heartattack

Dear All

Last year’s Ande Tamatar Awards were a stupendous success with over 100 people in the whole world reading the final list of winners. At this rate, I am sure that before mankind is annihilated by an asteroid, Ande Tamatar Awards would definitely become the most sought after awards in world cinema.

This year the awards will be given in the following categories:

1. Best Picture
2. Best Actor (Male)
3. Best Actor (Female)
4. Best Director (Male or Female. Farah Khan also eligible)
5. Best Story
6. Best Supporting Actor (Male)
7. Best Supporting Actor (Female)
8. Best Song
9. Best Music
10. Best Background Score
11. Best Lyrics
12. Best Playback Singer (Male)
13. Best Playback Singer (Female)
14. Best Debut (Male)
15. Best Debut (Female)
16. Best Trailer
17. Worst Picture
18. Worst Actor (Male)
19. Worst Actor (Female)
20. Worst Song that everyone else liked
21. Most Nonsensical Lyrics
22. Most Nonsensical Film Title
23. Shahrukh Khan Award (To be given to SRK every year so that I don’t have to think of a new weirdo award every year to give him, like Zee does, for eg. Award for 2 hits in a year, Fun entertainer of the year.. wtf does that mean, morons?).

We also have 2 awards sponsored by Xerox photocopiers (I told you the previous awards were a success. I have sponsorship now).

1. Xerox Best Film
2. Xerox Best Music

I’ve said this last year, but let me repeat some things about these prestigious awards once again:

• Acting is not the criteria for deciding the best actress and supporting actress awards.
• Best Actor in a comic role and negative role are stupid awards. An actor is an actor. Tragic, comic, positive, negative should not matter. If we want these awards then in 2008 we should also have awards like Best Actor in the role of a Hockey Coach, Best Actor in the role of an arts teacher.
• I know I have not seen all films, but just the fact that I considered a film unworthy of my time already disqualifies it from nominations (except for Music and actress awards )

Stay tuned for the nominees…

This post might be a little too much for some. Apologies, but I know no other way to write but to say what I am really thinking. So continue at your own risk.

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Brilliant brilliant…!!! The awards season has started with the nominees for the 14th Screen Awards announced today.

I must admit that I puked blood when I read the nominations. I am pretty sure that the jury members were involved in a mass orgy while they were deciding the nominees for the awards because obviously the interest of Hindi Cinema was not on their minds.

First and foremost.. Darsheel Safary, better known as Ishaan Awasthi, has NOT BEEN NOMINATED in the best actor category. Instead, he has been nominated as the Best Child Actor. What nonsense on Earth is that? When a 64 year old Amitabh Bachchan can be nominated against a 20 something Shahid Kapur, why can’t an 11 year old be nominated alongside? Does the best Actor award come with the sign ADULT ONLY? The boy has also been left out from the Best Newcomer category..!!

I am sure the best actor nominees were decided based on who came to the minds of the jury while they were climaxing. I’m surprised none of them were pedophiles. I wish they are gang-raped by a bunch of monkeys.

That’s not all. In the best film category, Black Friday has been conveniently left out in favor of Om Shanti Om. First, to all the douchebags who can’t stop whining about how good Om Shani Om is and that I am being a moron by saying bad things about SRK and Farah Khan: “You jackasses.. I actually LIKED OSO. Read my review and shut the f*** up.”

My problem is that OSO is a good movie, but not worthy of a best film nomination because though entertaining, OSO is ordinary cinema. In fact, it is a step back for the industry that seemed to be progressing thanks to RDB and Lage Raho.

Black Friday is a path-breaking film and deserves the highest honors there are. Too bad it is pitied against TZP.

But actually think of it, in an industry where the biggest filmmakers do not take risks and work on formula with just moolah on their minds, it is only fair that the award shows for such an industry care not about quality per se, but TRPs and sponsorships…

If a deluge of shayari’s floating around the Internet as email forwards featuring as dialogs in Fanaa wasn’t enough, then to all the fans of ‘Return of Khiladi’ from OM SHANTI OM: Bollywood has done it again. Hollywood is passe; Internet is the industry’s new source of ‘inspiration’. Just check out this video, featured in CollegeHumor.com in 2004. I don’t know which film is it originally from. Looks like some European film. My respect for Farah Khan has now increased manifolds. Have to appreciate the lady director’s resourcefulness.

For the uninitiated, here is ‘our version’ of the video from OM SHANTI OM (Listen, I am protected by the Digital Millenium Copyright Act bullshit.. I did not upload this video on Youtube.. so don’t try to sue me).

Notice how even most of the camera angles are left ‘unchanged’…

Well done Farah.

“We have made a very entertaining film. When you are going to the theatre, leave your brain at home. Don’t try to see logic. I’m sure you’ll forget all your troubles and enjoy the film”

BULLSHIT… God knows how many times have I heard this thing this year. Something like this was said before Partner, Heyy Babyy, Om Shanti Om, and Welcome.

My question is – why the f*** should I leave my brain at home. Not that I have a lot anyway, but why?

Till when would writers incapable of writing a coherent and logical script pretend to make a film to supposedly relieve us from all our troubles. My answer to these saints is, “ROT IN HELL YOU MORONS!”.

Hitch, Partner’s ‘inspiration’ (read as Scene By Scene rip off) did not come with that disclaimer. Then why Partner? Obviously the nuthead responsible for ‘Indianizing’ the story was no more skilled than my 3 year old sister is at making Tandoori Chicken.

Same goes for Welcome. This is how welcome was written:

Bazmee moron thought of some ’supposed’ funny sequences. He put them together and searched on IMDB for a Hollywood film that could string these trashy sequences together.. and TADA.. Welcome was born.

As a tribute to the movie, I have removed the ‘welcome’ sticker from my room door and have put it on my trash can.

Does comedy always need to be illogical and slapstick? No, but idiots like Aneez Bazmee know no better.

Take Hera Pheri for example. Was it completely illogical? NO it wasn’t. In fact it was a very intelligent comedy.

I’ll concede that Andaz Apna Apna, the greatest comedy in the universe (and beyond) was an illogical film. But it was a smart film. It was not a series of jokes strung together.

But well, our modern day comedies are just that. They give me more pain than relieve any.

Welcome for example. Consider these comic masterpieces:

• Akshay is driving and suddenly for no apparent reason the steering wheel comes off and the brakes fail (and he’s not even driving a Maruti 800). God damn it how many times do I need to see another of those scenes where an out of control car goes banging people on the streets. And tell me, why is there always an open-back truck standing perpendicular to the street when our hero has a car out of control?
• The last scene has a bunch of douchebags in a hut about to topple off a cliff. They keep running from one end to the other while the hut see-saws.. my God.. now that’s a cinematic masterpiece. I was puking blood by the time this scene finished.
• Paresh Rawal, who seems to be under a constant attack of epilepsy, is running from someone and falls on one naked girl after the other who take turns to slap him. Wow.. I’ve never seen anything like this before.

In short, Welcome is a collection of the most cliched and comic plots you’ll find on Earth.

Its an exercise in trash film-making.

And to all the incapable filmmakers – I won’t leave my brain at home, come what may. Because with you people, I don’t know what’ll be next.. leave your eyes at home, or ears at home, or heart, liver, lungs, pancreas at home.. or may be, just buy the ticket and stay home cos that’s better than wasting your three hours on the film anyway..

All I’ll say is:

Just make sure if you ever happen to see me, you’ve left your balls at home or else I’ll kick em.

If you want to know how good Taare is, just go to your nearest theater and watch the people coming out after the show. The cacophony that surrounds a crowd exiting a theater will be missing. Some would be walking in slow motion. Some would look petrified. At least that’s what happened in the theater I went to. Not a single soul was talking after the movie, probably because what everyone saw on screen was not fiction, but a semi-biography of his/her own life. In fact, the normally rowdiest gang in a theatre (ie my friends and I) that is uber vocal at the end of a film left the theater in pin drop silence. The first thing we said to each other – ‘Aamir Bhai has done it again.’

Indeed, Aamir Khan had done it again. I have a gut feeling that Taare would change people like no other movie has previously done.

I know only Aamir can make a film like Taare. But let us assume he did not make it (dream on!). What would the film have been like?

If Karan Johar made Taare

• Obvious starcast:
  • Shah Rukh Khan as the arts teacher (duh duh duh!!).
  • Aryan Khan as the dyslexic child (even if he could not act for nuts).
  • Rani Mukerjee as the kid’s mom (assuming Kajol is unavailable).
  • Abhishek Bachchan as the kid’s dad.
  • Amitabh Bachchan as the school principal (who cares if the role is ultra minute, he can afford it).
• It would be shot in New York to appeal to the NRI audience.
• The story line would obviously be different. SRK would fall for the dyslexic kid’s mom. The last scene would have the mom running to the teacher rather than the kid. And again, like in so many other movies, SRK would get someone else’s girl.
• It would have one dance number.
• The film would be titled ‘Kuch Taare Zameen Par.’

If Sanjay Leela Bhansali made Taare

• Obvious starcast:
  • Salman as the teacher.
  • Rani as the mother.
• Of course the whole film would be shot on elaborate sets. The school would be nothing short of Harvard university.
• An orchestra would play every time anyone cried.
• Slow motion, different camera angles for every scene.
• The school uniforms would match the classroom walls even though that does not make a f***ing difference.
• The film would cost 60 crores.

If Farah Khan made Taare

• Obvious starcast:
  • SRK as the teacher (yawn).
• In the original Taare, Aamir makes an entry at the interval point. In Farah’s version, SRK would be on screen on for 2.30 hrs out of the 2.45 hrs and would be introduced in the first scene itself.
• The story would be changed to make sure the above happened. The focus of the film would be a teacher who helps a kid fight dyslexia.
• To make it a complete entertainer, there would be a romantic angle, comedy, and action thrown in. Oh idea!! Nikumbh’s character likes another teacher and the kiddo helps him.. throw in some comedy moments there and you have romance and comedy settled. For action.. hmm.. lemme see.. oh yah, the kid gets kidnapped and the teacher fights the baddies to save him. Wow!! I’m quite an imaginative writer. I can see how Farah can write a film from scratch in two weeks straight.
• The film posters would have a big SRK with the tiny image of the kid in the background.

If Rakesh Roshan made Taare

• Obvious starcast:
  • Hrithik Roshan as the teacher.
• Since Rakesh Roshan cannot think beyond science fiction these days, this film would have that too. Instead of dyslexia, the kid would have alienositis or something, a condition induced due to him witnessing an alien abduction.
• Instead of Nikumbh being an arts teacher, he would be a physics teacher, and instead of asking kids to be creative, he would ask them to challenge the science we know.
• In the scene where Nikumbh asks the kids to open their minds and make whatever they want outdoors, the kid Ishaan, instead of making a boat, would end up making a working spaceship prototype.
• Nikumbh would cure the kids problem by making a full fledged version of the kid’s prototype, traveling to the alien planet, and asking them to give the kid his powers back.
• The film would have music by Rajesh Roshan ripped off from some world music.
• The film’s name would again start with a K.. probably ‘Kuch Aliens Taaron se Zameen Par’.
• The director would make sure Hrithik gets to show all his abilities. This would mean a scene with Roshan jr flexing his muscles, and a dance competition in the end, instead of an arts competition.

If Priyadarshan made Taare:

• Obvious starcast:
  • Akshay Kumar as the teacher.
  • Paresh Rawal as the kid’s dad.
• It would be a brainless comedy. The kid’s dyslexia would be made fun of. Half the times the parents will be running after the kid from one room to the other and that, in the director’s opinion, would be funny.
• The film will be full of sex jokes. So for example, when Akshay would come to the parents telling them that their son has dyslexia, the ignorant father would say something inappropriate like ‘iss umar mein? par kaise, woh to hamesha boys school mein padha hai!’. And yes, the director would think it is funny.
• In the climax of the film all the characters in the film would run around in the amphitheater for no reason, spilling colors on each other. That’s where the film will end, without any logical conclusion.
• And of course, Paresh Rawal would emote like an epileptic himself making us question the boy’s mental abilities anyway.

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I know there are a lot of other directors, but I choose these guys because I feel they are the most gutless or overrated directors we have today. They keep doing the same shit again and again and more often than not depend on the stars to carry a shitty film forward. They have no courage to try something non-nonsense, something that can use the medium of cinema for a little more than just entertainment, in spite of being the most sought after directors in the country

The reason I am making this comparison at all is to show how Aamir (and Amol Gupte) has made a pure film, without giving into the temptation of masala or ‘what would the audience like to see’ philosophy; for giving chance to fantastic yet unknown actors like Vipin Sharma and Tisca Chopra (I love Tisca); for riding against the tide; for not trying to hog the limelight in the film by happily playing second fiddle to the boy (even Aamir Khan’s name comes after Darsheel Sarfi, the boy, in the credits); for giving the audience something different once again as an entertainer; and for truly caring about the society and using the medium to bring a change.

I remember earlier this year SRK made a statement: ‘films are for entertainment; messages are for post offices.’ Well Aamir Khan has proved that cinema is probably the best medium for giving a message and I can say that looking at the face of every person in the cinema hall. Not only that, he has proved (yet again!) that a message can be entertaining.

Behold bollywood bigshots, Aamir the director has arrived. With just one film, he has set the bar higher than most of you can only dream of reaching.