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Ranbir & Rahman’s Rockstar and Imtiaz Ali’s cinema template

Posted: November 12, 2011 by moifightclub in bollywood, cinema, film, film review, movie reviews, reviews
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Rockstar is Imtiaz Ali’s fourth film after Socha Na Tha, Jab We Met and Love Aaj Kal. Thanks to some good friends, I had some idea about the story of the film long before it was announced because Imtiaz has been trying to make the film since last few years. But after SNT, JWM and LAK, what i was more curious to know was that if Imtiaz will follow the same template of his previous three films. And the template is…

Cool and confused lovers will travel a (physical) distance to realise their true love.

Now try SNT, JWM and LAK. Cool boy will meet cool girl. They will be easy to like and good fun to hang out with. They will become friends. They fall in love but are not sure about it. They will be confused and take a wrong step which will lead to some kind of travel and they will finally meet.

Add marriage to it and you are done. With marriage, Ali takes one step at a time. SNT – the marriage talk is on. JWM – She is about to get married. Almost. LAK – She gets married. SPOILER Rockstar – She gets married and makes love with the boyfriend. SPOILER Ends. Next is what? Extra-marital affair? Let’s wait and watch.

In Rockstar, Imtiaz Ali follows the same template. But as the name suggests, it’s also about music. So what works and what doesn’t? Opting for the easy route by writing it in points.

– The film entirely belongs to Ranbir Kapoor. Hand him all the awards for the Best Actor this year. It has been terrible year anyway. And nobody comes close to him. He is such a delight on screen, makes everything look so natural.

– And it would have been a different game without Rahman. After Ranbir, the film belongs to him. It’s easily the best album of the year and i wanted to see more of songs in the film.

– When it comes to rom-com, writer Imtiaz knows his stuff really well. The scenes, the dialogues, the moments – he knows how to write and handle them. How about a rom-com masterclass, Mr Ali?

– Nargis Fakhri. Great screen presence, gorgeous to look at but as soon as she opens her mouth, it’s all over. Terrible casting. Was it just a silent audition for her? If it was someone else, the film could have gone to another level.

– The film suffers from the same curse which most desi films have : the curse of 2nd half. It seems Imtiaz had no clue what to do in the second half. Is there a way we can edit out “interval” from our films? That seems to be the main culprit.

SPOILER

–  Going by conventional mainstream rule book, the film has a sad ending. But looks like we have become so scared of the box office monster that even when the story is going in that direction, we are finding it difficult to endorse it on screen.

SPOILER Ends.

– Kun faaya fun gave me goose flesh. It’s not the way it’s shot, it’s the moment it captures.

– Shammi saab, such a graceful presence. Wish the ‘dichotomy of fame’ track had only him and Ranbir without jumping over to other scenes. Even when he is playing the shehnai, you can see that he is making the efforts to make it look real. He is just not faking it.

– They really blurred the “Tibet” part in the “Free Tibet” banner. That’s disgusting. What is an artist without his/her politics? And this is such a far fetched endorsement. Weird because they shot the song in Dharmshala with Tibetans who are waving their flags and banners and are on stage with Ranbir.

– The narrative style is not linear. Almost every second sequence moves between past, present and future. Am not sure if it helped the narrative in anyway. Need to watch it again. Also, was it done in the edit? Or Imtiaz thought about it while writing the script? Any inputs will be helpful.

– Muazzam Beg has an opening story credit along with Imtiaz Ali.

– Was damn disappointed with Kumud Mishra in That Girl In Yellow Boots. He has compensated for everything in the film. Also, can we see more of Aditi Rao Hydari?

– What else? Aha, Rumi saab gets proper credit in the film.

Go, watch it and do share your thoughts. Am sure this film is going to divide the house completely.

First Look : Ladies Vs Ricky Bahl (Trailer)

Posted: November 9, 2011 by moifightclub in bollywood, cast & crew, first look, News, songs & videos, Trailer, video
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Director Maneesh Sharma’s Band Bajaa Baaraat was a surpsrise hit last year. And now, he is back with the same team with a new film titled Ladies Vs Ricky Bahl. It stars Ranveer Singh, Anushka Sharma, Dipannita Sharma, Aditi Sharma and Parineeti Chopra. Screenplay is by Devika Bhagat and dialogues are by Habib Faisal.

The film is releasing on 9th December and strangely YRF is releasing it’s theatrical trailer just a month before the release. These days most producers release the trailer of their films at least 2 months before the release date and then slowly built up the buzz with songs and videos . Though the makers of LVRB released two music videos before the trailer but the response has been lukewarm so far. Click on the play button to check out this trailer.

Project 11 – 11 cities. 11 characters. 11 directors. 1 short film

Posted: November 8, 2011 by moifightclub in cast & crew, film, first look, News, short film, Trailer
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11.11.11 – If you have been tracking every development regarding this date, then here is something interesting.

Conceived by Vikas Chandra, Project 11 is a high-concept thriller short which has been shot in 11 different cities in the world. And interestingly, 11 directors from various countries in the world collaborated to make this short film. But it’s not an episodic film. It’s one story which is set in 11 cities with 11 principal characters.

Video games going fatal.  Aha, not Ra One again. But Project 11 is in similar space. Here’s the official synopsis –

Synopsis:

Project 11 – A cult underground video game, in which no one has ever gone beyond level 11.

11 avid gamers across the world are racing to cross it.

What they don’t realize is that they could be playing the last game of their lives.

The makers of the film want to gauge the audience reactions and then begin the main feature film by next year, if they get funding for the same, which is called Project 12 tentatively. The short  is about 11 mins long and will release on 11.11.11, on glamsham.com.

The Co-Directors are Alessio Georgetti (New York, USA), Ali Ahmed Brohi (Balochistan, Pakistan), Luo Yi (Beijing, China), Sydney Walsh (Los Angeles, USA), Ryan Singh (Toronto, Canada), Hiro Ikematsu (Tokyo, Japan), Rafal Rakoczy (London, England), Nkumi Mitingwa (Dar e Salaam, Tanzania), Joseph Cohen (Tel Aviv, Israel) and Dharamveer Singh (Luxembourg).

Do check out the trailer.

 

The posters of Abbas-Mustan films

Posted: November 3, 2011 by moifightclub in bollywood, film, first look, pics, Poster
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Bollywood’s Men in White have made a career by copying every possible thriller from the west. Their new film is called Players and for a change, its not plagiarised. It’s the official remake of The Italian Job.

The first poster of Players released today and i felt a sense of deja-vu. Because when there is so much effort going on to get that stand-out look for every new film, Abbas-Mustan seems to be stuck in their old world, as far as the posters are concerned. Scroll down to see what i mean.

So basically all the actors will stand together, try to look cool and the poster is ready. You can replace any poster with the other one and it will not make any difference. This is for multi-starrers. Now let’s look at the film posters which has not more than three stars.

So what will be the poster of Race 2? Anyone wants to bet? Will they just replace few faces? Think so. Let’s see.

Concept is dead, design is dead, long live Abbas-Mustan!

VOTD : The Dewarists – Indian Ocean meets Mohit Chauhan

Posted: November 1, 2011 by moifightclub in music, News, video, VOTD
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First came the desi version of Coke Studio, then MTV Unplugged and now The Dewarists. In a country where bollywood music has almost killed every other kind of sound in the mainstream space, it’s a refreshing change to see so much good television involving non-bollywood music.

Have been reading all kinds of reactions to all the three shows. Any kind of criticism is good as long as you are honest. But the point is, on indian television, for such a long time we had almost nothing to watch. Now when people are trying to create something, explore that tiny space for us, and that’s not really bad tv, let’s be little more encouraging, appreciate the efforts, and then bring out the knives. If it was completely worthless, then it’s fine to kill it. But let’s watch it and spread the good word first.

Here’s the third episode of The Dewarists, where Indian Ocean meets Mohit Chauhan to create Maya. Had no clue that Indian Ocean has a new address now. I used to like that old place – messy, old-world charm, the wooden chair and Beware Dogs. This is Indian Ocean’s first composition with the new team. Click the play button, hear their story, and let the music play.

(PS – While watching this episode, I was thinking it would be great if then can feature Agnee here. The band deserves more space, more visibility and more audience. And then i saw next week’s teaser. Those of you who are behind the show, time to pat your back. Great job with the show. And give us more)

What do you do with a star like Shah Rukh Khan? Blitzkrieg.

Posted: October 29, 2011 by moifightclub in bollywood, cinema, film
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AND?

Make him fly, make him cry,

make him stretch his arms, let him spread the charms.

And then give a latex suit. Aha, try that again.

It wasn’t very long ago when i had accidently discovered a picture of Shah Rukh Khan in my sister’s diary. Floppy hair, dimpled smile, casual attire – a working still from Darr which she had cut out from the newspaper and saved it in her diary (Do kids still write diaries?). And then there was a time when i would come back from school and would religiously play the entire soundtrack of Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge few times before settling down for lunch. Unlike others, I was never a die hard DDLJ fan but i enjoyed it till a teacher dissected it for us one day in college and said, he’s a sissy hero. Mama’s boy is here, he can’t run away with the heroine, he wants to impress her mom and dad. And over the years, SRK managed to do it in a better way – wooing the daughters, moms and mother-in-laws at one go.

Everyone loves the story of an outsider making it big in bad and bloody bollywood. But the problem with being big is that you start playing it safe – when bigger things are at stake, the mantra is give them what they want. In the last few years, if you have seen the kind of films SRK has done, it’s easy to predict that all they wanted him was to spread his arms, smile, nod his head and be the Prince Charming. Even the ham-fest was excused beacuse he could sweep you off your feet. Not us, ask your mom, sister, sister-in-law. It’s not that difficult to find a SRK fan.

His off screen personality is an advantage. He can speak at World Economic Forum and a jhopad-patti gathering with equal ease. Unlike other dodos of bollywood who have nothing much to say, SRK is spontaneous, can tackle any question and he just doesn’t get tired. And when the off screen personality becomes so huge, it’s difficult to imagine him in any character. Brand endorsements, appearances at events, tv shows, band-bajaa, 24 hours bollywood news, documentary on his life – he does it all and then uses the smartest trick to disarm his critics – self-deprecating humor.

The question is how much of SRK can you digest? Seems we can take it all and want some more. And if that’s the reason, why play around with your brand equity, SRK?

But if he doesn’t try anything new, we will say, enough of spreading those arms. If he does, it’s a mess. Remember Paheli, Ashoka, Swades to name a few which all turned out to be big duds at the box office. So is that the reason why Ra One is lets spread the arms, do the chamak challo and let’s try something new along with it? Maybe.

Problem is what do you do with a star like Shah Rukh Khan? Make him wear the latex suit, make him fly, and do endless jokes around the crotch? The only way to claim the throne?

But crass & crotch was never his mantra. He has often said in his interviews that he is not comfortable doing intimate (kiss/nude) scenes because he knows his audience is ma-behan–bhabhi-family audience. And that’s why i failed to understand what forced him to go for such extreme shift of gear and in such bad taste. I am fine with everything on screen but when you target the kids, you don’t play around with the crotch, gay jokes, condom-condom and booby key tricks. Do Aryan-Suhana approve of this humour? If yes, great. The man who taught us that it’s all about the dil, when and how did crotch became the ‘main part’? Disturbing signs indeed.

Apart from the role of eternal lover who can stretch his arms and let the music play, the only roles which has been able to cash in on his brand value are of two kinds – the irreverent and the menacing one. Main Hoon Na (without the Indo-Pak bit) and Om Shanti Om are desi comic book films filled with irreverent fun. Nobody takes nothing seriously and what a fun it turned out to be! It might be bit too early to say that Don is all about back to Darr-Anjam days, a sleeker version, and without the streaks of a violent lover – he is bad because he is bad. The idea of turning our dil-ka-hero into a superhero-with-a-hart was a great idea but then you don’t mess it up so badly – comic book meets family entertainer meets super powers meets sufi alaaps meets sci-fi meets god-knows-what. Even Spiderman has family issues, right? First things first, sack the writing team, SRK. Four writers and they could not design a conflict for the Super-hero?

And then get out of that cocoon of friends and family friends and friends of families. Yes, they will always wish the best for you but they might not be the best in the business. Time to try out new partners. Remember Chak De India – Before the film’s release nobody believed that people will come to watch 13 unknown heroines with SRK in scruffy beard. So why not a Vishal Bhardwaj, Raj Kumar Hirani, Dibakar Banerjee, Sriram Raghavan, Imtiaz Ali, Anurag Kashyap or may be someone completely new. May be they have some better ideas to Un-shahrukh the Khan and that too without the latex suit. Or may be a better latex suit for you if you decide to go for the sequel. It’s easy to appreciate the effort, the intention, and the grandeur of some of the sequences but nothing beyond that. Even the story idea was good but that’s about it.

Do it Khan, do it. Do it before it’s too late. The new generation accepts and discards super-heroes everyday. My 2 year old niece is already glued to tv for a robotic cat called Doraemon. This week she took baby steps in bollywood nursery as i showed your pics to her and now she can easily spot Sarook Kaan. After watching the film, as an afterthought i taught her the Rockstar move. Now every time we say Rockstar, she does the kiddie version of headbanging by violently shaking her head in all directions and ends the performance by removing her unkempt hair from the face.

MFF2011 – The winning shorts and the winners

Posted: October 21, 2011 by moifightclub in cinema, Film Festival, News, short film
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After seven days of cinema, conversations, chai-coffee and standing in long queues, it’s a wrap for this year’s Mumbai Film Festival. And since I had put an open bet on the Dimensions Mumbai shorts, it’s time to say, we told you so. Click here to read the post with short reviews of all the shorts selected for this year’s Dimensions Mumbai. Out of the four shorts that I had put a bet on, three made it to the jury’s list.

Dimensions Mumbai

The Silver Gateway Award and cash prize of Rs 100,000 for The Best Film was presented to Ameya Gore and Sunaina Mahadik for ‘Facelift’.

The Silver Gateway Award and cash prize of Rs 50,000 for The Second Best Film was presented to Abhay Kumar for ‘Life is a Beach‘.

The Jury Special Mention Award was given to Chinmaya Nagesh Dalvi for ‘Bombay Snow’ and to Harshvir Oberai for ‘The Circle Is Mine’.

International Competition

– The Golden Gateway Award and cash prize of US $ 100,000 for The Best Film was presented to French film ‘My Little Princess’ directed by Eva Ionesco.

– The Silver Gateway Award for Jury Grand Prize and cash prize of US $ 50,000 was presented to Canadian film ‘The Salesman’ (Le Vendeur) directed by Sebastien Pilote.

– The Silver Gateway Award for Best Director was presented to Eva Ionesco for the movie ‘My Little Princess’.

– The Silver Gateway Award for Best Actress was presented to Isabelle Huppert and Anamaria Vartolomei for their performance in the film ‘My Little Princess’.

– The Silver Gateway Award for Best Actor was presented to Gilbert Sicotte for his performance in ‘The Salesman’ (Le Vendeur).

– The Silver Gateway Jury Award for Technical Excellence was presented to Diego Poleri for ‘Las Acacias’.

– The Silver Gateway Special Jury Award was presented to Markus Schleinzer for ‘Michael’.

Mumbai Young Critics

– The Mumbai Young Critics Silver Gateway Award was presented to Markus Schleinzer for ‘Michael’.

Celebrate Age Category

– The Silver Gateway Award and cash prize of Rs 50,000 for The Best Film was presented to ‘Grandma, A Thousand Times’ (Teta, Alf Marra) directed by Mahmoud Kaabour.

– The Silver Gateway Award and cash prize of Rs 25,000 for the Second Best Film was given to ‘Fear of Falling’ directed by Bartosz Konopka.

– The Celebrate Age Jury Award Certificate of Special Mention was given to Zubin Sethna for ‘The Usual’ (Wie Immer).

And the Lifetime Achievement Award was given to Gulzar.

Except some minor hiccups here and there, Mumbai Film Festival turned out to be great success this year. What makes a fest good? Films. And that’s where MFF scored. We can live without the stars and the celebrities. Hopefully next year will be bigger and better, and the queues will be smaller. Can we please get Chandan Theater as the big venue along with a multiplex as the main venue from next year. Team MFF, thanks a ton.

MFF 2011 : POTD – Chaser meets its Murder-er

Posted: October 20, 2011 by moifightclub in bollywood, cinema, Film Festival, pics, POTD, Special
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This has to be the height of cheap thrill. Hong-jin Na, director of the Korean film Chaser, is in Mumbai for the Mumbai Film Festival. And since he has no clue about our Bhatt Factory, which specialises in importing films from across the world to give it a desi makeover, our good friends Mihir Fadnavis and Sudhish Kamath decided to burst the bubble.

Murder 2 was copied from Chaser and so Hong-jin Na was gifted an “original” dvd of the “plagiarised” film.

Sumit Purohit, who has been doing some interesting sketch work based on films, also gifted him a sketch based on Chaser.

MFF2011 : This is one way to do it – Sandeep Mohan’s ‘Love, wrinkle-free’

Posted: October 19, 2011 by moifightclub in cinema, Film Festival, first look
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There’s at least one film in each one of us. For those of us who make it our vocation (not profession) there are many. Debutante director Sandeep Mohan’s done with his first. Indie, short, sweet and with a home-grown, quirky sense of humour, ‘Love, Wrinkle-free’ played at MAMI yesterday. And plays again tomorrow, 20th Oct at 12.45 pm, Cinemax, Sion.

The film is about a middle-aged couple struggling with middle-age issues. The passing of youth, the wilting of relationships under the dryness of everyday living. The excitement of finding new love and all that it affirms about oneself. Well, it’s not half as serious as all this sounds, but lightly touches all these ‘deeper’ strains with a certain idiosyncrasy. Then there are crooks and fools in love making the capering continuously ticklish.

Watch the trailer to get a glimpse of what I am saying.

“Love, Wrinkle-free” trailer from Sandeep Mohan on Vimeo.

We rant enough about how difficult it is to make any movie, leave alone the one you want to make. Sandeep found that out first hand too and then simply decided to drop everything and make his films one way or the other. No he didn’t rob a bank. He simply, “Spent close to a year trying to raise funds – made couple of wrong moves. Learned and moved on.”

To finally find funding. “Giju John and Kamal Shah came along to help. Giju is a childhood friend. Totally trusted me. We managed to rope in close to 30 more friends (in a crowd funding of sorts!) to put in whatever they could.” It not only sounds difficult but we all know how much passion and conviction is required to convince someone to part with pennies for a film. Film! A form which has been reduced to little more than nautanki these days. Why would anyone bother with it unless the ones making it had ‘it’ in them to want to go beyond?

The film took two years to evolve from idea to image. The script was fleshed out over a period of 3-4 months. And the film completed within 22 days, within schedule, fully shot in Goa. Extended reading sessions happened with each one of them. And from there on the experienced folks took off well. As said here, “The film boasts of some good performances from the ensemble!”

Sandeep’s pre-prod office and editing studio was his own house. “So in essence this is a Vikhroli West movie as opposed to an Andheri west movie” he jests.

Cutting costs was of course, primary. No AD for entire post-production. But ensured actors were well-taken care of. “We gave the actors whatever we could. But once they realised what we were attempting, they became part of this journey, and it was smooth going.”

Indie, from start-to-finish and not just for the sake of it. That’s refreshing. Independent not only in thought but action. Not only what it creates but how. A healthy mix of both is probably the whopping leap our cinema needs to take.

This route was and wasn’t a choice for Sandeep. If you want to do something you got to get out there and find ways to do it. He had no choice but that and hence willingly made that choice.

“It all evolved after my father passed away 3 years back. His death taught me that we are not here for ever. I could just conk off one day complaining that I never made a movie. So went ahead, worked hard, didn’t complain, respected actors and crew members, restrained myself even when I got angry at times, and grew as a human being and as a filmmaker through this last 2 years.”

Every such film is a labour of love, some maybe more than the others. What matters in the end is the intention and effort. The applause then, becomes so much more sweeter.

In Sandeep’s words – “The film truly represents the indie spirit – and I hope more such films get made – the idea being not to wait for anyone to come and help me, but to go ahead and do it.”

MAMI is the World Fest Premiere of Love, Wrinkle-free. After that, it is SAIFF in New York where the film is scheduled to be screened on the 11th of November. Meanwhile, for those of you who haven’t seen it yet, catch it on 20th Oct at 12.45 pm Cinemax Sion.

Let’s show some love to the spirit of indie cinema.

– Fatema Kagalwala

First Look : Mangesh Hadawale’s Dekh Indian Circus (Trailer)

Posted: October 19, 2011 by moifightclub in bollywood, cast & crew, cinema, first look, Trailer
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Mangesh Hadwale made his debut with a marathi film called Tingya which was well received. And now he is ready with his first hindi feature Dekh Indian Circus.  It stars Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Tannistha Chatterjee and recently premiered at the Busan Film Festival.

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