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Film

Banning films is our new pastime

If we’re banning films anyway, can the State ban films that hurt our intelligence, several of which release this year?
by M@themetrognome.in

This has been some week for the film fraternity. SRK’s ‘victimised’ (or not) statement created quite a stir and a ban on Kamal Haasan’s Vishwaroopam proved how flat the fraternity falls in a face-off with the State. But Vishwaroopam is not the first film to go perilously close to getting the axe. Many films in the past have been ‘modified’ to suit the sensibilities of a few people who find some material in it ‘objectionable’. Some films like Anurag Kashyap’s Paanch are still in the cans due to this.

Even Hollywood is not spared. Remember how David Fincher gave the Indian Censor Board the finger when he was asked to remove three scenes from The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, that were apparently gore and sexual in nature? People who managed to get a bootlegged copy of the film and have seen it, will tell you how important the ‘unsuitable’ scenes are to the plot of the film. Similarly, The Da Vinci Code was banned in States like Goa, Andhra Pradesh and Nagaland because of its controversial plot revolving around the manifestos for Christianity.

In Malaysia, Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ was banned only for Muslims, while the film was deemed suitable for Christian and Buddhist audiences. The film had the potential to create unrest amongst Muslims, thus the unusual ban. In retrospect, it seemed like a wise decision – it makes sense to not watch it if you don’t like it. But now, the Malaysian Government has failed to do the same for Vishwaroopam; the film was removed from theatres just a day after its release.

If banning films in the name of religion irks you, then this would definitely make you furious. In 1917, Birth Control, a film on family planning was banned in the United States of America in the interest of ‘morality, decency, public safety and welfare.’ The only reason one can let this pass is the year of the ban, when a not-so-modern America upheld a stereotypical image of the real woman and her moral values. Maybe a hundred years from now, even we will stop banning films for unjustifiable reasons.

But, can a ban really make the filmmaker bankrupt? The answer is ‘yes’ and ‘no’. Hollywood film that don’t get a release in a few foreign countries are seldom affected. They recover their costs on the home turf. But Indian movies banned in Indian states take a severe hit at the box office. Indian films are specifically made keeping the Indian (sometimes regional) audiences in mind. While some movies do extremely well with the Indian diaspora overseas, most of the moolah is generated at home. The ban on Vishwaroopam can cost Mr Haasan a whopping Rs 95 crore, by trade estimates.

Instead, there should be a ban on Non-Entertaining Films. These are movies that serve no purpose whatsoever, and require the viewer to keep his brains in the freezer before watching them. Like the No.1 series of Govinda – Aunty No.1, Anari No.1, Beti No.1 etc. These movies impair one’s judgement to the extent that one spends his hard-earned money to watch a grown-up man behave like a monkey. Maybe in the future, the Censor Board or the State can do the people a huge service by banning films that should have never be released.

Just to make the task easy for the Censor Board, here are a few upcoming films in 2013 that are very suitable for imposing a ban on:

Rangrezz. It stars Jackky Bhagnani. Censor Board, there’s your reason.

Zanjeer remake – The Classics should be sacrosanct and not allowed to be re-made, especially if Apoorva Lakhia is directing them.

Mere Dad Ki Maruti – Really? There is a big brand in the title. YRF has already recovered its production costs, so this one doesn’t need any box office collections.

Raanjhnaa – Sonam Kapoor cannot act. Period. Remember Mausam, with its riots, wars and 9/11? Sonam was worse than all these disasters combined.

These films (and more are coming up this year) are a bigger threat to the nation and hurt sentiments across religion. They should be banned purely on the grounds of offending the religion of Sanity. If the Censor Board fails to be the do-gooder, then maybe it’s time we take the matter in our own hands. Let’s impose our own ban on crappy films, by not watching them on the big screen and forcing distributors to take them down. It’s a thought fit for a utopian world, but hopefully we’ll get there soon.

M is a media professional with an eye on entertainment.

(Picture courtesy ndtv.com)

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M

Naach na jaane

Most Bollywood actors can’t dance. Meanwhile, the girls are dancing their way into roles that require little else from them.
by M | M@themetrognome.in

Bollywood is synonymous with naach gaana. It is what defines Hindi cinema, and when done in foreign locales with local residents gaping in astonishment, it truly embarrasses us (the audience, not the filmmakers). In recent times, the gaana bit (read ‘lyrics’) has been reduced to a mockery, with popular numbers having words like ‘Po, Po’ (pronounced ‘Paw, Paw’) in them. Meanwhile, the naach hasn’t been doing too well, either.

Choreographer Remo D’Souza’s upcoming flim ABCD promises some good dance moves, at least in the trailers. Which makes me wonder: in a country of dancers, why has it taken so long for anyone to make a good dance film?

If Judson Laipply (of the The Evolution of Dance stand up act) were to do a piece on Bollywood dance, it would be called the Degradation of Bollywood Dance. And why not? In this particular sphere, comedians around the world have so much material to choose from. From Salman’s inexplicable moves to Sanjay Dutt’s (supposed) pelvic thrusts, there’s enough and more to make one shut their eyes and never watch another Hindi film ever.

I was astounded at the dance steps assigned to a certain Ms Sharma in her last release, Matru Ki Bijlee Ka Mandola, which required a vigorous butt jiggle. I was even more astounded when the same steps were re-assigned to Pankaj Kapur. Anybody else in his place, veteran actor or not, would have been reduced to a caricature of himself with that dance, but to his credit, he can dance.

Which brings me to the many actors in the industry who hate to dance. I understand that they hate it, what I don’t get is that they make no effort to learn dancing while being in a profession that requires them to move their feet. Some specimens that belong to this category are Ajay Devgn, Himesh Reshamiya and Saif Ali Khan and more. This bunch was highly active last year, and there will be a reprise in the near future.

The other interesting category of actors are the once who could dance, once upon a time, but now can’t dance to save their lives. Some of them are now too beefy or too old to do anything more than a cursory hip shake. Salman Khan is the King of this club. It is painful to watch him dance these days. Equally painful to watch is Sanjubaba. He was no match for Madhuri in ‘Tamma Tamma’ (Thanedar), but he didn’t have two left feet back then. Salman in Dabangg  with his ridiculous moves involving the belt is beyond rubbish. His attempts to keep up with the lissom Katrina Kaif in Ek Tha Tiger were actually funny.

Fortunately, the actresses these days can shake a leg. Well, they have to, or they wouldn’t qualify for several roles if they didn’t know how to move that waist and look pretty while doing so. But I won’t lay blame only on the actors; choreographers need to work harder, too. Kareena Kapoor’s latest item number ‘Fevicol Se’ in Dabangg 2 was a disaster. Farah Khan is one of the few dance directors who has consistently delivered. Among the men, Prabhudeva is reliable. We’ll see him soon in ABCD. But can he save the last (good) dance for Bollywood?

Sharp as a tack and sitting on more hot scoops than she knows what to do with, M is a media professional with an eye on entertainment.

(Picture courtesy fillum.com)

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Film

May the best of the worst win

The Bollywood Razzies are here. In a year when Bollywood produced piles of rubbish, it’s tough to pick a winner.
by M | M@themetrognome.in

Have you heard of the The Ghanta and the Golden Kela? Before you call the moral police, let me clarify. These are the names of awards especially created for Bollywood. The Ghanta and Golden Kela Awards are the Indian counterparts of the Razzies (for Hollywood). Both the awards are independent and not related to each other. It doesn’t matter who gives them away or if the winners have the b**ls to collect them; what matters is that these awards symbolise the awakening of the janata and that Bollywood can no longer bullsh*t the audience without being b**chslapped in return.

The Ghanta Awards are in their third year and the Golden Kelas are a little older at five. Both are very popular on social media and they encourage users to vote online. 2012 was one of the most creatively-challenged years for Bollywood, hence there is plenty to trash this time. But before I cast my precious vote to elect the best of the worst, let’s review the various categories and nominees in each award.

Worst Actor 2012

Akshay Kumar is a clear winner with four straight flops: Housefull 2, Rowdy Rathore, Joker and Khiladi 786. Ajay Devgn comes a close second with Son of Sardaar and Bol Bachchan in both the Awards. Surprisingly, Salman Khan only features in The Ghanta Awards list for Ek Tha Tiger and Dabangg 2. Kat got your tongue, Golden Kela?

Worst Actress 2012

Sonakshi Sinha for Rowdy Rathore, Joker, Son of Sardaar and Dabangg 2; basically everything she did. Katrina Kaif, Deepika, Bipasha, Priyanka Chopra are the rest of the nominations. Everyone, except for Kareena Kapoor, has made it to the lists this year.

 

Worst Film 2012

Oh, this one is tough. There are just five options for the Ghantas and six for Golden Kelas in the worst films category, but they could very well expand their list to include more from the pile of garbage Bollywood produced last year. I like Golden Kela’s list better. They’ve got the crapfest full on with Housefull 2, Son of Sardaar, Khiladi 786, Dabangg 2, Jab Tak Hai Jaan and Joker. All these films were headache-inducting tortures that took away 80 minutes of the audience’s lives. The Ghantas have Student of the Year on its list, but I think the audience deserves a special award for having sat through this film and lived to tell the tale.

Worst Director 2012

Let’s give Shirish Kunder a lifetime pass for the Worst Director Award in both these awards, along with free home delivery. The Golden Kela has Arbaaz Khan vying for this spot for Dabangg 2. Maybe it’s time Arbaazbhai renounces the world and goes back to his planet. Whenever he does go, he should also take Vikram Bhatt (Raaz 3, Dangerous Ishq) along.

Worst Song 2012

Wikipedia should catalogue this into a series. Even this year, as always, Bollywood will make a generous contribution to this. A special volume should be dedicated to our nasal champion Himeshbhai. All the songs of Khiladi 786 have the magical quality of inducing violent behaviour, enough to start a prison riot. *chops own ears off*

Worst Sequel 2012

Jannat, Raaz, Jism, Housefull and Dabaang should jointly accept the award and officially STOP MAKING ANY MORE SEQUELS! The end has no end. The Dabaang prequel will haunt us soon. *shudder*

Both the awards have other unusual and interesting categories, such as:

Golden Kela Awards:

– Most Atrocious Lyric Awards. My pick is ‘Po Po Po’ from Son of Sardaar.

– Why Are You Still Trying Award – For people like Jackie Bhagnani. “Jackie, who?” you ask. Sigh, never mind.

– Baawra Ho Gaya Hai Kya Award – And the winner is, the Indian audience for spending money on a ride to hell and back with this slushpile.

and the Ghanta Awards:

– Worst Rip-Off/Remake – Barfi!

– Worst Couple – Abhishek Bachchan with anyone, even a log of wood.

– WTF Was That – That one time where you almost threw your shoes at the screen, then remembered you were wearing Osho chappals, so you just closed your eyes instead.

– That’s Anything But Sexy – Tough one again, but nothing can beat the awful dance steps in the ‘Cheeni’ song from Department. Unfortunately, it doesn’t feature on the list.

But are these awards really an eye-opener for for our filmmakers? Will they stop and think about the trash they are serving the audience? I don’t think so. Maybe we need some kind of penalty, where the audience is entitled to a refund for a bad film. This will surely make them behave themselves in future.

Voting for both the awards is now open. You can log on to http://theghantas.com/vote/login.php and  http://goldenkela.com/voting/vote.php

Sharp as a tack and sitting on more hot scoops than she knows what to do with, M is a media professional with an eye on entertainment.

(Pictures courtesy galleryoneindia.in, wikimedia.org, hindi.way2movies.com)

Categories
Film

Let’s sex it up. Not.

M wonders how, despite rampant sexual harassment within it, Bollywood will address the subject in this Friday’s big film release.

Bollywood never ceases to amaze me. The Friday release this week is Inkaar (starring Arjun Rampal and Chitrangada Singh) and it delves into the subject of sexual harassment at the workplace, and how a man deals with allegations of abuse from a female colleague. I am keen to see how the film explores this issue, coming as it is from the horse’s mouth. Okay, I’ll come straight to the point.

When the Hindi film industry releases a film on sexual harassment, I want to see a disclaimer at the start of the film stating: ‘This film is not a piece of fiction and is based on real life instances from the producer/director/executive producer, etcetera’s lives. Due to the brief duration of the film, all the victims and their stories could not be covered. Viewers’ discretion is advised.’

The following is a true story.

An executive producer (EP) of a major film broadcasting house was fired and immediately hired by another broadcasting company. Like they say, one man’s dirt is another man’s treasure. Well, this guy did have loads of dirt on him. To begin with, he was fired or to put it politely, “asked to leave” because of the constant complains of sexual harassment he meted out to his female colleagues. In fact, tales of his behaviour were known to all and sundry in the industry. This didn’t stop him from doing the same at his new workplace. He believed that when you work at a film production company, you are expected to flirt a little to keep the atmosphere ‘light’.

He also believed that wearing a skirt to work makes the female colleague ‘available’ and that she’s ‘looking for some action’. So, he thought he did the right thing by constantly passing nasty remarks about their appearance and their clothes at the workplace. He even told stories about how he was popular amongst starlets, and how they sent him titillating pictures of themselves on his Blackberry Messenger.

Sometimes, he would even tell his males colleague to “go for it” and ask the superiors if they were “screwing” their subordinates (of course, the subordinates were women). He would narrate numerous stories about how, at his previous organisation, he would conduct ‘screen tests’ at hotel rooms and put the tab on the production budget. Stories about him luring young, struggling actresses and taking advantage of them were aplenty. He would drool at new faces and purposely set up meetings at the office to prove he was the alpha-male of the pack; the other men in office would wonder what they had to do to be as charming with the ladies as he was.

Of course, he also had stories of the industry to tell. The most disturbing incident he narrated was of an industry head honcho. He didn’t name the Person, but said that he was once present at a party at this Person’s house. After the guests left at around 4 am, this Person, intoxicated, walked straight into the domestic help’s room and locked the door from the inside. He stepped out of the room a few minutes later and crashed on the couch in the living room. The Person’s wife, who had watched him step in and out of the help’s room, got up, walked into her bedroom, came out with a bundle of rupee notes and when to the help’s room. She walked out again without uttering a word to anyone.

Coming back to Mr EP; he didn’t stay in the new organisation for long either. The women in the new organisation also complained to the bosses. The reason for his exit is still unclear, with most reports hinting at ‘under-performance’. In one year, Mr EP had walked all over the production house’s already non-existent work culture; he was insensitive and loathsome and everybody knew about it and tolerated it. This is exactly what perplexes me; when Bollywood turns around and makes a movie on sexual harassment. The industry that sells dreams is also known for its debauchery and immorality, and men like Mr EP reinforce the cynical view one already holds against the entire fraternity.

I am very keen to know what the filmmakers have depicted in Inkaar and how far-off or close it is to the ground realities of  filmy battlegrounds. I’ll watch this one to gauge Bollywood’s point of view on the subject.

Sharp as a tack and sitting on more hot scoops than she knows what to do with, M is a media professional with an eye on entertainment.

(Picture courtesy sabhot.com)

Categories
Film

Follow me, Like me, please…

M writes on how films use Social Media to create a (mostly false) hype about how good their product is.

We are socially connected with our friends, colleagues, acquaintance and many strangers. These strangers could be anyone: a stalker, an innocent bystander, a brand prowling on your activities and at times, it could be Bollywood. Social Media has been actively used to promote films and ‘engage’ audiences more than ever. This fad started almost two years ago, when filmmakers decided to jump on the Stay Connected bandwagon that picked up momentum almost overnight in our country.

This created opportunities for small mom-and-pop shops to mushroom under the title of Social Media Experts and make quick bucks. Many of them managed to swindle the brands first, and then the filmmakers.  Here’s how this works:  once the agency is hired, the objective is defined – ‘X’ number of fans on Social Media  Portals must be achieved. Then the agency, which works with a vendor, goes all out to ensure that the fan base amplifies daily. The release date of the film arrives and the agency gets paid if they keep its promise.

But how does the agency keep its promise? The vendor hires people to create fake profiles and accounts to ‘Like’ or ‘Follow’ the film page. Of course, there are also some real people who interact with these accounts, but fake profiles are required to fulfil the commitment. This method of ‘engaging’ with the audience is widely used across the fraternity, and constantly enhanced.

Agency services are not limited to merely increasing the fan base. Some agencies, at an additional cost, provide the option of ‘deleting’ negative interactions from Social Media and Video Streaming Sites. When the film fails to please a user, which happens a lot these days, he or she is most likely to leave a negative comment on the film’s page. Now, in a democracy, with Freedom of Speech and all that jazz, this is quite understandable. But it is not acceptable to the filmmaker. So all negative comments are summarily executed the moment they are out.

Sometimes, I feel that filmmakers have their delicate brains wrapped in bubble wrap, to protect themselves from harsh realities. It’s actually quite simple. If you work hard on your product, you should release it with confidence and let the feedback flow. If people hate it, take the hate and make a better film next time. The more you try to protect your film, the more irate your audience becomes.

One particular film star, an A-lister who hasn’t tasted success in a while, was completely anal about the reviews of his film. His film was released during Diwali and the marketing teams, after delegating work to the Social Media Agency with strict instructions to remove every negative comment the moment it was published, were on a long break.  The film was touted as a big ticket release owing especially to its special effects.

Bas, the film released and the floodgates opened. The flow of negative reviews was something beyond anybody’s control. The film star was pissed off and a special meeting was called, despite everyone’s holiday. After an hour of futile brainstorming on how to control the damage, a very creative idea was touted: “Team, use your BBM/WhatsApp and personal Social Media accounts to promote the film.” Of course, 20 positive remarks were easily outnumbered by the thousands of highly negative ones, and the final verdict was a ton of unhappiness all around.

The latest innovation in seeding positivity amongst filmgoers takes deviousness to the next level. Agencies ‘gratify’ users who already have a large following to promote a film. These users then regularly talk about the film and how entertaining it is. The followers give credit to their reviews and fall prey to the hype. So the next time you see a first-rate review of a crappy film in your newsfeed, don’t be fooled. It’s time you review who you follow.

Sharp as a tack and sitting on more hot scoops than she knows what to do with, M is a media professional with an eye on entertainment.

(Picture courtesy blog.iwearyourshirt.com)

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Watch

Some Friday comedy

M digs out some unintentionally funny videos that are guaranteed to make you laugh harder than today’s big ticket release.

Sometimes one needs a few chuckles to be relieved from the monotony of one’s daily chores. And most of the time we expect this from the most traditional source of entertainment – films. But, in vain, as recent films’ level of ‘humour’ has left us nonplussed.

The degrading quality of humour in our movies these days has ceased to astonish me any more. The  latest addition to the lack of comedy is Matru Ki Bijlee Ka Mandola for lines like, ‘Raja dil saand ho na, toh har ladki bhains dikhaye deti hai, meri jaan.’ HAHAHAHAHA. Not.

The essence of comedy as an art is all but lost. And so our urge to laugh is dying.

But worry not, there is some hope left in the world of films to evoke a gurgle or two. I’ve found a few such examples for your viewing pleasure – ironically, these scenes were not intended to be funny. The point is, watch these videos and don’t feel too bad if you haven’t got a ticket, yet, to watch Matru Ki Bijlee Ka Mandola and her pink buffalo.

Comedy #1) This guy is probably under the influence of a very powerful drug, which could explain the killer dance steps. Do watch the whole song, you don’t want to miss these moves.

 

Comedy #2) You’ve never seen anything like this before. Viewers’ discretion is advised. Scenes are gory and hilarious.


Comedy #3) For the days you’re missing a good Superman flick.

 

Comedy #4) The Indian Matrix, starring Vijayakanth from down under…

 

Comedy #5) Vijayakanth does it again. This time with Windows Media Player. I’m going to sue Windows for prejudice – why doesn’t my version do the same?

 

M is a media professional with an eye on entertainment.

(Picture courtesy filmaffinity.com)

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