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    Reviews

    “A cerebral joyride”
    Karan Johar, filmmaker on REDIFF

    “Among the most charming and creative Indian independent films”
    J Hurtado, TWITCH

    ★★★★✩
    “You don’t really need a big star cast… you don’t even need a big budget to get the techniques of filmmaking bang on…”
    Allen O Brien, TIMES OF INDIA

    ★★★★✩
    “An outstanding experience that doesn’t come by too often out of Indian cinema!”
    Shakti Salgaokar, DNA

    ★★★
    “This film can reach out the young, urban, upwardly mobile, but lonely, disconnected souls living anywhere in the world, not just India.”
    Namrata Joshi, OUTLOOK

    “I was blown away!”
    Aseem Chhabra, MUMBAI MIRROR

    “Good Night Good Morning is brilliant!”
    Rohit Vats, IBN-LIVE

    ★★★✩✩
    “Watch it because it’s a smart film.”
    Shubha Shetty Saha, MIDDAY

    ★★★✩✩
    “A small gem of a movie.”
    Sonia Chopra, SIFY

    ★★★✩✩
    “A charming flirtation to watch.”
    Shalini Langer, INDIAN EXPRESS

    “Interesting, intelligent & innovative”
    Pragya Tiwari, TEHELKA

    “Beyond good. Original, engrossing and entertaining”
    Roshni Mulchandani, BOLLYSPICE

    * * * * *
    Synopsis

    ‘Good Night Good Morning’ is a black and white, split-screen, conversation film about two strangers sharing an all-night phone call on New Year's night.

    Writer-Director Sudhish Kamath attempts to discover good old-fashioned romance in a technology-driven mobile world as the boy Turiya, driving from New York to Philadelphia with buddies, calls the enigmatic girl staying alone in her hotel room, after a brief encounter at the bar earlier in the night.

    The boy has his baggage of an eight-year-old failed relationship and the girl has her own demons to fight. Scarred by unpleasant memories, she prefers to travel on New Year's Eve.

    Anonymity could be comforting and such a situation could lead to an almost romance as two strangers go through the eight stages of a relationship – The Icebreaker, The Honeymoon, The Reality Check, The Break-up, The Patch-up, The Confiding, The Great Friendship, The Killing Confusion - all over one phone conversation.

    As they get closer to each other over the phone, they find themselves miles apart geographically when the film ends and it is time for her to board her flight. Will they just let it be a night they would cherish for the rest of their lives or do they want more?

    Good Night | Good Morning, starring Manu Narayan (Bombay Dreams, The Love Guru, Quarter Life Crisis) and Seema Rahmani (Loins of Punjab, Sins and Missed Call) also features New York based theatre actor Vasanth Santosham (Bhopal: A Prayer for Rain), screenwriter and film critic Raja Sen and adman Abhishek D Shah.

    Shot in black and white as a tribute to the era of talkies of the fifties, the film set to a jazzy score by musicians from UK (Jazz composer Ray Guntrip and singer Tina May collaborated for the song ‘Out of the Blue), the US (Manu Narayan and his creative partner Radovan scored two songs for the film – All That’s Beautiful Must Die and Fire while Gregory Generet provided his versions of two popular jazz standards – Once You’ve Been In Love and Moon Dance) and India (Sudeep and Jerry came up with a new live version of Strangers in the Night) was met with rave reviews from leading film critics.

    The film was released under the PVR Director’s Rare banner on January 20, 2012.

    Festivals & Screenings

    Mumbai Film Festival (MAMI), Mumbai 2010 World Premiere
    South Asian Intl Film Festival, New York, 2010 Intl Premiere
    Goa Film Alliance-IFFI, Goa, 2010 Spl Screening
    Chennai Intl Film Festival, Chennai, 2010 Official Selection
    Habitat Film Festival, New Delhi, 2011 Official Selection
    Transilvania Intl Film Festival, Cluj, 2011 Official Selection, 3.97/5 Audience Barometer
    International Film Festival, Delhi, 2011 Official Selection
    Noordelijk Film Festival, Netherlands, 2011 Official Selection, 7.11/10 Audience Barometer
    Mumbai Film Mart, Mumbai 2011, Market Screening
    Film Bazaar, IFFI-Goa, 2011, Market Screening
    Saarang Film Festival, IIT-Madras, 2012, Official Selection, 7.7/10 Audience Barometer

    Theatrical Release, January 20, 2012 through PVR

    Mumbai
    Delhi
    Gurgaon
    Ahmedabad
    Bangalore
    Chennai
    Hyderabad (January 27)

    * * * * *

    More information: IMDB | Facebook | Youtube | Wikipedia | Website

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Archive For September, 2005

Episode 6: Watching your weight

September 29, 2005 · by sudhishkamath

(Shonali initially refused to write a response to this saying it was extremely distasteful and not worth replying to. I’m glad she did! Aint she good?)

He says:

Ever heard of a girl who eats her heart out and your whole wallet along with it?
In all probability, very unlikely.

Even if she did, it’s incredibly simple to get her to stop.

Pssst: Move romantically closer to her ears and whisper the magic word: Calories!

Then, just sit back and watch: She’s sure to jump out of her chair, pull her stomach in and rush to the restroom. No prizes for guessing, she’s in there checking her waist praying: Mirror, mirror on the wall, can I ever reduce at all?

I don’t get it. Why are women paranoid about putting on weight?

Yes, agreed, there are guys too — the types who believe that the gym is the temple that makes you God.

But that’s just a minority really. Men don’t seem to mind having a little paunch. Some of them, in fact, flaunt their pot-bellies like proud pregnant mothers before the delivery.

The health-conscious decide to burn the beer and the beef by working out the very next day. And the rest know that a few smart lines is all it takes to get the woman find you attractive because women go for brains remember? Or at least they claim so.

Besides, when men are fat, women do seem intelligent enough to realise that there is “more of you to love.”

But to be honest, it’s great that women are figure-conscious.

Men do think that women who watch their weight are super smart. Because, they appreciate and totally dig beauty and attractive women. Besides, what will we men do every time we need a date, but for that adorable babe in the hot dress all dolled up and looking like a billion bucks? Ha ha!

She says:

They say that if Barbie had been a real woman, the only way she would have been able to move with that body structure would have been by crawling.

She must have been thought up by a man.

And she proudly goes on to give women complexes about their appearance even today. But what a lot of men don’t realise is that air brushed magazine models, anorexic ramp walkers and perfectly proportioned movie stars might be the stuff dreams are made up of, but are very likely complete nightmares to date, or live with.

After all, how sweet can you disposition be if you’ve live on a diet of celery, obsess about your skin and hair all day, and spend every waking hour pulverising your body into shape.

No lazy weekends on the beach, no heading out for icecream and hot chocolate after dinner, no sitting up late with cappuccinos and friends. Because, getting sunburnt, putting on a hundred grams or gaining the faintest shadow under your eyes could just be a fate worse than death.

But then, any man who thinks that he’s achieved his very purpose for living when he gains a ‘babe in a hot dress’ hanging off his arm probably isn’t really looking for a girl friend. He’s looking for a trophy.

And as any intelligent woman knows, we’re not trophies. And we’re not decoration.

A beautiful woman lights up a room, not because of her measurements, or an itsy bitsy dress, or because she’s steadfastly refused herself chocolate cake for the past ten years. She’s beautiful because she’s funny, intelligent and glows with self-confidence.

Intelligent woman don’t count calories. And intelligent men don’t expect them to. Beauty, after all, is not only subjective. It’s also just skin deep.

How many of you think kissing in public is obscene?

September 29, 2005 · by sudhishkamath

Yes, serious matter.

No jokes, at least till we have some serious responses.

The last few days have been extremely disturbing.

This season’s moral policing started with Anna University VC telling girls what to wear.

Next, it was the turn of petty politicians to target Khushbu, telling her what (not) to talk about.

The latest of course is Dina Malar’s inexcusably cheap disgusting act of gatecrashing into a nightclub and carrying pictures of girls having a drink, dancing and some of them having intimate moments with their boyfriends/husbands. The captions were distasteful and outrightly perverted. They just stopped short of calling them sluts. Just like how they called Stephanie, a victim of drunken driving last year, a cabaret dancer just because she was spotted dancing along with another guy at a nightclub hours before her death in an accident when four young guys in an inebriated state ran over her. Anyways, drunken driving is altogether another issue and moral policing an equally serious one. Does the media have any right to take pictures of you spending private time with your girlfriend and publish it and then pass judgement on it and call it obscene?

A nightclub is not a public place. It’s a club, which by definition, allows entry only for its members, at a cost, for its services.

Instead of the police arresting the newspaper for invasion of privacy, the dumb f***s arrest two young managers and put them in jail for over 48 hours (if they really had the balls, why not arrest the Managing Director of the hotel, a friend asked).

I heard the Mylapore Deputy Commissioner tell my colleague that they want to finish off nightclubs and arrest every woman from the photos published in Dina Malar. Now, what did these girls do that deserve humiliation or arrest? Is drinking only for men? Is it illegal for women to drink? Is it obscene for a wife to kiss her husband or a girlfriend to kiss her boyfriend even if its a public place (the hotel in any case wasn’t exactly a public place)?

I wrote a story today on how we seem to have two set of rules: One for men and one for women.
We are going to continue this campaign against sexist moral policing, which basically amounts to: telling women what to do, what to wear, what to talk and how to behave.

As I do this, I really want to know opinions. How many of you think kissing in public is obscene? If yes, do you think we need police to crackdown on kissers? If yes, are you willing to stop watching kisses on film and TV? Those who are willing to be quoted in the newspaper could specify your full name with initials, your age and occupation.

Are we becoming a regressive society? I think we’re on our way.

Cuz any society that tries to control its women is. The Taliban did it in Afghanistan, the RSS-Sena tried that in Mumbai and now look, we’re next! Unless, we stop the f***rs at the gates!

The He says, She says blog!

September 29, 2005 · by sudhishkamath

To hit a completely contrasting note (read: lighter, taking-a-dig-at-women tone) and to convince you that Suderman’s multiple personality is still around, here’s a quick update:
In case you guys haven’t noticed, the He says, She says column will be updated every fortnight at its home blog. Dummies, click here to read the latest episode.
🙂

Sport greater than stats!

September 27, 2005 · by sudhishkamath

It’s becoming a cliche to hate Ganguly and scream for his blood.

I’m not gonna do that.

I truly believe he should continue as captain, at least for another six months.

I also think it’s only fair that India’s most aggressive captain gets a chance to sign off in style, when he’s among runs.

Also, that the next six months will be a true test of character. If he CAN really perform in the next few months, not only will he silence all those people who think they know more than the man in the middle but he will also get himself the platform to exit in style: lead the team for the World Cup and an opportunity to win it.

The pressure on Sourav when he next goes in to bat will be more than that of a No.11 player going in to bat chasing six of the last over of a World Cup final. Because, Sourav will know he’s being watched. He will know he’s being evaluated, he will know that there are critics waiting to jump up in delight screaming: “I told ya” as he walks back to the pavilion. He knows there will be Greg Chappell waiting with a smirk, a VVS Laxman and a Kaif waiting to replace him in the very next season.

If he can handle this kind of pressure and come out of it with his head held high, I think he deserves to stay.

I think it’s only natural for a successful captain to turn complacent. To take his position in the team for granted. Sourav may have been guilty on that front in the last few years. He no longer can do that, and that’s the good news.

I think it’s wonderful that he has not been sacked. I’m also glad that the BCCI has not let the coach down either.

Sack Ganguly and you instantly can see morale of half the team go down, after all he has been backing his set of faithfuls. Sack Chappell and you can see the morale of the other half of the team collapse. The truth is we cannot afford to lose either half. Not the regulars. Not the hopefuls.

So, I really like the idea of putting two people who don’t like each other into a same room and say: “You got no choice, guys. Live with it. Perform or find yourself out. We’ll be watching.”

There are no more secrets. Ganguly knows Chappell thinks he’s a misfit. Chappell knows Ganguly hates him. What more needs to be said? They’ve exchanged it all or will do so in the next few weeks. But soon, they will realise that they REALLY have no choice but to work together. Because, there is a sense of purpose that binds them. That purpose is victory for the team.

As a filmmaker and a scriptwriter, I know that a crisis is a point of transformation. It is the lowest you can hit in the span of a story.

Also, what many people forget while baying for Ganguly’s blood is that statistics and current form alone cannot determine a person’s future in a team. Which is why I think it’s okay to make Ganguly sit out for not being in form but you cannot sack him as captain for good, which is usually what the case is in Indian cricket when someone over 30 sits out.

Because, cricket is a game. Numbers are important but not everything.

But a captain is everything, and not just important.

Sport is played not through statistics, but through raw passion, ungirdled emotion and pure unadulterated spirit. It’s played with aggression, for God’s sake. And Sourav personifies that very essence of sport. Agreed that Dravid is too much of a gentleman cricketer, a diplomat liked by all members of the team. That’s great if you were leading a delegation of managers but not when you want to intimidate your opposition. Not when you want to whip up the adrenaline. Not when you want to override convention. This is where Sourav scores.

Sport is about a team and the interplay of personal relationships in it. The ability to manipulate efforts and emotions of individuals into the objective of the team: Victory. To instil, to bind and create spirit out of interactions and personal relationships. No amount of talent can replace team spirit.

Sourav is an emotional guy. And that’s why he will make a great leader for a sports team. He’s demonstrated this before. He’s one of the few Indian captains who has been successful in putting opposition under pressure with aggressive unconventional field placements. He’s a risk taker. Dravid’s field placements as we’ve seen are way too safe to produce a victory.

It is this emotional quotient that gives sport its character. It is this emotional quotient that will give Sourav the perspective to make amends with coach Chappell. It is this emotional quotient that will help him stage a comeback. And help him resolve the differences in the team. If he still has it intact, that is.

The only way to resolve differences in a team is to resolve the differences between the power centres and not introduce new power centres and give it that much more time for the interplay of characters result in new unpredictable power equations. If the two can resolve their differences and share from each other’s ideologies… Sourav being all heart and Chappell being all mind, between the two of them, they can create a potent lethal team that is sound in both its heart (emotional department run by Ganguly) and head (rational scientific thinking supplied by Chappell).

It is media speculation and analysis that is the prime reason that every one today thinks he’s an authority on the subject. Regular everyday sport conflicts suddenly have come under the microscope. Conflicts have always been around. It does not mean we stick our noses into the dressing room, sitting so far away from it and take sides.

Let them be, they (the captain and the coach) will figure it out. They know the game more than you or me do.

It’s best for Indian cricket that they are made to live together. That’s how Indian marriages have worked over centuries. The in-laws (selectors) are watching. Neither the bride nor the groom can afford to screw-up.

For Sourav, the test of his life begins now. He alone is responsible for his fate from now on. Not you, not me, not Chappell.

Living in: Anbe Aaruyire versus Salaam Namaste!

September 25, 2005 · by sudhishkamath

This season, two films on live-in relationships released and everyone went: Not bad, Indian cinema is getting progressive.

Is it really??

Having seen both Salaam Namaste and Anbe Aaruyire, I can’t help but be dissappointed.

As already mentioned in my review, Salaam Namaste reduces the issue of live-in relationship to complications of pre-marital sex. And Anbe Aaruyire, inspite of the ugly as hell S.J.Suryah, is surprisingly more convincing, though it does skirt the issue of sex and ironically at that, behind a dozen double entendres.

Before you think I like the movie, let me say I find the idea of S.J.Suryah as a stud protagonist disgusting. Cheran played an ordinary guy in ‘Autograph’ and he was convincing at that. But here, that comedian guy Santhanam looks much more talented and smarter than Suryah. Suryah by no standards qualifies as a stud (he wants us to believe his pretty colleague would do anything to sleep with him), he cannot act for nuts, his voice modulation totally sucks and his shameless copying of Superstar’s finger language is a big turn off.

He’s certainly a director with potential as ‘Khushi’ revealed. While ‘Khushi’ dealth with ego in relationships, ‘Ah Aah’ deals with trust. Though I do appreciate the idea and the premise of the film, it’s in the execution that I think he’s goofed up.

Firstly, no relationship makes sense with S.J.Suryah in it. ha ha!

Even if I were to put my bias against Suryah away for a moment and try to appreciate the film, all I can only credit him is for choosing to explore trust in a relationship, though it is a half-baked and lost in the director’s indulgence as an actor. After a decent set-up of the conflict in the first half of the film, you would think that the film will go deeper into the issue. Instead, he resorts to fantasy and a double role by personifying his memories of her and her memories of his and loses the plot in the interplay between these four characters.

And what’s the idea of giving these fantasy characters special powers of being able to blow curtains and photoframes? Caught between fantasy and realism, Ah Aah loses its way through the second half, especially using three songs in the space of 25 minutes after interval. Double-meaning lines alone aren’t enough to make a film entertaining. It seems to be a criminal waste of a plot when the freshness in the idea is lost in the exhibition of indulgence.

Maybe Suryah should concentrate in direction and scriptwriting and let a more capable actor do the acting. Because, there surely was more potential in ‘Ah Aah’ than what came out. Besides, there are very few filmmakers who choose to explore contemporary boy-girl relationships in Tamil films.

Where does living in fit into the whole scheme of things? No where. The lovers (eeeks, I hate the word) would have had the same problems even if they lived separately. Then why put them under the same house? To just suggest intimacy. If they were that intimate and close, would they still have a problem of trust? And how about telling us a little more on what led to the relationship and how did they adapt to living in together in the first place? Why the ambiguity in role of sex? Do they resist or give in to the temptation? If the director can show us that he dresses her up in the saree and gives her a bath in the tub, why doesn’t he just cut to the chase and tell us if they did do it or not? And the complication of sex in live-in relationships?

It is the immaturity with which Siddharth Anand and S.J.Suryah have handled live-in relationships that is disppointing. Both the films had enormous potential. A relationship itself is complex, why further complicate it by making the films about live-in relationships?

I don’t understand. Why make them live-in if you don’t have the balls to tell us the true story of live-in relationships with their glorious complications?

Review: Chocolate (Unedited!)

September 23, 2005 · by sudhishkamath

Lost in translation, this flick goes BUST!

Cast: Anil Kapoor, Irrfan, Tanushree Dutta, Suniel Shetty, Sushma Reddy, Arshad Warsi, Emraan Hashmi
Director: Vivek Agnihotri
Genre: Suspense drama
Storyline: A London-based lawyer has to save two Indians suspected in a bank robbery and a bomb blast.
Bottomline: Shoplifted chocolate damaged in transit, lost in translation.

“The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.”
“How do you shoot the devil in the back? What if you miss? “
“He kills their kids, he kills their wives, he kills their parents and their parents’ friends. He burns down the houses they live in and the stores they work in, he kills people that owe them money. And like that he was gone. Underground. Nobody has ever seen him since. He becomes a myth, a spook story that criminals tell their kids at night… And no-one ever really believes. “
“That you did not know you stole from him is the only reason you are still alive, but he feels you owe him. You will repay your debt.”

Christopher McQuarrie, winner of the Academy Awards for Best Original Screenplay (1995) will not be pleased to find out that a Hindi film has more than half a dozen of his lines translated, almost verbatim.

Keyser Soze becomes Murtaza Arzai in Inspired Films’ ‘Chocolate,’ a film so dishonest that it makes you cringe.

There is a huge difference between what is inspired and what is plagiarised. And that difference comes out when you replicate exactly the same opening scene, the same lines and dumb down the smart idea to an extent that destroys the entire brilliance of it.

Vivek Agnihotri’s film is not even as much a deviation as Sanjay Gupta’s ‘Kaante’ was from ‘Reservoir Dogs’ though even the ‘Kaante’ pinched a line or two from the original (” Are you gonna bark all day, little doggy, or are you gonna bite?”). Interestingly, ‘Reservoir Dogs’ itself was Tarantino’s tribute to Kubrick’s ‘The Killing.’ Or what ‘Sarkar’ was to ‘The Godfather.’ That’s the kind of difference there is, between a glorious tribute and a shameless rip-off.

‘Chocolate’ is not a frame-to-frame copy and many times during the film, you wish it was. The visual brilliance (cinematography: Attar Singh Saini) and the slick editing (Satyajeet Gazmer) do not compensate the poorly written lines that make a caricature out of the leading man Krishna Pandit (Anil Kapoor), a leading lawyer who hogs the cover of GQ magazine for his flair for winning the most difficult of cases.

As his journalist friend Monsoon (Sushma Reddy) gets him to help two Indians suspected in the involvement of a blast in a boat and a bank robbery, Pandit wants to know the truth and not versions from the suspects Pipi (Irrfan) and Sim (Tanushree Dutta). How did their fellow band members and associates Rocker (Suniel Shetty), Tubby (Arshad Warsi) and Devaa (Emraan Hashmi) die? What exactly is their involvement with the mysterious Murtaza Arzai?

And, what on the planet is ‘Chocolate’ and why is the film called that, are some of the questions the film answers in its semi-absorbing narrative, with plenty of help from the original. It is the original scenes where the film falters. The overtly overdone sexual references turn out to be pretentious and very wannabe Hollywoodish.

Anil Kapoor does an earnest job, puts in a decent effort but is let down by the lines, Irrfan does a pretty neat underplayed version of what Pankaj Kapoor did with greater charisma in ‘Dus’ reprising the same role of what Kevin Spacey did in the original. Arshad Warsi sparkles with his comic timing and gives the film a few genuine laughs while Sushma Reddy has very little to do but act goofy and insecure about her crush Krish. You can actually keep a count on the number of ploys the director uses to ensure you don’t miss her bra… er… bratty obsessive compulsive behaviour of her trying to attract your attention to her er… stuff you know.

Poor Suniel Shetty gets into another one of those ensemble insignificant roles he’s so used to and lets his long hair do all the acting.

There’s plenty of oomph in the form of Tanushree Dutta who carries off the shortest shorts and the tiniest tops with great atTITude, only negated by the director’s basic instinct to make her look like Sharon Stone through the cross-legged poses and pouts. Oh yes, as much as you try, you won’t be able to take your eyes of her cleve… er… clever disposition to sport titsy-bitsy tops enough to cause a bust-up of sorts and make you want her bosom… b-oops… I mean make you want TO BE her bosom friend…. phooof!

While the song and dance sequences will ensure that the front-benchers are kept happy, the verbose interrogation sequences are likely to turn them off. And, the subsequent dumbing-down of the revelation sequence in the climax is guaranteed to strongly disappoint the classy audience, especially those who have seen the original.

Bryan Singer’s ‘The Usual Suspects’ is immensely watchable for it makes you admire the story-telling, no matter how many times you’ve seen it before. Here, the fact that you know the story only makes the story-telling look that much more miserable.

Hence, this dose of shoplifted ‘Chocolate’ is prescribed only for those who haven’t seen the role that fetched Kevin Spacey his Oscar.

Review: The Island (Unedited!)

September 23, 2005 · by sudhishkamath

Not a bad trip at all!

Cast: Ewan McGregor, Scarlett Johansson, Djimon Hounsou, Steve Buscemi, Sean Bean
Director: Michael Bay
Genre: Sci-fi action-adventure
Storyline: A couple of ‘harvested’ clones escape their simulated environment and set out to the real world to fight for their freedom.
Bottomline: Fast food for thought.

You just cannot leave your brains behind when you watch Michael Bay’s ‘The Island.’

It has to be among the most thought-provoking flicks that he’s ever made. Yes, there are chases choc-a-bloc, endless explosions, guns going off like there’s no tomorrow but between all that, the screenplay gives you a fascinating premise of clones questioning their existence as ‘products’ bred in a special facility cut off from the world, only to cater to their sponsors should they need an organ or two.

But to put it in context, ‘The Island’ may not be entirely original (screenplay: Caspian Tredwell-Owen). The film was recently sued for copyright violation by the producers of the 1979 film Parts: The Clonus Horror. The BBC observed that “t he 1979 film tells the story of a secret colony of clones raised in case humans need spare organs. One escapes and is chased as he tries to expose the facility.”

The premise apart, every other scene in the film is distinctly Michael Bay stamped with his signature pace that ensures that you get what you stepped into the theatre for: entertainment.

The special effects are among the best we’ve seen recently and it is rather difficult to spot them even in RDX projection systems that expose even the minutest of lighting/detailing errors.

Ewan McGregor in a dual role, lends the film some of his character and charm, as Lincoln Echo Six, the first clone in the facility to suspect there’s something wrong with his environment and the promise of deliverance to the ‘The Island,’ a non-existent place engrained in the minds of the clones, just to give them some hope to live for.

The chemistry between him and Scarlett Johansson makes it that much more interesting, especially when you know that their minds are only as developed as that of 15-year-olds. Scarlett has to Generation Next’s Angelina Jolie with her pout, attitude and the way she kicks rear admirably.

That said, ‘The Island’ had the potential to be as philosophical and profound as ‘The Matrix,’ but it simply chooses not to. Hence, it does not tax your brain too much, just teases it a little and goes down fighting, all guns blazing.

Review: Salaam Namaste

September 22, 2005 · by sudhishkamath

Since this is pretty late for a review and you would’ve read many by now, I’m gonna keep this brief.

This is one movie that had awesome potential with an exciting premise of live-in relationships. But it really doesn’t exploit it much.

Don’t get me wrong though. Salaam Namaste is entertaining, has pretty decent performances by Saif, a slimmer Preity, a loud cameo by Javed Jaffery and a very underplayed Arshad Warsi and rocking end-credits.

The pace is tight and the tone pretty light till the Nine Months-inspired climax. It just does not work! I just don’t understand how can you just take the supposedly mature tone of a movie and infuse it with loud slapstick humour for an end. It seemed so forced.

And oh yes! The second half does make for some excruciatingly painful viewing if you have bullshit-allergy. Preity’s pregnant pot-belly is the work of a highly untalented blind potter. And the way she dances to a song makes you wish someone got the director young Siddharth Anand pregnant just so that he would know what it really feels like.

There is a touch of smartness here and there: the breaking of stereotypes with role reversals for example. Saif cries at the movies, cooks, wears pink and all sort of effeminate clothes, likes to keep his place clean while Preity hates to clean up or cook. The ‘Mouna Raagam’ sort of setting where a couple has to share the roof for a year even after the break-up is again a very nice ploy in the script.

But here’s why I was let down:

The movie makes live-in relationships look like a stupid idea.

It makes it look like sex is the first thing they explore.

And worse, it makes it look like protection is of no use really cuz the girl ultimately gets pregnant.

So basically, the film tells you: Guy and a girl move in, they f*** like bunnies apparently … cuz the girl gets pregnant within two months in spite of them using protection. And then they have no choice but to get married. Whoa!

Salaam Namaste is likely to find appreciation in the 18-22 age group. The older adults would find it ridiculously simplistic and dumbed down for a country at the crossroads of social change. Hum Tum was a much better film in the same genre.

Apart from that, it is a good tour of Melbourne and the Great Ocean Road. So now I don’t have to show you guys pics from my video grabs.

😀

Biloxi Blues!

September 22, 2005 · by sudhishkamath

This has to be among the city’s most loved plays.

It’s probably the only play LTS did back-to-back, due to public demand. And Mike, the veteran of the Chennai stage came back with what I suspect is his favourite play, this time for Evam.

Biloxi Blues was certainly the highlight of The Hindu Metro Plus Theatre festival. People had to be sent back because the hall was full.

I managed to catch the play on Sunday evening when Evam had its last show for the season.

Though I had seen some of the actors read at a casting session for the play and hence had a rough idea of how funny it would turn out to be, I really hadn’t bargained for the amount of laughing I ultimately ended up doing.

I really think Mike has done a brilliant job putting some amazing talent together, polished their timing with military precision and made you forget the nitty-gritties of the sub-American accent demanded by the content.

He probably went unsung at the festival but its not too late to say: Mike is THE best stage all-rounder we have. Probably in the whole country. And probably the only technician-director-writer-and-actor rolled into one. I didn’t personally like the rhymes in his original musical ‘Fallen’ but I totally admire the guy for his passion and vision. I wish I had half of it. Here’s a man who acted in one, directed two plays apart from chipping in with sets and sound for other plays during the festival.

So here he was in Biloxi bringing alive the role of a seemingly sadistic eccentric sergeant who gives his cadets an education of a lifetime. Mike was spitting fire with his delivery, not floundering even once as he charged through the lines like a man possessed. Here was a man truly in command.

Sunil, who plays Epstein (and Zebra in That Four Letter Word) was clearly the best of the cadets, as he underplayed the role of the philosophical, mentally strong and physically weak cadet who refuses to comply with the idiosyncracies of the military. He strikes a chord and leaves you with a lump in your throat in the scene where he narrates how he was humiliated.

The lead guy and narrator Jimmy who plays Eugene seemed to have overdone the cuteness that made his dialogue delivery a tad effeminate. However, he is effective in the challenging role of a simple neutral cadet who comes of age.

The support cast was even better. I don’t remember the names of the guys but the way they got under the skin of the characters was exemplary. Comedy thrives on timing. These guys were near flawless and the ensemble pulls off an incredibly funny yet thought-provoking bitter-sweet play quite convincingly.

It’s expected to come back in January for at least a coupla shows. So in case you haven’t seen it yet, mark it in your calendar.

And if you do want to help backstage or get onstage and be a part of Evam’s future plays, email evam@evam.in. Heard they can do with some help.

Episode 5: Is shopping rocket science?

September 21, 2005 · by sudhishkamath

(For a change, we let the lady fire the first salvo, instead of just responding every time, we decided we would take turns every week in going first because the person answering always seems to have an unfair advantage of just replying.
Also, people may be reminded that this is just a humour column. Not to be taken seriously or emotionally. But then, many women do not have a sense of humour… ha ha! And the intention has never been to be politically correct, it is purely to be irreverent and get a good fight out of manipulating existing stereotypes! So it basically means, I do (sometimes) pay for my food, and even open doors and so does Shonali!)

She says:

I suppose they think it’s macho. As they stand around, idly tossing back beers and burping, somebody or the other will bring up the topic of ‘women and shopping.’ And then, it’s like the floodgates have opened. One guy will make smart cracks about his wife’s shoe collection, the other will discuss a girlfriend who stocks up on soaps. Someone knows a girl who has… gasp… six pairs of jeans. And someone else has it on good authority that no woman is satisfied unless she owns at least 12 different types of daily wear hair products – each of which need about an hour of intensive pre-purchase research.

What the guys don’t reveal, or perhaps even realise, is the fact that men shop too. And, in many ways, are far more obsessive, extravagant and indecisive shoppers than their female counterparts.

For every woman with a shoe addiction, there’s a guy with a, well, shoe addiction. (At least women need to match their shoes with outfits, colours and occasions: sneakers for a barbecue, low heels for the day, stilettos for dining out. But why in the world do men need twelve pairs? Brown from breakfast, black for lunch, brown for dinner, black for brunch?) For every woman with a soap, or scarf, or ear ring collection, there’s a man, who collects CDs, or belts, or, um, ear rings. Or maybe, if he’s really ‘macho’, whiskeys, cigars or electronic non-essentials. For every woman who buys 12 hair products there’s a guy who buys an equal number of aftershaves. And trendy ‘metrosexual’ hair gels.

And if you think women take a long time to decide on which outfit to buy, ask a male friend to take you shopping for a cell phone, or laptop. Besides the fact that you’ll have to listen to lengthy lectures on tough concepts like ‘battery life’ and ‘blue tooth technology’ (because, of course, we women operate computers with will power and lipstick alone), you’ll be lucky if you get home before your hair turns grey and you’re forced to borrow some of his spiffy new hair colour.

He says:

A man with 12 pairs of shoes must be gay. Or an actor/VJ/model/someone in showbiz/someone who wants to get there.

Well, most women have a wrong notion of men probably because they hang out with only those kind of men who remind them of themselves. Most men I know just have formal shoes and/or casual shoes and then, they have chappals – one for the bathroom and one for the road. Because, they do not feel the need to colour co-ordinate shoes with their clothes like women do.

As women often allege, men are colour blind indeed. Because, men believe it is adequate to know that coffee, cocoa, chocolate, beige, khakhi, auburn, hazelnut are all just brown. It helps decision-making easy. You walk to the rack and it doesn’t take rocket science or research to figure out what’s best. You don’t need to know what colour it is when you can simply point it to the salesman and say: “I want that one.”

Men have very basic needs. We are simple people. And if they read up on gizmos, it’s because these are expensive investments. Research not only makes for a wise investment, it also helps you make a wise choice much ahead of your actual purchase and thus, helps you save valuable shopping time that can be used for wiser purposes.

Like, checking out an interesting, definitive book or magazine or movie on women, or just the real thing: people-watching in a mall. Who says men don’t like women for the time they take at the store? Men do like checking out anything remotely interesting at the malls. Let them make their choice while you make yours.

(Men could do with a mental note: There’s a price to pay for anything you pick up at the mall and it’s directly proportional to her purchase.)

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