FAN (review)

Superstar Aryan Khanna sits stigmatized in a detention cell while a local goon pisses a few inches away & right after a humiliating police interrogation, instantly agrees to pose for a selfie with a female officer, while few scenes later he performs like a monkey for a rich NRI’s daughter’s wedding even after he is spoken curtly by the man who thinks the star is his personal toy he just acquired the rights for. Ah! stuffs that our stars are made of! As Aryan Khanna it was interesting to watch Shahrukh as a non apologetic narcissist, self deprecating himself & being extremely critical about his own stardom in the film, from being insecure about his fading age & the rise of younger actors to playing safely for the gallery over the years, the actor took a huge leap from his romantic hero image.

No, i haven't seen Misery or The king of Comedy, so i m not sure of the references, but 10 mins into the film and you are introduced into the intriguing world of Gaurav Chanana, a lookalike to the superstar Aryan Khanna, whose craziness, love & almost platonic relationship with the star is even celebrated by his doting parents, lovingly indulging him in impersonating his antics on stage. With his lovable child like exuberance, he creates a space for himself in your hearts, but post his meeting with the star & being reprimanded & dejected by the star's rudeness, his hero worship turns into hatred, so much so that he almost turns into a psychopath. The scenes where the star & the fan or rather the master & his puppet comes face to face are brilliantly executed with much credit to Shahrukh's Gaurav emoting entirely with his innocence in the first half while with vengeance in the pre climactic scenes. So far so good with the reality, but post intermission the film falls terribly into the same conventional pattern with some illogical hide & seek game of the star and his doting fan! From selling his cyber cafe to reaching london & dubrovnik all of a sudden in his rage & revenge, to slyly getting inside the star's personal space, Gaurav's sudden transformation from a child like buffon to a smart 'man on a mission' image doesn't quite fit into the narrative,

But even with all its commercial loopholes, the film is watchable mostly because of Shahrukh's returning back to his Darr, Baazigar, Anjaam days with sweetness of Duplicate's Babloo thrown into the character. Wish the script had stayed a little bit more 'realistic' post interval.

MYSTIC PIZZA

It terribly annoys me when a director loses out steam after building such a beautiful premise. In this 1988 released film directed by Donald Petrie, there's a scene where teenager Charles (Adam Storke) on a date, brings his girlfriend Daisy (Julia Roberts) to his father's vacant palatial mansion located near the shore of the ocean with the soothing sound of seagulls, it's almost dusk & there's no electricity coz his father turns of the power when nobody's home ,he takes Daisy inside the living room, she makes herself comfortable while he lights up the candles next to a giant mirror & sets up the fireplace. While they engage in conversation, Daisy suddenly turns around without him noticing & goes upstairs leaving behind all her clothes, shoes & accessories in the hallway & en-route towards his father's bedroom. She calls him from upstairs & Charles unable to locate her in the darkness, holds a candle & goes upstairs collecting each one of her stuffs (shoes, jacket, skirt, undergarments) that she left behind in the hallway. There's a beautiful saxophonic piece that plays in the background. He enters the rooms, notices that she is wearing his father's shirt , 'This is my parent's room, is that my father's shirt that you r wearing?'! he asks. She says ' You think he will miss it?' with a mischievous smile. She comes closer towards the bed while he is sitting at the other end 'Hey junior' says she, & kisses him on the lips. Cut to the next shot - they have already made love & are lying in bed embraced to each other underneath the white satin sheets. There was so much the writer / director could have done with this scene, bringing in the passion play, no! not the love making act, but the seduction part! Bit of playfulness, eagerness, a hesitation evident with teenage first timers, exploring more into each other would have made it a fantastic scene! A little bit more time with some beautifully written lines eventually (romantic per say!) could have sparked the magic in the lovely set up

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.

'Gerua' song (DILWALE) : Kajol looks Oh! so fair & lovely..Olay!

Does anyone need some new windows wallpaper? Try this one out! Possibly the major stunning aspect of the song is the cinematography, although too much of VFX & special effects have ruined the overall impact. Credit should go to the cinematographer for using lot of overhead as well as wide angle frames, frames where SRK and Kajol’s outfits stand out against the icy plains of Iceland or the cloud covered sky, the actors standing against the backdrop of a massive waterfall with green meadows with a silhouette of a rainbow & the broken down aircraft with the sky glimmering with rich hues of neon and green against the vast sun setting horizon looks good. Along with that, the costume dept & of course the make-up man Mickey Contractor (thank you for hiding those lines!) deserves applause! Kajol looks etheral in those Manish Malhotra pastel chiffons & flowing skirts blowing in the wind (yellow, orange, and bit of red to make it Gerua!!) & oh so fair & lovely! (Thank you Olay!), Shahrukh looks..well, somebody said 'killer..', oh ok! never mind! kudos to his trainer Prashant Sawant, and the song? No, not another Suraj Huwa maddham for sure. Didn't work for me though, at least as off now! .