The enigma of Talaash – Reema Kagti’s next with Aamir Khan

Everything about this film is shrouded in smoke – Dhuaan was a very apt early rumored title that has now been changed to Talaash. Written by Reema Kagti (director of Excel Entertainment’s Honeymoon Travels) and Zoya Akhtar (writer and director of Luck by Chance and Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara), the film boasts of an interesting cast with Aamir Khan and Kareena Kapoor (last seen in 3 Idiots) but also includes Rani Mukherjee. Rani and Aamir were last seen together in Mangal Pandey years ago!

Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara continues to surprise and polarize

What started out looking like a Spain tourism ad to some, a Dil Chahta Hai redux from the promos to others, was described by the maker as NOT that as most of the film is spent driving in a car, was slated to tank badly at the box office, have a short life span and be yet another yuppie wannabe film, has now taken on some legs at the ticket windows and continues to delight many viewers into its third week.  The usual gang of reviewers ranged from panning it solidly to loving it unabashedly. 

Delhi Belly – fartastic caper that is predictable but amuses

The only thing desi about Delhi Belly is the fixation on shit and farts, and the copious use of the BC and MC expletives.

The National Awards – another controversy

Why was Aamir Khan’s production that was India’s Oscar entry not entered for the National awards?

Read some details below and at http://www.mid-day.com/entertainment/2011/may/240511-Aamir-Khan-Anusha-Rizvi-Peepli-Live-National-Awards-Oscars.htm

From the nominations for the National awards

There’s more than that meets the eye as far as Peepli [Live]’s exclusion from the National Awards is concerned.

When the awards were announced, it seemed like the country’s official entry to the Oscars was specifically ignored. Digging around, we found the film wasn’t even entered for the nominations!

Aamir Khan and Anusha Rizvi on the sets of Peepli [Live]

Could it have been an oversight (highly unlikely, considering how particular Aamir Khan is) or did he decide to ban the National Awards (like he does other popular awards)?

The film’s director Anusha Rizvi says she is clueless why the film was not entered. “I heard it, too. And I have absolutely no idea why the film wasn’t entered.

I want to clarify that the directorate and the jury members of the National Awards have been unfairly targetted.”

But wasn’t Anusha the one who did not want to be involved in promoting Peepli for the Oscars race not long ago?

Dhobi Ghat – baby steps into into the 20th century!

Hindi cinema, particularly that called Bollywood cinema, is often a pastiche of snippets and vignettes from cinema all over the world. And the influences are usually aged and not modern. Thus Life in a Metro, the film that could almost be Dhobi Ghat if minimalized, took an entire sequence in its interconnecting stories from the Billy Wilder 1960 film The Apartment, but wove in a few other tales around the trysting place to modernize the whole.

What should the STAR be doing?

Should he be looking for new and pathbreaking roles?  Playing to his strength?  Being laid back and in the mode that got his fans to love him in the first place?  One can think of Jack Nicholson – loved by all, fine actor.  And then we got too much of the good thing and Jack became a caricature of Jack.   I am grateful that Aamir and SRK have not fallen into that trap.  If anything I would say that Salman is playing laid back with Wanted and Dabangg, in roles tailor made for him, and reaping rewards.  But does that stretch his acting mettle?  I still think his best may have been as the bumbling idiot in Andaz Apna Apna!

The 3 Idiots – it is about the message, stupid!

Any review of a film like Three Idiots must needs be undertaken at a few levels. At the most superficial level, the film is a simple comedy about life in an engineering college hostel, full of gags and puerile humor – but films like Singh is Kinngg and Kambakht Ishq have shown us that this kind of humor works! Three guys meet, one is UNIQUE and smart without trying, GENIUS even – Rancho or Ranchoddass. They bond over lots of time spent in the hostel bathroom and drinking on the rooftop. The headmaster is a tartar and in an attempt to foil him they get into trouble, are nearly thrown out except that Rancho miraculously fashions a baby vacuum device to deliver the headmaster’s grandson on the college ping-pong table. Then Rancho mysteriously disappears, and the other two Idiots go on a search for Rancho, find him and ALL IZZ WELL.

This is not your father’s Oldsmobile – or why teenagers love Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na

I wonder if any of you recall the fuddy-duddy Oldsmobile brand of automobile, and their decision in 1988 to make their image more youthful with a series of ads that started with “This is not your father’s Oldsmobile!” That campaign pretty much marked the demise of the brand and the line was discontinued by General Motors in 2000. It had in fact become too youthful for the fuddy duddies and could not stay quite young enough to keep up with the youth.

Abbas Tyrewala is the wunderkind credited with dialogs for films like Asoka, Munnabhai MBBS, Salaam Namaste and Welcome, screenplays for Main Hoon Naa and Maqbool. So when he decides to write and direct a film we all sit up and take notice. The interest grows when the film has names like Aamir Khan, Mansoor Khan, and AR Rahman associated with it. So what if the most prominent member of the cast is a young unknown man who calls Aamir ‘Mamu’, and is often dressed to look like Mamu in the early 90s. So what if the leading lady is not unknown to us, in fact has another film running at the same time, but is kept demurely hidden. All this only increases our interest in the film, feeds the frenzy if you will. We have been told it is a very fresh, youthful romance.