I know I am late to the party. But this was too awesome not to blog about. Shahid Kapoor performed a dancing tribute to a medley of MJ hits at the Filmfare Awards show. Now, it goes without saying that MJ is worshipped all across the world, and India and Bollywood included is no exception. And I think that Filmfare just pwned this year’s boring Oscars production [ Street dance with Best Original Score nominations - seriously WTF? ] with this routine. Well, although Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin are million times better than the irritating duo of Saif n SRK.
Anywho, back to the MJ tribute dance routine. What I loved about the routine was that it was what it was meant to be. A simple fan of Michael Jackson dancing the way MJ showed us how to. It did start with a very Bollywood SRk-stretched arms out – trick as Shahid descends from nowhere to the stage – yeah yeah, he was on wires.
Catch the awesome video after the jump, and also the awesome segments screens after the jump.
Filmfare Awards was recently aired on Telly. And apart from the usual fart jokes that floated around with SRK and Saif in the hosting shoes, the highest point of this year’s show was the Lifetime Achievement Award honoured to none other than Balbir Raj Kapoor or as we popularly know him – Shashi Kapoor.
Now, I am a big fan of Shashi jee. But when it comes to fandom, I am miles away from it, considering the existence of fangirls such as Beth whose Shashi fandom [ Beth's house of Shashi ], can give the Twilight Tweens a run for their money. But the body of work that Shashi Kapoor has done over his life speaks for itself. From commercial to international cinema to producing some of the best of Indian cinema, Shashi Kapoor adds up to one word – Uncompromising. While his peers and contemporaries gave in to the Ooty revolution and Ketchup bloodshed, Shashi Kapoor gave us Utsav, New Delhi Times, Junoon and 36 Chowringee Lane. Yes, he gave us Ajooba as well, but then, that is a classic too in a whole another level [and I know most of you'd agree].
Filmfare’s lovely Lifetime Achievement Award this year couldn’t have been more justified. And I couldn’t resist posting a whole post dedicated to the Awesome Shashi Kapoor. So without any further ado, I give to you the lovely screencaps I managed to pull from the Filmfare montage piece. [ Go hit the jump to see the awesome pics ].
***Yellow Yellow… Dirty Fellow***
Amongst other rhyming lines that Shah Rukh Khan’s Rizvan Khan [ K..khan...from the epiglotis] speaks at important moments across the film, is the one cited above. He is a guy suffering from a certain form of autism, born in Bombay and who goes ahead to marry a single mother – Mandira Rathod [Kajol ]. The fairy-tale continues until Al-Qaida strikes the twin towers, and as Rizvan’s voice-over tells us – world history gets divided into BC, AD and 9/11. Now, Bollywood has churned out some similar half-baked shit in the last couple of months or so. The brown bread entertainer – New York and the crazy accent carrying Om Puri and Kirron Kher love extravaganza – Kurbaan. Oh noes, Kurbaan was supposed to be the movie with the Kareena backless scene. Sorry KJo, I can’t still get over with that funny accent of Kirron Mata. My Name Is Khan tries to get it right from the scratch. It builds up to it, with a perfect setting, a perfect background and then just goes mental. Completely ballistic in a very wrong way. It felt like KJo started this movie as he said – “I was fed up with Bollywood“. By that he meant, he was fed up with the same song-dance routine, the same high ceilings with polished Swarovski crystal chandeliers, Sharmishta Roy art-direction and Manish Malhotra assisting him in styling. And oh, the Sagai, Shaadi, Post Shaadi, Karva Chauth routine. Yes, KJo did seem a bit grown up. But I think he missed his own daal-roti so much, and hence, goes back to the old as the hills formula – It’s all about loving your parents/ family /neighbour . And he does it while he chews upon as much cheese as the Swiss can manufacture in a year, with as many stereotypical references as possible.
I have some major problems with the movie which makes me question what the likes of Mahapurush – Taran Adarsh jee and Divya Naari – Nikhat Kazmi could see in it to rate it 4.5 star out of 5 and 5 on 5 respectively. But before I dive deeply into the problems, lemme scrape out the good stuff for ya!!
Game, Set, Match
Striker sets out to achieve a lot in its limited canvas of 2 hours and 7 minutes. It shuffles through two different timelines – the Bombay of the 80s and then the infamous ‘December 1992′. Siddharth as Surya is a Bombay bred n brought up lad, who moved to Malvani in his childhood along with his elder brother, sister Devi and parents [ Rajendra Gupta 'member Chandrakanta's Pt. Jagannath and Seema 'Bandit Queen' Biswas ]. Life in the underbelly is a constant struggle. And if Slumdog Millionaire tried to higlight it in a way what the critics call it as ‘poverty porn’, Striker does it in excruciating details. From the dark bylanes to the darker money churning Seths, the hustle and bustle of the Local train to even the brown and battered vests, Striker strikes the right chords. After all it’s a game. And it suceeds in achieving what it set out for, more or less.
Now this is a first. The power of social networking and the Web 2.0 is taking Bollywood by storm- with celebrities tweeting and movie publicities and marketing campaigns running through Facebook pages. But the new Studio 18 movie – Striker takes it to a whole another level.
The movie premieres on Feb 5th in India in theatres. But, the worldwide release will be on YouTube. As far as my knowledge goes, this is a first for a major Bollywood production, and apart from Sundance indies, we haven’t seen anything like this before even from Hollywood. Except for the US [where viewing the movie will cost 5$], viewing this movie on YouTube will be free [MUFT MUFT MUFT] 
The movie will be screened here [ Studio 18's YouTube channel ]. There is a lot more on the channel – from exclusive footage of making of the movie, to Siddharth – the lead actor giving us reasons to watch the movie. There’s more to it – they have an iPhone app – a Striker version of the carrom game Now that’s another first.
So, what’s this #strikerwatchalong?
All across the world, awesome Bolly lovahs are coming together to watch this movie simultaneously, on Feb 7th, 6pm GMT and will also be group-chatting about the same on Google wave. Exciting stuff indeed.
The idea of the group chat wave for #StrikerWatchAlong was initiated by Beth and thanks to her, there are already 24 people who have joined the Wave, and still counting. It’s so awesome to see people from Abhu Dhabi to Australia to Dubai to London to Chicago to Germany.. you get it.
And if you feel like joining, just add your Google wave ID in the comments section below.
See you on the 7th awesome peeps.
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Some stuff about #StrikerWatchAlong on Beth’s blog.
I have been enjoying these flurry of Storm Troopers Memes that I get in my inbox – thanks to my awesome Geek mates. And before I get on with my Back 2 Back routine of watching all the six Star Wars movies today, I thought I’ll have a go of creating my own Star Wars Storm Troopers Meme.
Of course the way to start this is with our house favorite: Kuch Kuch Hota Hai… or should we say?
Or????… ‘Inspired’ by Family Guy’s “Something Something Something Dark Side”…
And for the Meme that you’ve been waiting for, here it is:
Hindi Gyaan: Kuch Kuch Hota Hai in Hindi means – Something Something is Happening [ a metaphor for Love]
Bah! Ek Rahen Veer
We are back with the concluding part of the Movie Review. There was no reason to spread this across two posts other than my laziness. Trust me when I say that. I am not capitalising the interest in Veer to make it a blog merchandise kinda shit. I am not corporate minded. Actually, that’s not true, I am a bit. Forgive me, let’s get back to the post.
TAKE 2, SHOT 1.. ACTION
Yeah, so that Jaggu Dada in the black outfit calls himself the Yuvraj of Madhavgarh. He somewhat reminds me of the drunkard Chunni Lal and everytime I talk to him, I get the intuition that he might spit out the words – Hey Bidhhu!! any moment. Anywho, so he betrayed us, and killed lots of our Pindhari bros. And I cut his arm. That was so awesome Veera.
ANYWHO!!! Yeah, so now I have the eyeliner in place.
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I’m gonna rob that lady’s brooch just to throw it back. Hang on, I’m gonna do it in Sholay style which co-incidentally my Bilogical Dadde had written.
And I’m gona win her heart, I mean the princesses.
And you know what, while doing so, I am gonna fly through the coaches,split my thunder thighs and still maintain my Ninja discreet look and my eyeliner intact.
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*Smitten*
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Much more occurin’ after the Jump. And there’s the Moral of the Story!!
***Veer + Durgati = Veer-Gati ***
When a movie inspires you to create something new, or even pushes you to the limits of inventing a new mashup of two different medium, it certainly is some form of genius in one way or another. Avatar did it with its 360 degrees of Pandora. And Veer has done the same with its Pindharis. Brute, drunk, sexually fertile and hormonally in their teens, the Pindhari Rajputs are not much different from the Na’vis. Now if you believe in every word I have said so far, go wash your face. To take the name of Cameron’s Avatar and Anil Sharma & Salman’s Veer-Avatar in the same breathe cannot be justified by any stretch of imagination. But yes, I do believe that Veer has inspired me to create something new. And that inspiration has resulted me to amalgamate Twitter into the 1860s revolt by the Pindharis. Basically what we are speaking here is -
How Veer [Salman] under the Chatrachaya of Prithvi [Mithun] got drunk, danced on some tribal Tubthumping music, went to London, got the Dulhania, Pwned Jaggu Dada and Saved the day
When the movie begins with the Disclaimer – All animals have treated properly blah blah!, they completely forgot to mention that the movie could be visually, mentally and emotionally extremely torturous to humans. Moving on, here we go – Tweeting the Movie – Veer.
Salman_TheVeer: @Anil_Gadar_Sharma I been writing. Sholay’s train robbery,romance, London, a Jalwa types drunk dance and a Katrina look-alike. Wht say?
Anil_Gadar_Sharma: @Salman_TheVeer Awesome dude. Is Sohail in 2? He’s mah fav.Reminds me of Rajendranath without glasses.
