Movie Reviews - Couple of them!

                  The idea of writing a movie review has been stemming since quite some time but the trigger proved to be watching two Hindi movies, just three days apart in two theaters about seventy kilometers apart. Yes, 'Once upon a time in Mumbai' on one fine wednesday in Mangalore and 'Aisha' on saturday in Udupi.

Once Upon A Time In Mumbai:

                 Essentially a gangster movie featuring days of Haji Mastan the first underworld don of bombay and his protege Dawood Kaskar Ibrahim. The heart of the movie is in the right place with the story being interesting, with the sets and portrayal of Bombay of those days, with the styling sticking perfectly to the seventies and eighties and above all with the star cast which settles seamlessly into their characters.
                Good things first. The actors live the roles. Ajay Devgun (sorry its Devgn now) has done what he is best at, playing serious character oriented roles with a negative tinge. We have seen it in recent times in Rajneeti and sometime back in Apharan and Omkara. Playing a character somewhere bearing resemblance to Denzel Washington in American Gangster with a desi angle has worked wonder for the movie.
                Emraan Hashmi has played his part well portraying a no-moral-holding wannabe gangster. Kangana Ranaut despite her horrible hindi accent is a perfect fit with her styling standing out. Prachi Desai's character has no real bone in it and could possibly have been done away with. But her salwar suits and her ability to brighten up the screen, not to mention the 'julie' costume, comes in handy for the director.
              Where the movie could have been better is the opening scene. The scene looses its importance by failing to grip the audience. Randeep Hooda plays a good role but almost none of the dialogues he belts out convey the word meaning of them. The movie lacks strong sub plots and too much has been tried to incorporate int too little a time.
             The plot is strong, gripping most of the times but the sub plots seem to have not been stiched properly. There is a sometimes sense of disconnect between two scenes. The climax was a little hasty and expected. For the message to be sent that the evil has taken over Bombay and made it a hell at times in the history the ending could have been more powerful.
              In toto, a watchable movie and an addition to the library of gangster movies in hindi. But certainly leaves yearning for more.

Aisha:

                  Again a movie with the heart in the right place. Aisha is Sonam Kapoor who wears Gucci and Dior, who zooms past saadi dilli di sadke in a yellow VW beetle, who shops for half a lakh rupees and who takes up hobbies like animal rights activism and is big time into match making. The movie revolves around her as the central character.
The plot is an urbane, chic, upper class, suave, and thus in that capacity caters to multiplex and big city crowd. (when had people in smaller towns and villages heard of Dior or Louis Vuitton).
                   The supporting cast plays a fabulous role led by the character shefali played by Amrita Purie. Cyrus Sahukar plays Randhir Gambhir and he certainly has proved himself over a few movies to be a serious comedian (pun intended). The transitions, the dialogue delivery is just perfect for her. Abhay Deol is very natural and blends well into the role. And him dancing salsa is a delight to watch.
                   Plenty of girls of this age will relate to the movie. Branded wear, good food, rich friends, partying, are all in the working manual of a metropolitan youth today and the movie touches all these aspects very practically and in a precise manner.
                   The high point of the movie are its comic moment. They are the ones to which the youth can relate to. The dialogues are picked up from the daily conversation. The styling, portrayal of delhi and mumbai are the moments that remain with you. Performances are all prim amd precise which keeps the ineterest in the viewer going.
                    The movie lacks in portrayal of the chemistry between the two lead roles. It niether achieves the practicality nor the bollywood effect. A few scenes linger on for too long and is repetitive. The climax is clumsy and lacks the power. An apt review of the movie was given by a young girl whom i overheard while getting out of the theater - 'nice but a shallow movie'.

The Beep Show

Never ever has the ‘beep’ been in such extensive use in Indian television as it is today. This is courtesy the numerous ‘reality shows’ on TV today, which are just a blatant copy of successful shows abroad. The boom in the number of reality shows which some years back were restricted to music and dance competitions have now forayed into fields such as searching partners for marriage, to checking fidelity of a partner, to getting split from the partner. And in all these finds a noteworthy place, the beep. The beep sound cuts the volume off the vulgar words mouthed, which are unpalatable and unaccepted in an Indian family.


The blurring of line between morality and immorality is occurring at an ever increasing pace. It would be so unthinkable today to imagine that words of the song ‘sexy sexy sexy mujhe log bole’ were changed by a court order some years back to ‘baby baby baby mujhe log bole’! Though laughing over it at the moment would be the most probable reaction, a more concerning theme is the shift in the cultural ethos of the nation, that has occurred. The MTV generation is growing up being fed on shows where boys and girls are in skimpiest of clothes, has skimpiest of regards for the language used, and what appears to have skimpiest of morals. And these boys and girls are the topic of classroom discussions, social networking site forum discussions, they are followed, their fifteen minutes of fame envied, and they sometimes elevated to the status of role models. And the beep is just what makes it all so spicy.

The beep interestingly, has various forms and shapes. Sometimes the lip movement is seen making people able to figure out the expletive for themselves, raising unhealthy curiosity in children and a smirk or despise in the faces of who knows it all. A further angle raises the difficulty level, by adding blocking of the lip movements. The spectator is expected to fill in the blank. It also sometime happens that spoken words are interspersed within beeps and not the other way round. Interesting to note would be the role of print media in this. Role of beep is slightly different here. When a former prime minister used expletives for a present chief minister, a responsible daily reported it without mentioning the words, but a wide selling daily mentioned the words with asterisks. Which of these were actually following journalistic ethos?

As a counter argument validating or terming harmless the increasing dip in morality of such shows interlaced with beeps, many would term them as progressive, broadening of thinking, widening of horizon, maturing as society, rise in tolerance and many such sociological or psychological theories. But somewhere it is misconstrued. Progression should mean doing something in whichever small or large capacity to aid in the growth of individual and nation, broadening of thinking should mean to grow secular, widening of horizon should mean expanding once reach over diversified fields, maturing as society should mean being able to take every section of the society together in an upwardly mobile path, rise in tolerance should mean increased acceptance of every component of society. Does a show which brings together bunch of girls to compete, conspire, abuse, seduce and cat fight to win some guy in the end as prize serve any of the above mentioned causes?

Entertainment. Many would say it is just entertainment. Harmless one at that. One that would just give you a few moments of laughter, fun and frolic. It would be agreeable that we as humans are entertained by other humans, their actions and inactions included. With reality shows we are subject to an extreme form of pleasure derived from the enjoyment and tribulations of someone who is not faking it (at least they claim to be so). Yes we are entertained by three girls vying to marry who have been famous for all the wrong reasons, we are entertained by their preparedness until the last moment, brought in by vivid visual details on national television, yes we are entertained. But does anyone think of their plight? Do we place our daughters at those places? Or are we deriving a sadistic pleasure with not actually being there? Is the MTV generation and further growing to be prosti-tots (term borrowed from the TIME magazine) watching their celebrities in drunken brawls, in compromising positions, all in the name of entertainment?

This might take us to the debate of freedom of speech and expression. That it is discretion of the audience and spectator to imbibe and inculcate what they need for themselves, to choose from the wide range of content available. But is it justifiable on the other hand to target audiences who are barely ready to decide for them, who are at a crucial juncture of growing up, who do not have or lack the right environment to be regulated?

The use of expletives (an exclamation or oath, especially one that is profane, vulgar, or obscene) used for someone is after all an expression aimed to degrade, and thus is not taken with good flavor in the societal norms. Thus Joe Biden comes under scrutiny when he uses a expletive in conversation with Obama, even though it wasn’t directed to be derogatory. The beep doesn’t exist in real life, but what exists is what lies within the beep. A disturbing moment was when a school principal, known for being the best teacher, holding high morals, wrote in the annual magazine of the school raising concern for the rise in use of foul language by children, and very young ones on that.

A serious introspection is required at all levels beginning from parents at home, teachers at school, media barons, content regulators and all the target audience who are subject to various shows on television beginning from spiced up news to family drama to reality shows. Are the kinds of shows delivered to us worth their salt? Are we starting to look at things with the prism of what reality shows target at? Is our youth on the right path? Are we developing trust issues after watching a whole lot of people on TV to be cheating on? Are the beep shows making sitting together of a family over dinner making it uncomfortable? Are our children growing watching the right kind of shows on television? Well the answer for all the questions, today, could well be another beep.

Night at Railway Station - A True Story : Final Part

                 
                  Looking at that place a strange glimmer grew in my eye. There it was wrapped in layers of covers a fully furnished (as I would like to put it as) drawing room for us! There at one end of the platform where luggage to be transported was piled up. There were all sorts of packed goods beginning from the adornments of the drawing room, a motorcycle, machineries, and even carton loads of eggs, all waiting to board some train or the other to reach somewhere or the other. But we were not to board any train. We were not to go anywhere. We were to spend the night there. There in the station.


                    It was about eleven in the night then and the temperature had plummeted down aided by the gush of winter wind. Bijay and I settled under a dining table. A round wooden top with a stem at the centre of the bottom leading to a root like base, all of it wrapped with sack cloth, was a dining table among all the luggage. The round top was to be our roof for the night. Amlan sought refuge at a more open space close by on a hand cart which had a mattress of flattened carton boxes, his extra bit of fat probably helping him in insulation from the cold. Sleep was growing heavy but the settings were not conducive.

                    Train traffic during those days the was not heavy for that particular station, which resulted in no passenger trains arriving in the night. It was the rumble of the goods trains that interjected the night. There as we lay discussing various possibilities that were at our face tonight and the next day morning, I was wondering if we could have avoided the situation we were in. Would not it have been wiser to head back after not getting the ticket and closure of booking counter? Would not it have been more practical to come early in the morning? Would not it have been better in the first place to get some warm clothes? I knew that answering them would not lead to anything, but nevertheless we do have questions, for which there are no answers, don’t we?

                    Winter nights they say are longer and I could feel that. Every passing moment had its tell tale effect. Past one o clock in the night having half slept half awake all of us got off from where we were, for the cold was not letting us settle. We trudged along the cemented path to move to the front part of the station. Amlan and me decided to have a smoke, the logic being it helping in providing warmth, illogical but a general belief given the association with fire and smoke. The small cigarette finished in a few whiffs.

                      We discussed the situation all over again and reached at a conclusion that when in the following morning Siddharth arrives with other roommates of ours, they should get some warm clothes. We were missing the most cozy object in such nights, a nice warm blanket. Thus we decided to ask them to get blankets too. There was still some four hours for daybreak, and passing time seemed utterly difficult now. We were cold, we were tired, we were exhausted, we were bored. We moved about various parts of the station. A couple of hours passed. Some people started trickling by now to make a queue in the ticket counter to get tickets when the counter opens in the morning. Activities grew in the station and it was a relief to be discussing that and being a part of the activities.

                    A call was made to our roommates signaling that the time has come for them to start for the station. We got into the flurry of activities by now, looking for the man who would strike the deal of ensuring a berth in the air conditioned compartment for us. Such shady figures are usually easy to pick up, or rather it so happens that they pick you up. Such people are excellent face readers, who gauge your desperation, your worry and your urgency, just as simply as reading a newspaper. And thus a mutual cord strikes when the wanting meets with the provision. We met a couple of people who told once the counter opens they can obtain a ticket for us. Though we were convinced we could do it ourselves, we still wanted to believe, for this had been the purpose we had come all the way for. But we obtained tickets from the TTI of the train, as the train was travelling relatively empty. It was just a simple and short affair. Siddharth was finally to go home.

             By this time the first rays of the sun reached the station. It was a sight to cherish. The reddish hue of the sun, in a cool, slightly misty, November morning is definitely a lovely sight but the emotions heightened with a long day of ordeal just made the sight breathtaking. With sun came the warmth too, slightly bettering our state of lull. And by six in the morning the cynosure of all the action arrived along with couple of roommates and with them relief material in the form of warm clothes and blankets for us who had just passed a night at the railway station…

             Did it end at that? Well no. We saw him off. Travelled back covered with blankets in the auto rickshaw braving the cold morning wind. Slept till afternoon back in the room to wake up with sore throat and a bad cold which subsided only after due course of medication. All the experience, the ordeal, the travel, the excitement, the sleeplessness, the mission, and the fluctuating disappointment and elation, of that cool November night in Bangalore remains distinguishingly and distinctly etched in mind.