Will the real SRK please standup?

“To all who asked about SRK, we all found it offensive and have asked the US to look into it. SRK himself spoke about the matter with great dignity.”
- Indian Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor

“If they want I can frisk Angelina Jolie when she is here (in India).”
- SRK

For me, what’s odd about the SRK’s elaborate public tamasha over a ''secondary inspection'' at a US airport is not as much about the racial profiling as it is about his demeanour. SRK, all these yaers, stood as the epitome of irreverence and that is why he has people love him or hate him to extremes. SRK looked as if he is defying all the orthodox norms of humility, soft-spokenness in India's public life. He would routinely proclaim he is the number one, routinely tear down legends of the industry in spoofs and through jokes at award shows. He would even joke at himself and seriously propagate that we all need to laugh at ourselves. His whole entourage of friends like Farah Khan and Sajid follow suit. Farah famously gave a speech to Ashutosh Gowarikar (at an award show) on how he should stop taking himself seriously and realize that, at the end of day, he is just making movies to entertain people. We could understand what she meant. While she made a ‘Main Hoo Na’ and ‘Om Shanti Om’, all Ashutosh managed were a ‘Lagaan’, ‘Swadesh’ and a ‘Jodha Akbar’! Pweh!! Farah Khan surely takes her own idea of filmmaking too seriously!

SRK himself shared the story about how he differed with Ashustosh over the making of ‘Swadesh’. He told the media (much after Swadesh released) how he didn’t like the movie the way it was shaping up (too emotional) but put up with it as Ashutosh wanted to make the movie that way, emotiontionally, as a tribute to his father. SRK did not like the heavy heartedness of Swadesh and that is how he is. Whereas many thought Swadesh has the best of SRK - the actor.

So SRK went on to dance for millions at marriages of the billionaires and quite openly told us he loves to do dance for the monies. He seemingly didn’t have false pride, had wit and oodles of charm. For him, there is nothing humiliating or insulting about what he does. Nor something around (including the legends Bachchans, chopras) can bog him down. That is what it looked like, at least, until this episode broke up.

He now tells the whole world in his own words that he felt ‘hurt’, ‘angry’, ‘humiliated’. And for what?? In his own words, this is what he said about the Immigration episode -

''I told them (immigration officers) I was a movie star and had recently visited the country for the shooting of my film. Nothing seemed to convince the immigration officer. There were other immigration officers who even vouched for me but this particular officer did not listen to anyone. I even told them I had an invitation from the South Asian community and was there to attend an event.'' Khan told ToI.

So one officer didn’t heed and then SRK texts and calls all news channels worth their name in India to announce he was ‘detained’ and so he felt ‘hurt’, ‘angry’, ‘humiliated’! Isn’t it odd? SRK, who doesn’t give a hoot for all that we know about under the sun would have actually found the whole immigration scene comical and would have handled it with the same humor he is so famous for. What could have triggered his media blitzkrieg is anyone’s guess! ‘hurt’, ‘angry’, ‘humiliation’ are things he left long before for the likes of yesteryear stars Big B and Manoj Kumar!

And what followed this whole tamasha is even more comical. A cabinet minister barks about ‘reciprocating’ to the US the same treatment what SRK got. Good for us. If reciprocating means we are going to get as diligent as Americans in our search for better security, we would all give 10 thumbs up for it. But for the honorable minister, the rant was more of a sycophantic nature than a patriotic one. SRK is close to the Gandhi family and is a prominent Muslim. After successfully elevating even an alleged fraud like cricketer Azaruddin into an MP, SRK is too good a bet for the future. So we have the whole ruling party bending over backwards to humor him.
Shashi Tharoor says -
“To all who asked about SRK, we all found it offensive and have asked the US to look into it. SRK himself spoke about the matter with great dignity.”
Perhaps he found SRK’s remark about how he personally likes to be chosen to frisk Angelina Jolie or Megan Fox when they come visiting India very dignified! The pompous star went on to review the US security apparatus in his media conference. Our Home minister Chidambaram couldn’t agree more. He said the Americans ‘overdid’ it. Maybe he should listen to Salman Khan opining how Americans avoided yet an another attack after 9/11 with these very security measures. Look at the pompous ignorance of our establishment which year after year proves we are sitting ducks for the terrorists and yet find gumption in advising how the Americans can do better with their own secuirty in their own country!

Looking back at the issue, it looks as if SRK literally wasted millions of hours of Indians for the one hour he lost at the immigration. He took the whole of the media and a few of our very enlightened ministers for a ride and has surely shown how popular he is. But what he is is still a little mystery. Did he really feel sympathetic to fellow Muslims due to his ‘oredeal’ or is this one more instance of him showing his uncanny intelligence to further his superstardom? Will the real SRK please stand up?

KAMINEY: Vishal Bhardwaj loses his plot for once

After the very brilliant 'Maqbool' and 'Omkara', its only too natural for cinema affectionados like me to expect something of same intensity from Vishal Bhardwaj, especially when he attempts his first big real mainstream commercial potboiler all with twins long lost, mumbai gangsters, drug mafia, anti-narcotic police squads and opportunistic politicians. Vishal looses the only way he could have - by overdoing things. Result: too many characters, too much detail and too little plot and emotional depth. In the end, while we appreciate the new frontiers this movie has won technically, not to mention the fantastic music, we feel nothing about the characters or the story. Make no mistake, Kaminey is a honest, brave effort and could be dubbed as the best in Hindi along 'Dev D' in the new genre but its does not leave an impact on the audience like Vishal's earlier movies did. In entertainment, this succeeds largely through its dialogues but is boring at times.

Vishal expresses his admiration for Quentin Tarantino by injecting a scene in which a nurse dressed in white struts her long legs. Maybe the whole movie being dialog-driven with its parallel narrative, with a mix of humor and violence and some excellent background score is supposed to be a tribute to Tarantino but the 2.5 hour movie leaves behind its audience somewhere in between when boredom sets in. In fact, for a minute towards the end, I wondered if I was watching a Priyadarshan movie!

I can think of only 1 reason right now that spoiled the dish and that is too many characters and although they were all excellently written for, they take up the whole time and the plot is left too thin, too thin to make us all wonder at times what the movie is all about. Vishal worked out excellent details for his characters and the actors, including Shahid Kapur, played them equally well. It was a delight seeing Amol Gupte's opportunistic politician character and the 3 Gangster brothers characters bonded typically in loquacious Bengali style. The wordplay in dialogues is exceptionally witty and yes, its intelligent writing with lot to read between the lines. For instance, in the scene involving the 2 elder Bengali gangster brothers, one is engrossed child-like playing video games from his bed while the other rather worriedly keeps dialling the youngest one Mikhail (who didn't return home by then) from the adjoining bathroom. The scene, without a word, speaks volumes about their brotherhood and its only too natural to expect them to come sometime later with their guns blazing seeking revenge. And how they come!

Notwithstanding all this brilliance and hard work, Kaminey could be limited only to the multiplexes in next few weeks due to the the lack of emotional wiring which disables it from reaching broader audience. For all his awe for Tarantino, I wonder how Vishal could have not noticed that Kill Bill, for all its Tarantino style humor-violence mix, had tonnes of emotional undercurrent as a revenge saga. While Vishal may take a bow for all his technical exuberance with Kaminey, he would have to wait until next time for a decent share at the box-office.

PRAYANAM: Yeleti does it again!

One of the few original film-makers in Telugu film industry(TFI), Chandrasekhar Yeleti returns with 'Prayanam'. Known for his deftness for weaving a story around an interesting idea, Yeleti is enterprising enough to switch genres at the drop of the hat. So while he debuted with a low-budget comic thriller like 'Aithe' and followed it up with an urban-thriller like 'Anukokunda Oka Roju', he then switched to an out and out action movie like 'Okkadunnadu'. Now he comes up with something similar to a romantic comedy. 

All right, good things first. We don't see any stale sequences or scenes in 'Prayanam' too as in Yeletis' earlier movies. A wonderful core idea for the movie once again like those in his earlier movies. Remember 'Okkadunnadu' and the blood group premise. If there is any Oscar for true original ideas, Yeleti could well be in the reckoning! Here the central idea is about falling in love and convincing the lover too in 2 hours. More about this later. The casting is excellent, acting job well done. The male bonding seen here is perfect thanks to the wonderful characterizations done. Especially. the guy who played Raman played is perfect as is the one who Moksha. Technicians excel too and some wonderful lyrcis from Ananth Sriram. The 'Meghama,..' lyrics and the picturization of that is exciting and bought back memories of 'Om Namaha,..' song in 'Geetanjali'. Very creatively done. As expected, this movie is a far cry from the regular formula movies churned out. One of the well written movies TFI churned out in recent past. Would the box-office fate reflect that? I am not sure!

Well, well made movies need not always strike gold at the box office. But the problem with 'Prayanam' goes beyond that. It is in the core idea itself. Falling in love and fructifying it in 2 hours. While, no doubt, Yeleti chose this idea as its catchy and could instantly hit well with the youth, this could be the challenge he maybe ill-prepared for. Switching genres not just requires a change in content but embracing the tone and mood of the new genre. Yeleti chose a love story, bought with him the regular comic dialogues which is definitely a plus but overlooked the emotional part. Yeleti writes well, intelligently and that helps him a lot in moulding thrillers. So here he is in time-bound story set in an airport. The boy meets the girl, falls in love, wants to propose her. His accompanying friend (who could as well be Yeleti and his psychology book could as well be the Screenplay!) advises on the steps he need to take in 2 hours to floor the girl. So, Yeleti, like a magician, pulls up one scene after another, some doused with oodles of comedy like in the 'ugra naram' narration :). What he fails to create is the magic that brings in the emotional 'high' that is required in a love story. His one-sided view did not even allow him  to write well for the leading lady. In short, there is no romance in this romantic comedy. There is no 'revelation' to make the audience sit up and register it. So 'Prayanam' becomes more of a comedy than a romantic comedy. Not that we are complaining though. This is clean movie, watchable, enjoyable. All that i am rearing to see is yet an another Yeleti's big moment like the one he had with 'Aithe'. Except for his debut movie, he did not achieve the commericial success he deserves. Like in his earlier two movies, he does all the hard work in writing and lets it go when what is needed is the 'big impact' in the movie, an impact, an emotional high, that the viewer should carry with him back home. Otherwise, what we get to see is some intelligent narration, which for technical reasons, a limited few would appreciate. For Yeleti to connect with the larger audiences, he should allow them to connect with his movies. All Yeleti needs to deliver is that 'high', a 'revelation' in his movies, the 'knock-out punch', like the one Raman, the protagonist's friend, advises the protagonist in this movie to do. Hope he lands the blow the next time around. Right now, this is good enough for us.