It’s All About Money, Honey! Part-I

I searched frantically for my pink ear-rings that would go with the white top I was wearing. As I put them on, my little sister busted into the room and in her child-like voice said,”Didi, dadu aapka kabse wait kar rahe hain!” I replied, struggling with the ear-ring, “Apoo! Dadu ko bolo bas 5 min aur.” We were already late for the afternoon show. I wished we would reach on time and grabbed my purse. Announcing along the way to the people in house that we would be back only by evening, I dashed towards the door.

The afternoons in summers are pathetic! Especially when you are in a town where 80% of the day there is no electricity in the house, a house that dates back to 1960s. A house where all my uncles and aunts had spent their childhood playing under the huge mango tree in the garden (It is still there!). A house situated in a dirty lane of the dirty town Gorakhpur in this dirty country’s most populous state. My school had shut down for a straight 2 months in the middle of the year and like the obedient migrant birds, I flew down here to visit relatives.

After much deliberations and coaxing (which took most of our morning), Dadu had agreed to take the bachcha party, to the nearest cinema hall to catch the latest release, Ek tha tiger. Its star cast was all over the place last week promoting the film and this excited my cousin, Ajita. She would stage a drama in her peculiar nautanki style to persuade Dadu, the eldest in the house, to grant us permission to watch films. This time too, the trick worked much in our favour. As the rickshaw puller parked the vehicle in front of the gate, we could clearly see Salman Khan’s craze everywhere. Truck loads of people, had come down to watch him and only him, barring the charring heat. The place was brimming with people, overflowing onto the nearby road.  Long queues of head-strong visitors that ran miles and miles stood patiently waiting for the ticket counter to open. As I wiped the dripping sweat drops from the forehead, mine and Ajita’s eyes met and we shrugged our shoulders. Getting tickets won’t be easy this time.

Photo Courtesy: Internet

.....

In the evening, Dadu was uncontrollable as he vent out his angst on our way back home. It was as if the pressure cooker had been left to whistle non-stop in pressure, letting out the hot white fumes. I so wanted to tell Mumma to put that off but when Dadu is around, you need to learn to shut your chattering machine.

It is usually not easy to tick him off but when he sees “the sad state of Hindi movies and the poor choice of today’s young minds”, his blood boils. Rightly so, one can evidently smell how zealously passionate, he was, and still is, about films. The towering racks lined with innumerable VCDs, neatly stacked, are a testimony of this. Sangam, Awara, Teesri Kasam, Pyaasa, Shree 420,Guide, Do Biga Zameen he had it all there. He at times boasts of how he used to dedicatedly save money from his day-to-day spending to take my Dadi for the latest cinema, the tiny theatre was showing, two lanes away.

“I don’t understand this 100 crore figure thing”, he lamented,” they have reduced the art of film making to mere business”, he exploded into the house. Now, that sent me off thinking.

.....

The so-called 100-crore club is a nomenclature coined by the media in the most recent past, a term used by the film industry to segregate the more successful stars from the rest. The term has become rather ubiquitous and everyone from the commoner lining the street leading to Film City to the spotboy on the set is talking about it.  It’s cool, it’s coveted, and it’s for the crème de la crème. The latest status symbol in Bollywood: The 100-crore club!

Photo Courtesy: Internet

It all started with Ghajini in 2008, the first Bollywood film to gross 100 crore at the box office, taking only 18 days to do so. It was followed up in 2009 with 3 Idiots which took half the time to reach the magical figure. Incidentally, 3 Idiots remains the highest-grossing Bollywood film of all time with worldwide collections of Rs 339 crore (domestic + overseas). Hence, in that regard, Aamir Khan has been labelled as the inaugural inductee of the club.

If 2008 and 2009 had one 100-crore film each, 2010 saw that number double, with Salman Khan (Dabangg) and Ajay Devgn (Golmaal 3) entering the club. While the latter took 17 days to breach the mark, the former did it in 10 days.

In 2011, that figure rose to five films (Ready, Singham, Bodyguard, Ra.One and Don 2) with Bodyguard garnering 100 crore in a record-time of 7 days. Suddenly, every top Bollywood actor, mostly the Khans, was in a race to make it to the exclusive club. Salman Khan had breached the mark thrice in succession, while Shah Rukh was the last of the ruling Khans to get an entry into the coveted club.

In 2012, eight films (Agneepath, Housefull 2, Rowdy Rathore, Bol Bachchan, Ek Tha Tiger, Barfi!, Son of Sardaar and Jab Tak Hai Jaan) have grossed 100 crore. Salman Khan, who’s become his own competition when it comes to box-office collections, broke his own previous record set by Bodyguard as his Ek Tha Tiger rushed into the 100-crore club in five days flat. The film is the highest grosser of the year with worldwide collections of Rs 246 crore. Dabangg 2 was 2012’s ninth film in the 100-crore club, and Salman’s fifth straight – a “historic record” as trade analyst Taran Adarsh puts it. From one to two to five to eight, and from the Khans and Ajay Devgn to Hrithik Roshan to Akshay Kumar to the Kapoors – Bollywood’s 100-crore club has only grown manifold. Nowadays, the buzz preceding the release of every other big-budget film has its mention.

Photo Courtesy: Internet

This year, only a few films so far have been able to add to its population. Films like the Ranbir Kapoor-starrer Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani, the multi-starrer Race 2 and Mohit Suri’s Aashiqui 2 crossed the magical number. Aanand L. Rai’s Raanjhanaa, starring the unusual pair of Dhanush-Sonam also touched that mark with the combined collections of its Hindi and Tamil versions.

Is the 100-crore film a myth and a product of impeccable PR machinery? Or is it a result of a transformation in the economics of the film trade?

 Stay tuned to know more in this 3-part series on the coveted 100-crore club. Promise! Won't make you mull over it for long! It’s All About Money, Honey! Part-II, coming soon! :D

 Part II http://peechepardeke.blogspot.in/2013/09/its-all-about-money-honey-part-ii.html

Part III http://peechepardeke.blogspot.in/2013/09/its-all-about-money-honey-part-iii.html

P.S. Any suggestions for future posts? Feel free to send in your suggestions and requests here or on my e-mail id: aanchal.srivastava20@gmail.com . Hope to hear from you soon :) 

Sex,marriage, bathroom!

Talking about being late with movie reviews, give me two-three more opportunities and I’ll master it soon. Trust me, I m working very hard towards it! :P But then, barring a few , no movie has till date(since the time I chanced upon the opportunity to make you poor fellows read my  superfluous reviews) triggered me enough to put down my violent thoughts on Parde Ke Peeche within no time ‘The End’ flashes on the silver screen.

Weekends mean ‘movie time’ and last weekend single screen theatres in Udupi were showcasing, Shudh Desi Romance, a vibrant, youthful film that had before its release created much anticipation among the youngsters, as I could sense from scanning the more than half-filled hall.

A poster of the film. Photo courtesy: Internet

Shudh+Desi+ Romance= so wrongly christened!

An apt title would be hmm.... Sex, marriage, bathroom! LOL. Well, the whole story revolves around these three things only! :P

Opening sequence: Raghu Ram (Sushant Singh Rajput) is a tourist guide in Jaipur, who also doubles up as rental baraati for Goyal (Rishi Kapoor), a wedding planner. Raghu is suffering from pre-marital jitters. On his way to his wedding venue, Raghu meets Gayatri (Parineeti Chopra), an open minded, free willed, independent woman who lives life on her own terms. An already confused Raghu, heavily impressed by her freedom, gathers the guts to run away from his own wedding, with the ‘tailet’ showing him the escape way(read: bathroom).

A fortnight later, the two meet and begin dating. Entering into a live-in-relationship(read:sex), the two decide to get married(read: marriage). On the day of the wedding, Gayatri runs out on him(read:bathroom), and Raghu is left inconsolably confused.

Soon after, at a wedding, Raghu meets Tara (Vaani Kapoor), the woman he was going to tie the knot with, before he met Gayatri. She asks him out initially on a revenge trip but slowly their relationship turns serious(read:sex). Just as he is about to ask her to marry him (read: marriage), Gayatri re-enters his life and Tara sneaks away. The two(Gayatri and Raghu) decide on marrying(read:marriage)! They both run away from their own marriage(read: bathroom).

P.S. By this point, toleration power of most of my co-viewers is exhausted and many are hurling abuses at the characters onscreen.

So, now you know, the story is all about, sex,marriage, bathroom, marriage, sex, bathroom marriage ,sex, bathroom, sex, marriage, bathroom..........*phew!

A still from the movie. Photo courtesy: Internet

A still from the movie. Photo courtesy: Internet

Much ado was made about the 27 kisses in the film. Factually, its wrong. Not 27, but yeah around 14-15 do find a place in between dialogues or when the characters have nothing to do.  They kiss at the same rate as Arnab Goswami pukes his patented ‘the nation demands an answer’ dialogue every night at news hour.

The story being set in the pink city Jaipur imbibes a lot of its colorful culture and uniqueness. Places like Hawa Mahal and numerous other Rajput forts provide for a breath taking setting, making everything look pleasant on screen.

Debutant Vaani Kapoor is impressive and gorgeous. Kapoor is there because Shuddh Desi Romance needed to kill the three-quarters of the second half that precede the climax. Tara, humorously pops the question," Tum paida hi tharki hue the ya koi infection lagi thi?", echoing my sentiments. Gayatri  is a rebel without a cause: she smokes and has had boyfriends in the past. Parineeti is natural and beautiful as always.

Debutante Vaani Kapoor.
Photo courtesy: Internet

With so much revolving only around sex and kisses, one would expect sizzling chemistry on screen much like the Sakurajima volcano in Japan but proved out to be like mount Ashitaka: non-existent!

Music by the composer duo Sachin-Jigar is refreshing and youthful. My personal favorite is ‘Gulabi’.  

If all the sex and kissing hasn't interested you much, then Goyal uncle would surely do. This is one guy for solely whom you can give this movie a watch. This man is in the most illustrious years of his life, doing the best roles, churning out impressive performances at 60 with ease like never before. As the bemused wedding decorator who is also a father figure to Raghu, Rishi Kapoor, is charming, funny and with his dialogue delivery, he will force you to laugh wholeheartedly and keep clapping.The way he looks, pauses and spurts the witty one-liners is interesting to watch. He very amusingly summarises everything,"Tu Tara ko mandap mein chod ke bhag gaya kyunki tu usse shaadi nahi karna chahta, Tara tujhse shaadi nahi karna chahti kyunki tu use mandap mein chod ke bhag gaya tha aur Gayatri tujhse shaadi nahi karna chahti kyunki usne tujhe mandap se bhagte hue dekha tha. Yaar tum log itna bhagte kyun ho? Zindagi bhar bhagte hi rahogey ya kabhi rukogey bhi?"
P.S. Don't fail to notice the artificial flower he pins to his coat like Bose! :P

And because I care so much for your embarrassment out pour, I would like to whisper into your tiny ears that this is definitely not  a film to be included in your weekend outing with your family. That assured, it is a one time watch and you won't curse yourself much or the makers since they have put you in for just 120 minutes torture. That's such a saving grace!

Aur forget and forgive kariye...

My eyelids gave way to the morning sun rays and they squinted in response. Ahaa!!! What a fine sunny Sunday morning, my little poor brain said. The same little poor brain groaned with excruciating pain at the same time. Ouchhh!!!

I had slept early last night. Quite early for a usual Saturday night. Reason?  A campaign to re-negotiate democracy gave me more headache than it must have to the government. No, no. I wasn't at India gate or Qutub Minar on any aamaran annashan or shouting my lungs out for a social cause. I, with my herd of innocent friends, had by mistake, lost way and landed in a single screen theater that was to showcase Satyagraha, Prakash Jha’s latest offering.

A poster of the film. Photo courtesy: Internet

Prakash jha, the captain of ships like Damul(1984), Mrityudand (1997), Gangaajal (2003), Apaharan (2005), multistarrer hit movie Raajneeti (2010), Aarakshan (2011) Chakravyuh (2012),is known for making films, which deliver a strong message and as far as that goes, Satyagraha doesn't leave any room for complaints. However, the film seems to try too hard at times to make its point. Very preachy throughout.

Briefing you quickly on the story plot, Dwarka Anand (Amitabh Bachchan) is a retired school principal, who doesn't hesitate to fight against corruption in the system. Manav Raghvendra (Ajay Devgn) is an ambitious businessman, who believes only in self-progress at any costs whereas Yasmin Ahmed (Kareena Kapoor) is a journalist, who wants truth to prevail at any cost.

When the population of small-town Ambikapur gets frustrated with the corrupt system, these unlikely heroes come together to join forces with local leader Arjun (Arjun Rampal) to take on the system and the corrupt leader Balram Singh (Manoj Bajpayee).

Sparing some attention to the rich star cast, one can easily visualize the eldest and the most respected of the lot, Mr. Bachchan arriving on a huge golden chariot with Jha holding on to the horses reigns and the rest actors by his side. Amitabh Bachchan is like an old lion, whose roar is still respected and the veteran delivers a masterful performance as the dignified and incorruptible Dwarka Anand. He is flawless and consistent in his small but important role. He forms the backbone of the film. His emotional scenes with bahu Amrita Rao can make you cry. Rao, as the ideal bahu, has little scope for performance and survives with little or no dialogues crying unstoppable till the end. Actually, her dialogues die with her husband.

Ajay Devgn, a favorite of Prakash Jha, is reliable as always when it comes to delivering an intense performance. Devgn's transformation from an unscrupulous businessman to a social activist happens too fast to seem convincing whereas Rampal has decent but short roles. A sheer waste of talent is Rampal.  

Okay, now whose left, whose left? Urrrghhhh!!! How can one forget this unavoidable element if you have tolerated her without caring to go to sleep? Kareena Kapoor Khan, a big miscast. And before you can say ‘Kareena Kapoor Khan', she pledges her support to the movement and becomes a fellow activist! In an unnecessary scene, Kareena's character castigates a colleague for suggesting that they carry news about some prominent figure involved in a MMS scandal. Yasmin Ahmed, the rising star of the communication sector. That was one of her opening dialogues in the movie. WTF!!! Her ‘holier than thou' act gets on your nerves at times. At times? No,no,no!!! EVERYTIME. Eveytime she jumps into the frame, you feel like stabbing yourself with the next sharp thing you can see around. I survived because the theater was purposely made dark to avoid any causalities. Theater anna!!! I owe you this one. Thank you! *kisses.

A poster of the film. Photo courtesy: Internet

The love track between Devgn and Kapoor too is highly unnecessary and takes away focus from the main plot. For these two lovers, I had to give them a standing ovation and clap slowly. How considerate they are! Amidst, the poor old retired school principal’s son’s sad demise and all the hullabaloo that follows, they make sure to find time for some sex, not to mention the strange foreplay they carry out in the middle of a dark night on the house’s terrace, wearing bright white clothes. That was the last thing I expected from the movie.

Saving the best for the last has always been my funda of life. Hence, let’s talk about that one guy which makes Satyagrah worth watching, Manoj Bajpayee, who as the sly Balram Singh, Bajpayee simply dominates every scene that he is a part of and elicits the maximum whistles and claps with his ‘comic baddie' act. Manoj has always been a delight to watch in Jha’s films, ornamented with power-packed, mind-boggling dialogues. Here, are those dialogues that will make you hoot for him. 

Manoj Bajpayee at the first look
launch of the film. Photo courtesy: Internet

Bachpan me kabhi aapke father thapadiyaye nahi the kya, bas mamla theek kijiye aur forget and forgive kariye.

Kya samajh rakha hai humko baraati ka dhol ki aap bajate rahenge aur hum dance karte rahenge.

Thode time ke liye humko bhi yakeen ho gaya tha ki koi na koi rasta nikalega ye Delhi ka businessman lekin iska toh computer hi chori ka nikla.

Salim-Sulaiman have done a decent job with the music. Aiyo ji, is an exceptionally brilliant track featuring Nathalia Kaur( remember, the foreign find of RGV?). Raghupati Raghav, the evergreen Gandhi bhajan has been used very smartly to prick all your heart’s sensitive chords. They have clearly done a clean job to give the lack-lustrous film the mood it requires.

As it approaches climax, all random sequences fall in place in front of your eyes that can easily connect the dots and you can see the Anna Hazare campaign being re-played.

There is no doubt that Jha set out with noble intentions, while making the film, but with better execution, the film could have been more successful in connecting with the audience.

On a final note, if you have nothing to do this weekend, then go for Satyagraha or visit a morgue, sit there and re-watch the Anna Hazare's campaign footages. It’s almost the same. It's a film for those who can tolerate political drama non-stop.

I was more engrossed in passing chips and popcorn from one corner to another, a self devised time pass to ward off boredom and sleep. For, the ones who are still concerned about my headache, kindly drop in contact details of good hair spa outlets at aanchal.srivastava20@gmail.com as I go grab a cup of coffee. ;)