Archive for the 'Mithunda' Category

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Kabhi Aage Kabhi Peeche—the Review

Published on August 22, 2006 in Mithunda and Sexuality. 114 Comments

[Warning: Long post]

Taran Adarsh, India’s greatest movie reviewer EVER fires a salvo at those whom he dubs “pseudo journos with zero knowledge of film-making and business”.

Which I think includes me.(blogger=pseudo-journo)

Now KABHI ALVIDA NAA KEHNA faces the flak. So what’s new? Nothing. It’s the same old story. The moment a big film hits the screens, a section of the film industry [also include some pseudo journos with zero knowledge of film-making and business] has a constipated look on their faces. Text messages degrading the film fly left, right and centre. ‘It wouldn’t sustain beyond Friday’, ‘Bakwas hain’, ‘The director has lost it’, ‘Paisa kamaya, par reputation khatam’ Haven’t we heard all this and more [the nastiest of talk] before? Let’s not forget, a tree which bears fruits is always stoned. Jo hain naamwala, wohi to badnaam hain.

Indeed. He exhorts:

Why are we so skeptical when it comes to embracing bold themes? Why should Hindi cinema be confined to those three/four stories that are as old as the hills? Why shouldn’t we welcome changes?

So here’s a pseudo-journo’s challenge to Mr. Adarsh. I am going to review KABHI AAGE KAABHI PEECHE — a movie which only I have seen as of yet and which will be released to the general public during Deewali. I am going to try to review it using a style heavily internalized from the great Mr. Adarsh. (Kindly refer here for the gold standard).

The question is: ” Can there be a “bolder” movie than the one below? Are the Indian audiences mature enough for this?”

Read on. And try to find the answers.

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Da Vinci Da Gupt Katha

Published on May 26, 2006 in Comedy and Mithunda. 112 Comments

An RTDM exclusive. Remember you heard this here first. I was one of the privileged few that sat through the premier of ” Da Vinci Da Gupt Katha” at the Dannes (pronounced Daance as in Disco Daance) festival held every year at Ooty—-and in a word (okay two words) —it rocked.

Mithun Chakraborty, the greatest actor alive, plays Krishnan Iyer, Ph.D. No he is not the nariyel paani wala from Agneepath but a professor of symbiology at Lund University. The movie opens with Krishnan Iyer delivering a lecture to the brightest students of the world in Paris explaining the origin of the symbol “420″.

At the same time, the curator of the Louvre museum, Kamana (Rakhi Sawant) is being shot (using a gun that is) by a mysterious albino assailant (Bob Cristo) who keeps on whispering “Main Hindoostan ki tubahi kar doonga”. He walks away strangely without finishing the act —- leaving the voluptuous curator three-quarters dead. Knowing she has only a few minutes to live, Ms. Sawant’s character starts stripping in super slow motion—desperate to send a message to the only man who understands nudity, now that Raj Kapoor is dead.

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Mithun Impossible 3

Published on May 14, 2006 in Mithunda and Reviews. 68 Comments

Mithun-da’s “Agniputra” had a climactic scene in which Mithun-da’s mother rises from the funeral pyre and dispatches the gloating villains to kingdom come with amazing shaolin moves, then takes off her “mask” and reveals herself to be actually Mithun-da himself.

Thus was born the central thesis of the “Mission Impossible” series of movies where one can seamlessly transition from one person to another by just wearing a mask—Mithunda can become Mithun-da’s mother (everything other than the face is obviously the same), Tom Cruise can become Phillip Seymour Hoffman (an act of modification as sensational as the one from Mithun-da to his mother) and hopefully I can become Hrittik Roshan.

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Excuses Excuses

Published on March 23, 2006 in Bollywood, Comedy and Mithunda. 51 Comments

I have nothing but the greatest contempt for ungrateful people who try to cover up their own miserable failings by blaming everyone but themselves.

Case in point: Kalpana Lajmi.

She directs “Chingari”—or perhaps “directed” is too charitable a term to use when someone creates a celluloid monstrosity on this scale. Even a bloated corpse with a megaphone could have done better.

And then in an [link courtesy: Amit Pandeya] interview to Subhash Jha (who along with Taran Adarsh can be considered to be the “movie reviewer from hell”) , she blames virtually everyone on the sets for the sorry debacle of “Chingari” except herself and Sushmita Sen—the two people who are actually responsible for the sorry mess.

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Chingari–The Review

Published on March 12, 2006 in Comedy, Mithunda and Reviews. 65 Comments

Kanti Shah and TLV Prasad, two of the masters of the craft of celluloid, have stiff competition.

There’s a new camera-slinger in town. And she is taking no prisoners.

Say hello to my not-so-leetel friend—Kalpana Lajmi who delivers an M-class (Mithun) movie with “Chingari”.

It is not an exaggeration to say that the whole of India was awaiting “Chingari” with bated breath. After all this was the movie where Mithun-da allegedly inappropriately touched Sushmita’s appendages during a rape scene. This was also the movie where the hero, Anuj Sawhney claimed that Sushmita sexually harassed him by intentionally messing up her love scenes a record 36 times so as to repeat the intimate sequences again and again.

And would you believe that the actual culprit behind the rumours was none other than the movie producer Vikas Sahni who thought he could recover some money by spreading such spicy canards?

Frankly I was a bit apprehensive about the movie—would Kalpana Lajmi, the uber-feminist be able to bring out Mithun-da’s true potential, honed through acting with some of the most noted anti-feminists in world cinema like Kanti Shah ( whose dialogue from “Loha”: ” Chatri hoti hain kholne ke liye, chadar hoti hain udne ke liye aur chokhri hoti hain cherne ke liye” led to worldwide protests from bra-burners)?

But now I can tell you the answer: Yes.

Continue reading ‘Chingari–The Review’