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36 Responses to “Ra One London & Dubai premieres (updated)”
Filmmaker Karan Johar, who saw the preview of RA.One, is going ga ga over the movie and says it has the best computer graphics India has ever seen and proves India can match the technology used in Western movies.
“I just saw RA.One! Adrenalin pumping and the best computer graphics India has ever seen! Its a mega blockbuster super hero ride! Outstanding,” the 39-year-old posted on micro-blogging site Twitter
The film is releasing Wednesday on Diwali.
Made at a budget of over Rs 100 crore, the film is jointly produced by Eros International and megastar Shah Rukh Khan’s production company Red Chillies Entertainment. Anubhav Sinha is the director.
“The SFX team at Red Chillies and Anubhav (Sinha) have proven that Indian cinema can match and overtake the technology of the West,” Johar further posted.
RA.One will see Shah Rukh playing the lead role along with Arjun Rampal and Kareena Kapoor.
Johar also praised the star-cast saying: “Shah Rukh is not only a mega movie star but every inch of his performance is conviction personified. Arjun Rampal makes a stunning impact and my darling Bebo (Kareena) is the most beautiful ever! Watch out for the kid Armaan in the film.”
Only 2 genuine reviews here . . One give 9/10 and other 6/10 … Rest are new registered users who are just spamming with +ve review of Ra-one everywhere .. these guys may be SRK PR.
lol…so, jeevan, all you’re saying right here is that all the good reviews that Ra.One is getting are from SRK PR, but, the bad reviews are by genuine reviewers? lol, that is the worst excuse for being a hater.
Dubai keeps its date with its favourite star. But a popular hero need not always make for a great superhero, discovers Lekha Menon at the film’s premiere
Lekha Menon
Posted On Wednesday, October 26, 2011 at 03:13:59 AM
A Shah Rukh Khan film doesn’t exactly require you to suspend your disbelief, the way a Salman superhit or a Rajinikanth blockbuster does. But when the movie in question is RA.One, the city, Dubai and the occasion, the first of the three international premieres of the Rs 150-crore venture, just about anything’s possible.
So you see the 3000-odd screaming, yelling crowd comprising mainly of over-dressed women and over-enthusiastic kids and you realise that (the former) King Khan really needn’t have put in all that effort to hard sell his superhero flick, at least in this part of the world. People here would have lapped up his film even if there was no Chammak Challo, Kareena and the special effects.
Star-struck fans
That Dubai loves its Khans is nothing new. But the frenzy at Grand Cineplex, Bur Dubai, an area dominated by the Indian community, showed that SRK’s promotional overkill had not gone waste. (Of course, it still doesn’t match “Salmania” in the UAE but that’s another story).
The poor organisation of the event or the chaos weren’t a deterrent to the Indians, Pakistanis, Arabs and Lebanese Bollywood lovers who waited patiently to watch Shah Rukh, Kareena Kapoor, Arjun Rampal, Anubhav Sinha, Shahana Goswami and Resul Pookutty walk the red carpet on late Monday evening, two days before Diwali and a week before Eid – the metal barricades and stern security guards, notwithstanding. The advance booking was tremendous, informed a distributor.
Some like 60-plus Waheeda Maqbool had come all the way from Sharjah for a glimpse of her favourite star. “My one-year-old grandson dances to Chammak Challo. I love Shah Rukh too, I have paid dhs500 in the past to watch one of his shows. There was no way I could have missed this one!” she said. Her efforts were suitably rewarded when she managed both, a ticket for the movie as well as a handshake from SRK.
Amidst the melee was also a white face, Thomas Munroe, an Australian who was soaking in the madness around him. Munroe had a deeper connection to RA.One. A Mumbai-based junior artiste, he had landed a small role in the film through a casting agent and had flown into Dubai for the premiere. “I have a 10-second role where I have to yell ‘Yo Jacky Chan”. I hope they retained it; my part in the last film I did, Mausam, was edited out,” he said. His apprehensions were misplaced. ‘Yo Jacky Chan’ is very much part of the film. His mother who had accompanied him though, was more interested in getting a picture of SRK than seeing her son on screen.
In SRK’s shadow
The stars finally trooped in, predictably late by two hours, a Rolls Royce bringing them to the red carpet from the hotel. Shah Rukh, clad in his trademark black suit, played to the gallery the way only he can – skirting the barricades, shaking hands and blowing air kisses. It was enough to send fans like Rachel John and Shefali James, swooning. “We have been waiting for three hours, but it’s all worth it,” they chorused. Kareena, looking stunning in a blingy Manish Malhotra sari was the centre of attraction as well but didn’t have much to talk about either in the evening during the red carpet or earlier during the day at the press conference which was an SRK show all the way. Arjun, Resul, Anubhav and Shahana too played perfect character artistes.
The roar dies down
In such a charged atmosphere, it’s perhaps pointless to gauge people’s response to the film. But this wasn’t any other film. So when the screening finally began after the stars briefly addressed the audience in each of the six halls it was being screened, one expected wolf whistles and catcalls. But this was no Aurora theatre in Mumbai, nor was G.One, Chitti. So apart from a few “woo-hoos” when SRK appeared in his super-hero avatar or the Chammak Challo song began playing, Dubai’s reaction was a lot more sedate and very different from the scene just a few minutes outside the hall.
Perhaps it was because Shah Rukh’s staple audience – the auntyjis and PYTs who made for 90 per cent of the crowd – couldn’t quite understand what to make of his nerdy Shekhar Subramaniam scientist role and his G.One superhero avatar! As Shekhar, SRK tried his best to mimic the Tamil accent, say ‘Aiyyo’ and eat noodle-n-curd with his hands, an effort which Manju Iyer, a writer, described as “disastrous”. And as G.One, he mostly put on the Terminator-meets-Rahul expression, which wasn’t such a great hit either. Another lady couldn’t fathom how Shah Rukh, Kareena and the kid could have mouthed a ‘condom condom’ joke (watch the film to know more) in a children’s flick!
Fun, but…
For most part, however, people were trying to make sense of the Bollywood-meets-Terminator-Fantastic Four-Matrix-Independence Day masala mix that was being served up on screen. There were no gasps at the great special effects (for a Hindi film) nor was there any criticism at the loopholes in the plot. The Dubai audience instead had more fun trying to decode which film each sequence was inspired from. During the interval, a group of youngsters were overheard naming a variety of films – from Batman and Spider Man to Iron Man and Tron Legacy. Their overall verdict? “It was fun, but…”
After the film finally got over close to midnight, the look on the first-day-first show audience’s face was more of confusion than satisfaction. We asked Noori Khan, a media planner what she liked about the film. “It was interesting,” she said, after a long pause. “But then it’s Shah Rukh; I can watch anything he does.”
And in the end, that’s what mattered. SRK can definitely breathe easy. That mind-blasting overseas initial is definitely in the bag.
>Perhaps it was because Shah Rukh’s staple audience – the auntyjis and PYTs who made for 90 per cent of the crowd –
The writer gives away his bias with this sneering comment.
The clip is there for all to see. One sees mostly men and young girls in the crowd shouting Shahrukh.
Well, I’m off to watch the film.
The reaction (especially public – from tweets and fb) give me a sense of deja vu. It was the same during ‘Raavan’ where the harsh attacks which were extremely unfair killed the film.
But unlike then, here there seems to be a counter attack – and what we’re seeing is WAR! With Rocky and Jeevan aggressively contributing here and others taking a similar stand, but ‘quietly’.
On other places it’s the opposite. The picture is not clear at all. I guess the real picture will come out when all this dust settles – if anyone will allow it to. Hope it’s not a prolonged war.
What is that with the clip showing public review after the film?
How shamelessly it has been tampered with. Suddenly you start hearing a cricket commentary drowning the voice of the man, and then those people who said they liked it are heard to say – I don’t like the film
How stupid to be so careless in their tampering.
LOL!
It’s not at all like Raavan, it’s not even close. This is just the point I made a little while ago. With Raavan it was hysterical. Not just the negative reviews which often made it seem like the worst film on earth but also the box office stuff. On the other hand with Ra One even the negative stuff is overall rather kind. The degree of the criticism and the intensity of the same are not even in the same ballpark. But ultimately films like Ra One that are big blockbuster kinds are not generally killed by reviews alone. On the other hand a film like Raavan even when it opens well depends far more on the general atmosphere being too negative because the initial is not bullet-proof. But whichever side one might fall on in terms of this debate there is just no comparison. Actually there never is with an Abhishek film because he is always attacked most mercilessly at every level. when his films are given negative reviews usually his performance is also panned. This doesn’t happen with the rest. The bar for him is usually highest. When his films open well/do well they are unfairly rated by many, the same when they’re ordinary flops (in which case they become all time disasters), so on and so forth. SRK is at the other end of this. He still gets the kindest treatment all things considered because he’s been working at these media connections for the longest time. Some stars do receive a softer narrative than others. Salman just needed one success after literally years in the doldrums to have the same sorts of positive writeups all over again, as if no time had passed in between. But still he had to produce a Dabanng and then of course follow it up with these massive openings to get those writeups in the same measure. Aamir actually received greater unfairness in this sense compared to Salman let alone SRK. He went through more or less the entire past decade with all those critical and commercial successes without really being called the top star. Ghajini forced everyone to change their narrative and of course it was 3I as well but by this time SRK also was clearly falling behind (RNBDJ v Ghajini for example). But if SRK had had Lagaan and DCH and RDB and then followed it up with Ghajini and 3I they would have called him the greatest star in Indian history! In any case Aamir got his doing after doing more than anyone possibly could in terms of consistency, critical success and so on. With SRK there’s been a default mechanism where if someone got 80 crores it was assumed he could do, if someone got 100 it was assumed he could too and so on. Sometimes the assumptions are not necessarily off the mark but the man doesn’t actually have to show it unlike the others!
I should make a larger point here that related to all of this is the whole subliminally communal (minimally so) ‘Khans’ argument. This whole collective label, the likes of which I have never seen before. Note how this is rather useful for all three. When one of them does very well and the other two don’t or if two are doing well and one is left out there is still this label to rescue the one who’s getting left behind. This collection label somehow keeps dragging the latter out of the hole too! There is absolutely no connection between Salman and SRK’s cinema or between Aamir and SRK’s or between Aamir and Salman’s. But somehow this collective label keeps getting used. And there is some flimsy excuse about the stars having arrived together and what not This label is always one the media has used (I’d argue it’s a kind of post-Bachchan construction at one level where the three stars combine to battle the ghosts of Bachchan history! this also connects with my thesis on why the same forces are often so negative on Abhishek..). And so someone or the other is always doing well. The media then can keep referencing the label. Meanwhile someone like Hrithik no matter how well he does never has that same sort of residue hanging in the air. He just seems to disappear. He gets kind writeups and so on, that’s not the problem, but he isn’t constantly celebrated in any comparable sense. And again this structure keeps propping up the weaker ‘Khan’ whoever he might be at a given point in time (obviously Aamir hasn’t been weak in a decade). But here too there is some politics that favors SRK. When the latter was having his biggest successes no one was suggesting that the other two could do exactly the same. But somehow when Aamir got into the driver’s seat this became the narrative. salman wasn’t as relevant for the longest time this past decade but the moment he started doing well once again it was about the Khans (though in fairness I must say that some of the trade/media types do seem to love Salman, despite all the negative stuff and so on they never undermine his stardom..). This collective label is quite a bail-out operation! And once again it is a communal construct in at least a subliminal sense. Why else would these guys be lumped together? The empirical reasons provided are flimsy in the extreme.
satyam, I’ve now come to the conclusion that it *is* as bad as ‘raavan’ times.
In fact it’s worse. The tactics involved to sabotage are much more aggressive using tweets, blogs, internet etc.
This onslaught is amazing.
Whether one accepts it or not, SRK seems to be a source of power to reckon with.
think movies are for entertainment and to relax your self, lot of people think themselves as genius and movies as a serious media and write these kind of absurd reviews,, So Ignore kar,,ignore kar,,Go watch the movie and get entertained,,its a rocking movie and please take your kids also along with you,,nowadays very few films allow us to take our kids too,,Thank you Ra One team,,Its a pure entertainer…
am i the only one who is finding srk totally jaded, disinterested, over-worked and like a burnt-out cigarette…other day i wrote in the post of don2 also – the man looks like collapsing suddenly……
I think he hasn’t aged well.. have been saying this since the OSO days.. he started looking a bit gaunt around that time when he lost all that weight to work out.The only exception was CDI where the look really worked. Currently though I think the Ra One/Don schedules have really exhausted him and it’s showing. On KBC the other day he didn’t present a flattering picture in terms of his physicality. But leaving all this aside I do think Don 2 looks fine and I’d say the trailers are way better than the ones for the earlier installment. Again not all faces age the same way. Stars have to be careful. But he’s not collapsing or anything. He is still a major draw. He’s just finding it hard to meet the biggest benchmarks or when he does even potentially the cost of doing so is way greater than what it is in both monetary and physical effort terms for his peers.
yes satyam…..but now i value the original Don with Big B so much more…..only Big B’s barritone dialogue “Don ko pakadna…” overshadows the entire srk-acted don series which has technology on its side…..in don 2 – srk’s dialogue-delivery doesn’t give any impression about any don….to be little fair with him…i guess in dialogue-delivery dept. – none of the present heroes except devgan impresses me…not even aamir, sallu, hritik….in that sense – the importance of dialogue-delivery seems to be almost forgotten…..i want to point out Prakash raj here – he does have that sense of amazing dialogue delivery – in Singham, he modulates his voice so well…..
Satyam ji, not watch RaOne yet but will watch it on Sunday in 3D version at CineMax Guwahati.My brother today watch the film in 3D and he say RaONE amazing film and great special effect works.Thanks.
By the way: kareena looking reasonably fine here for a change. In the top oic, she seems to have caught srk and arjun in the “act”–both look a bit “spent” though esp “passive” srk
watched the movie yesterday. frankly, i’m not too disappointed.
The story of the movie is simple and easy to comprehend. Nothing inception-like to the story. However, it does take Bollywood out of its boundaries. The main front seat is taken by the VFX, while the story takes the passenger seat. The VFX are something that will impress ANYONE; just as good as Hollywood. The hindi cinema is making a transition into western style. For the elder generation, that would be a tough transition, so they would NOT like this movie, which is fine because Ra.One is targeted at youth. The first 15 minutes are the hardest to get through. You get through that and you will thoroughly enjoy the movie. Definitely recommended. 4/5
I meant that it wasn’t like inception in terms of it not being confusing. Inception I had to watch like 3 times to get the whole thing. This movie is a straight-forward story.
Kareena looking better at the premier than she has ever looked
Btw can’t reconcile how people find her so “hot” otherwise
Find her megajaw and eyes scary
Btw stumbled upon some clip somewhere in an Srk stage show
Arjun and said giving him a shave backstage
Disgusting lol
October 25, 2011 at 9:51 AM
RA.One is mega blockbuster super hero ride: KJo
Filmmaker Karan Johar, who saw the preview of RA.One, is going ga ga over the movie and says it has the best computer graphics India has ever seen and proves India can match the technology used in Western movies.
“I just saw RA.One! Adrenalin pumping and the best computer graphics India has ever seen! Its a mega blockbuster super hero ride! Outstanding,” the 39-year-old posted on micro-blogging site Twitter
The film is releasing Wednesday on Diwali.
Made at a budget of over Rs 100 crore, the film is jointly produced by Eros International and megastar Shah Rukh Khan’s production company Red Chillies Entertainment. Anubhav Sinha is the director.
“The SFX team at Red Chillies and Anubhav (Sinha) have proven that Indian cinema can match and overtake the technology of the West,” Johar further posted.
RA.One will see Shah Rukh playing the lead role along with Arjun Rampal and Kareena Kapoor.
Johar also praised the star-cast saying: “Shah Rukh is not only a mega movie star but every inch of his performance is conviction personified. Arjun Rampal makes a stunning impact and my darling Bebo (Kareena) is the most beautiful ever! Watch out for the kid Armaan in the film.”
October 25, 2011 at 4:34 PM
It’s time Johar start believing in sincerity more often. I dont remember when was the last time he had something bad to say about a film
October 25, 2011 at 11:53 AM
really??? poor reviews???
http://www.bollywoodhungama.com/movies/review/14208/index.html
http://www.deccanchronicle.com/channels/showbiz/movie-reviews/raone-quite-thrill-ride-996
http://gulfnews.com/arts-entertainment/film/cinema-reviews/ra-one-shah-rukh-khan-has-another-winner-1.918235
http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/237156/20111025/ra-one-review-raone-review-bollywood-film-reviews-shah-rukh-khan-actress-kareena-kapoor-actor-arjun-.htm
October 25, 2011 at 11:54 AM
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1562871/reviews — user reviews
October 25, 2011 at 12:05 PM
Only 2 genuine reviews here . . One give 9/10 and other 6/10 … Rest are new registered users who are just spamming with +ve review of Ra-one everywhere .. these guys may be SRK PR.
October 25, 2011 at 1:25 PM
n what do you have to say about your posting that link of the fake one line reviews posted by SRK haters.. ?
practice what you preach!
October 25, 2011 at 11:58 PM
lol…so, jeevan, all you’re saying right here is that all the good reviews that Ra.One is getting are from SRK PR, but, the bad reviews are by genuine reviewers? lol, that is the worst excuse for being a hater.
October 25, 2011 at 1:33 PM
TOI Review
3.5
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/entertainment/movie-reviews/hindi/Ra-One/moviereview/10484952.cms
October 25, 2011 at 2:20 PM
the major reviews seem to be positive so far..
October 25, 2011 at 2:51 PM
Surya’s movie is not getting a good talk.
October 25, 2011 at 3:44 PM
hope this is not the general view.. wanted to check this out..
October 25, 2011 at 2:17 PM
Hilarious stuff-
http://www.fakingnews.com/2011/10/tv-channel-finds-a-man-who-has-no-idea-about-ra-one/
http://www.rakeshjhunjhunwala.in/2011/10/72-544×376-normal-0-false-false-false.html
October 25, 2011 at 2:21 PM
a tweet-
SRK grabs Kareena’s boob. A school teacher has a sex tape. Man makes SRK show his pierced nipple & licks lips. #RaOne, a family entertainer………..
October 25, 2011 at 2:42 PM
LOL! Unbelievable.. this gets back to my ‘debate’ with Aadmi yesterday:
http://satyamshot.wordpress.com/2011/10/25/image-from-rowdy-rathode/#comment-108922
http://satyamshot.wordpress.com/2011/10/25/image-from-rowdy-rathode/#comment-109004
October 25, 2011 at 2:54 PM
more-
mihirfadnavis
Condom jokes, cleavage jokes, gay jokes. I can almost feel the flopsweat of the writers, laboring to make these jokes work. #RaOne
October 25, 2011 at 4:38 PM
Ohh Dear! That’s embarassing..
even KHNH contained sexual innuendo aplenty – references towards cocks, holes and anal sex.. all with a ‘U’ certificate
October 25, 2011 at 3:12 PM
More from http://twitter.com/#!/mihirfadnavis
Perfect storm of Kentucky fried ham acting, silly plotting & inane jokes that r more wearingly stupid than Ra1 is evil. *End of livetweets*
RaOne – this is a movie that is proud to be imbecilic, loud and inconsequential. Review tomorrow morning.
HOHOHAHHAHAHAHA! Arjun Rampal just impersonated Kareena and danced for SRK. ROFLMAX! #RaOne
Instead of a kickass superhero, G.One Shahrukh looks like a contestant at a costume party. #RaOne
October 25, 2011 at 3:31 PM
Raja Sen: So this #RaOne? Krrish was better.
October 25, 2011 at 6:29 PM
Not this One
Dubai keeps its date with its favourite star. But a popular hero need not always make for a great superhero, discovers Lekha Menon at the film’s premiere
Lekha Menon
Posted On Wednesday, October 26, 2011 at 03:13:59 AM
A Shah Rukh Khan film doesn’t exactly require you to suspend your disbelief, the way a Salman superhit or a Rajinikanth blockbuster does. But when the movie in question is RA.One, the city, Dubai and the occasion, the first of the three international premieres of the Rs 150-crore venture, just about anything’s possible.
So you see the 3000-odd screaming, yelling crowd comprising mainly of over-dressed women and over-enthusiastic kids and you realise that (the former) King Khan really needn’t have put in all that effort to hard sell his superhero flick, at least in this part of the world. People here would have lapped up his film even if there was no Chammak Challo, Kareena and the special effects.
Star-struck fans
That Dubai loves its Khans is nothing new. But the frenzy at Grand Cineplex, Bur Dubai, an area dominated by the Indian community, showed that SRK’s promotional overkill had not gone waste. (Of course, it still doesn’t match “Salmania” in the UAE but that’s another story).
The poor organisation of the event or the chaos weren’t a deterrent to the Indians, Pakistanis, Arabs and Lebanese Bollywood lovers who waited patiently to watch Shah Rukh, Kareena Kapoor, Arjun Rampal, Anubhav Sinha, Shahana Goswami and Resul Pookutty walk the red carpet on late Monday evening, two days before Diwali and a week before Eid – the metal barricades and stern security guards, notwithstanding. The advance booking was tremendous, informed a distributor.
Some like 60-plus Waheeda Maqbool had come all the way from Sharjah for a glimpse of her favourite star. “My one-year-old grandson dances to Chammak Challo. I love Shah Rukh too, I have paid dhs500 in the past to watch one of his shows. There was no way I could have missed this one!” she said. Her efforts were suitably rewarded when she managed both, a ticket for the movie as well as a handshake from SRK.
Amidst the melee was also a white face, Thomas Munroe, an Australian who was soaking in the madness around him. Munroe had a deeper connection to RA.One. A Mumbai-based junior artiste, he had landed a small role in the film through a casting agent and had flown into Dubai for the premiere. “I have a 10-second role where I have to yell ‘Yo Jacky Chan”. I hope they retained it; my part in the last film I did, Mausam, was edited out,” he said. His apprehensions were misplaced. ‘Yo Jacky Chan’ is very much part of the film. His mother who had accompanied him though, was more interested in getting a picture of SRK than seeing her son on screen.
In SRK’s shadow
The stars finally trooped in, predictably late by two hours, a Rolls Royce bringing them to the red carpet from the hotel. Shah Rukh, clad in his trademark black suit, played to the gallery the way only he can – skirting the barricades, shaking hands and blowing air kisses. It was enough to send fans like Rachel John and Shefali James, swooning. “We have been waiting for three hours, but it’s all worth it,” they chorused. Kareena, looking stunning in a blingy Manish Malhotra sari was the centre of attraction as well but didn’t have much to talk about either in the evening during the red carpet or earlier during the day at the press conference which was an SRK show all the way. Arjun, Resul, Anubhav and Shahana too played perfect character artistes.
The roar dies down
In such a charged atmosphere, it’s perhaps pointless to gauge people’s response to the film. But this wasn’t any other film. So when the screening finally began after the stars briefly addressed the audience in each of the six halls it was being screened, one expected wolf whistles and catcalls. But this was no Aurora theatre in Mumbai, nor was G.One, Chitti. So apart from a few “woo-hoos” when SRK appeared in his super-hero avatar or the Chammak Challo song began playing, Dubai’s reaction was a lot more sedate and very different from the scene just a few minutes outside the hall.
Perhaps it was because Shah Rukh’s staple audience – the auntyjis and PYTs who made for 90 per cent of the crowd – couldn’t quite understand what to make of his nerdy Shekhar Subramaniam scientist role and his G.One superhero avatar! As Shekhar, SRK tried his best to mimic the Tamil accent, say ‘Aiyyo’ and eat noodle-n-curd with his hands, an effort which Manju Iyer, a writer, described as “disastrous”. And as G.One, he mostly put on the Terminator-meets-Rahul expression, which wasn’t such a great hit either. Another lady couldn’t fathom how Shah Rukh, Kareena and the kid could have mouthed a ‘condom condom’ joke (watch the film to know more) in a children’s flick!
Fun, but…
For most part, however, people were trying to make sense of the Bollywood-meets-Terminator-Fantastic Four-Matrix-Independence Day masala mix that was being served up on screen. There were no gasps at the great special effects (for a Hindi film) nor was there any criticism at the loopholes in the plot. The Dubai audience instead had more fun trying to decode which film each sequence was inspired from. During the interval, a group of youngsters were overheard naming a variety of films – from Batman and Spider Man to Iron Man and Tron Legacy. Their overall verdict? “It was fun, but…”
After the film finally got over close to midnight, the look on the first-day-first show audience’s face was more of confusion than satisfaction. We asked Noori Khan, a media planner what she liked about the film. “It was interesting,” she said, after a long pause. “But then it’s Shah Rukh; I can watch anything he does.”
And in the end, that’s what mattered. SRK can definitely breathe easy. That mind-blasting overseas initial is definitely in the bag.
October 26, 2011 at 9:45 AM
>Perhaps it was because Shah Rukh’s staple audience – the auntyjis and PYTs who made for 90 per cent of the crowd –
The writer gives away his bias with this sneering comment.
The clip is there for all to see. One sees mostly men and young girls in the crowd shouting Shahrukh.
October 26, 2011 at 9:42 AM
Well, I’m off to watch the film.
The reaction (especially public – from tweets and fb) give me a sense of deja vu. It was the same during ‘Raavan’ where the harsh attacks which were extremely unfair killed the film.
But unlike then, here there seems to be a counter attack – and what we’re seeing is WAR! With Rocky and Jeevan aggressively contributing here and others taking a similar stand, but ‘quietly’.
On other places it’s the opposite. The picture is not clear at all. I guess the real picture will come out when all this dust settles – if anyone will allow it to. Hope it’s not a prolonged war.
What is that with the clip showing public review after the film?
How shamelessly it has been tampered with. Suddenly you start hearing a cricket commentary drowning the voice of the man, and then those people who said they liked it are heard to say – I don’t like the film
How stupid to be so careless in their tampering.
LOL!
October 26, 2011 at 10:36 AM
It’s not at all like Raavan, it’s not even close. This is just the point I made a little while ago. With Raavan it was hysterical. Not just the negative reviews which often made it seem like the worst film on earth but also the box office stuff. On the other hand with Ra One even the negative stuff is overall rather kind. The degree of the criticism and the intensity of the same are not even in the same ballpark. But ultimately films like Ra One that are big blockbuster kinds are not generally killed by reviews alone. On the other hand a film like Raavan even when it opens well depends far more on the general atmosphere being too negative because the initial is not bullet-proof. But whichever side one might fall on in terms of this debate there is just no comparison. Actually there never is with an Abhishek film because he is always attacked most mercilessly at every level. when his films are given negative reviews usually his performance is also panned. This doesn’t happen with the rest. The bar for him is usually highest. When his films open well/do well they are unfairly rated by many, the same when they’re ordinary flops (in which case they become all time disasters), so on and so forth. SRK is at the other end of this. He still gets the kindest treatment all things considered because he’s been working at these media connections for the longest time. Some stars do receive a softer narrative than others. Salman just needed one success after literally years in the doldrums to have the same sorts of positive writeups all over again, as if no time had passed in between. But still he had to produce a Dabanng and then of course follow it up with these massive openings to get those writeups in the same measure. Aamir actually received greater unfairness in this sense compared to Salman let alone SRK. He went through more or less the entire past decade with all those critical and commercial successes without really being called the top star. Ghajini forced everyone to change their narrative and of course it was 3I as well but by this time SRK also was clearly falling behind (RNBDJ v Ghajini for example). But if SRK had had Lagaan and DCH and RDB and then followed it up with Ghajini and 3I they would have called him the greatest star in Indian history! In any case Aamir got his doing after doing more than anyone possibly could in terms of consistency, critical success and so on. With SRK there’s been a default mechanism where if someone got 80 crores it was assumed he could do, if someone got 100 it was assumed he could too and so on. Sometimes the assumptions are not necessarily off the mark but the man doesn’t actually have to show it unlike the others!
I should make a larger point here that related to all of this is the whole subliminally communal (minimally so) ‘Khans’ argument. This whole collective label, the likes of which I have never seen before. Note how this is rather useful for all three. When one of them does very well and the other two don’t or if two are doing well and one is left out there is still this label to rescue the one who’s getting left behind. This collection label somehow keeps dragging the latter out of the hole too! There is absolutely no connection between Salman and SRK’s cinema or between Aamir and SRK’s or between Aamir and Salman’s. But somehow this collective label keeps getting used. And there is some flimsy excuse about the stars having arrived together and what not This label is always one the media has used (I’d argue it’s a kind of post-Bachchan construction at one level where the three stars combine to battle the ghosts of Bachchan history! this also connects with my thesis on why the same forces are often so negative on Abhishek..). And so someone or the other is always doing well. The media then can keep referencing the label. Meanwhile someone like Hrithik no matter how well he does never has that same sort of residue hanging in the air. He just seems to disappear. He gets kind writeups and so on, that’s not the problem, but he isn’t constantly celebrated in any comparable sense. And again this structure keeps propping up the weaker ‘Khan’ whoever he might be at a given point in time (obviously Aamir hasn’t been weak in a decade). But here too there is some politics that favors SRK. When the latter was having his biggest successes no one was suggesting that the other two could do exactly the same. But somehow when Aamir got into the driver’s seat this became the narrative. salman wasn’t as relevant for the longest time this past decade but the moment he started doing well once again it was about the Khans (though in fairness I must say that some of the trade/media types do seem to love Salman, despite all the negative stuff and so on they never undermine his stardom..). This collective label is quite a bail-out operation! And once again it is a communal construct in at least a subliminal sense. Why else would these guys be lumped together? The empirical reasons provided are flimsy in the extreme.
October 28, 2011 at 6:09 PM
satyam, I’ve now come to the conclusion that it *is* as bad as ‘raavan’ times.
In fact it’s worse. The tactics involved to sabotage are much more aggressive using tweets, blogs, internet etc.
This onslaught is amazing.
Whether one accepts it or not, SRK seems to be a source of power to reckon with.
October 28, 2011 at 6:37 PM
Yeah, disparaging an Anubhav Sinha movie is worse than blindly dismissing a film directed by the country’s greatest living mainstream filmmaker.
October 28, 2011 at 6:47 PM
Oldgold, there’s no doubt that SRK invites the most hostility in the online world, there isn’t even any competition as far as BW is concerned.
October 28, 2011 at 11:57 PM
Oldgold, there isn’t even a comparison on the media front..
Twitter is a different thing.. many films get mauled here..
October 26, 2011 at 2:16 PM
think movies are for entertainment and to relax your self, lot of people think themselves as genius and movies as a serious media and write these kind of absurd reviews,, So Ignore kar,,ignore kar,,Go watch the movie and get entertained,,its a rocking movie and please take your kids also along with you,,nowadays very few films allow us to take our kids too,,Thank you Ra One team,,Its a pure entertainer…
October 26, 2011 at 3:25 PM
am i the only one who is finding srk totally jaded, disinterested, over-worked and like a burnt-out cigarette…other day i wrote in the post of don2 also – the man looks like collapsing suddenly……
October 26, 2011 at 3:36 PM
I think he hasn’t aged well.. have been saying this since the OSO days.. he started looking a bit gaunt around that time when he lost all that weight to work out.The only exception was CDI where the look really worked. Currently though I think the Ra One/Don schedules have really exhausted him and it’s showing. On KBC the other day he didn’t present a flattering picture in terms of his physicality. But leaving all this aside I do think Don 2 looks fine and I’d say the trailers are way better than the ones for the earlier installment. Again not all faces age the same way. Stars have to be careful. But he’s not collapsing or anything. He is still a major draw. He’s just finding it hard to meet the biggest benchmarks or when he does even potentially the cost of doing so is way greater than what it is in both monetary and physical effort terms for his peers.
October 26, 2011 at 3:43 PM
yes satyam…..but now i value the original Don with Big B so much more…..only Big B’s barritone dialogue “Don ko pakadna…” overshadows the entire srk-acted don series which has technology on its side…..in don 2 – srk’s dialogue-delivery doesn’t give any impression about any don….to be little fair with him…i guess in dialogue-delivery dept. – none of the present heroes except devgan impresses me…not even aamir, sallu, hritik….in that sense – the importance of dialogue-delivery seems to be almost forgotten…..i want to point out Prakash raj here – he does have that sense of amazing dialogue delivery – in Singham, he modulates his voice so well…..
October 27, 2011 at 2:44 AM
Satyam ji, not watch RaOne yet but will watch it on Sunday in 3D version at CineMax Guwahati.My brother today watch the film in 3D and he say RaONE amazing film and great special effect works.Thanks.
October 27, 2011 at 6:24 PM
thanx for the input:rupamJI
By the way: kareena looking reasonably fine here for a change. In the top oic, she seems to have caught srk and arjun in the “act”–both look a bit “spent” though esp “passive” srk
October 28, 2011 at 12:33 AM
watched the movie yesterday. frankly, i’m not too disappointed.
The story of the movie is simple and easy to comprehend. Nothing inception-like to the story. However, it does take Bollywood out of its boundaries. The main front seat is taken by the VFX, while the story takes the passenger seat. The VFX are something that will impress ANYONE; just as good as Hollywood. The hindi cinema is making a transition into western style. For the elder generation, that would be a tough transition, so they would NOT like this movie, which is fine because Ra.One is targeted at youth. The first 15 minutes are the hardest to get through. You get through that and you will thoroughly enjoy the movie. Definitely recommended. 4/5
October 28, 2011 at 5:43 PM
“Nothing inception-like to the story”–wow: u had great expectations arsh–
October 28, 2011 at 7:18 PM
I meant that it wasn’t like inception in terms of it not being confusing. Inception I had to watch like 3 times to get the whole thing. This movie is a straight-forward story.
November 2, 2011 at 2:09 PM
Kareena looking better at the premier than she has ever looked
Btw can’t reconcile how people find her so “hot” otherwise
Find her megajaw and eyes scary
Btw stumbled upon some clip somewhere in an Srk stage show
Arjun and said giving him a shave backstage
Disgusting lol