My parents were not very liberal with me and my sis initially. They had their apprehensions. Giving their son certain freedom might lead to their daughter asking something similar. But they loosened up and thankfully so. They still raise their eyebrows at sis at times, but she is a maverick. And I am outside their radar ever since I married Geet.

Frankly speaking, I myself would not have been very comfortable about a live-in but that certainly does not mean that I would pass judgment on anyone choosing it. It is also important to understand that movies like Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu explore just one end of the spectrum. India is too diverse in its thoughts and opinions that accepting what happened in the movie as a norm would be foolish. Also, we have to understand that only a small percentage of our generation (especially urban) has moved ahead and understood that the nose is to smell the roses and not to poke in someone’s affairs. The rest of the present generation and a majority of the older one is tied to its belief system. They live in a matrix of society, wired into its complicated circuit.

But yes, whether we like it or not, there is a change and it’s happening right under our nose.

The Horny Indian

No matter how much we try to hide a coupling couple by moving the camera away from the bed as they settle beneath the flower printed bed sheet or by bringing two flowers shaking vigorously suddenly in front of the camera, we cannot snuff out our Kamasutra connections. We are 1.21 billion people who have not been dropped by storks or erupted from the ground. We have been reproducing like eggs lying Godzilla and it somehow seems that chasing the British away was a mistake. We seem to have taken Aryabhata very seriously after he invented zero and are busy including it in our population count as a sign of flattery, which brings me to the point – ours is the horniest nation in the history of mankind.

Think about it. 41.6% of our population fall below poverty line. Of course they haven’t heard of “precautions” and the only source of entertainment is having unprotected sex and producing causalities called babies. Now, I must not put the whole blame of India turning into a dangerously tilted overcrowded bus on the poor. Laluji is not poor. My 10th standard maths teacher was not poor whose production line produced six girls before it was abruptly discontinued after manufacturing a boy.

We have a lot of anti-population plans in place. Our government is trying its best to stop Indians from mating by showing them 1-3-2 (Fayde Ka mantar) family planning adverts in which a lustful couple dwells into something which borders very close to soft porn. Hell, we don’t even have the live-in concept. We have balding, pot-bellied, in their 30s males living with their parents (I am one of them. Thick hair. 8 pack abs). We have people living in rooms smaller than prison cells. We have Khaps, religious groups, cricket, prehistoric parents and a very nosy society structure in place to cater population growth but none of this seems to be working.

Why?

It’s our Horny genes. We love bed sheets with elephants printed on them. They turn us on.

Look at the statistics. Raping women is as popular as learning cricket. Horny men are rampant on the streets just like those zombies in Resident Evil. Delhi is famous worldwide for its horny men who achieve the impossible feat of raping women in moving cars. We have also tried both the ends of the spectrum – from an 80 year old to a two year old. We love eve teasing also. We have the courage to address a rotund middle aged mother of two as Chikni. It comes naturally to us. Controlling our hormones is against our culture.

Our movies inspire us a lot. Latka, Jhatka, Thumka and of course the patented moving-breasts-up-and-down is something our visionary directors have to create to quench the thirst of millions of horny citizens. Small time theatres which showed desi porn movies are on a decline. We don’t need them anymore. Who wants to see fat women curling around fat moustached men like two tangled hippos when our John and Bipasha can do it? Has anyone tried connecting Munni, Sheila, Jalebi and Chameli to the Eve teasing graphs? I’ll bet my porn collection that there is a connection. Of course I am not blaming Bollywood. It’s a sophisticated sex toy for the horny underprivileged.

And while I am on this topic, I find us horny in another sense also, which in truth, was the real reason to write this post – It is the fact that we are a horn friendly nation. Horn friendly, horny, got the drift? We love to honk. We honk egoistically at poor pedestrians who are like those pesky cockroaches and have no right to salsa in the middle of the roads. We honk at rickshaws pullers who desperately try to move their sole bread earning rickety vehicle out of our way before it gets mowed down. We honk at other cars specially if there is a big red L pasted on them. And traffic signals? They are just disco lights. They turn us more horn(y). They remind us of dance bars.

We are horny for speeds also. How else can you explain the recently created racing tracks with cars and stray dogs competing in Noida when the other developed nations are shunning the sport? How else can you explain the speeding Mercedes and BMWs which end up in a pile of scrap and dead bodies being scrapped off roads?

Do I need to mention money? Money turns us on like an eighteen years old who has popped 10 pills of Viagra. We are on a collective hard on from the last 60 years.

Well, in India, being horny is good. It’s cool till it is done under veils. We have the art to cover it up, even if it includes covering up the women in real life and dis-covering them in every other medium. We encourage it. We are not apologetic about it. We are always turned on.

We, are the incredibly horny Indians.

Rockstar Review

After raising my expectations to the tip of Qutab Minar, I finally plunked myself in a smelly multiplex to watch Rockstar. I don’t know if it was the multiplex or someone’s shoe but I desperately wanted the oxygen masks to drop from the ceiling of the hall. Finally, the attendants had to spray the nauseating jasmine room freshener to make everyone breath properly.

“Deja Vu”, I said after the movie finished, remembering something similar which happened when I watched Satya a year after its release. I had such high expectations from Satya that I found it very average and couldn’t understand what the hu-ha was all about.

Rockstar fared a little better. I liked it in parts but had major problems otherwise.

*Few spoilers ahead*

Lets start with the female lead Nargis. She makes Katrina Kaif look like Meryl Streep. Somehow, her expressions never reached her eyes. Even though she was capable of making a total of like 3 expressions, her eyes remained blissfully ignorant of the awful splutter of emotions on her face. Her best scene was when she was in a coma.

I found the screenplay shoddy at a few places. Imtiaz Ali wanted to show the relationship between the lead pair but he did that at the expense of mutilating the rest of the cast. So many threads which could have made the story more rich and the characters more believable were snipped off to show the lead pair taking a thousand bike rides. Jordan’s family was one-dimensional and hardly got 30 seconds of screen time. Shammi Kapoor’s role could have been more. Much more. Jordan’s introduction scene to Heer’s mother was snipped so badly that I thought someone fast forwarded the movie. The relationship between Jordan and the female reporter was terribly castrated and vague. Heer’s husband’s frustration was annoyingly underplayed.

The second half sagged like an old man’s skin for quite a while. Somehow, I was tired of seeing the couple going to dance bars and prostitutes and strip clubs. And why did they have to do it twice? Whatever happened to bungee jumping and paragliding as adventures instead of saying hello to a guy pissing on a wall?

Coming to the positives, I liked the story. I liked the fact that there was a story. Somehow, the boy taking the girl out before her wedding so that she could have some fun before the mundane married life takes over, looked clichéd as we have already seen that in “Mere Brother ki Dulhan”, but the Kashmir backdrop made it a treat to watch. Cinematography was great. Ranbir did really well. He moved from one end of his character’s graph to another with smoothness. It was his movie all the way. The songs were a nice mix. Somehow, I couldn’t understand a few of them but it’s Ok considering the fact that A.R.Rehman gave the music. It will grow on me, I am sure.

Overall not bad at all, considering the horse shit Shahrukh and Salman are throwing at us these days. The movie definitely had its moments. Don’t bother if you liked Bodyguard.

Rating – 3.5/5

Love Aaj Kal – Movie Review

I don’t know if it was because I was Bollywood starved from the last six months or if it was because the movie was really good, the fact remains that I immensely enjoyed the movie.

The Aaj and Kal of it (no spoilers)

Jai(Saif Ali Khan) and Meera(Deepika Padukone) are a modern day couple living in London who believe in the philosophy of take-life-as-it-comes and do not believe in tying each other down just because they are in a relationship. They know that their real preference is their careers and thus end up breaking their relationship with a break-up party when Meera decides to move to India to work.

Veer Singh(Saif Ali Khan) falls for Harleen(Simran) the moment he sets his eyes on her. It was love at first sight. Harleen liked Veer but was too shy to respond. That does not defer Veer from following her on his bicycle while she travels to college on a rikshaw and let Harleen know that he was madly in love with her. One day, Harleen shifts to Calcutta with her family.

The story of Jai and Meera is set in the present time while that of Veer and Harleen is set in 1965. There is a connection between the two stories but you better watch the movie to know that.

The differences or no differences

The underlying theme of the movie is that no matter how much the times must have changed and how differently we might look at love, the feeling is still the same. You will still end up in a whirlpool when it happens. It will still turn your world upside down. The story of Jai and Meera is completely different from Veer and Harleen. Jai and Meera are in love with each other without realizing it. Meera knows that if she asks, Jai won’t say no but then one day he will feel guilty that he let go his dreams and career. Jai is completely confused. Veer on the other hand had made up his mind that he is going to marry Harleen. The only question is how?

As the movie proceeds, the scenes shift from the past to the present and vice versa and you can see the stark differences and the similarities. The switch between the two stories is done brilliantly. You realize that how different and then how similar the two stories are.

The Performances and the Wasted Role

Saif Ali Khan and Deepika are good in their respective roles. Saif has played the confused modern day man in many movies earlier(Dil Chahta hai, Hum Tum, Salaam Namaste), so this was nothing new for him except for the role of Veer Singh. Although his Punjabi was not perfect but he did the role of a madly in love Sikh man, who starts working in a ‘phactory’ so that he can marry Harleen and who travels to Calcutta just to look at her once, quite well. Simran(Harleen) was also good in her role of a meek Punjabi girl. She left an impression even though she hardly had any dialogues in the movie. Rishi Kapoor had a very good role(can’t reveal more about his role right now. :P). Rahul Khanna was wasted. I am not sure why he took the role.

Music and everything else

‘Chor Bazaari’ is already up on the charts. I personally liked ‘Ye dooriyaan’ a lot. The songs are a nice mix of soft romantic and dhinchak dhinchak songs. Thankfully, most of the songs blended well in the movie and were not like a su su break song. Even the ‘Main kya hoon’ which started off as one ended up being quite well done. You will know why when you see the movie.

Dialogues are the plus point of the movie. Some very well written scenes like the one in which Saif asks Rishi Kapoor about how couples did not had sex before marriage in the past and Rishi Kapoor retorts back – ‘Jaanwar nahi the hum!’.

And, yes, thankfully, the movie had a story!

Finally and Eventually

Imtiaz Ali surely does not disappoint. I am in two minds and I know I should not compare, but was the movie was good as Jab We Met? I think yes it was. It had its moments.

Rating – 4/5

Director – Imtiaz Ali

Official Website – http://loveaajkal-illuminatifilms.erosentertainment.com/

The Bisexual Tag

Ever since this tag has hit the blogging circuit, people are going crazy. You can see the samples here, here, here, here, phew!! here and here. Its actually not a “Bisexual” Tag, but I have turned it into one. What’s the harm in exploiting the situation to its fullest? 😉

So, for this tag, I am supposed to turn into a woman and list all the men who might make me drool all over my keyboard. Believe me, this was as simple as Rakhi Sawant getting married to Tom Cruise! Urghhh! Just the thought sends shivers up my spine!

Anyways, so when I am supposed to undergo the blasphemous transformation(in my mind, that is), why not list all the women and men in the world whom I find absolutely good looking? I was supposed to list 5 of them, but I really can’t make such a short list. So here is the long list. Feast on it! 😛

WOMEN

Audrey Hepburn

I first saw her in Roman Holiday and that is when I fell in love with her. She is THE star. She has worked in the biggest blockbusters of her times and had the magic, the aura required for a great actress. Watch Breakfast at Tiffany’s, My Fair Lady and Sabrina and you will know.

Madhuri Dixit

I don’t remember any other actress who had been so popular and respected in the  1990s and this decade as her. She is what I call an Electric Beauty. The smile, the “ada”, the dance…I went completely bonkers when I saw Devdas. I saw the movie thrice in the theatre just for her. Just to see her dance to “Maar Daala” and “Kaahe Chede”. Uff!!! Maar Daala!

Julia Roberts

My Best Friend’s wedding has been an all time favorite followed by Pretty Woman and Erin Brokovich. Julia has this carefree attitude which makes her beautiful. She has this dazzling smile and a very cute throaty laughter.

Aishwarya Rai

Aishwarya Rai is undoubtedly the most beautiful Indian Actress ever. Whatever people say about her acting skills, I have always felt that she is pretty good. She has definitely improved. I also don’t understand what’s plastic about her. She comes across as a very genuine person.

Penelope Cruz

The Sultry beauty. I haven’t seen much of her movies except Vanilla Sky, Gothika and Vicky Cristina Barcelona. She was particularly good in the last one for which she picked the Oscar this year.

Madhubala

The Eternal beauty of the Black and White era. Here is an interesting fact about her from Wiki : In the early 1950s as Madhubala became one of the most sought-after actresses in India, she also attracted interest from Hollywood. She appeared in many American magazines such asTheatre Arts. In their August 1952 issue, Madhubala was featured in an extensive article with a full page photo. The piece was entitled: The Biggest Star in the World (And She’s Not in Beverly Hills). It presented the actress as a mysterious and ethereal woman of mythical beauty with a legion of fans.

Meryl Streep

An Enigmatic beauty. She is one actress who has fully explored a wide spectrum of roles and I specially liked her in Sophie’s Choice, Out of Africa, The Bridges of Madison County and Doubt. From wiki : Streep has received 15 Academy Award nominations and 23 Golden Globe nominations (winning six), more than any other person in film history.

Jennifer Aniston

She is my favorite F.R.I.E.N.D.S character. She is a woman whom I can define as cute and sexy at the same time. From wiki : When F.R.I.E.N.D.S was aired, her hairstyle at the time, which became known as the “Rachel”, was widely copied.Aniston received a salary of one million dollars per episode for the last two seasons ofFriends, as well as five Emmy nominations. According to the Guinness World Book of Records (2005), Aniston (along with her female costars) became the highest paid TV actress of all time with her $1 million-per-episode paycheck for the tenth season of Friends.

Sarah Jessica Parker

I love her eyes and her voice. She skyrocketed to fame with her role of Carrie Bradshaw in Sex and the City. I saw her for the first time in a movie named The Family Stone( This is one movie which can be definitely made into a Bollywood blockbuster).

Megan Fox

She looks like a beautiful wax doll and has this amazing figure. 🙂 From wiki : Fox’s breakout role was playing Mikaela Banes, Shia Labeouf‘s character’s love interest in the 2007 blockbuster film Transformers, a role for which Fox won and was nominated for various Teen Choice Awards.

Katrina Kaif

Our Indian competition to the Hollywood babes. 🙂 No matter how bad her acting crying skills are, she is a show stealer. ‘Teri Oor’ was one song which extracted a collective sigh from the male fraternity. Watching her dance in front of the Pyramids of Egypt clad in a saree was too much for us!

Cate Blanchett

She is the Best Actress in Hollywood right now. A beautiful woman and a charming personality.  She rose to fame with Shekhar Kapur’s Elizabeth, followed by great movies like The Aviator, Babel, Notes on a Scandal, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

MEN

Now comes the difficult part. I had to litrally scratch them out!

Brad Pitt

An extremely extremely handsome man. I started liking him as an actor after Troy and Babel. I think he was extraordinary in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

Hrithik Roshan

One of the most handsome Indian Actors, Hrithik’s debut will always be remembered in the history of Indian Cinema. He is the only actor besides Rishi Kapoor who took the Best Actor and the Best Debut trophy in the same year. Jodhaa Akbar could have turned into a disaster if he would not have played the lead.

Enrique Iglesias

He has the perfectly lean body. Not too muscular, not too pulpy, just perfect. His face has a certain innocence which is quite well exploited in all his songs.  Of all his song videos, I think Rhythm Divine is the best.

Shah Rukh Khan

Yeah! I know quite a lot of you don’t like him because of his a-a-a-acting skills but that can’t take away the charisma from the man. I have always believed that 20 years down the line, our generation will be known as the Shah Rukh Era generation, very similar to how we refer to our parent’s generation as the Amitabh Bachchan era generation. Undoubtedly, he has given the biggest blockbusters in the past 20 years and he can do wonders with the right role. Examples : Swades, Chak De India and Dil Se.

Tom Cruise

Another guy with the right mix of personality and good looks. I specially liked him in Top Gun, Rain Man, Mission: Impossible, Jerry Maguire and Minority Report.

Mel Gibson

What eyes! And what smile! A fantastic director who gave us movies like Braveheart, The Passion of the Christ and Apocalypto.

Shahid Kapoor

He is amongst a very few talented actors we have in our industry right now. Jab We Met was definitely his breakthrough movie. I really wish he had won some awards that year. Do you know that he was a background dancer in the song – ‘Kahi aag lage’ in Taal?

Chris Evans

Chris is best known for his work in the movie Fantastic Four as the Human Torch for which he was also nominated in the Teen Choice Award. I handsome upcoming actor.

Akshay Kumar

Its almost 20 years now and this man has no sign of fatigue. Started as an action hero, he has given some huge hits in the past few years. A very handsome man with a croocked smile. 🙂

Amit Sharma

What!?! Stop laughing!! Haven’t you heard of the phrase – Love thyself!? How can I expect someone else to like me if I don’t like myself? 😛

Thats it folks! Clean up your keyboards now!

The Animation Mania

Anastasia!

That was the name of the girl who opened the door. Of course, Mickey and Donald and Tom and Jerry have always been there, but Anastasia was the one who made me fall in love with Animation movies. She still remains my first love. 🙂

Then I saw something drastically different. It completely bowled me over. I was surprised beyond imagination that someone can do something like that in an animation movies. The movie was Final Fantasy:The spirits within. Although the movie was a flop, I consider it a classic. *All classics are flop*

I was so fascinated by the world of animation that there was a time when I was on the verge of taking up a 1.5 years animation course. I had the forms. I just had to fill them but then something else happened and I drifted away. The Animation industry had not turned into the huge Goliath which it is now. I was not sure whether it could accommodate me. Its funny how we are asked to take decisions of our life at an age when we don’t have the experience to take them. Anyways…

Over the last few years we have seen a huge boom in the industry which has swelled to $100 billion+ market. Earlier, the only well established animation studio used to be Walt Disney Animation Studio which gave us some masterpieces like The Jungle Book, Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King, Tarzan, Alladin, The Little Mermaid and so many others, but in the past decade there has been a boom in the Animation market.

There is Dreamworks, which has been busy churning hits one after another. Antz was the first Dreamwork movie I saw. I still think that the huge shoe scene was the best one in the movie. Shrek has been the most successful series of the studio with a total gross of $2 billion+ right now. I believe that “The donkey” has played a huge part in the success. Then there is Madagascar(another big success), Kung Fu Panda, Wallace and Gromit:The Curse of the Were Rabbit, Flushed Away, Bee Movie, Shark Tale and the recently released Monsters vs Aliens(the first movie to be directly created in the 3D format).

Pixar is one studio which stands apart from the rest, largely because of the kind of movies they have churned out. Each movie is not just to entertain but it sets a benchmark in animation. And the best part is that the benchmark goes higher and higher with each release. The studio started with Toy Story in 1995 and followed up with incredible movies like A Bug’s Life, Toy Story 2, Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Cars, Ratatouille, WALL-E and the latest Up. Impressive! Isn’t it? Walt Disney bought Pixar in 2006.

There are other studios like Blue Sky which gave us Ice Age and Horton hears a Who!, Animal Logic which came up with Happy Feet(and which has produced special effects in the biggest Hollywood blockbusters), Image Movers Digital(again bought by Disney) which gave us The Polar Express, Monster House and Beowulf.

Besides all the Big Budget Animation movies, there have been some others which don’t have the “cutting edge” technology, but have been equally mesmerising. Spirited Away(This movie holds the record of the highest grossing movie in Japan), Persepolis(the story of a small girl set during the Iranian Revolution), Corpse Bride and Animatrix(9 short stories set in the fictional world of The Matrix), to name a few. After all, the story matters!

I believe that animation movies are the epitome of Human creativity and imagination. They bring so many things to life and they will always make you smile. You can see fish dancing in water with mermaids, you can see a rat preparing an exiquisite dish in a restaurant, you can see cars talk to each other, you can see people flying on magic carpets, an Ogre falling in love with a princess, you can see the place where all the monsters are kept…the list is endless because human imagination is endless. Its a proof that we have in us to make beautiful things.

Animation Movies are a never ending love for me. I don’t understand people who don’t like them(although I haven’t met any such person). 🙂

What about all of you? Have you seen all the movies I have listed here? Did I miss a very good movie?

And now I leave you with the images from the movie which started it all.