When politics sounds good for a change !

Was not surprised to see hard nosed critics melting. It is difficult not to be able to believe that he is working. He has gone beyond the threshold of having to work to convince his opponents. He is truly there. In the nirvana of true politics. Where politics is not inclusive of conniving and scheming tactics. Where politics actually means governance.

Where his ego does not restrict him to still seek a cuppa of tea with his detractors. He feels no compulsion to bad mouth our neighbours to make some quick brownie points. He is clear in his support for the civilian government and the need to be cautious of other 'actors'. He smiles away accolades of his appreciated speech in the US Congress. He talks of a unified world. He almost reminds of being a man heading towards achieving enlightenment in politics.

He understands the maturity of voters who maturely vote for who they as their separate benefactors for the state and the country. He warns and chides wilful defaulters that he is losing his patience with people who do not pay taxes. He needs the money to save the poor. He appreciates states governance irrespective of affiliation.

A level of maturity in a statesman or a politician last seen during the freedom struggle we think. You cannot get more genuine than this. Hear him out if you have the patience to worry about a country that we as countrymen owe responsibility to, in equal measure.

Arnab proves that he usually pretends to be a noisy irksome journalist as he engraves the PM in soft glory that he so rightfully deserves.

A man heading steadily towards the Nobel peace Prize !

The Indian PMs interview with Arnab - Times NOW

Yawnliens

Just staggered out. I mean like it is difficult to walk steady immediately after sleeping through lot of light and sound . Disturbing sleep. Luckily had the jacket on. So did not feel the intense cold.

You understand it happens when you experience wholesale bunkum. Figure challenged aliens who take two decades to figure out they were annoyed with the president of their favorite western nation and decide to revisit again with their entire clumsy selves and 2mn tons of garbage aluminium with cheap LEDs pretending to be sophisticated technology .

The various states of heads are annoyed in varying degrees except for the heads of the most powerful nation in the world of course who take it upon themselves to pilot smaller aluminium junkyards and save the world .

Meanwhile the Boy Scout club with their favorite girlfriends from diverse countries play video games in greenish blue light

Finally the clumsy alien has to collapse in a heap more due to sheer boredom than the pixelated lights and frenzied background music .

I caught all of this in between 10000 winks of sleep and 752 morsels of pop corn. It was too salty though but I did count .

I think it's time for an alienexit! Yawn !

"I am a poor man Sir " The TV stories

A young man is in the limelight on the stage. Dramatic performance and exhibition of talent. The music reaches a crescendo and he finishes the act with a finesse. The judges stand up applauding.

One of the judges makes the usual effusive comments of praise. The participant is assured of greater success ahead. And then comes the bolt from the blue .

" What does your family do? "

The participant's expression suddenly alters. The music orchestra which has been recently chided for not giving their money's worth picks the cue and goes into a horrifying version of Tchaikovsky sad symphony and the participant wrinkles up his face to emote.

" We are from a very poor family, Sir"

The judge is intrigued and is baying for the kill

Judge : " Really how poor? "

" Very poor sir / madam . I am their only hope"

Judge : " Oh do you get food to eat, do you walk like 20 kms to draw water from the well ? do you ..blah blah ...( thinking up of all the drudgery that he thinks makes up for a poor mans life)

In the background the director of the show is chewing up his nails. He wants those tears . Come on you punks ..Cry. The participant accedes and bawls

'Pan pan' ...the director screams at the editor and the cameramen. 'Take tight very very tight closeups. I want a bloody high resolution pics of those tear drops. The TRP has to go through the roof'

An Assistant director creeps upto the director " Sir the judge is sobbing too"

" What ? " the director gasps " You paid her extra too . we don't have those budgets ! "

Asst Director " No sir they seem to be genuine...but he may ask for the dough later "

Back on the stage the participant is describing his degrees of gareebi / poverty picking up as much footage the director thinks is required for the Sobs to up the TRP.

The judge is sobbing " Gosh...You are really damn poor. Go on young man . I am sure you will rise in this competition and make us all cry even...er sorry ....happy even more. I can see you in the finals already "

The TV viewers too are all watching eyes misty.

Show over ! everyone dabs their eyes and go back to their Ipads.

Seriously how much poverty is there in the world. Had it not been for these reality shows. Never would have known.

Wild and Beautiful - Sairat

With a crinkled lopsided smile the girl stylishly swings her shades into place while the shy boy struggles to confirm her attention and affectations for him.  The boy is egged on by his adorable friends to express his feelings but is taken aback when the girl actually responds more aggressively to the point of being wooed more strongly  in an amusing case of role reversal the type, you rarely see in Indian cinema. This is more than a welcome start to a movie that grips you by its creative tentacles and does not let you go till the stunning end.

A love story,it is set in the weird residue of caste politics that still seems to afflict our country in some parts. We have seen it before when two lovers from different castes fall in love and have to face the harsh rebuttal from some sections of society but Nagraj Manjule of Fandry fame seizes you and takes you on a breathless ride into a harsh world of politics, casteism and love where they cannot co-exist. The story slaps you into reality to believe that the 21^st century India still has its share of problems and yet there is hope when a girl with gusto grabs the reins and propels her future with her lover herself in a wild manner. In a ‘sairat’ manner so to say.

It is best to just circle around the summary of the story and not spoil it for those who are yet to see it because it is an experience in itself. A wild girl who defies the norms of her society and rebels against everything that is wrong with it as it refuses to let love bloom without boundaries.

Each and every character is a find in this movie and it would be wrong to single out any particular actor. But yet you can barely take your eyes of Rinku Rajguru a girl so much an antithesis of what a heroine should be. She has absorbed the role of the Archana the daughter of the local legislator (Suresh Vishwakarma) so strongly that it is difficult to tell the two apart. She graduates from a girl to a mother seamlessly. A flick of her eyebrow, smiling with her eyes, swinging her braided hair around strengthening the image of a beautiful girl but with a mind all of her own, as it should be in society today.

Akash as Prashant a boy  belonging to a different caste who falls in love with her has a more subdued role but very important role as it has to complement the aggressiveness of Archana without ever deflating his own importance. He treads the line beautifully.

Tanaji and Arbaz as the friends are so believable. Chaya Kadam as the lady in Hyderabad who comes across the couple tends to go overboard a bit but has an applause worthy entry which reminded me of Sunny Deol in Damini

There are just four songs by Ajay Atul but very good on the ears. The songs reminded me of the grand orchestration style used by some other music directors like Rahman and Illayaraja.

The photography by Sudhakar Reddy especially in songs ‘ Yad lagla’ is simply outstanding.  “Attach Baya” and Sairat Jhala Ji by Shreya Ghoshal are bound to be big hits . The crowd pleaser is of course an ecstatic Zingaat .

This is one of those movies that will affect you positively and negatively long after you have watched it. Watch out for simple and effective scenes where the directors expertise in making ordinary scenes compelling, like the granny who chases her ward out right in the middle of a match, Archana cooly riding various vehicles without too many slow mos to underline the achievement, simple sidekicks who never overplay their roles and even the director himself who appears as a weak willed teacher. Clever writing and witty dialogues envelop the entire script

This will shake the foundations of Hindi film industry as they will wake up to the reality that movies with simple and effective stories can be money spinners without senseless item numbers and loud sets and garish scenes. This belongs to the Anurag Kashyap brand of film making and many more are welcome.

Look forward to what Nagraj does next and how each of the actors fare out in their future ventures. Absolutely unmissable venture as an entertaining piece as well as something making a very important statement on society today

Interesting FAN and the Boring star

‘We paid you enough’ berates an obviously stinking rich entrepreneur at the star as he mumbles apologies with just the faint hint of angry pride and proceeds to perform at the wedding. Some more scenes like this could have helped define realistically the star that SRK plays in the movie, ostensibly himself. You cannot miss the Launchpad notification for his son Aryan Khan coming soon. The star SRK who emerges on his balcony to wave to frenzied crowds misses a seriously star struck look alike in the mob below. The FAN has come all the way from Delhi prodded gently by his equally star struck parents doing their bit to support the fanatic fan who incidentally also looks like his idol. This FAN character also again played by the star himself is one of the better etched characters in recent times.

Every star has fans and their presence and numbers define the strength of a star as is often reflected in the fan clubs and  FB pages run by the fans and silently supported by the stars themselves. It is the danger when these fans cross from their real lives into a surreal arena of  blurred familiarity with the star that trouble erupts. The FAN is annoyed at being ignored failing to understand how the star can just not notice his Sohan ka halwa and his years of devotion.  Failing to attract his attention the fan then launches into a neurotic response first by attacking those who he believes harms the star and then the star himself after he is led behind the bars for his action.

The story is actually quite engrossing till this point and then suddenly the YRF banners remembers its old movies with a frenzied Darr type action and the hero decides that no law keeping force will solve his problems and he needs to exhibit his rough street side of Delhi nature as he describes it to protect himself and his family.  The plot is lost by then and SRK who had the role of his lifetime etched out in the FAN suddenly remembers his love for Tom Cruise type of Mission Impossible actions riding speeding motor bikes and swinging across Bond Like across roofs. The concept goes completely implausible from here on.

It is only the FAN character etched out obviously when the team’s creativity was at its peak that stands out authentically defined and enacted. The makeup is almost flawless and so is the gait.  The director does not bother to dwell too much into the surrounding human atmosphere of the star and everything seems disconnected and unrealistic. The Fans character is so good that his parents include the fine Yogendra Tiku pale in comparison. Even the Star SRK seems unsure of how he really wants to be perceived as a star and while there are some chuckling self-deprecatory moments, they are just not enough. His family which could have been the strongest point to underline his fierce protective nature, is played by forgettable characters.  Shriya Pilgaokar playing the fans love interest makes a silent mark. Rest of the characters are completely flat . The movie is incredibly boring and stretched in the second half.

On a whole the film has you rooting for SRK the actor willing him to succeed in his new hard effort to be different and get angered at the lapses into Hollywood type of an action movie without any logic. The film is a missed chance at what could have been a landmark movie for SRK. You return home thinking about the FAN though.

Smart alluring Title – since 1921

Ever seen movies trying to recreate actual relentless conversations without a break requiring obviously multiple cameras and sharp editing. It is what differentiates standard cinema where cameras pause and wait for characters to finish their delivery and then the editors respectfully move to the second camera taking care to give enough screen time to egoistic actors. Now if an invisible camera were to move around, the home of four chaotic but people from everyday life ,as they scream their way around each other and even frighten a visiting plumber, is what it could perhaps capture in Kapoor & Sons as it pans out for major part of its screenplay. You secretly wonder how the director knew this was the way our families operated.

A frustrated infidel hubby, a frantic homely wife with a mind of her own, who loves her two sons but unequally, the two sons one a successful novelist and other an aspiring one, who bump into a lively bubbly today girl who owns a home that one of the brothers aspire to buy.  And hovering over this scenario is a cuddly 90 year old who insists on being naughty much to the delight of his grandsons and casual indifference of his harried son and his loving daughter in law.  There is really no motive to the story to describe.

The dysfunctional family spends its time juggling various balls of affection, anger, jealousy, infidelity, humor amongst themselves and yet they seem untouched by hatred. You like each of them individually except  when they interact painfully with each other. It is like a slice of their life brought to the screen with no start and no specific end. If the aspiration of the grandfather to have a family picture together can be treated as an end goal well then it does have an emotional motive. For he does not believe he will live long though he defies the hospitals and ill health, shocking nurses and grandchildren with his naughty porn affliction and Ipapad jokes.

What keeps you gripped is the effortless and breathless narration as the characters go around their daily lives unaffected by a camera hovering around them. No posing for the camera, worrying about wrong angles, dialogues and emotions flowing out seamlessly.

Rajat Kapoor and Ratna Pathak especially are a treat to watch as the couple over the hill trying to keep their relationship together despite the loud whispers of an affair on the sidelines.  Fawad Khan looking dashing as the novelist perfect son who returns home and is sucked into a complicated patch-up with his less successful brother Sidharth Malhotra. The uber cool Sidharth is besotted with the lively Alia reprising her State 2 type of character, bold and forthcoming.  Rishi Kapoor as the grandpa has a meaty role and easily the best lines that draw guffaws from the audience.

They all look real and extremely believable. Fallible as they are as human beings you pick up one of them as your favorites and root for them. Somewhere in your transparent conscience you know this is the dark closet that exists in every family that remains within the family to be covered by an all is well façade meant for the external world.

The direction works, the hyperventilating dialogue delivery works, the editor obviously had a lot of work to do and executed it efficiently, the music is easily forgotten and not required at all. The cinematography is good while it is outdoors but inside it struggles to keep pace with the relentless exchanges that happen and creates a hurting to the eye transition in some of the scenes.

So then why do you feel dissatisfied at the end? Is it what seems to be apparent  lack of motive for the plot?  The focus seems to be on delivering witty one liners (which works) but not working on assembling the individual excellences together. There is a tearing hurry in the execution. Some things remain difficult to digest. That a liaison in a small town remains unnoticed till a shocked son discovers it. Sometimes you get the feeling that the scenes stitched together make the plot and not the way round.

Obviously the naughty and bordering on the obscene dialogues work with the today crowd but it does get irksome when the talk about blue films and Mandakini s innocent sultry scenes in a Kapoor movie get dragged beyond comfort.  The fact that somehow Rishi’s voice does not seem to gel with his overdone nonagenarian make up distracts. Alia springs to action whenever there is humor to be curdled out of teeny bopper situation. Sidharth is quietly efficient working with his smiles. Ratna Pathak steals the scenes whenever she is in while Rajat wears the role very believably. It is Fawad Khan you leave the theatre with, admiring.  While good looks help, it is the finesse with which he bringsto life  a mixed up personality angry with the pressures of having to keep unto an image, that impresses.

If only the director Shakun Batra had put in more purpose and zing into the extraordinary cast, witty one liners and outstanding editing and less very obvious proxy marketinging of cigarettes as the entire cast seems to highlight the virtues of cigarettes and sutta !!!  it could have been unmissable. Even now it is any day better than the average stuff rolled out every week .When I came out of the theatre I felt it was a 2 ½ starrer but I would not put the accountability of bad behavior in a theatre of the young audience that actually reduced the impact, on to the movie.

***

Madam Sir, We are bored!

He sat scratching his salt and pepper beard waiting anxiously for his star heroine. They had commenced shooting. He looks up as she arrives, doing the cat walk, to where he is sitting. He notices that it is no more the Ms. World Walk. There is a sprightly gait more like seen in Athletic FBI agents. She wears dark Ray bans and moves across with a Tigresses’s confidence. He is happy that she has agreed to work for him but more recently she has asked for a special meeting and he is worried.

The casting had been pitch perfect. A tough woman cop in keeping with the demands of time. This time the time city infested with political goons and police turned bad men, needed woman power to set it right. The area had failed the acid test and it needed ropes. ‘Voluntary’ suicide by the wronged men. But then to get it past the censors it had be balanced with a conscientious law keeper who treads the right side of the law and yet instills fear in all the people. It was so original but then he wondered why no one was enthused till he had said he will cast a woman in the key role.

He had conjured up this this fresh of the oven story where a town is harassed by stinking politicians, their kin, who move around in open jeeps and rape women and commit broad daylight murders. Obviously they had forgotten the acid test or the town had run out of acid. The innocent top politician who is heading to be CM digs his own grave as he dispatches his own friend’s daughter having helped her educate in the IPS and hopes now she will do his bidding.  But the brave officer has other plans. Besides looking very good in a muddy town and wearing what looked like the only set of highly starched and perfectly ironed clothes, she goes around trying to set things right including her own corrupt officer one of the character actors.  She was to launch a full-fledged war carrying forward the legacy of the heroes of acid test movies. So all was set. And then that call.

‘Sir I need to talk to you’. His heart was all flutter. Did she not like the story? Did she want a double role? He had already agreed for top billing in the credits.

“Sir’ she said ending her athletic walk converting into a more athletic pose ‘I cannot thank you enough for having taken me in this movie. But you know that call from Hollywood right for the TV series where I play an FBI agent. Sir it has taken off very well. I don’t know if I can devote enough time for this movie. Sir don’t think I am ungrateful because I have to come back to this industry if it does not work out”

“Madam Sir ’he nodded looking serious’ so you want me to reduce the role? How do we fill the movie? We have 21 face-offs, 11 voluntary suicides, 20 fights, 55 stern one liners expected to win applause and already arranged 60 starched uniforms for you”

“Sir, please stop calling me Madam Sir that is the script of the movie. Tell you what, why don’t you make the corrupt cop as the hero who has a change of heart, the hero of the movie. I will come once in a while, glower, use all those dresses, and throw a few punches that I have learnt at the academy back home. Err I mean my new home.  I will check if there is any copyright to the kicks I will employ here including a few flips over the walls “

“Madam Sir, Yeh aap kya keh rahe ho? Me as a hero. The critics will be waiting out there to tear me apart besides other directors being envious of me for getting in front of the camera as well “

“Sir, Main hoon Na. I will tacitly support you in the movie. Go on do it. But first shave your beard off and look like a cop. Don’t overact that’s all“

“Madam Sir, Ok. I will rewrite the script to make the corrupt cop who has a change of heart and takes over the system in a smart way”

“ Ok cool, Got to rush off sorry dear sir, I have a guftagoo with Fallonbhai and then a photo shoot where I have to quickly tweet pictures of hanging on to some Hollywood’s unknown people’s shoulders like my competitor is currently doing ”

He watched as she sprinted in FBI style back to her car. And she was gone. He had exactly 5 scenes with her and had to rewrite the story to make himself the hero. He got up and looked in the mirror. Not bad uh!

(Extremely fictional write- up.  If it reminds you of a recent movie with a movie with a lady officer and baddies in dusty land then the impression could be purely coincidental)

And in other news Jai Gangajal the new follow-up movie to Gangajal is out. A story of a lady cop dispatched to bring order to a small town where goons outnumber the civilians. The law keepers too have their bank accounts with the political bad masters and hence it is a lone fight against illegal activities for the pretty female IPS officer. She glowers effectively but her walk sometimes gives away that she is an ex MS World but flashes of her Quantico athleticism abound in the few scenes where she makes a guest appearance.

The film belongs rightfully to the understated performance of Prakash Jha also the director of the movie who plays a corrupt cop who goes right. He is not in the least sloppy and turns in a stylish performance and looks awkward only in the fight scenes. He is honestly the best thing in an otherwise boring film with beaten to death sloppy scripts of political goons in a dusty town who need to be finished by hanging them in a spree of mob justice.

Jha usually needs to be lauded for trying to make a proper mix of message and story. But how long can we keep taking in the same story. The length is another problem and with the exception of a few scenes the movie drags badly despite his sincere effort.

Priyanka is sincere but very distracted and lost. Pavan Kaul as the legislator reminds you of Jimmy Shergil and is very promising.  Ninand Kamath missing from the scene for a long time performs the role of a rowdy younger brother very effectively.  The music is painful coming in at all the wrong times and reducing the impact of some of the scenes.

The enterprise then belongs to Prakash Jha who should be lauded for an impactful debut and creating a fresh character in another wise tepid movie.

Wonder if Madam Sir will ever now come back from the glamorous west