Friday, December 29, 2006
Monday, December 25, 2006
Dec 21 2006 - Happy Feet
OPM*
Presents – Happy Feet OR God knows
When Charles Darwin wrote his ‘On the Origin of Species’, he would have thought it would lead people to rethink notions of creationism and kill legends of lake monsters like the Loch Ness. Instead, almost a hundred and fifty years later, we live in a world that abounds in theories about both.
One such legend is about Penguins; a fictitious species of animal/bird/mammal that live in Antarctica. Antarctica is a fictitious place, which is supposed to be covered in ice as it is at the bottom of the Southern Hemisphere. The Southern Hemisphere, in turn, is not really at the bottom of the world, as the world does not have a bottom at all. This is because the Earth is a ball of rock that circles the sun in a universe where left, right, bottom and top are only points of view. So it doesn’t matter a hoot if one is on the top or the bottom of a pyramid or whether one is on top or bottom during the three-letter word we do so much of. (I mean eat, you sick people!)
Yes, so Antarctica is a fictitious place that no one has actually visited. Since it is below the equator and New Zealand is pretty cold during winter, people have assumed that this fictitious place has a lot of ice since cold air settles on the bottom while hot air rises. (Observed in top b-schools as well. Hot Air usually lands prime consulting jobs)
As opposed to Penguins in Antarctica, fictitious Polar Bears inhabit the fictitious Arctic region at the North Pole (a large proportion of people in Northern Poland are called North Poles too). It is easy to see that Polar Bears and Penguins are improbable since both are supposed to survive on a diet of fish, and fish are improbable in areas covered in ice! As if fish were some kind of easily available SeaBiscuit! These anthropologists must really stop horsing around!
There is another set of environmental yahoos who claim that many ages ago Polar Bears won in the Arctic while the Penguins won in Antarctica. Won the evolutionary war, that is. These Intelligent Design advocates claim that a great battle was waged between the species, where to keep the balance, the Intelligent Designer helped each species win in a different place. Remember that, according to these Intelligent Design proponents, as India is losing a game of cricket, they are wining another elsewhere, as per the grand design of the Intelligent Designer. The wondrous miracles of the Grand Intelligent Designer or GID (pronounced as in 'Gideon' or ‘giddy’ )!! As a side note it must be incredibly boring to be GID on a Saturday evening because he not only knows what programmes are playing on TV but also knows what happens in each one of them.
If there is a GID as most of humanity claims, then he (notice the male chauvinism in this) must have a life very like our own when we produce and create Cartoon films. Characters in cartoon films feel and think like we do, or just like the script we provide them with, as indeed GID in all his omnipresence and omniscience has supposedly given us scripts. It is a wonder then, that ID proponents, instead of claiming that they have figured out the mysteries of Life, the Universe and Obesity by becoming one with, or praying to GID, don’t go a step backward and wonder if GID himself is operating on a script or searching for those answers. But heck, how would I know? GID only knows!
Let us ignore existential questions though, and take a look at tomorrow’s release, Happy Feet, a cartoon film about Penguins and GID.
In the cold fictitious land of Antarctica a bunch of Emperor Penguins are feeling very disenchanted with their circumstance. They are emperors without any subjects. They try going to school and taking on as many subjects as possible, but this does not satisfy them. They go back to their usual habit of hunting down and devouring schools. Schools of fish, that is. Each of these penguins has a special heartsong, which is sung to express love at appropriate social events. These social events are rather drab as many penguins are tone-deaf and none has hands/wings/flaps long enough to clap. What they need is a cultural revolution of sorts. Into this socio-cultural background is born little Mumble who can dance, but cannot sing. He is the greatest tap dancer born to penguin parents, which is not difficult considering that he is also the Only tap dancer born to penguin parents. At parties he is a great hit when he tap dances to everyone’s heartsongs.
This annoys the powers that be and they accuse Mumble of creating the troubles the penguins are having with food supplies, branding his tap dancing evil. Mumble is thus exiled and has to face the fictitious cold of Antarctica alone.
Will he manage to mumble without shivering? Will he find out that the fish supplies are dying out as part of GID’s intelligent design? Will Mumble find GID and wring his neck? Does GID stand for Grand Incompetent Designer, since we live in a bloody incompetently designed world full of silly things like snot, murder, disease and George Bush? I can’t wait to find out tomorrow!
* Objects in the Preview Mirror may appear sillier than they are.
Disclaimer: Characters in the above story are not based on any characters in the film. Any resemblance or humour is pure luck.
**OPM appears in the Thursday edition of Bangalore BIAS and previews a Friday release
Presents – Happy Feet OR God knows
When Charles Darwin wrote his ‘On the Origin of Species’, he would have thought it would lead people to rethink notions of creationism and kill legends of lake monsters like the Loch Ness. Instead, almost a hundred and fifty years later, we live in a world that abounds in theories about both.
One such legend is about Penguins; a fictitious species of animal/bird/mammal that live in Antarctica. Antarctica is a fictitious place, which is supposed to be covered in ice as it is at the bottom of the Southern Hemisphere. The Southern Hemisphere, in turn, is not really at the bottom of the world, as the world does not have a bottom at all. This is because the Earth is a ball of rock that circles the sun in a universe where left, right, bottom and top are only points of view. So it doesn’t matter a hoot if one is on the top or the bottom of a pyramid or whether one is on top or bottom during the three-letter word we do so much of. (I mean eat, you sick people!)
Yes, so Antarctica is a fictitious place that no one has actually visited. Since it is below the equator and New Zealand is pretty cold during winter, people have assumed that this fictitious place has a lot of ice since cold air settles on the bottom while hot air rises. (Observed in top b-schools as well. Hot Air usually lands prime consulting jobs)
As opposed to Penguins in Antarctica, fictitious Polar Bears inhabit the fictitious Arctic region at the North Pole (a large proportion of people in Northern Poland are called North Poles too). It is easy to see that Polar Bears and Penguins are improbable since both are supposed to survive on a diet of fish, and fish are improbable in areas covered in ice! As if fish were some kind of easily available SeaBiscuit! These anthropologists must really stop horsing around!
There is another set of environmental yahoos who claim that many ages ago Polar Bears won in the Arctic while the Penguins won in Antarctica. Won the evolutionary war, that is. These Intelligent Design advocates claim that a great battle was waged between the species, where to keep the balance, the Intelligent Designer helped each species win in a different place. Remember that, according to these Intelligent Design proponents, as India is losing a game of cricket, they are wining another elsewhere, as per the grand design of the Intelligent Designer. The wondrous miracles of the Grand Intelligent Designer or GID (pronounced
If there is a GID as most of humanity claims, then he (notice the male chauvinism in this) must have a life very like our own when we produce and create Cartoon films. Characters in cartoon films feel and think like we do, or just like the script we provide them with, as indeed GID in all his omnipresence and omniscience has supposedly given us scripts. It is a wonder then, that ID proponents, instead of claiming that they have figured out the mysteries of Life, the Universe and Obesity by becoming one with, or praying to GID, don’t go a step backward and wonder if GID himself is operating on a script or searching for those answers. But heck, how would I know? GID only knows!
Let us ignore existential questions though, and take a look at tomorrow’s release, Happy Feet, a cartoon film about Penguins and GID.
In the cold fictitious land of Antarctica a bunch of Emperor Penguins are feeling very disenchanted with their circumstance. They are emperors without any subjects. They try going to school and taking on as many subjects as possible, but this does not satisfy them. They go back to their usual habit of hunting down and devouring schools. Schools of fish, that is. Each of these penguins has a special heartsong, which is sung to express love at appropriate social events. These social events are rather drab as many penguins are tone-deaf and none has hands/wings/flaps long enough to clap. What they need is a cultural revolution of sorts. Into this socio-cultural background is born little Mumble who can dance, but cannot sing. He is the greatest tap dancer born to penguin parents, which is not difficult considering that he is also the Only tap dancer born to penguin parents. At parties he is a great hit when he tap dances to everyone’s heartsongs.
This annoys the powers that be and they accuse Mumble of creating the troubles the penguins are having with food supplies, branding his tap dancing evil. Mumble is thus exiled and has to face the fictitious cold of Antarctica alone.
Will he manage to mumble without shivering? Will he find out that the fish supplies are dying out as part of GID’s intelligent design? Will Mumble find GID and wring his neck? Does GID stand for Grand Incompetent Designer, since we live in a bloody incompetently designed world full of silly things like snot, murder, disease and George Bush? I can’t wait to find out tomorrow!
* Objects in the Preview Mirror may appear sillier than they are.
Disclaimer: Characters in the above story are not based on any characters in the film. Any resemblance or humour is pure luck.
**OPM appears in the Thursday edition of Bangalore BIAS and previews a Friday release
Friday, December 22, 2006
!
You want to know the only positive fall out of Vote Bank politics in our country?
We have side stepped the creationism/intelligent design versus Science argument over teaching religion in our schools!
We have side stepped the creationism/intelligent design versus Science argument over teaching religion in our schools!
Saturday, December 16, 2006
Dec 14th - Coming Attractions
OPM*
Presents - Coming soon (er or later)
Making movies is a difficult job. Getting a movie released, though, is even more difficult. It is just like how my friend Shouvik, who makes possibly the best momos in the world, has never sold any. This is because of a phenomenon called Economics.
Economics was a religion founded by Adam Smith in the 18th century based on a book called ‘The Wealth of Nations (and how we can loot it)’ written by the 12th century saint Genghis Khan.
There are of course other reasons why your movie might remain unreleased.
Sometimes you end up making a really bad movie that gets edited by you, the censor board and religious fundamentalists; Edited so much, that often you have to re-shoot, to fill in the huge gaps left by editing the parts you originally thought, were the best portions (usually steamy scenes involving your female protagonist in various stages of undress, very rarely in a steam bath)
For example, I once made a movie that had to be edited out completely, mainly because I was the actor, director, choreographer etc. I was finally left with only the End-Credits and ended up crediting my bankers in hope that they would not sue me.
The director of an unreleased film must have patience and should remember that there is a time and place for everything, though the last time and place where everything was dates back 13.7 billion years ago to the Big Bang, when everything was at the same place at the same time. So some of these movies might have to wait for the Big Fizzle to happen (the Big Fizzle is grammatically the other end of a Big Bang. No not scientifically) to get released. Which is no time soon, not counting other Big Fizzle events like Karisma and Madhuri’s comeback movies or the inevitable end of the affair we all know as AishShek.
Today, we will take a look at some movies that have remained unreleased for a long time, ending with Ka-bull Express (no relation to Ba-Bull Inc. that released last week), which has actually managed a release this week.
Aryan: Aryan is a touching story about a shadow-boxer’s fight to achieve his dreams. Aryan (Sohil Khan) is born to fight. But he is a shy, reticent Chinaman, who rarely steps out of the shadows. Hence, he becomes the college shadowboxing champ and under the tough training of his coach he dreams of winning the nationals. His Love, Neha (Sneha Ulal), is more than just his better half, especially since she’s put on a lot of weight. Aryan needs her to be around all the time while practicing shadowboxing, as he needs another shadow to fight. But life takes a turn when they marry and Aryan gives up fighting and his dreams because his mum told him never to fight after marriage. They start living a common man’s life but this is difficult since one of them is a woman and R.K.Laxman’s ‘Common Man’ doesn’t seem to be doing anything except eavesdropping. Aryan decides to take up shadowboxing again to support his family, but realizes that his wife left him three days into their marriage when he couldn’t buy her caviar and that he has been talking to the shadow of an old vase for several months now. Will Aryan be able to win the Nationals? Is he truly unbreakable? What are the Nationals?
As you probably have guessed this movie has remained unreleased for 2 reasons:
Most of the movie is dark since it deals with shadows
Everyone thought that as a Chinaman, Aryan could never be unbreakable. (I broke the china again! How will we serve tea? I wish China were unbreakable)
WordPerfect: WordPerfect, a tight action thriller, set in the backdrop of The World Scrabble Competition was to be Bill Gates’s entry to filmdom. Then there were news leaks about how he was actually dyslexic (like my godo freeind Snady, er.. like my good friend Sandy) and the movie never could get a release.
Traffic Sandwich: Traffic Sandwich was made as a telling comment on life in heavily populated cities with terrible roads (if I remember right, Bangalore) but found no release in target cities since no one was willing to wade through traffic and drive to the theatre to watch their own lives on screen.
The Life and Times of Ouches Krakkergaard: Never released, as no one knew of Ouches Krakkergaard (an Australian master craftsman who made invincibly tough cricket crotch guards)
Finally we come to Kabull Express, which releases this week. Kabull Express is the story of 2 journalists who go to Kabull in search of WMDs (no not Weapons of Mass Destruction, Well Made Diapers) They believe that people in Kabull have perfected the art of making tremendously well made diapers since they live in a country with acute water shortage. Instead, the journos end up meeting Osama Bin Laden and realize that Osama is indeed not laden with anything (hence Osama bin Laden). Which means Osama carries no baggage but poor old George W will get punished for the baggage he’s been carrying ever since little Osama beat him at Tippy Toe (a game invented by the both of them when Bush Senior was waging the last war over oil.. er Kuwait, which involves stepping on each other’s toes)
In any case, I’m checking out the WMDs tomorrow since fatherhood beckons in January! What about you?
* Objects in the Preview Mirror may appear sillier than they are.
Disclaimer: Characters in the above story are not based on any characters in the film. Any resemblance or humour is pure luck.
**OPM appears in the Thursday edition of Bangalore BIAS and previews a Friday release
Sunday, December 10, 2006
Dec 8 2006 - Baabul
Last weeks' OPM is coloured terribly by a few conversations I had with journo friends about the Khairlanji incident. I wrote it halfway before i had those conversations, as you can, undoubtedly, make out.
OPM*
Presents – BA-Bull Inc.
Truth, like Love, is a many splendoured thing. My version of truth can be very different from your version of it, which essentially means that truth varies with the position of the observer. In some ways Truth is much like Time, a magazine, which Einstein read from various vantage points like on an airplane, in a bus, from a WC etc. He concluded that Time varies from the point of view of the observer and after watching movies like ‘Bags Ban(ned)’ he realized that Time could, indeed, move really slowly.
It is the same with Truth.
For example, while Munnabhai bought the AK-56 for ‘self-defence’, The Govt. of India thought society needed self-defence from AK-56 owners and sued the bollocks out of him.
Similarly, SSoren thought of the removal of his erstwhile secretary as an essential move that brought down his tax liabilities. The secretary’s family, however, thought otherwise and has had him jailed.
Fact, on the other hand, is undeniably based on hard evidence, which does not alter with the position of the observer. Consider, for example, the statement “Coffee is not spelt Kauphi”. There is a certain solidity to this statement, except if you speak in an obscure Malayalam dialect that is spoken in the Gulf. This exception is not really one, as no Malayalee can be accused of being an observer. A linguist, a lecher or a union worker perhaps, but never an observer* (*- This data and extrapolation is based on a survey performed on one Malayalee, the author, who in addition to not being an observer, was also found to be an idiot, with an intellect close to that possessed by the endangered species of suicidal Sri-Lankan worm Serendipitous Cannabis)
Yes, so Fact is separated from Truth because it is usually based on solid evidence. (This led several juice makers around 600 BC to write out a set of commandments on stone to give it a feel of rock hard evidence. It later transpired that a tall handsome gentleman, played by Charlton Heston, eventually broke the stone and ended up stone broke for a while, roaming around various deserts. Paper-thin evidence of this can be found in the terribly undersold publication ‘The Many Poses of Moses’)
It is in the interest of people who want their version of truth to prevail to establish their concocted cock and bull stories as fact. This process can be observed in several areas of Life including and especially in theology, Marxism, other ‘-isms’, George Bush, marriage, politics, Ayn Rand etc.
This week we anticipate the release of Babull, which traces the story of a man who, stuck in the mire of cock and bull, experiences a change of heart in the autumn years of life.
BA – bull Inc. is a PR agency headed by a brilliant spin-doctor Bigbee who churns out Brilliantly Analysed Bull (shi*) to help his political clients further their brand of politics. His biggest achievement is his pro-Victorian systematic multi-pronged strategy against sexuality that has ensured that a nation that does a lot of it (going from a population 40 crores to roughly three times that in a span of 60 years) only discusses or displays sexuality in private. He does this for fundamentalist organizations whose unattractive leaders like to visit Rio de Janerio during the Spring Fest while protesting a film being shot at Varanasi because women with bald-heads are an affront to politicians with bald-pates (all of them, except four women politicians).
He also provides sound bites that assist various cricket personalities field barbs about match-fixing (I can’t even fix a leaking faucet! How can I fix international matches? ), pummelling old men to death (But I thought he was Dara Singh! Chak de phatte!), English commentary (abbsolootely I say!), former captains (Ooh Aah India advertisements) and Indian cricket sponsorship deals (talks are on with Pain Balm manufacturers to support the Ooh Aah India campaign).
At home, he has to eat badly made puris every single day. This is because his brother and partner (business partner! Zyada samajh mein aa raha hai kya!!?), Home Puri, is a man who loves eating puri-saag at home. He especially loves the puris Bigbee’s daughter-in-law makes and when she becomes a widow due to the unexpected death of her husband in a hair transplant operation Home Puri insists that she not remarry.
Bigbee is torn between a keeping this tradition going and escaping eating bad puris all his life.
The torment filled transition from a status-quo keeper to one who reacts to situations with humanity and gut feel is the story that Babull tracks.
When Bigbee breaks the rules and preaches widow remarriage to arrive at a win-win situation we realize that there is more than one important social message that this wonderful movie preaches. One is that breakfast is a very important meal and we shouldn’t miss it.
The other message on widow remarriage, takes the characters 3 hours, 7 songs and a lot of melodramatic situations to arrive at. Isn’t it astonishingly pitiable that in this day and age, as in any other, we need social messages to accept things like widow remarriage, universal human rights, ending child labour, defeating gender discrimination, junking caste and abolishing the Aussie and South African cricket teams??
* Objects in the Preview Mirror may appear sillier than they are.
Disclaimer: Characters in the above story are not based on any characters in the film. Any resemblance or humour is pure luck.
**OPM appears in the Thursday edition of Bangalore BIAS and previews a Friday release
Friday, December 01, 2006
Saturday, November 25, 2006
23 Nov 2006 - Dhoom 2
OPM*
Presents – Dhoom (k) 2
In a world filled with crime, the need of the hour is a police officer who can bring things to order. A tough yet sharp Super Cop (like a knife, not a hammer).
In Mumbai, this onus has fallen upon Jai Dixit (Abhishek).
There is, though, a big problem.
The moniker Super Cop annoys him no end and makes him feel like Robocop, as it offends his artistic sensibilities. As an artist stuck in a world of crime and gore, he has had enough. He regularly wears a beard and acts in small, offbeat plays like UmraoJohn on the side, to satisfy his creative urges. Unfailingly, he gets bad reviews and hence has to change his fake beard often, to get new roles. To top it all, his Bengali wife of many years is threatening to leave him, as she suspects that all artists are bisexual. Jai is appalled that she thinks an artist of his calibre would ever have to buy sex and has a raging argument with her (depicted in the form of a song, ‘Crazy kiya re’) She leaves him.
Meanwhile in various locations around the world:
Career travel-writer Mr. Eh (pronounced ‘aye’ and played by Hrithik) is having a really tough day. He is in Namibia, travelling into the Namib Desert in search of the rare mythological animal Dhoomketu (Hindi: “Comet” is also a dog in the DC comics franchise “Comet – The Super Dog”). He finds a tattered copy of the comic on the train he is on and is satisfied.
There is, though, a big problem.
Mr. Eh is a kleptomaniac (Greek: kleptein, "to steal" is an inability to resist impulses of stealing). In sharp contrast to his failure at being a travel-writer, he is the biggest and most successful kleptomaniac the world has never seen.
On board the train is a royal family carrying a 300 year old royal WC (Abbreviation for Water Closet/flush toilet) which has been passed on in the family ever since their ancestor, King GM.Rao, proclaimed that the royal WC would remind them never to be royal pains in the a**.
Mr. Eh pulls off a baffling crime when he steals this worthless piece of loo-t and vanishes into thin air(a minor achievement when compared to the act of vanishing into thick air)
Everyone is baffled as to why anyone would steal a 300 year old WC and a cry of ‘Eh??!!!’ goes up across the world as Reuters wires the news out. Mr. Eh achieves instant fame in cop stations around the world and assorted nut-jobs start researching his life and crimes (just like all the research that is happening just now on topics like ‘Natural Disasters and your pets’, ‘Botox’, Aussie Cricket, Theology etc)
One of these nut-job researchers is a pretty indian cop called Shonali Bose(Bipasha). She uncovers rare and useless tidbits about Mr. Eh including an unbearable and ‘Eh??!!’-inducing list of his thefts. Topping the list are these:
12 refrigerators stolen from Eskimo households
88 shaving razors stolen from the home of the Indian PM
19000 items of clothing stolen from Reiki Saw-an-ant and Ka**mira S ( TV Show plug: Only one piece of clothing left. Watch Big Ba** !! )
Shonali, after a lot of research, comes to the conclusion that Mr. Eh will strike next in Mumbai, as that is where the worlds largest collection of inane artefacts are (Silly state politicians and their sons, aging film stars and their sons, madcap pop artists like Baba Seagull, crazy socialites etc).
Shonali, Jai Dixit and Ali (Uday Chapra), the mechanic-turned-cop, become allies and vow to nab Mr. Eh in Mumbai.
There is, though, a big problem.
Ali can’t connect to his new job, as it has nothing to do with bikes and decides to ask his boss, Jai Dixit, to transfer him to the Traffic Police department.
Around the same time:
Mr. Eh lands in Mumbai still in search of Dhoomketu. He meets Chaandi (Aishwarya), a girl who sells fake silver jewellery. She cons him into believing that she once sold a silver collar to Dhoomketu the dog. All she actually wants to do is travel the world on Mr. Eh’s money thus fulfilling her ambition of being Miss World. She dreams of wearing string bikinis on the beaches of Durban and Rio (much like the rest of us would want her to).
There is, though, a big problem.
That is what follows.
What follows is a mind-blowing action comedy that stretches from the desert of Namibia to the backwaters of Goa and finally to the “Wild n Exotic” Rann of Kutch in northern Gujarat.
Our five characters chase their dreams and each other through Greater Rann (8500 sq km) and Little Rann (5500 sq km) almost endlessly, till they run out of fuel, at which point they do a plug for a brand of Extra Premium Petrol.
Who will win at the Rann of Kutch, while the others remain also-rans? Will Jai Dixit fixit? What will Mr. Eh steal this time? Will it be Chaandi’s bikini? Will Shonali wax eloquent on a beach somewhere (like I always say, Wax before hitting the beach!)? Will Dhoomketu ever be found? Is the movie called Dhoom 2 (Dhoomketu) only because movies like this appear only once in many, say 76 years, like the Halley’s comet? Is this a good thing that we must be thankful about?
Watch the movie tomorrow to find out!
* Objects in the Preview Mirror may appear sillier than they are.
Disclaimer: Characters in the above story are not based on any characters in the film. Any resemblance or humour is pure luck.
**OPM appears in the Thursday edition of Bangalore BIAS and previews a Friday release
Presents – Dhoom (k) 2
In a world filled with crime, the need of the hour is a police officer who can bring things to order. A tough yet sharp Super Cop (like a knife, not a hammer).
In Mumbai, this onus has fallen upon Jai Dixit (Abhishek).
There is, though, a big problem.
The moniker Super Cop annoys him no end and makes him feel like Robocop, as it offends his artistic sensibilities. As an artist stuck in a world of crime and gore, he has had enough. He regularly wears a beard and acts in small, offbeat plays like UmraoJohn on the side, to satisfy his creative urges. Unfailingly, he gets bad reviews and hence has to change his fake beard often, to get new roles. To top it all, his Bengali wife of many years is threatening to leave him, as she suspects that all artists are bisexual. Jai is appalled that she thinks an artist of his calibre would ever have to buy sex and has a raging argument with her (depicted in the form of a song, ‘Crazy kiya re’) She leaves him.
Meanwhile in various locations around the world:
Career travel-writer Mr. Eh (pronounced ‘aye’ and played by Hrithik) is having a really tough day. He is in Namibia, travelling into the Namib Desert in search of the rare mythological animal Dhoomketu (Hindi: “Comet” is also a dog in the DC comics franchise “Comet – The Super Dog”). He finds a tattered copy of the comic on the train he is on and is satisfied.
There is, though, a big problem.
Mr. Eh is a kleptomaniac (Greek: kleptein, "to steal" is an inability to resist impulses of stealing). In sharp contrast to his failure at being a travel-writer, he is the biggest and most successful kleptomaniac the world has never seen.
On board the train is a royal family carrying a 300 year old royal WC (Abbreviation for Water Closet/flush toilet) which has been passed on in the family ever since their ancestor, King GM.Rao, proclaimed that the royal WC would remind them never to be royal pains in the a**.
Mr. Eh pulls off a baffling crime when he steals this worthless piece of loo-t and vanishes into thin air(a minor achievement when compared to the act of vanishing into thick air)
Everyone is baffled as to why anyone would steal a 300 year old WC and a cry of ‘Eh??!!!’ goes up across the world as Reuters wires the news out. Mr. Eh achieves instant fame in cop stations around the world and assorted nut-jobs start researching his life and crimes (just like all the research that is happening just now on topics like ‘Natural Disasters and your pets’, ‘Botox’, Aussie Cricket, Theology etc)
One of these nut-job researchers is a pretty indian cop called Shonali Bose(Bipasha). She uncovers rare and useless tidbits about Mr. Eh including an unbearable and ‘Eh??!!’-inducing list of his thefts. Topping the list are these:
12 refrigerators stolen from Eskimo households
88 shaving razors stolen from the home of the Indian PM
19000 items of clothing stolen from Reiki Saw-an-ant and Ka**mira S ( TV Show plug: Only one piece of clothing left. Watch Big Ba** !! )
Shonali, after a lot of research, comes to the conclusion that Mr. Eh will strike next in Mumbai, as that is where the worlds largest collection of inane artefacts are (Silly state politicians and their sons, aging film stars and their sons, madcap pop artists like Baba Seagull, crazy socialites etc).
Shonali, Jai Dixit and Ali (Uday Chapra), the mechanic-turned-cop, become allies and vow to nab Mr. Eh in Mumbai.
There is, though, a big problem.
Ali can’t connect to his new job, as it has nothing to do with bikes and decides to ask his boss, Jai Dixit, to transfer him to the Traffic Police department.
Around the same time:
Mr. Eh lands in Mumbai still in search of Dhoomketu. He meets Chaandi (Aishwarya), a girl who sells fake silver jewellery. She cons him into believing that she once sold a silver collar to Dhoomketu the dog. All she actually wants to do is travel the world on Mr. Eh’s money thus fulfilling her ambition of being Miss World. She dreams of wearing string bikinis on the beaches of Durban and Rio (much like the rest of us would want her to).
There is, though, a big problem.
That is what follows.
What follows is a mind-blowing action comedy that stretches from the desert of Namibia to the backwaters of Goa and finally to the “Wild n Exotic” Rann of Kutch in northern Gujarat.
Our five characters chase their dreams and each other through Greater Rann (8500 sq km) and Little Rann (5500 sq km) almost endlessly, till they run out of fuel, at which point they do a plug for a brand of Extra Premium Petrol.
Who will win at the Rann of Kutch, while the others remain also-rans? Will Jai Dixit fixit? What will Mr. Eh steal this time? Will it be Chaandi’s bikini? Will Shonali wax eloquent on a beach somewhere (like I always say, Wax before hitting the beach!)? Will Dhoomketu ever be found? Is the movie called Dhoom 2 (Dhoomketu) only because movies like this appear only once in many, say 76 years, like the Halley’s comet? Is this a good thing that we must be thankful about?
Watch the movie tomorrow to find out!
* Objects in the Preview Mirror may appear sillier than they are.
Disclaimer: Characters in the above story are not based on any characters in the film. Any resemblance or humour is pure luck.
**OPM appears in the Thursday edition of Bangalore BIAS and previews a Friday release
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
16 Nov 2006 - Casino Royale
OPM*
Presents – Casino Royale (OR) I’m a big Bond fan
The Cold War, Wikipedia informs me, was the protracted ideological, and economic struggle that emerged after World War II between the United States and its allies and the Soviet Union and its allies.
This global contest was popularly named The Cold War and sometimes the Olympics, since not much action really took place.
Instead, the "war" took the form of an arms race involving nuclear (new weapons which clearly looked like weapons, hence new-clear weapons) and conventional armed forces, which, in some low-IQ areas of the world like Arizona and Kazakhstan involved army training based solely on arms-only running races to train for the arms race everyone was talking about.
The greatest fear during the Cold War was the risk it would escalate into a full nuclear exchange and in the absence of Spam, this was big deal. Both sides developed deterrence and detergent policies that prevented problems from escalating and provided means of washing ones’ hands of any responsibility in case problems escalated.
The other insane trend during the Cold War was that many more people bought refrigerators and air-conditioners to keep up with the Joneses or the Gorbachevs, depending on which side one was on. Ice-cream manufacturers set up their cold chains at a furious pace ending in desperate American and Russian salesmen trying to sell ice cream to penguins.
During the same period, the MAD comic cartoon strip Spy v/s Spy inspired the setting up of the FBI in USA and the KGB in Russia. Governments bought huge quantities of dark glasses, overcoats and Fedora hats to equip their spies. Soon, the Feds and KGB operatives were well dressed and indistinguishable from any other secret agent, which was a major victory in itself.
Britain, which was having a cup of tea while all this happened, woke up to the buying frenzy pretty late and could only get some top hats and tuxedos on the market.
This led to the formation of a different kind of Secret Agency in Britain. It was a masterstroke that ensured no one took it seriously. They called their agency MI6 and their secret agents were called Double Zeroes. Soon afterwards they leaked MI6 jokes on the spy market and the Feds and KGB men were soon cracking up on jokes like “No wonder they are called the ‘Am I six?’(MI6) while the British Double Zero agents were undercover (usually with wives of Fed and KGB men)
Today we track the beginnings of the most famous Double Zero agent ever, James Bond, in this weeks release ‘Casino Royale’.
It all starts as James Bond goes about getting his double-zero status in a taut 10 minutes action sequence that involves him going through a test at MI6. There are several mannequins that he has to fight and he passes the test when he remembers to french kiss all the female mannequins while demolishing the male ones. This done, his boss, M instructs him to don a tuxedo and bring down Le Chiffre (the chauffeur, in French), the man who is bankrolling global terrorism. Le Chiffre is a bad man (a la Gulshan Grover, but minus the bad acting) and spends most of his time at Casino Royale, a casino at Montenegro (since renamed Monte, post the Colour Slur Era). He has been on a golden streak at the slot machine for well over three years and is just very excited to hear the coins tinkle as he keeps winning. Terrorists including G.W.Bush, Laden and Ricky Ponting, regularly stop by and scoop up cash he keeps winning, as he is very involved in his winning streak.
James Bond attempts to draw Le Chiffre’s attention away from the slot machine and towards other exciting games like Roulette (a small French jam roll) and Blackjack (since renamed Jack, post the Colour Slur Era), and ends up very depressed when he can’t.
M advises Bond to pull up his socks and get back to his task. This adjustment of socks results in serious injury to some of Bonds’ foot ligaments and he limps right into Vesper Lynd (not the obscure Scandinavian wrestling technique, a woman)
Vesper Lynd, it turns out, has a serious problem speaking her name and hence tends to attach herself to the other persons’ lips as soon as preliminary greetings are exchanged. Bond is terribly attracted to a woman who kisses him before he says ‘I’m Bond, James Bond’ and proceeds to knock back a few shaken martini’s, by the end of which he falls asleep and cannot be stirred.
There is hope still though; as Bond carries with him several unique gadgets that could help him succeed in his mission. (including three varieties of pocket comb + expense calculators, 14 ear buds and a tube of an obscure Indian gum called FeviBond) Which of these gadgets save the day? Is it the Yoko hand massager that 007 is carrying which will persuade Le Chiffre to give rest to his tired hands?
Will Vesper Lynd finally manage to say her name before she meets unsavoury and ugly men, like myself? Will Bond ever get up from under the covers? Are all men beta versions of James Bond, the alpha male?
Watch Casino Royale to find out! I am tomorrow.
* Objects in the Preview Mirror may appear sillier than they are.
Disclaimer: Characters in the above story are not based on any characters in the film. Any resemblance or humour is pure luck.
**OPM appears in the Thursday edition of Bangalore BIAS and previews a Friday release
Presents – Casino Royale (OR) I’m a big Bond fan
The Cold War, Wikipedia informs me, was the protracted ideological, and economic struggle that emerged after World War II between the United States and its allies and the Soviet Union and its allies.
This global contest was popularly named The Cold War and sometimes the Olympics, since not much action really took place.
Instead, the "war" took the form of an arms race involving nuclear (new weapons which clearly looked like weapons, hence new-clear weapons) and conventional armed forces, which, in some low-IQ areas of the world like Arizona and Kazakhstan involved army training based solely on arms-only running races to train for the arms race everyone was talking about.
The greatest fear during the Cold War was the risk it would escalate into a full nuclear exchange and in the absence of Spam, this was big deal. Both sides developed deterrence and detergent policies that prevented problems from escalating and provided means of washing ones’ hands of any responsibility in case problems escalated.
The other insane trend during the Cold War was that many more people bought refrigerators and air-conditioners to keep up with the Joneses or the Gorbachevs, depending on which side one was on. Ice-cream manufacturers set up their cold chains at a furious pace ending in desperate American and Russian salesmen trying to sell ice cream to penguins.
During the same period, the MAD comic cartoon strip Spy v/s Spy inspired the setting up of the FBI in USA and the KGB in Russia. Governments bought huge quantities of dark glasses, overcoats and Fedora hats to equip their spies. Soon, the Feds and KGB operatives were well dressed and indistinguishable from any other secret agent, which was a major victory in itself.
Britain, which was having a cup of tea while all this happened, woke up to the buying frenzy pretty late and could only get some top hats and tuxedos on the market.
This led to the formation of a different kind of Secret Agency in Britain. It was a masterstroke that ensured no one took it seriously. They called their agency MI6 and their secret agents were called Double Zeroes. Soon afterwards they leaked MI6 jokes on the spy market and the Feds and KGB men were soon cracking up on jokes like “No wonder they are called the ‘Am I six?’(MI6) while the British Double Zero agents were undercover (usually with wives of Fed and KGB men)
Today we track the beginnings of the most famous Double Zero agent ever, James Bond, in this weeks release ‘Casino Royale’.
It all starts as James Bond goes about getting his double-zero status in a taut 10 minutes action sequence that involves him going through a test at MI6. There are several mannequins that he has to fight and he passes the test when he remembers to french kiss all the female mannequins while demolishing the male ones. This done, his boss, M instructs him to don a tuxedo and bring down Le Chiffre (the chauffeur, in French), the man who is bankrolling global terrorism. Le Chiffre is a bad man (a la Gulshan Grover, but minus the bad acting) and spends most of his time at Casino Royale, a casino at Montenegro (since renamed Monte, post the Colour Slur Era). He has been on a golden streak at the slot machine for well over three years and is just very excited to hear the coins tinkle as he keeps winning. Terrorists including G.W.Bush, Laden and Ricky Ponting, regularly stop by and scoop up cash he keeps winning, as he is very involved in his winning streak.
James Bond attempts to draw Le Chiffre’s attention away from the slot machine and towards other exciting games like Roulette (a small French jam roll) and Blackjack (since renamed Jack, post the Colour Slur Era), and ends up very depressed when he can’t.
M advises Bond to pull up his socks and get back to his task. This adjustment of socks results in serious injury to some of Bonds’ foot ligaments and he limps right into Vesper Lynd (not the obscure Scandinavian wrestling technique, a woman)
Vesper Lynd, it turns out, has a serious problem speaking her name and hence tends to attach herself to the other persons’ lips as soon as preliminary greetings are exchanged. Bond is terribly attracted to a woman who kisses him before he says ‘I’m Bond, James Bond’ and proceeds to knock back a few shaken martini’s, by the end of which he falls asleep and cannot be stirred.
There is hope still though; as Bond carries with him several unique gadgets that could help him succeed in his mission. (including three varieties of pocket comb + expense calculators, 14 ear buds and a tube of an obscure Indian gum called FeviBond) Which of these gadgets save the day? Is it the Yoko hand massager that 007 is carrying which will persuade Le Chiffre to give rest to his tired hands?
Will Vesper Lynd finally manage to say her name before she meets unsavoury and ugly men, like myself? Will Bond ever get up from under the covers? Are all men beta versions of James Bond, the alpha male?
Watch Casino Royale to find out! I am tomorrow.
* Objects in the Preview Mirror may appear sillier than they are.
Disclaimer: Characters in the above story are not based on any characters in the film. Any resemblance or humour is pure luck.
**OPM appears in the Thursday edition of Bangalore BIAS and previews a Friday release
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Monday, November 13, 2006
Nov 9 - Vivah
OPM*
Presents – Vivah (OR) Are Marriages made in Heaven dot com?
Circa 14-16 BC : Ancient Greek Times
Mankind has lived life in a paradise, without worry, thus far. Epimetheus meets Pandora and tells her never to open the jar she has received from Zeus after which they proceed to make uninhibited love in the gardens.
However, Pandora's curiosity gets the better of her and as Epimetheus sleeps on his comfortable bed (comfortable beds were the norm in Ancient Greece. There were no other kinds of bed, as they were living in Paradise, which now is only a biryani joint in Hyderabad) she opens it, releasing all the misfortunes of mankind (plague, sorrow, the Australian Cricket team, greed, Indian Television soaps, old age, Himesh and worst of all, Clothing)
When Epimetheus wakes, he finds his bed has bedbugs and Pandora now wants to be called his wife. Inhibited lovemaking and Headaches follow immediately. Marriage is invented.
Circa 4-6 BC : India
Mallanaga Vatsyayana is born to middle class parents in the Golden Age of the Gupta dynasty. After experimenting with drugs for a short while he decides that he needs something more potent(this was mostly because the only drugs available were Homeopathic drugs).
He goes on to write the Kama Sutra, which becomes a major hit but earns him no royalties. His book, though, influences people of the time to reconsider the institution of Marriage. For sometime, everyone has a lot of fun, but when the scions of the Gupta dynasty decide to give up marriage, their progeny end up with no surname. Thus other opportunistic armies invade to claim the throne and it is curtains for the Gupta dynasty and the Vatsyayana period.
Circa Modern Times: India
Rajshri Productions (est. 1947 AD) has a new leading light, Sooraj. Sooraj decides to make movies about the phenomenon of marriages in India, and goes on to tell tremendous stories about wealthy people, many brothers, dogs, black-bucks and love, set in the background of weddings.
In the 21st century, Sooraj brings us a brand new tale with the usual ingredients. This week we look at what his Vivah, promises.
In a superb break of tradition, Sooraj decides to look at the ‘golden period between engagement and marriage’. ‘Golden’, surely because of the large amounts of dowry discussed during the period, but I must restrict myself from making social-historian like observations.
Gentle, soft spoken Prem (meaning ‘Love’), the scion of one of Delhi's most prosperous business houses, has grown up living in the fast lane, surrounded by Bengali friends who call him Prem da.
Now the thing with Sooraj is that his heroes are always called Prem and the promos proclaim loudly that Prem is Back. Where is Prem back from, you ask?
Prem is back from Sweden where the girls are all beautiful, with terrific metabolism and their idea of a good workout is… er. I’m told this is a paper for the entire family, and though I did try telling them that the ‘entire family’ usually happens after a good workout…. oh well, what the hell! Families depend heavily on storks delivering babies at the doorstep, children.
Yes, so Prem is an eligible bachelor who is just back from Stockholm and when his dad (Anupam Kheer) sweet talks him into meeting Poonam, promising him a trip to Amsterdam in return, he gives in. Poonam is a homely girl (don’t ask me what that means!) who has lived her life in the quaint town of Madhupur (don’t ask me where that is!) raised by her uncle (or chacha), Mr.Chacha. She calls him Chacha Chacha and everybody spends a lot of time dancing badly everytime this happens.
The rest of Madhupur are all Poonam’s relatives and there are several Tai-jis(professional tie makers), Nunn-ads(evangelical advertisements), Par-dadis(grannies with wings) and Ji-jus(Yes men). Large portions of the movie are spent explaining the relative positions of each relative in the Grand Madhupur Opera, which preaches that Nuclear Families Bomb.
When Poonam and Prem meet they have an awkward, formal exchange of words which is mostly because Prem has an itch to run away and Poonam is talking from under the veil/dupatta that girls in Madhupur don at all times.
These problems are soon overcome though and they have a deep, meaningful conversation that goes thus:
Prem (talking like he did in Stockholm): So you’re ready to get it on, eh?
Poonam (talking about her veil): But I already have it on.
Prem: Way to go girl!
The couple soon discover that they are sole mates, since they wear the same brand of footwear and this opens Prem to the idea of modernity and tradition co-existing, resulting in their engagement.
Prem and Poonam now enter the most magical and romantic time of their lives. Six months fly by happily. Just when everything is set for the wedding Prem decides to party hop one last time. This creates problems, and it will take God’s grace to ensure that the couple overcomes their difficulties.
Will Prem get some action tonight? What is the historical context of Dupattas? Will the couple have to register on a marriage website? Where does Time fly and in which directions? Who is God?
To find out watch Vivah that releases tomorrow!
* Objects in the Preview Mirror may appear sillier than they are.
Disclaimer: Characters in the above story are not based on any characters in the film. Any resemblance or humour is pure luck.
**OPM appears in the Thursday edition of Bangalore BIAS and previews a Friday release
Presents – Vivah (OR) Are Marriages made in Heaven dot com?
Circa 14-16 BC : Ancient Greek Times
Mankind has lived life in a paradise, without worry, thus far. Epimetheus meets Pandora and tells her never to open the jar she has received from Zeus after which they proceed to make uninhibited love in the gardens.
However, Pandora's curiosity gets the better of her and as Epimetheus sleeps on his comfortable bed (comfortable beds were the norm in Ancient Greece. There were no other kinds of bed, as they were living in Paradise, which now is only a biryani joint in Hyderabad) she opens it, releasing all the misfortunes of mankind (plague, sorrow, the Australian Cricket team, greed, Indian Television soaps, old age, Himesh and worst of all, Clothing)
When Epimetheus wakes, he finds his bed has bedbugs and Pandora now wants to be called his wife. Inhibited lovemaking and Headaches follow immediately. Marriage is invented.
Circa 4-6 BC : India
Mallanaga Vatsyayana is born to middle class parents in the Golden Age of the Gupta dynasty. After experimenting with drugs for a short while he decides that he needs something more potent(this was mostly because the only drugs available were Homeopathic drugs).
He goes on to write the Kama Sutra, which becomes a major hit but earns him no royalties. His book, though, influences people of the time to reconsider the institution of Marriage. For sometime, everyone has a lot of fun, but when the scions of the Gupta dynasty decide to give up marriage, their progeny end up with no surname. Thus other opportunistic armies invade to claim the throne and it is curtains for the Gupta dynasty and the Vatsyayana period.
Circa Modern Times: India
Rajshri Productions (est. 1947 AD) has a new leading light, Sooraj. Sooraj decides to make movies about the phenomenon of marriages in India, and goes on to tell tremendous stories about wealthy people, many brothers, dogs, black-bucks and love, set in the background of weddings.
In the 21st century, Sooraj brings us a brand new tale with the usual ingredients. This week we look at what his Vivah, promises.
In a superb break of tradition, Sooraj decides to look at the ‘golden period between engagement and marriage’. ‘Golden’, surely because of the large amounts of dowry discussed during the period, but I must restrict myself from making social-historian like observations.
Gentle, soft spoken Prem (meaning ‘Love’), the scion of one of Delhi's most prosperous business houses, has grown up living in the fast lane, surrounded by Bengali friends who call him Prem da.
Now the thing with Sooraj is that his heroes are always called Prem and the promos proclaim loudly that Prem is Back. Where is Prem back from, you ask?
Prem is back from Sweden where the girls are all beautiful, with terrific metabolism and their idea of a good workout is… er. I’m told this is a paper for the entire family, and though I did try telling them that the ‘entire family’ usually happens after a good workout…. oh well, what the hell! Families depend heavily on storks delivering babies at the doorstep, children.
Yes, so Prem is an eligible bachelor who is just back from Stockholm and when his dad (Anupam Kheer) sweet talks him into meeting Poonam, promising him a trip to Amsterdam in return, he gives in. Poonam is a homely girl (don’t ask me what that means!) who has lived her life in the quaint town of Madhupur (don’t ask me where that is!) raised by her uncle (or chacha), Mr.Chacha. She calls him Chacha Chacha and everybody spends a lot of time dancing badly everytime this happens.
The rest of Madhupur are all Poonam’s relatives and there are several Tai-jis(professional tie makers), Nunn-ads(evangelical advertisements), Par-dadis(grannies with wings) and Ji-jus(Yes men). Large portions of the movie are spent explaining the relative positions of each relative in the Grand Madhupur Opera, which preaches that Nuclear Families Bomb.
When Poonam and Prem meet they have an awkward, formal exchange of words which is mostly because Prem has an itch to run away and Poonam is talking from under the veil/dupatta that girls in Madhupur don at all times.
These problems are soon overcome though and they have a deep, meaningful conversation that goes thus:
Prem (talking like he did in Stockholm): So you’re ready to get it on, eh?
Poonam (talking about her veil): But I already have it on.
Prem: Way to go girl!
The couple soon discover that they are sole mates, since they wear the same brand of footwear and this opens Prem to the idea of modernity and tradition co-existing, resulting in their engagement.
Prem and Poonam now enter the most magical and romantic time of their lives. Six months fly by happily. Just when everything is set for the wedding Prem decides to party hop one last time. This creates problems, and it will take God’s grace to ensure that the couple overcomes their difficulties.
Will Prem get some action tonight? What is the historical context of Dupattas? Will the couple have to register on a marriage website? Where does Time fly and in which directions? Who is God?
To find out watch Vivah that releases tomorrow!
* Objects in the Preview Mirror may appear sillier than they are.
Disclaimer: Characters in the above story are not based on any characters in the film. Any resemblance or humour is pure luck.
**OPM appears in the Thursday edition of Bangalore BIAS and previews a Friday release
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
2 Nov 2006 - The Departed
OPM*
Presents – The De(e)part Ed(itorial)
Hello Boys! Here is a poser.
Between you and me, how many times have we gone to a fancy Italian restaurant and felt like absolute Neanderthals while the women in our lives ordered, very authoritatively, a completely indecipherable dinner, which looked like this:
Salad – Caesars Salad (But Caesar is ancient Roman history, you thought!)
Side dish – Avocado with something balsamic (which you guess is a new Scandinavian country)
Pasta - Black pepper fettuccine for Her and Angel hair pasta penne primavera for You (the pasta is always mind boggling and between the penne and the spaghetti you are sure its curtains for Sergio Leone curry westerns and Angel hair in your food. Also you are pretty sure now that Fibonacci and Muesli are pasta variants)
Yes, so between you and me, how many times have you felt like Early Man when you visited an Italian Restaurant? I’ve felt like that every time! Which means, even if you haven’t felt that way, atleast one out of every two men have felt like Early Man. Agreed it is very small sample size, you statistically inclined Nay Sayers! On another note, it should be noted that statistics were invented by men, most likely Early Men (who were, of course, the first breed of superhero), to tell lies convincingly.
Sample Early Conversation:
Early Man 1 – I got that tyranonoses with one hit to its nose.
Early Man 2 – That is because on 12th Marchinoiry (the Roman calendar hadn’t been invented yet. Neither had the Romans) at 5.43 pm I performed a choke slam on it. It was obviously weakened by that encounter. That was the same night I choke slammed 84 Trachiblockednoses and 14 Leakynoseblowers. It is well documented.
Early Woman – Come eat the wonderful pasta I just made.
Early Men – huh??!!?
Yes. So men have been struggling with understanding Italian food for ages. This week ‘The Departed’ by that fantastically fast and furious director Martin ScorCC (easily better than the Yamaha 125 CC) documents these struggles in modern day Boston.
Based on the 2002 Hong Kong movie, Infernal Affairs, ScorCC accelerates the story to suit Western audiences. Infernal Affairs was loosely about, sex in the kitchen, described by a restaurant owner Chow Chow Toh Yun Fat Hotahai. Chow Chow would famously say “Those Infernal Affairs in the Kitchen” each time someone complained of less Munch in their Manchurian or suo moto usage of aginomoto in their food.
In ScorCC’s movie the action starts in Downtown Boston at the offices of The DeepArt Editorial, a monthly Fine Arts magazine, run by two gourmet chefs turned recipe publishers. Leo and Matt (played by Leo DiCaprio and Matt Damon) are pretty riled with everyone in Boston as the DeepArt Editorial is selling only a handful of copies. Worse is that though the articles on painting and sculpture have got fan mail their Italian Recipes are not being appreciated.
They meet a marketing professional Madolyn (Vera Farmiga), who, after segmenting the market, tells them that the best bet would be to target the Mafiosi in Boston as they are all Italian. After some deep mining she finds out that the most discerning connoisseur of Italian food in Boston is the mob boss Jackie Boy (Jack Nicholson). Jackie Boy regularly bumps off waiters for making him wait and usually achieves this by dining at Boston’s best Italian joints (no connection with marijuana).
Leo and Matt are convinced by Madolyn’s analysis and can’t get their eyes off her legs because she has really long legs that extend to the South Pole, especially in a photograph taken at the South Pole. As soon as Madolyn realizes their primal interest in her she walks away really fast (helped along by her long legs that ensure she wins the Boston Marathon the following year)
Consequently, Leo and Matt make an appointment with Jackie Boy, who in turn promises to increase their papers circulation within their TG of gangsters.
Now, Jackie Boy is a respected don as he is the only one who knows what to order at Italian restaurants. This is because it has been several generations since the first Italian people broke ship at America and with cross-pollination in large numbers (especially among varieties of Italian flora) it has become tough on gangsters to keep their Italian heritage. Jackie Boy cannot fight these socio-economic challenges though he throws a big Boston Tea Party and is forced to admit failure to Leo and Matt.
Leo and Matt, who have been stewing in their own gravy (a small kitchen accident), do not take this news well and join forces to become Leo Matt El Inc, which goes on to toy with Jackie Boys’ pasta every time he orders one.
Jackie Boy is frustrated as his penne is served with shredded cheese and his Zucchini is always an Italian called Zucchini who proceeds to sing him an Operetta called ‘Ri’ in sotto voice.
Jackie Boy surrenders to Marky Mark and Alec Baldwin, who play conmen disguised as coppers, since he maintains that jail cuisine is better than badly made Italian food. The conmen proceed to retire on the money that the mob boss pays them every week to avoid eating badly made Italian cuisine, by investing in a mock jailhouse for their SIP (Silly Italian Person not Systematic Investment Plan).
Watch this movie today, if you empathise with Italian gourmet challenges! Also, today’s question:
Why didn’t the good boy ever eat the Ganache tart for dessert?
* Objects in the Preview Mirror may appear sillier than they are.
Disclaimer: Characters in the above story are not based on any characters in the film. Any resemblance or humour is pure luck.
**OPM appears in the Thursday edition of Bangalore BIAS and previews a Friday release
Presents – The De(e)part Ed(itorial)
Hello Boys! Here is a poser.
Between you and me, how many times have we gone to a fancy Italian restaurant and felt like absolute Neanderthals while the women in our lives ordered, very authoritatively, a completely indecipherable dinner, which looked like this:
Salad – Caesars Salad (But Caesar is ancient Roman history, you thought!)
Side dish – Avocado with something balsamic (which you guess is a new Scandinavian country)
Pasta - Black pepper fettuccine for Her and Angel hair pasta penne primavera for You (the pasta is always mind boggling and between the penne and the spaghetti you are sure its curtains for Sergio Leone curry westerns and Angel hair in your food. Also you are pretty sure now that Fibonacci and Muesli are pasta variants)
Yes, so between you and me, how many times have you felt like Early Man when you visited an Italian Restaurant? I’ve felt like that every time! Which means, even if you haven’t felt that way, atleast one out of every two men have felt like Early Man. Agreed it is very small sample size, you statistically inclined Nay Sayers! On another note, it should be noted that statistics were invented by men, most likely Early Men (who were, of course, the first breed of superhero), to tell lies convincingly.
Sample Early Conversation:
Early Man 1 – I got that tyranonoses with one hit to its nose.
Early Man 2 – That is because on 12th Marchinoiry (the Roman calendar hadn’t been invented yet. Neither had the Romans) at 5.43 pm I performed a choke slam on it. It was obviously weakened by that encounter. That was the same night I choke slammed 84 Trachiblockednoses and 14 Leakynoseblowers. It is well documented.
Early Woman – Come eat the wonderful pasta I just made.
Early Men – huh??!!?
Yes. So men have been struggling with understanding Italian food for ages. This week ‘The Departed’ by that fantastically fast and furious director Martin ScorCC (easily better than the Yamaha 125 CC) documents these struggles in modern day Boston.
Based on the 2002 Hong Kong movie, Infernal Affairs, ScorCC accelerates the story to suit Western audiences. Infernal Affairs was loosely about, sex in the kitchen, described by a restaurant owner Chow Chow Toh Yun Fat Hotahai. Chow Chow would famously say “Those Infernal Affairs in the Kitchen” each time someone complained of less Munch in their Manchurian or suo moto usage of aginomoto in their food.
In ScorCC’s movie the action starts in Downtown Boston at the offices of The DeepArt Editorial, a monthly Fine Arts magazine, run by two gourmet chefs turned recipe publishers. Leo and Matt (played by Leo DiCaprio and Matt Damon) are pretty riled with everyone in Boston as the DeepArt Editorial is selling only a handful of copies. Worse is that though the articles on painting and sculpture have got fan mail their Italian Recipes are not being appreciated.
They meet a marketing professional Madolyn (Vera Farmiga), who, after segmenting the market, tells them that the best bet would be to target the Mafiosi in Boston as they are all Italian. After some deep mining she finds out that the most discerning connoisseur of Italian food in Boston is the mob boss Jackie Boy (Jack Nicholson). Jackie Boy regularly bumps off waiters for making him wait and usually achieves this by dining at Boston’s best Italian joints (no connection with marijuana).
Leo and Matt are convinced by Madolyn’s analysis and can’t get their eyes off her legs because she has really long legs that extend to the South Pole, especially in a photograph taken at the South Pole. As soon as Madolyn realizes their primal interest in her she walks away really fast (helped along by her long legs that ensure she wins the Boston Marathon the following year)
Consequently, Leo and Matt make an appointment with Jackie Boy, who in turn promises to increase their papers circulation within their TG of gangsters.
Now, Jackie Boy is a respected don as he is the only one who knows what to order at Italian restaurants. This is because it has been several generations since the first Italian people broke ship at America and with cross-pollination in large numbers (especially among varieties of Italian flora) it has become tough on gangsters to keep their Italian heritage. Jackie Boy cannot fight these socio-economic challenges though he throws a big Boston Tea Party and is forced to admit failure to Leo and Matt.
Leo and Matt, who have been stewing in their own gravy (a small kitchen accident), do not take this news well and join forces to become Leo Matt El Inc, which goes on to toy with Jackie Boys’ pasta every time he orders one.
Jackie Boy is frustrated as his penne is served with shredded cheese and his Zucchini is always an Italian called Zucchini who proceeds to sing him an Operetta called ‘Ri’ in sotto voice.
Jackie Boy surrenders to Marky Mark and Alec Baldwin, who play conmen disguised as coppers, since he maintains that jail cuisine is better than badly made Italian food. The conmen proceed to retire on the money that the mob boss pays them every week to avoid eating badly made Italian cuisine, by investing in a mock jailhouse for their SIP (Silly Italian Person not Systematic Investment Plan).
Watch this movie today, if you empathise with Italian gourmet challenges! Also, today’s question:
Why didn’t the good boy ever eat the Ganache tart for dessert?
* Objects in the Preview Mirror may appear sillier than they are.
Disclaimer: Characters in the above story are not based on any characters in the film. Any resemblance or humour is pure luck.
**OPM appears in the Thursday edition of Bangalore BIAS and previews a Friday release
Friday, November 03, 2006
26 Oct 2006 - Umrao Jaan
OPM*
Presents – Umrao Jaan OR Another Beard Tale
It is the summer of 1855 AD, in Lucknow, the capital of Avadh. It is the same year in other places around the world too, but not necessarily summer.
In the streets, Umrao Jaan Ada’s songs are a rage:
Dil Cheez Kya Hai (‘My heart is a cheese ball’, when cheese balls hadn’t been invented yet too!!)
And
Yeh kya Jageh hai Doston (‘Where the ****** hell are we?’, a later day rock anthem)
An integral part of Urdu literature, Mirza Ruswa's 'Umrao Jaan Ada' is an Urdu classic not to be missed. Umrao Jaan, that releases next week, is a paean to that great Urdu book, with some historical inaccuracies and major script changes thrown in.
Much like ‘The Symbol formerly known as An artist formerly known as Prince who was formerly known as Prince’ we track the life of Umrao Jaan Ada backwards, in flashback, just as Urdu is read.
Lets give this some irrelevant historical context first:
Bahadur Shah Zafar is a harassed man. As the last in the long line of Mughals he is irritated that he will only appear as a footnote in history textbooks later and furthermore will feature in a Doordarshan teleserial.
The British are bothering him and he hates parathas since it reminds him of the Marathas. This is because ever since Shivaji made fun of Aurangzeb’s name the Mughal Empire has been in decline.
To top it all, he hasn’t been to a party in ages since it has become a habit to decline (invitations).
Wajid Ali Shah, the nawab of Avadh is a harassed man. The British have exiled him to Calcutta and men with ‘Nawab’ as first name are walking around Lucknow, his capital, robbing him of exclusivity. He frequently has altercations with common men that go thus:
Wajid : I’m the Nawab of Avadh
Marble Slab Layer : I’m Nawab
Harassment, thus, has hit an all time high in 19th century India. Anti-harassment laws are laid down (and this is even before the workplace for women was invented)
Umrao Jaan’s story begins set in this historical context, though she begins her story named a different name. Born Ameeran, to a poor family in Faizabad, she gets kidnapped by Dilawar Khan, a local malcontent, as her name suggests a rich father. When Dilawar discovers that ransom money is out of the question he sells her to Khannum Sahib in Lucknow. Khannum Sahib, in spite of the name, is a woman who runs a Kotha in Lucknow.
A Kotha is a place similar to the modern town of Kota in Rajasthan, but much cooler because of the Mughal marble used.
Since the Mughal Empire has been in decline, for over a century, Men folk have taken to sitting around and growing beards. This is an excruciatingly slow and tedious process that involves waiting, which they have no patience for. (As you can figure, Barbers had it really tough during Mughal decline times and were only saved by the invention of the profession, ‘Hairstylists’)
So the men folk, they’d troop into Kothas as cricket stadia hadn’t been invented in India yet.
Kothas, hence, were a good business to be in, though they would never get a Nasdaq listing since they weren’t equal opportunity employers. Women like Khannum Sahib trained the girls that came in to be proficient in performing arts like music, dance and poetry. The girls in turn used these skills to keep men occupied while their beards grew.
Ameeran, who had changed her name to Umrao Jaan (That U.M.Rao Life) becomes proficient in all the performing arts and belts out hit after hit. As she gains on the popularity ratings, she changes her name again to Umrao Jaan Ada.
Nawab Sultan, played by Abhishek Bachchan, is a really harassed man. He doesn’t know whether he is a Nawab or a Sultan and has been rejected by 18 women. This is mainly because he writes Urdu forwards and every woman ends up reading his ‘I love you’ notes, as ‘You love me’.
When the harassed Nawab Sultan visits Khannum’s Kotha and leaves a note for Umrao Jaan, she falls in love with him, as she is dyslexic and reads his note right.
It takes them three years to meet though, as Umrao likes her men with a full beard. In the three years, Mangal Pandey has grown his hair and kicked off the 1857 revolt. The British, though, have retaliated and laid siege to Lucknow.
As Umrao and Nawab clink their Rooafzah glasses together, the British enter Lucknow and throw everybody out. They become the rulers of Lucknow but soon realize that there is no longer anyone to rule over.
They locate Umrao Jaan Ada at Faizabad and hire her as an ambassador for Lucknow, to attract people back to town. For a brief period, Umrao is known as Umrao John, as a telling comment on her British connections.
Will Umrao Jaan ever get the Gazette office to make changes to her name? Will Nawab ever be able to shave? Who is John?
Watch Umrao Jaan to find out!
* Objects in the Preview Mirror may appear sillier than they are.
Disclaimer: Characters in the above story are not based on any characters in the film. Any resemblance or humour is pure luck.
**OPM appears in the Thursday edition of Bangalore BIAS and previews a Friday release
Presents – Umrao Jaan OR Another Beard Tale
It is the summer of 1855 AD, in Lucknow, the capital of Avadh. It is the same year in other places around the world too, but not necessarily summer.
In the streets, Umrao Jaan Ada’s songs are a rage:
Dil Cheez Kya Hai (‘My heart is a cheese ball’, when cheese balls hadn’t been invented yet too!!)
And
Yeh kya Jageh hai Doston (‘Where the ****** hell are we?’, a later day rock anthem)
An integral part of Urdu literature, Mirza Ruswa's 'Umrao Jaan Ada' is an Urdu classic not to be missed. Umrao Jaan, that releases next week, is a paean to that great Urdu book, with some historical inaccuracies and major script changes thrown in.
Much like ‘The Symbol formerly known as An artist formerly known as Prince who was formerly known as Prince’ we track the life of Umrao Jaan Ada backwards, in flashback, just as Urdu is read.
Lets give this some irrelevant historical context first:
Bahadur Shah Zafar is a harassed man. As the last in the long line of Mughals he is irritated that he will only appear as a footnote in history textbooks later and furthermore will feature in a Doordarshan teleserial.
The British are bothering him and he hates parathas since it reminds him of the Marathas. This is because ever since Shivaji made fun of Aurangzeb’s name the Mughal Empire has been in decline.
To top it all, he hasn’t been to a party in ages since it has become a habit to decline (invitations).
Wajid Ali Shah, the nawab of Avadh is a harassed man. The British have exiled him to Calcutta and men with ‘Nawab’ as first name are walking around Lucknow, his capital, robbing him of exclusivity. He frequently has altercations with common men that go thus:
Wajid : I’m the Nawab of Avadh
Marble Slab Layer : I’m Nawab
Harassment, thus, has hit an all time high in 19th century India. Anti-harassment laws are laid down (and this is even before the workplace for women was invented)
Umrao Jaan’s story begins set in this historical context, though she begins her story named a different name. Born Ameeran, to a poor family in Faizabad, she gets kidnapped by Dilawar Khan, a local malcontent, as her name suggests a rich father. When Dilawar discovers that ransom money is out of the question he sells her to Khannum Sahib in Lucknow. Khannum Sahib, in spite of the name, is a woman who runs a Kotha in Lucknow.
A Kotha is a place similar to the modern town of Kota in Rajasthan, but much cooler because of the Mughal marble used.
Since the Mughal Empire has been in decline, for over a century, Men folk have taken to sitting around and growing beards. This is an excruciatingly slow and tedious process that involves waiting, which they have no patience for. (As you can figure, Barbers had it really tough during Mughal decline times and were only saved by the invention of the profession, ‘Hairstylists’)
So the men folk, they’d troop into Kothas as cricket stadia hadn’t been invented in India yet.
Kothas, hence, were a good business to be in, though they would never get a Nasdaq listing since they weren’t equal opportunity employers. Women like Khannum Sahib trained the girls that came in to be proficient in performing arts like music, dance and poetry. The girls in turn used these skills to keep men occupied while their beards grew.
Ameeran, who had changed her name to Umrao Jaan (That U.M.Rao Life) becomes proficient in all the performing arts and belts out hit after hit. As she gains on the popularity ratings, she changes her name again to Umrao Jaan Ada.
Nawab Sultan, played by Abhishek Bachchan, is a really harassed man. He doesn’t know whether he is a Nawab or a Sultan and has been rejected by 18 women. This is mainly because he writes Urdu forwards and every woman ends up reading his ‘I love you’ notes, as ‘You love me’.
When the harassed Nawab Sultan visits Khannum’s Kotha and leaves a note for Umrao Jaan, she falls in love with him, as she is dyslexic and reads his note right.
It takes them three years to meet though, as Umrao likes her men with a full beard. In the three years, Mangal Pandey has grown his hair and kicked off the 1857 revolt. The British, though, have retaliated and laid siege to Lucknow.
As Umrao and Nawab clink their Rooafzah glasses together, the British enter Lucknow and throw everybody out. They become the rulers of Lucknow but soon realize that there is no longer anyone to rule over.
They locate Umrao Jaan Ada at Faizabad and hire her as an ambassador for Lucknow, to attract people back to town. For a brief period, Umrao is known as Umrao John, as a telling comment on her British connections.
Will Umrao Jaan ever get the Gazette office to make changes to her name? Will Nawab ever be able to shave? Who is John?
Watch Umrao Jaan to find out!
* Objects in the Preview Mirror may appear sillier than they are.
Disclaimer: Characters in the above story are not based on any characters in the film. Any resemblance or humour is pure luck.
**OPM appears in the Thursday edition of Bangalore BIAS and previews a Friday release
Thursday, October 26, 2006
19 Oct 2006 - Jaan-E-Mann
OPM*
Presents - Jaan-E-Mann - Geometry Fail :(
Love triangles can be complicated. Especially if you failed geometry in school.
Indian film makers, for long, have relied on love triangles to give them story angles. It is rarely though that film makers have attempted anything more complicated.
For example, the love quadrilateral or the love polygon. Or the severely interesting, Love Pyramid, where the object of love is at the top and everyone else is at the bottom. The top of the pyramid is usually inhabited by women of breathtaking beauty who do not necessarily suffer from asthma. Examples include Greta Garbo, and closer home, divas like Madhubala. These people are at no disadvantage even if they are geometrically challenged.
At the bottom of the pyramid though, it is a very different story. The bottom is usually inhabited by men of negligible or no character. Examples include but are not limited to Me. The big problem with being at the bottom of the pyramid is that, like Tutankhamen, one is usually dead. (Proven by the fact that I am, almost always, a dead bore)
There are several interestingly geometric love plots which are rare and enthralling. One, which is found only in America, is called the Love Pentagon. It is a big secret and is kept undercover most of the time except once when Bill and Monica visited.
If it is difficult for film makers to come up with complicated love geometry, it is just as bad for characters stuck in straightforward love triangles. This is because one has to know whether one has the right-angle on the triangle and since Pythagoras is dead there is no longer any hypoteNews to explain it.
All these struggles are well documented in tomorrow’s release Jaan-e-mann.
Jaan-E-Mann is, obviously, about three people. It starts off ten years in the past on a college campus.
Salman plays Jaan, a 40 year old man masquerading as a college student. He is losing hair and has developed a fetish for rock-star hairstyles. Hence the masquerading, to enable wearing wigs. As a college student who has 40 years of life experience he has several advantages over his 20 year old peers. For one, he has watched far more sitcoms and knows many more jokes. This makes him a great hit with the girls in college.
Akshay plays Mann, an 18 year old genius with dreams of being a mover and shaker on the stock exchange someday and a really bad haircut. He comes from a lower middle class background and having been deprived of basic necessities in life like Cable Tv, he has never watched any ‘Friends’ or ‘Will and Grace’. As a result, he knows no jokes at all and hence gets flustered every time he meets a girl, which fortunately is only twice(once a mannequin and the other a rajasthani puppet)
Preity Zinta plays E, the youngest of 5 siblings. Her 4 older sisters, A, B, C and D are played by relatively unknown actors who do not even know the basic alphabet of acting. Since the movie begins in the period when the Internet Revolution started in India, email, e-commerce and E become the craze of the college.
Both Jaan and Mann have email ids but pass out (of college) before they can express their love for E(to her, not to each other)
Ten years later, in the present day, things have changed. Broadband rates have, happily, hit a new low.
E has a completely new wardrobe. Mann is a successful stock-broker and has a 300 dollar haircut. Jaan has a nine year old son, Naan, and has had hair-weaving done. Anupam Kher does a brilliant job as Jaan’s son Naan and is instrumental in bringing our protagonists together again thus:
Naan: How are babies born??
Jaan: Errr… Storks deliver them at the doorstep…
Naan: I want to go to the Stock Exchange NOW!! Waaaahhh!!
Jaan and son make their way to the Stock Market as Mann walks down from his cabin to grab a vada-pav for lunch. E happens to be at the stock market for reasons known only to the scriptwriter. Ten years after they last met; our lead characters meet each other again in a stock Yash Raj movie scene.
Its fireworks all over again for Jaan and Mann, but mostly because it is Diwali. Jaan, to keep his chances of dating E alive, claims that Naan is only his dwarf friend. Mann, who hasn’t watched any sitcoms yet, doesn’t say anything at all. Naan thinks E is a stork and proceeds to try to pluck some feathers. Jaan explains this act by saying that Naan is a dwarf who plays a clown in Boris Karloff’s circus. At the mention of a clown, E runs away screaming her name over and over again. It turns out that she is coulrophobic.
What follows is an entertaining tragi-comedy of errors that can only be watched, not described in words. This was the reason they worked without a script in the first place!
As a tribute to geometric genius through the ages, here is a conundrum for you folks: There are two kinds of lines. One is the straight line. Which is the other kind of line?
* Objects in the Preview Mirror may appear sillier than they are.
Disclaimer: Characters in the above story are not based on any characters in the film. Any resemblance or humour is pure luck.
**OPM appears in the Thursday edition of Bangalore BIAS and previews a Friday release
Presents - Jaan-E-Mann - Geometry Fail :(
Love triangles can be complicated. Especially if you failed geometry in school.
Indian film makers, for long, have relied on love triangles to give them story angles. It is rarely though that film makers have attempted anything more complicated.
For example, the love quadrilateral or the love polygon. Or the severely interesting, Love Pyramid, where the object of love is at the top and everyone else is at the bottom. The top of the pyramid is usually inhabited by women of breathtaking beauty who do not necessarily suffer from asthma. Examples include Greta Garbo, and closer home, divas like Madhubala. These people are at no disadvantage even if they are geometrically challenged.
At the bottom of the pyramid though, it is a very different story. The bottom is usually inhabited by men of negligible or no character. Examples include but are not limited to Me. The big problem with being at the bottom of the pyramid is that, like Tutankhamen, one is usually dead. (Proven by the fact that I am, almost always, a dead bore)
There are several interestingly geometric love plots which are rare and enthralling. One, which is found only in America, is called the Love Pentagon. It is a big secret and is kept undercover most of the time except once when Bill and Monica visited.
If it is difficult for film makers to come up with complicated love geometry, it is just as bad for characters stuck in straightforward love triangles. This is because one has to know whether one has the right-angle on the triangle and since Pythagoras is dead there is no longer any hypoteNews to explain it.
All these struggles are well documented in tomorrow’s release Jaan-e-mann.
Jaan-E-Mann is, obviously, about three people. It starts off ten years in the past on a college campus.
Salman plays Jaan, a 40 year old man masquerading as a college student. He is losing hair and has developed a fetish for rock-star hairstyles. Hence the masquerading, to enable wearing wigs. As a college student who has 40 years of life experience he has several advantages over his 20 year old peers. For one, he has watched far more sitcoms and knows many more jokes. This makes him a great hit with the girls in college.
Akshay plays Mann, an 18 year old genius with dreams of being a mover and shaker on the stock exchange someday and a really bad haircut. He comes from a lower middle class background and having been deprived of basic necessities in life like Cable Tv, he has never watched any ‘Friends’ or ‘Will and Grace’. As a result, he knows no jokes at all and hence gets flustered every time he meets a girl, which fortunately is only twice(once a mannequin and the other a rajasthani puppet)
Preity Zinta plays E, the youngest of 5 siblings. Her 4 older sisters, A, B, C and D are played by relatively unknown actors who do not even know the basic alphabet of acting. Since the movie begins in the period when the Internet Revolution started in India, email, e-commerce and E become the craze of the college.
Both Jaan and Mann have email ids but pass out (of college) before they can express their love for E(to her, not to each other)
Ten years later, in the present day, things have changed. Broadband rates have, happily, hit a new low.
E has a completely new wardrobe. Mann is a successful stock-broker and has a 300 dollar haircut. Jaan has a nine year old son, Naan, and has had hair-weaving done. Anupam Kher does a brilliant job as Jaan’s son Naan and is instrumental in bringing our protagonists together again thus:
Naan: How are babies born??
Jaan: Errr… Storks deliver them at the doorstep…
Naan: I want to go to the Stock Exchange NOW!! Waaaahhh!!
Jaan and son make their way to the Stock Market as Mann walks down from his cabin to grab a vada-pav for lunch. E happens to be at the stock market for reasons known only to the scriptwriter. Ten years after they last met; our lead characters meet each other again in a stock Yash Raj movie scene.
Its fireworks all over again for Jaan and Mann, but mostly because it is Diwali. Jaan, to keep his chances of dating E alive, claims that Naan is only his dwarf friend. Mann, who hasn’t watched any sitcoms yet, doesn’t say anything at all. Naan thinks E is a stork and proceeds to try to pluck some feathers. Jaan explains this act by saying that Naan is a dwarf who plays a clown in Boris Karloff’s circus. At the mention of a clown, E runs away screaming her name over and over again. It turns out that she is coulrophobic.
What follows is an entertaining tragi-comedy of errors that can only be watched, not described in words. This was the reason they worked without a script in the first place!
As a tribute to geometric genius through the ages, here is a conundrum for you folks: There are two kinds of lines. One is the straight line. Which is the other kind of line?
* Objects in the Preview Mirror may appear sillier than they are.
Disclaimer: Characters in the above story are not based on any characters in the film. Any resemblance or humour is pure luck.
**OPM appears in the Thursday edition of Bangalore BIAS and previews a Friday release
Saturday, October 14, 2006
12 Oct 2006 - Don, The Chase Begins
OPM*
Presents - Don (‘t) do that!
Remakes are the order of the day. They are even remaking poems. William Blake’s wry observation on the meaning of life, which goes: “Little Fly, thy summers play, My thoughtless hand, has brushed away” has been remade into an observation of party hopping nightmares:
Your Little Fly
Is open hey!!
Is your thoughtless hand, on holiday?
Yes, so remakes are the order of the day (including this sentence). People are remaking everything from songs to Tarla Dalal’s cooking to movies. I even remade the coffee that I botched up this morning!
The thing with the business of remaking is that one has to start at the beginning. Sometimes even before the beginning, in the past.
This makes remaking a movie a very difficult thing to do involving several precursors to filming. Chief among these is that one has to first, watch the original. This can be pretty annoying especially if you are looking to remake movies like YHTKH, HKSKN or James (sitting through one entire showing of such movies usually ensures that the thought of remaking is quickly rethought and disinfected)
Even if a filmmaker zeroes in on a yesteryear-hit things can go severely wrong at the scripting stage. Today, we will look at some of the pitfalls that the makers of the new Don faced.
In the 28 years that have followed the release of the original Don the Average Indian Height has gone up by about 2 inches (according to statistics provided by Indian Trouser Manufacturers). The new Don though, is shorter by about 6 inches. This is rather unfortunate and makes it very difficult for the filmmaker to show him as a larger than life character (smaller than life heroes don’t work in regular Bollywood fare).
They decided, hence, to set the new movie in Malaysia, where height statistics make our protagonist suitably larger than life.
This done they set out making changes to the script, where necessary and otherwise.
For starters, all the female characters would wear shorter clothes than in the original since they were Indian women of average Indian height, who did their shopping in Malaysia. Also Roma was renamed Aroma, to give her character a unique oriental flavour resulting in metaphysical moments like:
Don: (as he looks for spare bullets, during a gunfight) I can’t find anything! What is this, Aroma?!!!?
Aroma: Oh, that is just the smell of gunpowder
and
Don: (appreciating the wine tasting class that Aroma has enrolled him in) : Oh, Aroma!
Aroma: No! You need to taste the wine, not smell it
The original character Jasjit, had to be rewritten too since there are no careers left for Circus high wire walkers in the absence of all circuses except Navjot Piddhu, in the present day. So the new Jas-jit is a JIT consultant (a Japanese management philosophy which gave the world the farcical face-saving technique of the Just-In-Time marriage) with fake degrees, who gets injured when a huge wedge falls on his foot. After this huge wedgie, he has a permanent limp (which is understandable if you went to the same school as I did).
Moving the story 28 years ahead while retaining its original appeal meant giving the characters a retro look and retaining some original songs.
A great deal of planning and detailing was done on the new version of ‘Khaike pan’ that essentially involved finding a blue shirt with floral prints.
Also, Don, since he is a Malaysia based underworld don, and not a regular white-collar office-goer wears his tie inside his shirt. Thankfully they decided not to do a superman with his innerwear.
All this was done at a huge cost to the makers (as well as the audience).
True to the contemporary setting, the new Don is very gadget-friendly and always carries an iPod and a cool new Blackberry, which make him painfully slow during fight sequences, as he is worried about damaging them. Gadgets also provide fodder for conversation and light moments especially when Malik continuously mistakes ‘pass me some black berries’ for ‘pass me the Blackberry’.
The biggest script challenge was to ensure that none of the present characters ever watched any Indian TV in case they saw reruns of the original Don and hence figured out what happened next. This was an additional reason to set the movie in Malaysia where there are only 3 porn channels (including a news channel called Hot News and a sports channel called Water)
The basic plot remains the same except that they decided not to bump off the actual Don, retaining him in captivity, much like his Versace ties. The masterstroke is the Promo, which shows Don with his face enveloped in smoke, in spite of the ban against depicting cigarette smoking onscreen. This was achieved by shooting in really cloudy conditions in Ooty.
It is easy to see that the biggest movie of 2006, DON is a high-methane, twisted roller-coaster ride, with just the right dose of clamour, action, suspense, romance and rerun quality.
Of course, they called it Don-The Chase Begins only because they were hurrying to catch the October 20th Diwali release.
* Objects in the Preview Mirror may appear sillier than they are.
Disclaimer: Characters in the above story are not based on any characters in the film. Any resemblance or humour is pure luck.
**OPM appears in the Thursday edition of Bangalore BIAS and previews a Friday release
Presents - Don (‘t) do that!
Remakes are the order of the day. They are even remaking poems. William Blake’s wry observation on the meaning of life, which goes: “Little Fly, thy summers play, My thoughtless hand, has brushed away” has been remade into an observation of party hopping nightmares:
Your Little Fly
Is open hey!!
Is your thoughtless hand, on holiday?
Yes, so remakes are the order of the day (including this sentence). People are remaking everything from songs to Tarla Dalal’s cooking to movies. I even remade the coffee that I botched up this morning!
The thing with the business of remaking is that one has to start at the beginning. Sometimes even before the beginning, in the past.
This makes remaking a movie a very difficult thing to do involving several precursors to filming. Chief among these is that one has to first, watch the original. This can be pretty annoying especially if you are looking to remake movies like YHTKH, HKSKN or James (sitting through one entire showing of such movies usually ensures that the thought of remaking is quickly rethought and disinfected)
Even if a filmmaker zeroes in on a yesteryear-hit things can go severely wrong at the scripting stage. Today, we will look at some of the pitfalls that the makers of the new Don faced.
In the 28 years that have followed the release of the original Don the Average Indian Height has gone up by about 2 inches (according to statistics provided by Indian Trouser Manufacturers). The new Don though, is shorter by about 6 inches. This is rather unfortunate and makes it very difficult for the filmmaker to show him as a larger than life character (smaller than life heroes don’t work in regular Bollywood fare).
They decided, hence, to set the new movie in Malaysia, where height statistics make our protagonist suitably larger than life.
This done they set out making changes to the script, where necessary and otherwise.
For starters, all the female characters would wear shorter clothes than in the original since they were Indian women of average Indian height, who did their shopping in Malaysia. Also Roma was renamed Aroma, to give her character a unique oriental flavour resulting in metaphysical moments like:
Don: (as he looks for spare bullets, during a gunfight) I can’t find anything! What is this, Aroma?!!!?
Aroma: Oh, that is just the smell of gunpowder
and
Don: (appreciating the wine tasting class that Aroma has enrolled him in) : Oh, Aroma!
Aroma: No! You need to taste the wine, not smell it
The original character Jasjit, had to be rewritten too since there are no careers left for Circus high wire walkers in the absence of all circuses except Navjot Piddhu, in the present day. So the new Jas-jit is a JIT consultant (a Japanese management philosophy which gave the world the farcical face-saving technique of the Just-In-Time marriage) with fake degrees, who gets injured when a huge wedge falls on his foot. After this huge wedgie, he has a permanent limp (which is understandable if you went to the same school as I did).
Moving the story 28 years ahead while retaining its original appeal meant giving the characters a retro look and retaining some original songs.
A great deal of planning and detailing was done on the new version of ‘Khaike pan’ that essentially involved finding a blue shirt with floral prints.
Also, Don, since he is a Malaysia based underworld don, and not a regular white-collar office-goer wears his tie inside his shirt. Thankfully they decided not to do a superman with his innerwear.
All this was done at a huge cost to the makers (as well as the audience).
True to the contemporary setting, the new Don is very gadget-friendly and always carries an iPod and a cool new Blackberry, which make him painfully slow during fight sequences, as he is worried about damaging them. Gadgets also provide fodder for conversation and light moments especially when Malik continuously mistakes ‘pass me some black berries’ for ‘pass me the Blackberry’.
The biggest script challenge was to ensure that none of the present characters ever watched any Indian TV in case they saw reruns of the original Don and hence figured out what happened next. This was an additional reason to set the movie in Malaysia where there are only 3 porn channels (including a news channel called Hot News and a sports channel called Water)
The basic plot remains the same except that they decided not to bump off the actual Don, retaining him in captivity, much like his Versace ties. The masterstroke is the Promo, which shows Don with his face enveloped in smoke, in spite of the ban against depicting cigarette smoking onscreen. This was achieved by shooting in really cloudy conditions in Ooty.
It is easy to see that the biggest movie of 2006, DON is a high-methane, twisted roller-coaster ride, with just the right dose of clamour, action, suspense, romance and rerun quality.
Of course, they called it Don-The Chase Begins only because they were hurrying to catch the October 20th Diwali release.
* Objects in the Preview Mirror may appear sillier than they are.
Disclaimer: Characters in the above story are not based on any characters in the film. Any resemblance or humour is pure luck.
**OPM appears in the Thursday edition of Bangalore BIAS and previews a Friday release
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
5 Oct 2006 - Zindaggi Rocks
OPM*
Presents - Zindagi Rock Bottom
The thing with most women is that they love their jewellery. Not only their own, but also all the stuff in jewellery stores.
This is a problem for the post-metrosexual man who marries/dates this kind of woman, who, it turns out, is every woman but Condoleeza Rice. Now, obviously, since women like jewellery so much it must be plenty likable. A race that makes the world go round, one that treats animals and men with so much care and compassion can scarcely be off the mark.
But for the men who these women condescend to date and/or live with, Jewellery is a big conundrum. One theory that is going around is that Jewellery was invented shortly after the invention of Marriage. This was because after the first few years of marriage men, invariably, ran out of gifting ideas on anniversaries, birthdays, makeup days, make out days etc. Women, at this stage helped men out by inventing Jewellery.
There is another theory making the rounds, which claims that Marriage itself was invented by women to be able to invent Jewellery later. This rings true when you realize that women wouldn’t be marrying just to stay with us men. Especially me.
Zindagi Rocks, a movie that explores the tragic obsession of one woman with Diamonds, answers none of my questions on jewellery, even partially.
Sushmita plays Kria, a Magnificent Woman and a singer who sings for a travelling circus, and is billed only next to Crudus, the Entertaining Clown. Her other colleagues include her brother Karam, the Phenomenal Talent and Loin, a Great Animal Trainer.
The circus is run by a failed Ad agency copywriter with a flair for the descriptive who calls himself Mahesh Batt, the Former Copywriter.
The film begins with a glorious, soprano-like rendition of ‘Diamonds are a girl’s best friend’ by Kria, a sequence further enhanced as she sings while performing a complicated trapeze act that involves her stunt double and some standard issue trapeze equipment.
She ends the song on a high octave landing on the net with a flourish. The audience erupts, but this is primarily because the circus elephant is on the loose and there is pandemonium in the paying public. Everything settles down when people realize that it is only a baby elephant that is on the loose. However, when Loin, a Great Animal Trainer performs his act with lion cubs, there is pandemonium in the paying public again and they start demanding a refund. Everything settles down again as Crudus, the Entertaining Clown performs a crude and hilarious version of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. This act includes several very sad jokes in poor taste like “when in Rome, do a Romeo”. The paying public enjoy the act hugely mainly on account of the fact that Crudus has forgotten his pants.
At the finale, Kria performs ‘Diamonds are a girl’s best friend’ again, to much outrage among the paying public.
This happens throughout the season (precisely 3 days) and we begin to realize that Kria is obsessed with the ‘Diamonds’ song. We also realize that Crudus never forgets his pants, he just doesn’t have any!
In the audience every night is Shiny, a man who has won seasons tickets to the circus. He is to be Kria’s Knight in Shining Armour and everyone is pretty disappointed when he is never shown in anything but Corduroys. Shiny, a budding psychologist, has done world famous research in trying to answer questions concerning jewellery that include but are not limited to:
-Why aren’t American diamonds satisfactory when only a trained jeweller can tell the difference?
-Why is Platinum so expensive when it looks like steel?
-Why is White Gold?
At the end of the season, i.e. the third show, Kria breaks down after yet another rendition of Marilyn Monroe’s ‘Diamonds’. Shiny rushes to her side and becomes her Shrink (mainly because he’s not been getting his daily dose of viagra). She is taken to his clinic, where, as she rests on the couch, she is very keen to know where he bought the very comfortable couch.
After much discussion on jewellery and the 1953 Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell movie, “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes”, the solution to her problem strikes Shiny while he is fiddling with his iPod.
He realizes that Kria is not mentally ill. Nor is she obsessed with rocks of any kind, including diamonds. Her problem is that she only knows ONE song.
Everything ends well when he buys her the new Microsoft Zoon and gifts her several disks of pirated music.
* Objects in the Preview Mirror may appear sillier than they are.
Disclaimer: Characters in the above story are not based on any characters in the film. Any resemblance or humour is pure luck.
**OPM appears in the Thursday edition of Bangalore BIAS and previews a Friday release
Presents - Zindagi Rock Bottom
The thing with most women is that they love their jewellery. Not only their own, but also all the stuff in jewellery stores.
This is a problem for the post-metrosexual man who marries/dates this kind of woman, who, it turns out, is every woman but Condoleeza Rice. Now, obviously, since women like jewellery so much it must be plenty likable. A race that makes the world go round, one that treats animals and men with so much care and compassion can scarcely be off the mark.
But for the men who these women condescend to date and/or live with, Jewellery is a big conundrum. One theory that is going around is that Jewellery was invented shortly after the invention of Marriage. This was because after the first few years of marriage men, invariably, ran out of gifting ideas on anniversaries, birthdays, makeup days, make out days etc. Women, at this stage helped men out by inventing Jewellery.
There is another theory making the rounds, which claims that Marriage itself was invented by women to be able to invent Jewellery later. This rings true when you realize that women wouldn’t be marrying just to stay with us men. Especially me.
Zindagi Rocks, a movie that explores the tragic obsession of one woman with Diamonds, answers none of my questions on jewellery, even partially.
Sushmita plays Kria, a Magnificent Woman and a singer who sings for a travelling circus, and is billed only next to Crudus, the Entertaining Clown. Her other colleagues include her brother Karam, the Phenomenal Talent and Loin, a Great Animal Trainer.
The circus is run by a failed Ad agency copywriter with a flair for the descriptive who calls himself Mahesh Batt, the Former Copywriter.
The film begins with a glorious, soprano-like rendition of ‘Diamonds are a girl’s best friend’ by Kria, a sequence further enhanced as she sings while performing a complicated trapeze act that involves her stunt double and some standard issue trapeze equipment.
She ends the song on a high octave landing on the net with a flourish. The audience erupts, but this is primarily because the circus elephant is on the loose and there is pandemonium in the paying public. Everything settles down when people realize that it is only a baby elephant that is on the loose. However, when Loin, a Great Animal Trainer performs his act with lion cubs, there is pandemonium in the paying public again and they start demanding a refund. Everything settles down again as Crudus, the Entertaining Clown performs a crude and hilarious version of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. This act includes several very sad jokes in poor taste like “when in Rome, do a Romeo”. The paying public enjoy the act hugely mainly on account of the fact that Crudus has forgotten his pants.
At the finale, Kria performs ‘Diamonds are a girl’s best friend’ again, to much outrage among the paying public.
This happens throughout the season (precisely 3 days) and we begin to realize that Kria is obsessed with the ‘Diamonds’ song. We also realize that Crudus never forgets his pants, he just doesn’t have any!
In the audience every night is Shiny, a man who has won seasons tickets to the circus. He is to be Kria’s Knight in Shining Armour and everyone is pretty disappointed when he is never shown in anything but Corduroys. Shiny, a budding psychologist, has done world famous research in trying to answer questions concerning jewellery that include but are not limited to:
-Why aren’t American diamonds satisfactory when only a trained jeweller can tell the difference?
-Why is Platinum so expensive when it looks like steel?
-Why is White Gold?
At the end of the season, i.e. the third show, Kria breaks down after yet another rendition of Marilyn Monroe’s ‘Diamonds’. Shiny rushes to her side and becomes her Shrink (mainly because he’s not been getting his daily dose of viagra). She is taken to his clinic, where, as she rests on the couch, she is very keen to know where he bought the very comfortable couch.
After much discussion on jewellery and the 1953 Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell movie, “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes”, the solution to her problem strikes Shiny while he is fiddling with his iPod.
He realizes that Kria is not mentally ill. Nor is she obsessed with rocks of any kind, including diamonds. Her problem is that she only knows ONE song.
Everything ends well when he buys her the new Microsoft Zoon and gifts her several disks of pirated music.
* Objects in the Preview Mirror may appear sillier than they are.
Disclaimer: Characters in the above story are not based on any characters in the film. Any resemblance or humour is pure luck.
**OPM appears in the Thursday edition of Bangalore BIAS and previews a Friday release
28 Sept 2006 - John Tucker Must Die
OPM*
Presents - John Tucker comes Unstuck
I envy people. No, not all people. But people who eat junk food all their life and then develop a negligible potbelly when they turn 45.
It just isn’t fair! These people never get their just desserts! They just keep having as many desserts as they want.
I, on the other hand, have lived my life in the fear of that extra kilo. I’ve dined on Atkins, supped on the GM diet, run a couple of half marathons and am still about 8 kilos overweight.
People like me, to pace our wardrobes to our waistlines, continue spending small fortunes every year. We have believed, for unreasonable amounts of time, that the Slim Sauna Belt is worthy of Design awards. (This is usually the amount of time it takes to call the sales line, tell a bewildered sales person that you would actually like to order the belt, assure him it isn’t a prank call, receive the product and open the packaging to find that it isn’t that design-hot. The pain is worse when you realize that even though they call it the slim-sauna you cant really use it as a belt for your pants as they haven’t made belt loops that large as yet)
Us, obesity-prone yahoos, have also realized that gym is called gym because it is for gymnasts and athletes and all those people who keep sportswear companies going. We are always going to be the fat ones chugging away at the treadmill and providing encouragement to thinner and fitter people, much in the way George Bush provides mirth to all.
It is for us that they invented liposuction. Nobody knows why it is called “Lipo-suction” though. They understand the suction part, but no one has dope on what ‘Lipo’ is. Lipo rhymes with Hippo, come to think of it.
We have followed studies in vague magazines like Vogue about how Weight watchers in USA have more success at watching their weight than people in India and other Commonwealth countries.
All the assorted mysteries that intrepid obese explorers have been trying to unravel are cleared up in this weeks release “John Tucker Must Die”.
John Tucker is the world’s most famous liposuction expert. Hence the name, John Tucker. He is also a handsome man with jet-black hair who claims to be only 29 years old. No one believes him and there is a cry in social circles that John Tucker Must Dye (his hair).
As a liposuction expert, he has built a huge fortune thinning down wealthy obese clients including Paris Hiltown, her Chihuahua, and Fatboy Slim, the rap artist.
Fat people flock to him much like huge herds of flying elephants, as his liposuction procedure, remarkably, leaves people with great skin and a great basal metabolic rate.
There are rumours though that he sells all the fat he accumulates, mining his celebrity clients, for huge sums on online ecommerce sites for the celebrity crazy. The CIA and the IRS want him to come clean, else his fat is on the fire.
The story arc goes on to show how John Tucker, with the help of his three girlfriends, Tomie, Dickie and Harini, clears up his name by showing that he has never performed liposuction. In an almost famous court scene he says:
Tucker: All I know about Liposuction, is that Lipo derives its name from the old Latin word for “The Head”, i.e. The Lipo of the family, Julius Caesar.
I’m only a gym instructor with 7 anaesthetist credits at Medical school. I have never given Lipo. (He gets warned for using bad language in court for this)
All I do is anaesthetize my clients and wrap them up in my Giant Sauna Belt for about 3 days. It really works. Call 800 200 9898 today! (He gets warned for using marketing language in court for this)
It all ends happily when NASA cancels 17 space missions to commission 3 Giant Sauna Belts instead.
Somewhere in the subtext was hidden for me the answer to why Weight Watchers in USA do better than their Commonwealth counterparts. In USA they watch the pounds. We are watching the Kilos, damn it!
For actual dope on Liposuction go to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liposuction
* Objects in the Preview Mirror may appear sillier than they are.
Disclaimer: Characters in the above story are not based on any characters in the film. Any resemblance or humour is pure luck.
Presents - John Tucker comes Unstuck
I envy people. No, not all people. But people who eat junk food all their life and then develop a negligible potbelly when they turn 45.
It just isn’t fair! These people never get their just desserts! They just keep having as many desserts as they want.
I, on the other hand, have lived my life in the fear of that extra kilo. I’ve dined on Atkins, supped on the GM diet, run a couple of half marathons and am still about 8 kilos overweight.
People like me, to pace our wardrobes to our waistlines, continue spending small fortunes every year. We have believed, for unreasonable amounts of time, that the Slim Sauna Belt is worthy of Design awards. (This is usually the amount of time it takes to call the sales line, tell a bewildered sales person that you would actually like to order the belt, assure him it isn’t a prank call, receive the product and open the packaging to find that it isn’t that design-hot. The pain is worse when you realize that even though they call it the slim-sauna you cant really use it as a belt for your pants as they haven’t made belt loops that large as yet)
Us, obesity-prone yahoos, have also realized that gym is called gym because it is for gymnasts and athletes and all those people who keep sportswear companies going. We are always going to be the fat ones chugging away at the treadmill and providing encouragement to thinner and fitter people, much in the way George Bush provides mirth to all.
It is for us that they invented liposuction. Nobody knows why it is called “Lipo-suction” though. They understand the suction part, but no one has dope on what ‘Lipo’ is. Lipo rhymes with Hippo, come to think of it.
We have followed studies in vague magazines like Vogue about how Weight watchers in USA have more success at watching their weight than people in India and other Commonwealth countries.
All the assorted mysteries that intrepid obese explorers have been trying to unravel are cleared up in this weeks release “John Tucker Must Die”.
John Tucker is the world’s most famous liposuction expert. Hence the name, John Tucker. He is also a handsome man with jet-black hair who claims to be only 29 years old. No one believes him and there is a cry in social circles that John Tucker Must Dye (his hair).
As a liposuction expert, he has built a huge fortune thinning down wealthy obese clients including Paris Hiltown, her Chihuahua, and Fatboy Slim, the rap artist.
Fat people flock to him much like huge herds of flying elephants, as his liposuction procedure, remarkably, leaves people with great skin and a great basal metabolic rate.
There are rumours though that he sells all the fat he accumulates, mining his celebrity clients, for huge sums on online ecommerce sites for the celebrity crazy. The CIA and the IRS want him to come clean, else his fat is on the fire.
The story arc goes on to show how John Tucker, with the help of his three girlfriends, Tomie, Dickie and Harini, clears up his name by showing that he has never performed liposuction. In an almost famous court scene he says:
Tucker: All I know about Liposuction, is that Lipo derives its name from the old Latin word for “The Head”, i.e. The Lipo of the family, Julius Caesar.
I’m only a gym instructor with 7 anaesthetist credits at Medical school. I have never given Lipo. (He gets warned for using bad language in court for this)
All I do is anaesthetize my clients and wrap them up in my Giant Sauna Belt for about 3 days. It really works. Call 800 200 9898 today! (He gets warned for using marketing language in court for this)
It all ends happily when NASA cancels 17 space missions to commission 3 Giant Sauna Belts instead.
Somewhere in the subtext was hidden for me the answer to why Weight Watchers in USA do better than their Commonwealth counterparts. In USA they watch the pounds. We are watching the Kilos, damn it!
For actual dope on Liposuction go to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liposuction
* Objects in the Preview Mirror may appear sillier than they are.
Disclaimer: Characters in the above story are not based on any characters in the film. Any resemblance or humour is pure luck.
21 Sept 2006 - Wickerman
OPM*
Presents - Wicker Doors
You know that it would be untrue,
You know that I would be a liar,
If I were to say to you mom,
I couldn’t get much higher
Come on lady, lift me higher
Come on lady, lift me higher
Mommy I really need that lyre
Yeah, yeah, yeah
Lift me higher
Lift me higher yeah yeah
- Little Jim Morrison
Jim Morrison’s father, Morris, who named him Jim Morrison, was a man who married a Gym Instructor. Jim’s mommy was weirder than his father, if you can believe that. She insisted that every desire of little Jim’s would be met if he climbed trees, the taller the better. Jim, whose childhood ambition was to own a lyre and play it after he set fire to his home, just couldn’t climb Rosewood trees as he was in love with a girl named Rose. The lyrics above, were written by Little Jim, as a tribute to his struggle to get a lyre. The poems he wrote about his childhood aspirations formed the basis for the lyrics he wrote for The Doors later in life.
This week’s release is a movie based on these early years of Jim’s life. Since it is only about Jim and not about the band ‘The Doors’ it is aptly called Door.
Oops, or is that Door without an extra o – Dor! I’ve no preview, unfortunately, for Nagesh Kukunoor’s Dor, so we will take a look at what Nicholas Cage’s “The Wickerman”, that releases tomorrow, is about.
Wickertionary.com Unabridged (v 1.0.1)
wicker /ˈwɪk ər/ Pronunciation Key [wik-er] - A flexible branch or twig of a plant such as willow, used in weaving baskets and furniture
Cage plays a man who owns a furniture store that deals exclusively in Wickerwork. Unfortunately the branches and twigs he’s been getting as raw material are only as flexible as his own facial muscles. This means that he can only make wickerwork curtain rods and walking sticks. The curtains come down on his business soon enough and he decides to experiment with wicker till he finds the best wicker possible. In the course of his experiments he has an accident involving a truckload of wicker and 3 espresso machines.
When he wakes up he finds he can spin webs of wicker a la Spiderman. He jumps off his balcony only to realize that wicker webs don’t stick and is badly hurt. This doesn’t deter him and he becomes a superhero – WickerMan!
To get buzz going he advertises in the personals column offering his services as WickerMan Superhero. This done, he worries about a costume and a secret identity (he has neither but is not naked). As he doesn’t have the body to carry off the innerwear-outside style adopted by so many superheroes, he wears normal clothes bought at the mall.
He begins receiving calls for help, but usually when someone wants a wickerwork sofa mended. In addition to this, he has no friends, as the better-known superheroes are an exclusive set. He has to settle for 2nd and 3rd grade superhero friends like CycleRepairMan, WatchMan, YesMan and ManFriday. They sit in a pub all day in hope that honest citizens will need their help. CycleRepairMan helps a child with his tricycle but that doesn’t really bring them cheer.
Meanwhile, on the Internet, a fat evil nerd called Newman is spreading WickerMan jokes like:
Superman: Lois, I wish I knew my own strength! I can never fix your plumbing without damaging everything.
Lois: I know what we’ll do. Lets call on WeakerMan!
Or
Batman: Vicki, all my underwear is in the laundry. What do I do?
Vicki Vale: I know what we’ll do. Lets call on KnickerMan!
WickerMan, all upset and riled turns neurotic, writing poems like-
Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
I’m a schizophrenic,
And so am I.
Finally he decides to invent his own mission. He pretends that he has been called upon to investigate the disappearance of a young girl, Alice, who was last seen next to a rabbit hole. Newman ruins it for him by asking questions on National TV about Lewis Carroll.
WickerMan breaks down and confesses on Oprah, after which, in gratitude, he weaves up a wicker chair for her on the show. All ends well when he is given hundreds of orders on the show and WickerMan becomes a millionaire.
* Objects in the Preview Mirror may appear sillier than they are.
Disclaimer: Characters in the above story are not based on any characters in the film. Any resemblance or humour is pure luck.
Presents - Wicker Doors
You know that it would be untrue,
You know that I would be a liar,
If I were to say to you mom,
I couldn’t get much higher
Come on lady, lift me higher
Come on lady, lift me higher
Mommy I really need that lyre
Yeah, yeah, yeah
Lift me higher
Lift me higher yeah yeah
- Little Jim Morrison
Jim Morrison’s father, Morris, who named him Jim Morrison, was a man who married a Gym Instructor. Jim’s mommy was weirder than his father, if you can believe that. She insisted that every desire of little Jim’s would be met if he climbed trees, the taller the better. Jim, whose childhood ambition was to own a lyre and play it after he set fire to his home, just couldn’t climb Rosewood trees as he was in love with a girl named Rose. The lyrics above, were written by Little Jim, as a tribute to his struggle to get a lyre. The poems he wrote about his childhood aspirations formed the basis for the lyrics he wrote for The Doors later in life.
This week’s release is a movie based on these early years of Jim’s life. Since it is only about Jim and not about the band ‘The Doors’ it is aptly called Door.
Oops, or is that Door without an extra o – Dor! I’ve no preview, unfortunately, for Nagesh Kukunoor’s Dor, so we will take a look at what Nicholas Cage’s “The Wickerman”, that releases tomorrow, is about.
Wickertionary.com Unabridged (v 1.0.1)
wicker /ˈwɪk ər/ Pronunciation Key [wik-er] - A flexible branch or twig of a plant such as willow, used in weaving baskets and furniture
Cage plays a man who owns a furniture store that deals exclusively in Wickerwork. Unfortunately the branches and twigs he’s been getting as raw material are only as flexible as his own facial muscles. This means that he can only make wickerwork curtain rods and walking sticks. The curtains come down on his business soon enough and he decides to experiment with wicker till he finds the best wicker possible. In the course of his experiments he has an accident involving a truckload of wicker and 3 espresso machines.
When he wakes up he finds he can spin webs of wicker a la Spiderman. He jumps off his balcony only to realize that wicker webs don’t stick and is badly hurt. This doesn’t deter him and he becomes a superhero – WickerMan!
To get buzz going he advertises in the personals column offering his services as WickerMan Superhero. This done, he worries about a costume and a secret identity (he has neither but is not naked). As he doesn’t have the body to carry off the innerwear-outside style adopted by so many superheroes, he wears normal clothes bought at the mall.
He begins receiving calls for help, but usually when someone wants a wickerwork sofa mended. In addition to this, he has no friends, as the better-known superheroes are an exclusive set. He has to settle for 2nd and 3rd grade superhero friends like CycleRepairMan, WatchMan, YesMan and ManFriday. They sit in a pub all day in hope that honest citizens will need their help. CycleRepairMan helps a child with his tricycle but that doesn’t really bring them cheer.
Meanwhile, on the Internet, a fat evil nerd called Newman is spreading WickerMan jokes like:
Superman: Lois, I wish I knew my own strength! I can never fix your plumbing without damaging everything.
Lois: I know what we’ll do. Lets call on WeakerMan!
Or
Batman: Vicki, all my underwear is in the laundry. What do I do?
Vicki Vale: I know what we’ll do. Lets call on KnickerMan!
WickerMan, all upset and riled turns neurotic, writing poems like-
Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
I’m a schizophrenic,
And so am I.
Finally he decides to invent his own mission. He pretends that he has been called upon to investigate the disappearance of a young girl, Alice, who was last seen next to a rabbit hole. Newman ruins it for him by asking questions on National TV about Lewis Carroll.
WickerMan breaks down and confesses on Oprah, after which, in gratitude, he weaves up a wicker chair for her on the show. All ends well when he is given hundreds of orders on the show and WickerMan becomes a millionaire.
* Objects in the Preview Mirror may appear sillier than they are.
Disclaimer: Characters in the above story are not based on any characters in the film. Any resemblance or humour is pure luck.
Thursday, September 28, 2006
Aham Mudha Asi
I love it when people wax eloquent over words said or read, and soundbites like 'deep meaning' and 'profound eloquence' emerge.
It offers deep profound eloquent insights into those people.
It offers deep profound eloquent insights into those people.
Monday, September 18, 2006
OPM* - SHIVA (or) Shiva’s Regal Story (or) The Shivers
Last week, Objects in the Preview Mirror came out into the world with no warning or explanations. Like a blackhead or a Nadal 3rd round loss at the US Open.
This week, I intend to set the record straight and make the intent of this column even less clear.
Being an avid movie watcher I have gathered one very important fact. This is that people will continue to watch movies however unreal, miscast, boring, tepid or unimaginative the promos are. This column, hence, is dedicated to all those moviegoers who will continue to watch movies in spite of them being written about here.
Once in a while I aim to give you some small relief, hopefully comic, to fill in the time between driving, working and living in this city.
Today we will look at what Shiva, that releases tomorrow, could be about.
It all starts when Shirke is appointed Minister of Sport. Shirke is a lazy corrupt man who decides that gambling is a sport and ties up with Drug Dealers who want to invest money in casinos.
Meanwhile:
Shiva is an honest cop who pays for his chai and paan even though he doesn’t consume either. (Several people leave him cash for chai-paani)
His main grouse is against gamblers of all kinds. This is because all through his adolescence, his father, a tabla player, would lose at gambling and then practice his version of the teen mar on him (not the percussion rhythm, the practice of hitting teenagers)
Shiva gets an intelligence report from a stool pigeon in Shirke’s offices that Shirke has connections with Drug Dealers.
Shiva gets riled when he hears mention of Drug Dealers, because of his aversion to gambling and Dealers of all kinds.
Thus starts his war against the Dealer cartel. When he arrests 37 car dealers on basis of their visiting cards, he gets demoted.
His girlfriend, Nisha Kothari, a yellow journalist promises to put him in touch with someone who can help.
Enter Karriappan. Karriappan runs a Dvd piracy cartel. He has problems communicating with people because his entire vocabulary is in the language of Film. His driver never understands when he asks to rewind (reverse) the car and gets fined by the police twice for parallel parking.
In spite of these troubles, he runs a professional Dvd piracy outfit called
“Pirates of the Karriappan”. Being a bit of a pervert, all the women on his team have cards that say “Privates of the Karriappan”. This is his second favourite joke. (His favourite is – What is the difference between Mallika Sherawat and RGV? One has a lot to show, while the other has a lot to say.)
No one except Nisha Kothari has ever laughed at either of these and he is forever indebted to her. Nisha is actually a great actress who manages to convince Karriappan that she was laughing with and not at him.
Shiva meets Karriappan to discuss strategies to get at the Drug Dealers. Karriappan gives him box sets of Karan Johar movies that will compel the Dealers to fall in love amidst blossoms and sunflowers. He also tells Shiva that he could have a bright future as an actor and that he must prepare himself for an actor’s life. In the Interrogation Chamber Shiva starts focussing the lights on himself. This foxes all the criminals he interrogates and they confess to crimes they haven’t committed. Shiva thus solves 27% of the cases in Indian criminal courts in 14 days. This is a better record than any policeman in fiction and he gets rewarded with a trip to Brindavan Gardens.
All the Drug Dealers are there with bouquets in hand romancing Nisha Kothari who is now enjoying her work as a fulltime stool pigeon, instead of churning out crap for yellow journals.
Shiva rounds up the drug dealers and they confess that though they have been shirking work at the casinos because of the box sets they received, this is actually a good thing. They give him evidence against Minister Shirke, who has also been shirking work, which, in his case, is not a good thing.
Shirke is jailed. The Drug Dealers become Drug Lords when they get knighted for no reason, thus ending Shiva’s war with them. Nisha Kothari falls off a stool and gets fired because as a stool pigeon one really has to stay on the stool. She joins Karriappan’s team and he hands her a card that reads “Privates of the Karriappan”.
* Objects in the Preview Mirror may appear sillier than they are.
Disclaimer: Characters in the above story are not based on any characters in the film. Any resemblance or humour is pure luck.
This week, I intend to set the record straight and make the intent of this column even less clear.
Being an avid movie watcher I have gathered one very important fact. This is that people will continue to watch movies however unreal, miscast, boring, tepid or unimaginative the promos are. This column, hence, is dedicated to all those moviegoers who will continue to watch movies in spite of them being written about here.
Once in a while I aim to give you some small relief, hopefully comic, to fill in the time between driving, working and living in this city.
Today we will look at what Shiva, that releases tomorrow, could be about.
It all starts when Shirke is appointed Minister of Sport. Shirke is a lazy corrupt man who decides that gambling is a sport and ties up with Drug Dealers who want to invest money in casinos.
Meanwhile:
Shiva is an honest cop who pays for his chai and paan even though he doesn’t consume either. (Several people leave him cash for chai-paani)
His main grouse is against gamblers of all kinds. This is because all through his adolescence, his father, a tabla player, would lose at gambling and then practice his version of the teen mar on him (not the percussion rhythm, the practice of hitting teenagers)
Shiva gets an intelligence report from a stool pigeon in Shirke’s offices that Shirke has connections with Drug Dealers.
Shiva gets riled when he hears mention of Drug Dealers, because of his aversion to gambling and Dealers of all kinds.
Thus starts his war against the Dealer cartel. When he arrests 37 car dealers on basis of their visiting cards, he gets demoted.
His girlfriend, Nisha Kothari, a yellow journalist promises to put him in touch with someone who can help.
Enter Karriappan. Karriappan runs a Dvd piracy cartel. He has problems communicating with people because his entire vocabulary is in the language of Film. His driver never understands when he asks to rewind (reverse) the car and gets fined by the police twice for parallel parking.
In spite of these troubles, he runs a professional Dvd piracy outfit called
“Pirates of the Karriappan”. Being a bit of a pervert, all the women on his team have cards that say “Privates of the Karriappan”. This is his second favourite joke. (His favourite is – What is the difference between Mallika Sherawat and RGV? One has a lot to show, while the other has a lot to say.)
No one except Nisha Kothari has ever laughed at either of these and he is forever indebted to her. Nisha is actually a great actress who manages to convince Karriappan that she was laughing with and not at him.
Shiva meets Karriappan to discuss strategies to get at the Drug Dealers. Karriappan gives him box sets of Karan Johar movies that will compel the Dealers to fall in love amidst blossoms and sunflowers. He also tells Shiva that he could have a bright future as an actor and that he must prepare himself for an actor’s life. In the Interrogation Chamber Shiva starts focussing the lights on himself. This foxes all the criminals he interrogates and they confess to crimes they haven’t committed. Shiva thus solves 27% of the cases in Indian criminal courts in 14 days. This is a better record than any policeman in fiction and he gets rewarded with a trip to Brindavan Gardens.
All the Drug Dealers are there with bouquets in hand romancing Nisha Kothari who is now enjoying her work as a fulltime stool pigeon, instead of churning out crap for yellow journals.
Shiva rounds up the drug dealers and they confess that though they have been shirking work at the casinos because of the box sets they received, this is actually a good thing. They give him evidence against Minister Shirke, who has also been shirking work, which, in his case, is not a good thing.
Shirke is jailed. The Drug Dealers become Drug Lords when they get knighted for no reason, thus ending Shiva’s war with them. Nisha Kothari falls off a stool and gets fired because as a stool pigeon one really has to stay on the stool. She joins Karriappan’s team and he hands her a card that reads “Privates of the Karriappan”.
* Objects in the Preview Mirror may appear sillier than they are.
Disclaimer: Characters in the above story are not based on any characters in the film. Any resemblance or humour is pure luck.
Preview - Naksha
OBJECTS in the PREVIEW MIRROR*
PRESENTS, today’s release Naksha – Unlock the mystery? OR Funhouse Mirror Tales
Jackie Shroff is a very irritated man. He can never get a good shave or a haircut since every mirror he finds is imperfect. Some mirrors flatter his person while others bloat his face up or distort his body. He is tired for he can’t answer the question ‘What do I look like? Am I fat? ’ This is killing him, as answering this question, is an essential step towards answering other philosophical questions like ‘Who am I?’ (No, not the Jackie Chan movie, the philosophical question)
He decides to stop looking at mirrors and hence doesn’t get a shave or a haircut for 17 months.
He is an archeologist, but can’t spell to save his life. His card, hence, reads,
JS – Archieologist. Combined with his unkempt appearance, passing his card around causes people to guffaw, usually with derisive rejoinders, usually Archie comic rejoinders.
JS, a suffering neurotic, with a very dangerous case of split ends, is at wits end. His obsession with finding out the answer to the question reaches a crescendo when someone mentions Archie comics at his nephew’s school and he cracks. Once cracked, he decides to find the legendary mirror that was once owned by Snow White’s aunt. This mythical mirror is supposed to be perfect and comes with a bonus CD which makes the mirror speak ( It is not known if the Mirror is a great conversationalist though ). JS has heard of a map which, well, maps out the route to take to get to the Mirror.
What he doesn’t know is that there is a map which maps out the route to take to get to the map itself. This map is with a traffic cop called Inspector Allosius. Inspector Allosius is a shy, part malayalee, officer of the law who has recently been demoted from a crime branch cop to a traffic cop. This happens because he solves some high profile cases and when the heat is on the powerful criminals, they go at him hammer and tongs and get him demoted. As a traffic cop Allosius is having a terrible time as he is shy and hence can’t give anyone directions on time. He is, though, very respected in little Danbolim as he is the only one who has read anything connected to philosophy. No one knows that he has only read Sophie’s World and actually thinks “Locke, Kant, Marx and Hegel” are words in the English language. This is demonstrated when he says “Please, you Kant Hegel (can’t haggle). That Marx (mark) shows that you crossed on to the wrong lane. Any more and I’ll have you under Locke (lock) and key!”
Sunny Deol and Viveik Oberoi are brothers, but step brothers. They have different fathers, hence different surnames. Sameera Reddy also has a different surname but is not related to the deol-oberoi brothers. They play college kids who are lost. This is because they have a car. And a map.
Two men, a girl, a map and a car.
I rest my case. They are lost.
And they are all pretty riled up, blaming each other for being lost, while not singing barely melodious songs to atrocious dancing by one of the deol-oberoi brothers.
As JS passes them they are shouting at each other “Go look at yourself in the Mirror. Can’t even read the map that we have!!!” JS, having Locke-d himself away from society for so long , does not understand the sarcasm in the statement and decides that he must steal the map from them.
What ensues is a whole load of action packed car chases and confrontations between Deol and JS, memorable among which is this exchange:
JS – I’m an Archieologist! Gimme the map.
Deol – So what if you are an Archieologist, I watched Mahabharat and Ramayan on Television.
After taking a couple of wrong turns everyone involved ends up at little Danbolim town. They stop at the junction to ask for directions and meet Allosius.
Deol - Hallo.
Allosius – Not Allo, my name is Allosius, sir.
Deol – Can you give us directions to Bangalore?
Allosius – (mumbles incoherently)
Deol – (screams) Can you give us a good map?
Allosius – (hesitantly) All I have is a map to a map
JS – Well that is it!! Give it to me!
JS follows directions and finds the Mirror. The Mirror is really old and looks like it has hitchhiked across the world. The bonus CD is all scratched up, but when JS looks into the mirror it answers that famous question about life, the universe and everything and says, in a loud, booming voice : 42
JS, appalled at his own girth, waists no time and rushes to VCLC to lose weight. They cut his hair off and immediately charge him for 5 kilos of weight loss.
Sunny Deol goes on to manufacture a sunny smelling Deo called Sunny Deo. Viviek gets busy marrying Sameera Reddy, but receives too many phone calls and gives up.
Ps: Allosius gets reinstated as a Crime Branch cop when he, unwittingly, directs some infamous criminals to the Police Station.
* Objects in the Preview Mirror may appear sillier than they are.
PRESENTS, today’s release Naksha – Unlock the mystery? OR Funhouse Mirror Tales
Jackie Shroff is a very irritated man. He can never get a good shave or a haircut since every mirror he finds is imperfect. Some mirrors flatter his person while others bloat his face up or distort his body. He is tired for he can’t answer the question ‘What do I look like? Am I fat? ’ This is killing him, as answering this question, is an essential step towards answering other philosophical questions like ‘Who am I?’ (No, not the Jackie Chan movie, the philosophical question)
He decides to stop looking at mirrors and hence doesn’t get a shave or a haircut for 17 months.
He is an archeologist, but can’t spell to save his life. His card, hence, reads,
JS – Archieologist. Combined with his unkempt appearance, passing his card around causes people to guffaw, usually with derisive rejoinders, usually Archie comic rejoinders.
JS, a suffering neurotic, with a very dangerous case of split ends, is at wits end. His obsession with finding out the answer to the question reaches a crescendo when someone mentions Archie comics at his nephew’s school and he cracks. Once cracked, he decides to find the legendary mirror that was once owned by Snow White’s aunt. This mythical mirror is supposed to be perfect and comes with a bonus CD which makes the mirror speak ( It is not known if the Mirror is a great conversationalist though ). JS has heard of a map which, well, maps out the route to take to get to the Mirror.
What he doesn’t know is that there is a map which maps out the route to take to get to the map itself. This map is with a traffic cop called Inspector Allosius. Inspector Allosius is a shy, part malayalee, officer of the law who has recently been demoted from a crime branch cop to a traffic cop. This happens because he solves some high profile cases and when the heat is on the powerful criminals, they go at him hammer and tongs and get him demoted. As a traffic cop Allosius is having a terrible time as he is shy and hence can’t give anyone directions on time. He is, though, very respected in little Danbolim as he is the only one who has read anything connected to philosophy. No one knows that he has only read Sophie’s World and actually thinks “Locke, Kant, Marx and Hegel” are words in the English language. This is demonstrated when he says “Please, you Kant Hegel (can’t haggle). That Marx (mark) shows that you crossed on to the wrong lane. Any more and I’ll have you under Locke (lock) and key!”
Sunny Deol and Viveik Oberoi are brothers, but step brothers. They have different fathers, hence different surnames. Sameera Reddy also has a different surname but is not related to the deol-oberoi brothers. They play college kids who are lost. This is because they have a car. And a map.
Two men, a girl, a map and a car.
I rest my case. They are lost.
And they are all pretty riled up, blaming each other for being lost, while not singing barely melodious songs to atrocious dancing by one of the deol-oberoi brothers.
As JS passes them they are shouting at each other “Go look at yourself in the Mirror. Can’t even read the map that we have!!!” JS, having Locke-d himself away from society for so long , does not understand the sarcasm in the statement and decides that he must steal the map from them.
What ensues is a whole load of action packed car chases and confrontations between Deol and JS, memorable among which is this exchange:
JS – I’m an Archieologist! Gimme the map.
Deol – So what if you are an Archieologist, I watched Mahabharat and Ramayan on Television.
After taking a couple of wrong turns everyone involved ends up at little Danbolim town. They stop at the junction to ask for directions and meet Allosius.
Deol - Hallo.
Allosius – Not Allo, my name is Allosius, sir.
Deol – Can you give us directions to Bangalore?
Allosius – (mumbles incoherently)
Deol – (screams) Can you give us a good map?
Allosius – (hesitantly) All I have is a map to a map
JS – Well that is it!! Give it to me!
JS follows directions and finds the Mirror. The Mirror is really old and looks like it has hitchhiked across the world. The bonus CD is all scratched up, but when JS looks into the mirror it answers that famous question about life, the universe and everything and says, in a loud, booming voice : 42
JS, appalled at his own girth, waists no time and rushes to VCLC to lose weight. They cut his hair off and immediately charge him for 5 kilos of weight loss.
Sunny Deol goes on to manufacture a sunny smelling Deo called Sunny Deo. Viviek gets busy marrying Sameera Reddy, but receives too many phone calls and gives up.
Ps: Allosius gets reinstated as a Crime Branch cop when he, unwittingly, directs some infamous criminals to the Police Station.
* Objects in the Preview Mirror may appear sillier than they are.
Thursday, August 10, 2006
Objects in the Preview Mirror - KANK
This is a sneak preview into the world of Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna that releases today.
KANK, for Director Karan Johar, is a major departure from his earlier films.
The film starts not with not One but Two marriages happening.
Shah Rukh plays Raj Malhotra, because he is Shah Rukh.
Rani plays Anjali, in the absence of Kajol.
Abhishek also plays Raj Malhotra, because, well, who doesn’t want to be Shah Rukh? [Except 743 nuns, 23 Buddhists and 3 elephants]
Priety Zinta plays Zuleika, because of her Persian lineage.
Priety playing Zuleika is Karan Johars' metaphysical twist, showing how much he has matured as a savings bond...er..as a director, incorporating characters with foreign lineage thus keeping pace with globalization.
So two marriages.
As all people involved are traditional people in abbreviated clothes, the women, as is custom, take their husband's name post marriage.
Due to this tradition, Shah Rukh becomes Anjali, Abhishek becomes Zuleika and Rani and Priety become Raj Malhotra.
As is expected, this causes a lot of confusion and when Shah Rukh wants to kiss Anjali, he is appalled that he has to kiss himself. Another brilliant scene is when, his wife, Raj Malhotra wants to watch Mani Ratnam’s Anjali and Shah Rukh (Anjali) walks out midway because he is traumatized.
These scenes are filmed beautifully and make it worth Shah Rukh's facial acrobatics.
Abhishek, who plays Zuleika, has his own moment, when he is expected to shave since he has a woman's name. He has trouble with his visiting cards and loses 23 clients because he passes them the wrong cards. Abhishek also has to fend of 12 Iraqis who fall in love with his name.
Rani and Preity do not face too many problems, as they are househusbands. Except on Karva Chauth, when they can’t decide whether they need to keep fast. They also spend a few thousand rupees at the hair stylists’ getting short crops befitting men (in spite of Mahendra Dhoni).
Both couples finally decide that the best way out of the confusion would be to relocate to a foreign country where they don’t understand Indian names.
They apply for Visas at the British consulate. Raj Malhotra, though, gets late for the visa appointment. Both Raj Malhotras. This is because they can’t resist going to the Annual Sweater Fair in Chennai. This causes Anjali and Zuleika to be very upset and marital discord sets in, mainly as they are upset that Raj Malhotra didn’t pick up sweaters for them.
Which is why the promos read, ‘A Fair that broke all relationships’. (What’s that? You are saying it reads ‘An Affair that broke all relationships”. No no.. You are mistaken. I suggest you watch the promos again)
This is when they meet Amitabh Bachchan, who plays Amitabh Bud-chan, a flamboyant half Chinese man who lives on Budweiser beer. He is the Head of Operations at the British consulate, who gets close to being fired for being flamboyant and making too many stiff British upper lips flinch, by sporting a ‘French’ beard. He is saved when he explains that there is no ‘British’ beard as such, else he would sport it. All in all he is a good sport and saves the two couples from watching ‘Tu Hoti toh kya Hota’, a mind numbing comedy based on the Mile High Club by Mr. Shah.
Post this good deed he quotes from Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2) to the couples in a God like voice -
‘What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other word would smell as sweet. ‘
This resolves all differences between the couples and they decide to go back home.
The Shakespeare quote inspires an Udipi hotel owner, who is standing nearby, to make a movie based on Othello. He calls it Om-Kara Bath.
Also the quote creates a flutter in flower markets around the world and at the Amsterdam Flower market, Roses are sold as Sunflowers, Mrs. Barney, Ronaldinho and McDowell’s Number One.
The movie ends with a solemn hurrah to Shakespeare in the form of Britney Spears performing a dance number…hence Shake Spears.
* Objects in the Preview Mirror may appear sillier than they are. Send in your objections to OPM.bias@gmail.com
KANK, for Director Karan Johar, is a major departure from his earlier films.
The film starts not with not One but Two marriages happening.
Shah Rukh plays Raj Malhotra, because he is Shah Rukh.
Rani plays Anjali, in the absence of Kajol.
Abhishek also plays Raj Malhotra, because, well, who doesn’t want to be Shah Rukh? [Except 743 nuns, 23 Buddhists and 3 elephants]
Priety Zinta plays Zuleika, because of her Persian lineage.
Priety playing Zuleika is Karan Johars' metaphysical twist, showing how much he has matured as a savings bond...er..as a director, incorporating characters with foreign lineage thus keeping pace with globalization.
So two marriages.
As all people involved are traditional people in abbreviated clothes, the women, as is custom, take their husband's name post marriage.
Due to this tradition, Shah Rukh becomes Anjali, Abhishek becomes Zuleika and Rani and Priety become Raj Malhotra.
As is expected, this causes a lot of confusion and when Shah Rukh wants to kiss Anjali, he is appalled that he has to kiss himself. Another brilliant scene is when, his wife, Raj Malhotra wants to watch Mani Ratnam’s Anjali and Shah Rukh (Anjali) walks out midway because he is traumatized.
These scenes are filmed beautifully and make it worth Shah Rukh's facial acrobatics.
Abhishek, who plays Zuleika, has his own moment, when he is expected to shave since he has a woman's name. He has trouble with his visiting cards and loses 23 clients because he passes them the wrong cards. Abhishek also has to fend of 12 Iraqis who fall in love with his name.
Rani and Preity do not face too many problems, as they are househusbands. Except on Karva Chauth, when they can’t decide whether they need to keep fast. They also spend a few thousand rupees at the hair stylists’ getting short crops befitting men (in spite of Mahendra Dhoni).
Both couples finally decide that the best way out of the confusion would be to relocate to a foreign country where they don’t understand Indian names.
They apply for Visas at the British consulate. Raj Malhotra, though, gets late for the visa appointment. Both Raj Malhotras. This is because they can’t resist going to the Annual Sweater Fair in Chennai. This causes Anjali and Zuleika to be very upset and marital discord sets in, mainly as they are upset that Raj Malhotra didn’t pick up sweaters for them.
Which is why the promos read, ‘A Fair that broke all relationships’. (What’s that? You are saying it reads ‘An Affair that broke all relationships”. No no.. You are mistaken. I suggest you watch the promos again)
This is when they meet Amitabh Bachchan, who plays Amitabh Bud-chan, a flamboyant half Chinese man who lives on Budweiser beer. He is the Head of Operations at the British consulate, who gets close to being fired for being flamboyant and making too many stiff British upper lips flinch, by sporting a ‘French’ beard. He is saved when he explains that there is no ‘British’ beard as such, else he would sport it. All in all he is a good sport and saves the two couples from watching ‘Tu Hoti toh kya Hota’, a mind numbing comedy based on the Mile High Club by Mr. Shah.
Post this good deed he quotes from Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2) to the couples in a God like voice -
‘What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other word would smell as sweet. ‘
This resolves all differences between the couples and they decide to go back home.
The Shakespeare quote inspires an Udipi hotel owner, who is standing nearby, to make a movie based on Othello. He calls it Om-Kara Bath.
Also the quote creates a flutter in flower markets around the world and at the Amsterdam Flower market, Roses are sold as Sunflowers, Mrs. Barney, Ronaldinho and McDowell’s Number One.
The movie ends with a solemn hurrah to Shakespeare in the form of Britney Spears performing a dance number…hence Shake Spears.
* Objects in the Preview Mirror may appear sillier than they are. Send in your objections to OPM.bias@gmail.com
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
Pay this Forward please
On World Tibet Day, say this with me - on your blogs, on sms, on email:
FREE TIBET
Read this on Dilip's blog : http://dcubed.blogspot.com/2006/07/tibet-from-14th-floor.html#comments
FREE TIBET
Read this on Dilip's blog : http://dcubed.blogspot.com/2006/07/tibet-from-14th-floor.html#comments
Sunday, July 02, 2006
Superman Returns - Preview
This is a preview to Superman Returns that I wrote a week before it released in India. It was sent to the publisher of a small Bangalore based paper that I will be doing Previews for. Previews in this vein.
The paper turns Daily next month from its present weekly format. My article will appear every Friday. Yes, theyve made a big mistake.
Objects in the Preview Mirror
Superman Returns - But from Where??
Lex Luthor is a happy man. Insanely happy. He considers changing his name to Lux Lather as a tribute to his diabolical world domination plan, but fails to get the Gazette Office on phone.The plan involves stolen crystals from the Fortress of Solitude - Detergent used on Planet Krypton which Kal-el's mother packed for him surreptitiously in case Kal-el needed a clean white shirt. The gravity on Earth combined with the ultraviolet rays from our yellow Sun have the same effect on the detergent as on Superman. One crystal can make an entire lake foam. Lex Luthor plans to hold the water resources of the world to ransom as he,with the 17 super value packs of super-detergent he has, can make the oceans of the Earth foam. The thought leaves Lex foaming at the mouth and his ugly henchwoman gives him mouth to mouth resuscitation which makes him further ill. He recovers though when his henchmen recount glowing tales of how he sent Superman away in the first place.
Previewers note: Superman on his home planet Krypton was called Kal-el. The super detergent was called detergent and his mother was called Mother.
Lois Lane is a happy woman. Happy Homestead Happy.Her husband considers changing her name to Lois Six Lane Highway as a telling comment on her weight gain in the last five years but Lois gets through to the Liposuction clinic before he can reach the Gazette office on phone.She loses a 100 pounds and then hits the gym with a vengeance. Unfortunately she hits the gym instructor with a 100 pound weight and has to leave the gym. As she is leaving she runs into the man who runs a Botox clinic next door who tells her that Botox is better than the gym for her wrinkles just like Liposuction was better than the Slim Sauna Belt. She gets back home to find her husband still trying the Gazette office. She reminds him that it is a Sunday and one can hardly expect the Government to work on a weekend when they are tired from not working all week, especially with the government exchange program they have with the Govt of Karnataka. He agrees and they head out to catch the latest Batman movie 'Batman Begins to Get Lucky'.
Perry White and Jimmy Olsen are two really happy dudes. Perry White considers changing the name of his newspaper, The Daily Planet, to ‘Very White’ as a tribute to his very successful detergent brand ‘Very White’, but cant get through to the Gazette Office.Jimmy Olsen considers picking up the phone at the Gazette Office ,where he has been employed for five years now, but decides not to.
Previewers note: The Perry White and Jimmy Olsen subplots are underdeveloped.
Where has Supe been all this while.? Cut to the backstory of how Lex Luthor sent him away:
Lex Luthor floats a rumour while on vacation on his yacht in the Caribbean that Superman or Kal-el was not born on Krytpon but in Cal-cutta and hence the name Kal-el. Also that The Fortress of Solitude was actually The Fortress of Solitude for the World from Superman and all its multimedia was built by the CIA including the Jor-el images that were actually of a major Hollywood actor called Marlon Brando. He also feeds this rumour by
releasing on the black-market an Indian Documentary called 'Hum kisi se Kam nahi' starring then unknown actors Akshay and Suneil, involving the story of how Colonel Chikara looked for a rare Indian green cheese called 'Krypton'. After viewing this documentary Supe is convinced of his Calcutta origins and flies of in search of his roots. He spends ages looking for his roots, which are difficult to find, owing to the fact that he isn't a plant.
Previewers note: This backstory is played at superspeed and it is likely that you will miss the details
Cut to Present day:
Superman is a struggling actor in Kollywood called Kalel Bose. He has grown a stubble and wears his cape as a chadar a la Guru Dutt in Pyaasa. He has no work as regular heroes in regional films jump over tall buildings and fight 74 villains at once with ease. He has also been rejected as a journalist in Calcutta as he does not read bengali and, more importantly, doesn't own a jhola. He spends his time eyeing all the doe eyed bengali women aided by Supervision.
Cut to Metropolis, which is a hot bed of crime especially on the Metrorail where they need a lot of polis..er police.On the Metro a Scandinavian homosexual sells soup to meet men socially, or well, economically. His soup is always bad and his sales cry of 'Soups up' is usually met with exclamations of 'No good at all!!' from customers who taste his abominations.
In Calcutta there is a football match, a strike and an agitation to bring back Ganguly on. Superman, to pass time, decides to use superhearing to scan the airwaves. The first thing he picks up is 'Supes up to no good at all', several times over as the soup seller is having a field day on the Metro.
This worries Supe no end and he begins to think that Superman impostors are wrecking good old Metropolis. He decides to Return.
Hence Superman Returns from Calcutta.
The rest of the story revolves around how Supe foils Lex Luthor by flinging all the super detergent into space, thereby creating 17 new galaxies where living things are foam-based instead of the standard issue carbon based lifeforms we are familiar with. This means they live really slippery lives and several beings make their millions selling grip products like Velcro.
There is also a subplot as to how Supe is no longer attracted to slim and pretty Lois Lane as he now yearns for buxom Bengali girls with lovely doe eyes.
Things slowly fall back in place for our intrepid superhero though and he does his routine of saving the world from certain destruction several times over.
Now if only Jimmy Olsen picked up his calls !!
ps: Calcutta was renamed Kol-katta to pay homage to the years Supe spent there.
Disclaimer: Objects in the Preview Mirror may appear sillier than they are.
The paper turns Daily next month from its present weekly format. My article will appear every Friday. Yes, theyve made a big mistake.
Objects in the Preview Mirror
Superman Returns - But from Where??
Lex Luthor is a happy man. Insanely happy. He considers changing his name to Lux Lather as a tribute to his diabolical world domination plan, but fails to get the Gazette Office on phone.The plan involves stolen crystals from the Fortress of Solitude - Detergent used on Planet Krypton which Kal-el's mother packed for him surreptitiously in case Kal-el needed a clean white shirt. The gravity on Earth combined with the ultraviolet rays from our yellow Sun have the same effect on the detergent as on Superman. One crystal can make an entire lake foam. Lex Luthor plans to hold the water resources of the world to ransom as he,with the 17 super value packs of super-detergent he has, can make the oceans of the Earth foam. The thought leaves Lex foaming at the mouth and his ugly henchwoman gives him mouth to mouth resuscitation which makes him further ill. He recovers though when his henchmen recount glowing tales of how he sent Superman away in the first place.
Previewers note: Superman on his home planet Krypton was called Kal-el. The super detergent was called detergent and his mother was called Mother.
Lois Lane is a happy woman. Happy Homestead Happy.Her husband considers changing her name to Lois Six Lane Highway as a telling comment on her weight gain in the last five years but Lois gets through to the Liposuction clinic before he can reach the Gazette office on phone.She loses a 100 pounds and then hits the gym with a vengeance. Unfortunately she hits the gym instructor with a 100 pound weight and has to leave the gym. As she is leaving she runs into the man who runs a Botox clinic next door who tells her that Botox is better than the gym for her wrinkles just like Liposuction was better than the Slim Sauna Belt. She gets back home to find her husband still trying the Gazette office. She reminds him that it is a Sunday and one can hardly expect the Government to work on a weekend when they are tired from not working all week, especially with the government exchange program they have with the Govt of Karnataka. He agrees and they head out to catch the latest Batman movie 'Batman Begins to Get Lucky'.
Perry White and Jimmy Olsen are two really happy dudes. Perry White considers changing the name of his newspaper, The Daily Planet, to ‘Very White’ as a tribute to his very successful detergent brand ‘Very White’, but cant get through to the Gazette Office.Jimmy Olsen considers picking up the phone at the Gazette Office ,where he has been employed for five years now, but decides not to.
Previewers note: The Perry White and Jimmy Olsen subplots are underdeveloped.
Where has Supe been all this while.? Cut to the backstory of how Lex Luthor sent him away:
Lex Luthor floats a rumour while on vacation on his yacht in the Caribbean that Superman or Kal-el was not born on Krytpon but in Cal-cutta and hence the name Kal-el. Also that The Fortress of Solitude was actually The Fortress of Solitude for the World from Superman and all its multimedia was built by the CIA including the Jor-el images that were actually of a major Hollywood actor called Marlon Brando. He also feeds this rumour by
releasing on the black-market an Indian Documentary called 'Hum kisi se Kam nahi' starring then unknown actors Akshay and Suneil, involving the story of how Colonel Chikara looked for a rare Indian green cheese called 'Krypton'. After viewing this documentary Supe is convinced of his Calcutta origins and flies of in search of his roots. He spends ages looking for his roots, which are difficult to find, owing to the fact that he isn't a plant.
Previewers note: This backstory is played at superspeed and it is likely that you will miss the details
Cut to Present day:
Superman is a struggling actor in Kollywood called Kalel Bose. He has grown a stubble and wears his cape as a chadar a la Guru Dutt in Pyaasa. He has no work as regular heroes in regional films jump over tall buildings and fight 74 villains at once with ease. He has also been rejected as a journalist in Calcutta as he does not read bengali and, more importantly, doesn't own a jhola. He spends his time eyeing all the doe eyed bengali women aided by Supervision.
Cut to Metropolis, which is a hot bed of crime especially on the Metrorail where they need a lot of polis..er police.On the Metro a Scandinavian homosexual sells soup to meet men socially, or well, economically. His soup is always bad and his sales cry of 'Soups up' is usually met with exclamations of 'No good at all!!' from customers who taste his abominations.
In Calcutta there is a football match, a strike and an agitation to bring back Ganguly on. Superman, to pass time, decides to use superhearing to scan the airwaves. The first thing he picks up is 'Supes up to no good at all', several times over as the soup seller is having a field day on the Metro.
This worries Supe no end and he begins to think that Superman impostors are wrecking good old Metropolis. He decides to Return.
Hence Superman Returns from Calcutta.
The rest of the story revolves around how Supe foils Lex Luthor by flinging all the super detergent into space, thereby creating 17 new galaxies where living things are foam-based instead of the standard issue carbon based lifeforms we are familiar with. This means they live really slippery lives and several beings make their millions selling grip products like Velcro.
There is also a subplot as to how Supe is no longer attracted to slim and pretty Lois Lane as he now yearns for buxom Bengali girls with lovely doe eyes.
Things slowly fall back in place for our intrepid superhero though and he does his routine of saving the world from certain destruction several times over.
Now if only Jimmy Olsen picked up his calls !!
ps: Calcutta was renamed Kol-katta to pay homage to the years Supe spent there.
Disclaimer: Objects in the Preview Mirror may appear sillier than they are.
Thursday, June 01, 2006
I took a test at www.politicalcompass.org and this is where I stand.
Not one worldleader for company anywhere close to where I am plotted on the graph:) I knew it... with no power comes no responsibility.
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