KI & KA (my review) : Bread-earner v/s House-maker!

Though its too personal to share on a public space but sometimes i wonder how much my mother was responsible for not letting my father climbing up the success ladder in his career! I have images of my parents arguing over this issue when i was growing up. Both of them being the bread earners of the family, day to day ego clashes & issues like 'who's gonna cook so much food at the end of the day', 'who's gonna pay the bills' 'who's work being more stressful on an everyday basis' did erupt every now & then. And given the fact that my dad has always been the lazy bone, he would have 'kab ka' happily retired from his job if not for smooth sailing of the family on a financial basis. So even though Ki & Ka did receive extreme mixed reviews form the public & critics alike, the film did connect with me on some level.

More than breaking the gender stereotypes, i saw it more as a clash between the bread earner v/s the house maker, at times when success & over commitment of one partner becomes indigestible for the other paving towards commencement of disputes between them leading towards more problems like in the beautifully written scene where Jaya Bachhan asks Amitabh (playing themselves) would it have made any different if she was working full fledged and him managing the kitchen ( evoking memories of their Abhimaan, one of the best films made about marriage and ego). It felt good to see finally the woman (who's been playing the boss all the while) jealous of his house-husband getting attention & more fame overnight. I particularly liked the scene towards the climax when she lashes out at him into a reason less rage for using her for his fame. Kareena is bang on as the heroine who finally slips into an egoistic, career obsessive man's role & acts like one, something which we have been used to seeing our 'larger than life' heroes in indian film and more so on indian tele-series'. Arjun Kapoor deserves some credit too for agreeing to play the part, he actually tends to be more like the child-man who's best in playing his submissive part, hence few scenes like the sudden dhishum dhishum dharmendra act with the goons at the middle of the night seems out of place.

What didn't work for me were the dialogues, at times cliched & too much stressful into proving a point & the camera angles were too bad with sudden zooming in & out of focus. A gem of a star Swaroop Sampat was rather too disappointing with her bad dialogue delivery & Rajit Kapoor was wasted. The film could have worked more if it hadn't tried too hard to lure the masses & sudden abruptness of the plot here & there.

Jack wins ....finally!

This one's for all us who were once upon a time (& maybe still) obsessively in love with Jack !!

For all of us who grew up in the 90's witnessing the massive hysteria called TITANIC (1997), developing a major love/crush/madness for Jack ,at the same time hatred for Rose, jealous every time when u might have read his name being linked to some or the other starlet, thinking 'Here's a bitch who gets to make out with him now while we're still kissing those paper cut-outs from 'Titanic'/'Romeo-Juliet' poster. The name 'Leonardo DiCaprio' without a blink on our slam books next to the 'Your crush' section. He who have lived closer to us for years, on the walls of our every single room in every single form possible. Movie posters,17 cut outs,Time articles about the success of Titanic that you ripped out and taped to the wall or scrap book.There was no mention of him too small or too insignificant for our wall of love. Crying your heart out everytime he drowned (Titanic) or got killed (Romeo-Juliet), those daydreams! For all of us, it really felt good when he finally made it & received his much deserved Academy award for The Revenant after several nominations.

P.S. : I recalled meeting an old friend last year & she said 'Gosh! Leonardo's such a wild, filthy f****r man!!' I realized she had just seen 'Wolf of the Wall Street' smile emoticon

Rangeela's significant contribution to bollywood cinema!

Urmila’s red & white crop-tops,floral bustier, knotted frilled top & hot pants, flourscent chiffon skirts rippling on the screen across the beach, grooving in bright twin sets, her white bustier with the matching frilly skirt in 'Tanha Tanha', not to forget her ankle boots & the floral mini skirt in 'Rangeela re', bringing in vogue the use of bright orange,pink & red colors (the matt effect red lipstick too??) with panache, far far cry from the flashy, over the top dressing style from Sridevi's 80s and Madhuri's 90s, finally giving way to some class and sophistication to the designer wardrobe!

Thanks to that one man Manish Malhotra with the leading lady Urmila & more specifically this song Tanha Tanha that transformed the way Bollywood dressed overnight.
Being in just VI th standard, i remember this movie & particularly the song Tanha Tanha which was quite a taboo, we ought to swift channel everytime it played on tv, why? because of 'oh-ma-go-isssh!-ki-obostha!' Urmila's skimpy outfits & seductive gyrations. Little did we know then that this will be a trendsetter in the years to come. Leading Heroines wearing bustier, swimwear, sports bra & shorts were a big no-no before this movie happened finally paving its way to more trendy outfits in future films like Dil To Pagal hai etc.

KAPOOR & SON'S (review) : Tale of two 'imperfect' brothers!

A reminiscent of the American tv series 'Brothers and Sisters, revolving around the lives, relationships and conflicts of the wealthy Walker family , Kapoor and Sons too showcases almost the same issues in a near-perfect nuanced manner. If Mira Nair’s 'Monsoon Wedding' had more complex characters to deal with within their far in-depth complexities, Shakun Batra’s protégés are quite easy to relate to, at least in today’s present scenario. Director Shakun Batra in his second outing Kapoor & Sons quite delicately breaks the year long ‘perfect son’/ ‘perfect brother’ Bollywood stereotype. One couldn’t have imagined one of the brothers (Sanjay dutt or Salman khan) in the 1991 blockbuster Saajan claiming his disinterest in women, or rather, the much celebrated, commercial potboiler Kabhie Khushi Kabhi Gham, I am sure wouldn’t have been a success if either of the brothers (Rahul or Rohit) had an unconventional lifestyle or sexual preference which is fry cry from the sentiments of the majority of the Indian mindsets. 

The brothers here In Kapoor & Sons do not bond with ease, neither they share a Jai-Veeru bonding, much at loggerheads with each other and that has been brought forth very conveniently into the narrative without seeming forced or melodramatic. Arjun (Sidharth Kapoor) the younger one whose career isn’t that bright and shining unlike his elder brother Rahul (Fawad Khan), whose career as a novelist got doomed long back when his mother handed his idea of a story plot to his brother without his knowledge, he isn’t too eager to receive his brother’s call or take his help financially because he has always been looked down upon as the ‘second best’ when compared to his ‘perfect’ elder brother. His constant trying to prove his mettle to his family has brewed the bitterness inside him against his brother. Neither he is emphasizing on his brother’s unconventional lifestyle when the latter finally discloses the same (‘I don’t know what to say’ is all Arjun has to answer).On the other hand the mother’s (Ratna Pathak Shah) favourite child, the perfect son Rahul, who comes as a savior during all family disputes, financial setbacks & is the one to take all the blame upon himself to avoid his family from dragging on to their conflicts, isn’t all that perfect anymore because of his inability or rather, unwillingness to bring home the ‘perfect indian bride’, but we know deep down, as we see their story unfold, that they are their for each other at the end of the day because as the plot unfolds we see the ‘imperfect-ness’ among all the characters, characters which are very real, very close to us, characters very ‘perfectly’ etched out by Shakun Batra & co-writer Ayesha Devitre.