I walk into the dark auditorium expecting to be moved by the songs and rhymes of Love Songs-Yesterday,Today and Tomorrow.Instead,I was greeted by a long list of Acknowledgements ranging from the Neotia Hospital to Football Clubs to Coffee House in College Street. And then, it began. A cute,indoor setting with tables decorated with photo frames. Silent moments captured to tell tales of the past. There is something I simply love about small movies which try to break out of the mould of stereotypes. I love them so much that I start overlooking the flaws and keep on encouraging . But there’s a certain limit beyond which it just boils down to become yet another hopeless piece of shit. And that is what Love Songs is. As Simon Cowell would put it, we wouldn’t be remembering this in 10 years (in this case, after walking out of the auditorium), and at best that was a cruise ship performance or a veteran given a chance to entertain in a theme park. Sorry, I wasn’t entertained AT ALL.

First things first, I would like to plead all the casting managers to include Mallika Sarabhai in every horror movie possible. She scared the shit out of me with the deep kajal-ified eyes and the meter-deep foundation layer which would put any Pyramid construction to shame. Add to that a wig in blazing ruby red . Secondly, the intoxicating aawaaz of Aftab Jaffri (Om Puri) keeps haunting throughout the movie, reading Urdu poetry. The references made to his affinity to political topics of Calcutta and how he brought Mridula (Jaya Bachhan) to get addicted to Begum Akhtar’s Dadra during their days at Presidency College has been woven quite beautifully. But again, I feel so deprived of Om Puri’s performance in this movie. His voice was casted more than his personal appearance, and that seemed like a flaw. Read the rest of this post »

Tolly Bites. And it hurts

I was literally dragged to the premiere of Arjun Chakraborty’s “Tollylights” in Kolkata. I didn’t have any clue that the premiere event was going to be thronged by women in inch deep make-up, the who’s who of Kolkata’s P3 circle and yeah, renowned lyricist and filmmaker Gulzar and ex-capitano Saurav Ganguly were also there. I was already pissed at the affairs getting late, and well, I felt sorry for Mr.Gulzar that he had to sit through the entire movie,(coz he was there to support his ex-Asst Dir. Arjun, the guy in the left in the trackies , yeah he’s the director in case you didn’t know) and well, so was I also forced to sit through it. I entered the screening room and from scene 1, I knew this was in some way going to be hilarious (even if it wasn’t mean to be). The reels begin to roll, and “Aashun Rongeen Prithibi te” starts screaming out from the surround speakers. Someone please tell the projectionist that me ears are bleeding. I wish I hadn’t thrown away my cotton reels. The intro track shows the journey of Tollywood from where it all began to what shit it is now. The track is replete with formulas of Bangla rock-the distorted guitars,the annoying cheap drum cymbals crashing with the bass sounds, and the irritating backing vocals and even more annoying lead vocals who wants to end every line with a fade out echo. Ugh!! Scene 1: Mithun da enters. Mithunda begins by saying something which sounded similar to :- Aaami Gay ( I am Gay). Actually he said Aaami Ke? (Who am I?) And the laughter riot didnt stop for me.

If you are really interested, the story is about Tollywood in general and encompasses the story of the struggle of a genuinely talented filmmaker being exploited to the extremes by the unethical show-business, and a middle class married woman who chooses glory over a non-supportive family. Pfff….Feed me something good. Yawn Yawn.What started as a take on the creative mediocrity in Tollywood, with scripts often being stolen from DVDs of South Indian movies, casting couch culture, the politics of Production Teams, the tussle between Producers of Mega Serials and the Movie actresses, gets immersed in its own mediocrity as the script fails to excite me , and so does the performances. I mean yeah, we have seen heroines sleep with Producers or veteran actors, in that order, and we have also seen actress commiting suicides. So fucking what? Having said that, the movie has two scenes which you take back home. Read the rest of this post »