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106 Responses to “Finding Fanny, the rest of the box office”
Mary Kom Struggles On Weekdays With Low Collections
Friday 12 September 2014 11.00 IST
Box Office India Trade Network
Mary Kom struggled on the weekdays with low collections as it recorded a 39.50 crore nett first week. The film started pretty well especially at high end multiplexes and showed good growth at multiplexes on Saturday and Sunday but collections came down pretty badly on Monday. Although the film remained pretty steady over the rest of the week, the damage had been done on Monday.
A near 40 crore nett is a reasonable figure for the first week but the film has not found appreciation with the audience so will not add much after the first week.
A film like Ragini MMS 2 which is heroine centric but in the horror/sex genre so if it is to score will do best initially and manages a 23 crore nett weekend and finishes at 46.50 crore nett. Here a so called content based film is doing a 27 crore nett weekend and struggling to double its weekend like Ragini MMS 2 really tells about how good the content really is. Overall the producers are safe as they got good prices for the film and much of the advertising was done by brands involved in the film but the investors will lose.
Creature 3D And Finding Fanny Open Poorly
Friday 12 September 2014 13.00 IST
Box Office India Trade Network
Creature 3D and Finding Fanny both opened to poor response at the box office with Creature 3D being decent at select single screens. The English version of Finding Fanny was better than the Hindi version which opened to very low occupancies.
Finding Fanny has a lot of screenings at multiplexes with some sites going to 15 shows combined for the English and Hindi versions which is a big number for this type of film. The film should do better in the evening at premium multiplexes of metros but there is a limit to how far these 50 odd multiplexes can eventually take a film.
Creature 3D is better than Finding Fanny at multiplexes of second tier cities like a Ghaziabad and Kanpur but is well behind in multiplexes overall which means it will find it tough to match the growth of Finding Fanny on Saturday. Creature 3D is also much better at singls screens but Finding Fanny is being screened on very few single screens.
I think the ‘tone’ of this First Post article makes it clear that this is a hatchet job; this piece reeks of dishonesty and bad faith, I actually first thought that this is one of those trashy Mid-Day pieces of ‘reportage’. And actually I am not surprised considering someone Mihir Fadnavis is associated with First Post (incidentally he used to write for Mid-Day earlier). He, I must admit, is the most offensive film critic I have ever seen. Apart from his language (“I want to have sex with Gangs of Wasseypur”) which is just plain repulsive, he is simply not educated about things he writes on- he called Mukul Anand’s “Agneepath” a B-Grade film. And if this wasn’t enough, he thinks Ram Leela is a ‘noir’! No kidding!
In another thread Sunil wrote that ‘ Dimple is proving an embarrassment to Akshay’ , because of her role in Finding FF. He also added that she need not do such roles, or words to that effect.
Really! Dimple Kapadia that terrific survivor had a fantastic debut film and later some good artistic films like Rudali. FFF seems another arty cum zany film, a bold quirky film, with Dimple in an off beat role. Akshay Kumar should be bloody proud to have an individualistic lady like Dimple as mother- in-law. And i am sure he is not ashamed of Dimple’s recent filmi outing. She is doing roles and films that have some meaning, not playing another 45 plus hero’s mother. I say, hats off to Dimple.
Even I felt that Dimple should not become a clown to elicit laughs. She was a unique beauty once and she should maintain her exclusivity by doing roles with dignity. Why to pad her bums and shake them too at this age?
For me Bobby was an ultimate romantic film which is still fresh and Dimple and Rishi pair was wonderful.
Its her call and if she wants to do any role that comes her way.
Finding Fanny is getting bad reviews from the audience. As usual critics have no idea on what audiences likes. The less said about Creature the better. Mary Kom might still show more occupancy than these 2 movies
Krish: But it’s NOT the critic’s job to know what audience the likes. All a critic does his put forward HIS/HER thoughts on the films. Also NOBODY can predict what an audience likes- doing so would be a fool’s errand.
agree.. while I’m hardly supporting Indian critics it’s also the case that too many in India believe in this cult of the audience. The latter isn’t the repository of ultimate wisdom. The audience might just have appalling taste. The fact is that the list of films that audiences have rejected in every great industry and that have then gone on to be considered great or ‘greatest’ films is an encyclopedic one. Not saying Krrish meant to suggest all of this but still the audience becomes too much of a reference point. That the box office is a reality from a commercial perspective is fairly obvious. However the other reality here is that in every industry there are also those willing to risk those box office returns for works they believe in. We would lose half or more of the films we value in a global sense if we didn’t have those foolhardy types!
On the first it’s not that there ‘may’ exist such a list, there simply ‘is’. One of course has to know this stuff! But it varies from industry to industry. One could for instance start with Citizen Kane! The very ‘greatest’ on so many lists.
On the second, well.. I’ve already answered this by extension.
But all of this all has to take into account industries with a serious critical culture. India for instance does not have this. So when you don’t have ‘literate’ critics you’re less likely to have serious lists being drawn, you’re also less likely to see obscure films being unearthed, you’re similarly less likely to see even famous films discussed in the right fashion, you’re then likely to get a much higher correlation between the box office and critical opinion. Because in the absence of a serious critical culture there isn’t the kind of ‘churning’ in these matters that one can take for granted in a number of Western industries or in Japan and so on.
Even so once one accounts for this there are lots of interesting examples even here. One has to look no further than Mera Naam Joker or a couple of Guru Dutt films. Again because of the illiteracy of critics it’s harder to rely on lists to make this point the way one could for those other industries but nonetheless certain patterns emerge.
The other corollary that must be added here is that over time the mere box office success unless it is considered ‘meaningful’ or an absolute classic doesn’t really survive that well if at all. Most films don’t have much of a shelf life. This is why stars who just do bargain basement entertainment find themselves so diminished over time. Because the films just don’t have the meaning to be that relevant in later generations. They must then rely on being ‘evergreen classics’ and this too is not a fate granted to most films. and this too connevcts to the earlier point. The great or greatest lists are always in flux. But only films with enough meaning or those considered huge classics even have a chance of being recycled this way. Everything else falls by the wayside.
Incidentally this is true not just for cinema but for many other art forms as well.
The “May” was for use with “long” not “list”. People always talk as if there is a definitive “long” list, but then mention the usual and obvious handful. I have yet to see a “long” list by a NASA like authority. But neither a NASA like authority exists not does a long list.
I do agree that one can definitely name some movies which are considered great but were in their time ( or original format) rejected.
BUT
The larger point is that you fool somebody, sometimes, but not everybody, all the time. The people usually get it right.
Maybe another way is to say this is that list of movies that critics thought were great but ended up in the dustbin of history is equally “long”.
On your last sentence you’re quite factually wrong. Much as ‘the people usually get it right’ is another myth. But in any case and to be rather blunt about it once you don’t know what you’re talking about and the semantic twists you’re providing (as always) and neither convincing nor especially sophisticated. And this isn’t a ‘confrontation’ either.
Bandra.NRI: With all due respect, you are either missing Satyam’s point (rather deliberately it seems) or simply obfuscating things.
“Maybe another way is to say this is that list of movies that critics thought were great but ended up in the dustbin of history is equally “long”. “-
Yes, but I don’t see Satyam suggesting otherwise in his comment. What he is saying is that neither the audience(s) nor the critics are the final barometers regarding a film’s quality or its ‘final position’ in the cinematic history of the respective film industry. However, and to “somewhat” counter your point, in a country like England or America where there is proper apparatus for film criticism, there is a good chance that if a good number of important critical voices support a film which has been rejected by the auduence at that point of time, that film’s reception in the later years may change and it may turn out to become historically important. Also, again in these countries, for a truly worthwhile film (and ‘worthwhile’ is the operative word), the ‘critical reception’ of it may undergo a radical change (as it has happened many times in the past) in the later years even if it was completely rejected by the critics at the time of release (very often the same critics who has panned the film has later changed his views, sometimes even apologised to the director in question for misunderstanding the film on the first go!). Not saying that every worthwhile film gets this sort of benefit, but atleast the option for the same always exists. In other words, in Bollywood if something like Mangal Pandeyor Thakshak is rejected by the audience and critics initially, the door for the film (to ever see a change in its fortune in subsequent years/decades) is ‘almost always’ closed forever; in Hollywood though that’s not the case at all.
Yes.The list of films liked by audience which are considered great films is always longer than flop films which are considered great films.Why is that argument raised here in the first place.Is it to say hny or pk are great films?
This is not a simple matter. There are multiple facets. Some of what you are saying is true, but to think that what you say completely and comprehensively defines everything is delusional.
The bigger truth is that more often than not people get it right. I have faith in the collective consensus of the people, and yes they can be wrong also.
Do you blame me for being unwilling to be swayed by aberrations to believe that generally people are wrong. The examples of Citizrn Cane, Pyasa etc are genuine but aberrations. People generally get it right.
Summers are generally hot. Well this year, in NYC area, it was not really hot, it was quite pleasant. Perhaps there exist a list of summer days when it has snowed also, but that list does not disprove that it is generally hot/warm in summer.
Now for what ever “reason” you believe you need to have the final word on any issue. You think it is OK to shame and abuse guest into agreeing. I am tired of your “to be blunt” prequel before you explode your nasty personal attack. You are not being nasty as a last resort, being nasty is your goto MO, hence drop the pretense and just be nasty, it does not change the debate o? Just breathe and remember it is just a discussion. Don’t let a simple discussion get you so panicked ?
As if substituting Pyasa for KKP or vice versa proves that Summers are bitter cold and Winters are hot & humid.
As I said before and let me repeat, there may exist a long list of movies that were deemed “classics etc” after they flopped, but that list is not long compared to the list of all the “classic” movies, or the list of all movies ever made.
You are taking an exception and saying that is the norm. You are showing an Albino and saying that is the normal skin tone of all people. Your examples are examples of cold days in a summer month.
well at least you’re not offering a Goodyear tire analogy. Or a paint analogy or something. The thing you don’t realize (and that many don’t in your situation) is that a certain kind of ignorance might be bliss for the one who exhibits it but it sounds rather appalling at the other end! Not that it’s particularly surprising. In India (and I think in the larger Indian subcontinent) people are all too happy to wallow in ignorance and be dogmatic about things they know nothing about. Now you might say this is ‘nasty’ but beyond a point a thing must be called by its proper name.
Very insightful piece Rangan piece on the older Indian Shakespeare adaptations. Especially the last few lines are excellent (even something like “Ek Haseena Thi” from Karz was on the lines of the play-within-a-play kinda deal).
“….But once we get used to this apparent dissonance, once we settle into the film (to extent that a modern-day viewer can settle into a film where the acting is so flagrantly silent-film-ready), the lines do begin to make sense. In the scene after the one where Hamlet kills Polonius, Gertrude says, “Hamlet ki deewangi samundar ki toofani ki tarah roz ba roz badhti jaa rahi hai.” But if the line appears overwrought and excessively… well, theatrical, that’s because the source is itself theatrical, and, by today’s standards, wrought very differently. Shakespeare’s equivalent line pitches wildly on the same metaphor. Gertrude: “Mad as the sea and wind, when both contend which is the mightier.”
Some of the equivalencies are quite exquisite, with the dialogues rendered in verse, the way they were in Chetan Anand’s Heer Ranjha. (The “to be or not to be” speech, though, is done fairly straight: “Zindagi ya maut, kisko apnaaoon…”) Here’s the rendering of Hamlet’s “frailty, thy name is woman” soliloquy: Tu woh jaam hai jo sharab-e-makr aur daga se bhara hai / Tu woh chaman hai jo hawa-e-fareb se bhara hai / Bewafaai… tera naam aurat hai / Afsos… mere baap ki maut ko muddat mein guzarne ko aai / Ke tuney shaadi rachaai / Khushi manaai / Aur woh bhi kisse, jo mere baap ka bhai / Ae aurat, ae harjaee / Tujhe yeh surat kyon pasand aai… The dialogues are by Prof. BD Verma and Amanat Hilal, and if Shakespeare had lived and plied his trade in Lucknow, you can imagine him lapsing into these locutions.”
“Some parts of this Hamlet are stunningly faithful to the original text. You’d think that the inevitable songs (the music is by Ramesh Naidu) would kill the mood or look out of place, but they’ don’t. The female solos go to Ophelia, and they’re structured around the typical situations we encounter in Hindi cinema (a flashback to a couple’s happier times, a he-doesn’t-love-me dirge), but this is actually as per Shakespeare’s vision, because, in the play, the only woman who sings is Ophelia, after she loses her mind. And the only song with male voices goes to the gravediggers, who sing in the play too. (Hamlet wonders, “Has this fellow no feeling of his business, that he sings at grave-making?”)”
“Still, watching this film only reaffirms that Shakespeare is made for Indian cinema. Hamlet alone has the rich-boy-poor-girl angle (prince Hamlet and commoner Ophelia), the I’ll-avenge-my-father angle (in the case of Hamlet), the I’ll-avenge-my-family angle (in the case of Laertes), the girl-going-mad-after-being-spurned angle (in the case of Ophelia). There are songs, swordfights, low comedy with the gravediggers, a loyal best friend (Horatio) – the Bard, it appears, was one heck of a Bollywood screenwriter.
Satyam: Have you seen the Kishore Sahu film?! I really want to see it now.
I will get to Dastan as soon as I can.
BTW how is the film whose poster is there in the Auteur’s Corner. Incidentally a very good film called “Jaatishwar” with Prosenjit in the lead (has some terrific music as well) based on Firingee’s life though it’s not as a straightforward biopic- incidentally after a long time in an Indian films I saw songs really being used this creatively. The director Srijit Mukherjee usually has these ‘artistic themes’ in mainstream commercial films (in Baishe Srabon he uses the ‘thriller format’ to comment on a certain class of Bengali poets and writers). In case you haven’t seen his films, I would urge you to see them (his Autograph incidentally is a very fine tribute to Ray’s Nayak)- Srijit is one of those rare Indian directors who makes mainstream commercial fares, but with artistic sensibilities. The other good thing is that he just don’t make ‘good’ fipms, he also makes ‘Bengali’ ones!
Glad to see that you are watching “Autograph”. The director’s best film though is this year’s release Jaatishwar- the one on Anton Firingee- with Prosenjit in the lead. And it has beautiful music (even Autograph has some fine songs my favourite being Beche Thakar Gaan by Rupam Islam). I also quite liked “Tasher Desh” (by Q the guy who made Gandu) which is a psychedelic sort of retelling (a homage as well as deconstruction) of Tagore play of the same name (which I haven’t read)- there are really strong visuals in the film and irrespective of its problems (it gets a little excessive after a point) it is very much a unique film. Among the lighter fable like film (with some biting humour) I really enjoyed Bhooter Bhabishyat as well.
Satyam: Also as and when you get time check out time check out the trailer of Buddhadeb Dasgupta’s (I have only seen one film of this guy “Kaalpurush” though I have been repeatedly been told that he is one of the best directors working in India since the last 4-5 decades. Have you seen anything of his) new film (which is in Hindi and stars Nawazuddin Siddiqui) “Anwar Ka Ajab Kissa” (it is being titled “Sniffer” for the international audience. It is being screened at foreign film where it is getting strong reviews though it is yet to release in India).
Here is a very positive review by the TWITCH guys-
NYIFF 2014 Review:
In SNIFFER A Man Finds Himself In The Dirty Laundry Of Others
“Most people show a lot of who they are through their interactions with others. Sure, there’s the person we think we are, or the person that we imagine ourselves to be on our best days, but it’s really how we treat the people in our lives that determines our legacy. In Buddhadeb Dasgupta’s new film, Sniffer (Anwar Ka Ajab Kissa), a private dick, or sniffer in the Indian jargon used throughout the film, discovers his true self though his search for truth and compassion in others. It is a marvelously humane look at humanity on its best and worst behavior, sometimes simultaneously, and goes to prove that what you do isn’t always who you are.”…
…”Director Buddhadeb Dasgupta is a multiple National Award winning Begali director with a CV going back nearly four decades, but this is the first of his films that I’ve seen. If this is the sort of work I’ve been missing, it’s definitely time to catch up. The combination of a filmmaker with such deep emotional bonds with his characters and India’s greatest character actor turned leading man in Nawazuddin Siddiqui is impossible to ignore, and the results are staggeringly heartfelt. Dasgupta treats his world with care, weaving himself in and out of his characters lives, delicately laying strands between them that will tie themselves into seemingly impossible knots that can only be undone with kindness, it is inspiring stuff.
Any review of this film would be incomplete without heaping praise upon its leading man. I once mentioned in a review that nobody played tortured souls like Nawazuddin Siddiqui, and it’s true, but this is another level for him. Few actors can transition from bombastic performances in films likes Gangs of Wasseypur Part 2 and Monsoon Shootout, to idiosyncratic characters in blockbusters like Talaash, to the tortured yet sympathetic work in Patang and Liar’s Dice, however, Siddiqui is on another level that many actors 20 and 30 years his senior will never see. Siddiqui will soon be gracing American screens in Ashim Alhuwalia’s ode to sleaze, Miss Lovely, and it’s somewhat fitting because his performance in that film is about as close to the character of Anwar as he’s come. This one may be tough to find, but it proves that this man is a force to be reckoned with, and it’s only a matter of time before everyone knows it.”
“The real bright star, who eclipses the rest of the cast, including a surprisingly charming Arjun Kapoor, is Dimple Kapadia’s Rosie. Kapadia started her career playing stereotyped Catholic girl Bobby Braganza, and went on to appear in roles that demanded nothing more of her than a toss of her magnificent mane and a flash of her almond eyes. Adajania recognised that beneath Kapadia’s distracting appearance lay a volcano of anxieties and tics. She was shrill and crotchety in Being Cyrus, and in Finding Fanny, she is desperate, fragile, funny, wise, and the most rounded person in a movie whose characters freeze halfway into creation.”
“Dimple is a brave girl..”
Sanju If dimple is a ‘girl’; I’m an ‘infant’ 🙂
Anyhow dimple can still give the girls a run for the money but I’m not a fan of this prosthetic bum that she’s been given. It’s neither funny nor attractive nor involves any ‘acting’
Btw folks should I be seeing fanny -is it worth it ?
“I’m not a fan of this prosthetic bum that she’s been given”
It is finding “fanny” re…and then the last song on “bootiya”…so obvious references are there even if director denies
😉
Abhishek Bhachan by now must have understood the difference between Devgan (bol bachchan) and Khans (D3, HNY) .. @ajaydevgn is man of words and golden heart !!
Agree, don’t see any logic in that comment either. So, everyone’s heart is to be judge how much worthy role they give to Abhishek? What sort of logic is that?
The sheer amount of such filth that gets bandied around on this blog is so mind numbing at some point begs the question why is it allowed ?
I give credit to Satyam for censoring the half naked pictures that someone posted today. It was sexist and uncalled for. Thank You Satyam for removing it. I hope you censors this filth also.
We live in the 21st century, why is such racism supported ?
I think it’s completely unfair to blame Aamir here not the least because he wasn’t the producer on Dhoom. And to be fair one shouldn’t really point fingers at SRK either; Abhishek knew what he was getting into when he signed HNY (by his own admission he took his own sweet time before deciding to do the film), he has been in the industry for over a decade and isn’t really a new kid on the block! Also irrespective of what some of us think on the matter (i.e. whether Abhishek has got a worthwhile role in HNY or not) none of Abhishek’s responses to the media even remotely suggest that he is getting a raw deal here (admittedly even if he would have been unhappy regarding his role or how it eventually turned out, he wasn’t going explicitly state his displeasure. However more often not, these things become visible through a person’s behaviour/body language during events and media interactions. So for example during some of D3’s promotional activities Abhishek didn’t look like his usual self, infact some of his responses (especially to the queries that whether he was playing second fiddle to Aamir in the film) were rather ‘aggresive’, considering that his behaviour in public otherwise has been exceptionally good). If anything he has actually looked more upbeat than ever.
While the comment in question might be illogical, I simply fail to see any racist tone in that comment. If it is so because the Khan label is being used, then perhaps yes. But then by that token 90% of Indian population has indulged in this kind of racism (on innumerable times) including me (considering that even when it isn’t intended that way, the label ‘Khans’ comes loaded with a certain meaning which has entire history, both communal and otherwise, attached to it). I think Yakuza was using ‘Khans’ merely to club together both Aamir and SRK.
Yakuza gets away with his blatant dirty racism because he knows that even after you 1) Acknowledge the linkage; 2) Agree that it is not SRK or Aamir’s fault; and 3) State that the responsibility lies with Abhishek; You will certify his Pork to be Kosher.
You are the enabler. You make his racism happen. The day you stop supporting it he will himself see that it is wrong.
One might disagree with Yakuza (I certainly do) but there is nothing racist about what he’s saying. Your vocabulary is incorrect anyway because if at all one could possibly be guilty of something here it would be about religion and not race. In any case we’ve had enough on this topic. I think everyone should cool it.
agreed on all counts Saurabh. The co-stars cannot be blamed, it’s certainly not a charity. And your point on body language is an astute one too. Having said that given some of the things he seems to be interested in going forward he might just be happy that he’s leaving this multistarrer phase behind! Then again there are those awful Houseful rumors!
Let me add something different. People easily forget the directors in these movies. For example, Rohit Shetty famously said: I owe Abhishek a Hit! He wanted to do BB with Abhishek as he was signed his first movie Zameen and wanted to give him back his hit film when he’s successful.
Secondly, Victor has been always good friend of Abhishek(write of D1, D2, Guru, Raavan and a song in Bluffmaster).
Finally, Farah is close to Abhishek as well, if she says she’ll present Abhishek better than ever in commercial format, its his call to sign or not.
“Devgn should be grateful to Abhi for giving him a 100 crore film”-
Yes, because the fact that Devgn had a string of 100 crore or more grossering films which didn’t feature Abhishek- Golmaal 3, Singham- before BB (both of them the director of Bol Bachchan)shouldn’t count. The fact that he had another 100 crore hit right after BB in the form of Son of Sardar (this too didn’t have Abhishek) also shouldn’t count (Devgn has then had another one this year with Singham Returns). The only thing which should count is that since Abhishek was desperately searching for a hit and Devgn served him one (with the title-role) on a platter (of course Devgn knew that Abhishek was best man for the role and only he could pull it off. He certainly wouldn’t have done the same favour for someone like Tusshar Kapoor. Of course the most important thing here is that Devgn is considered almost like a part of Bachchan family) coupled with the fact that even today Abhishek is searching for a solo 100 crore grosser, he was the one would who got Devgn out of the woods by doing BB and not the other way round.
To burst your Ajay Devgn bubble, Ajay has just 2 Hit films in last 15 years outside Rohit Shetty. OUTIM and SOS. He should be grateful, Rohit shetty sticks to him and gives him hits every year.
Master: Hey, easy on the snideness man.Actually I am not in a bubble at all. No one is denying that Shetty has been primarily responsible for those hits those featuring Devgn (Devgn’s box-office record outside the Shetty films is questionable to say the least. Even during this phase of his he has had some major flops- Himmatwala, Tezz). Also even when Devgn is enjoying his most fruitful commercial phase, I have never believed that he is some potent box-office force or whatever. However unlike say a Golmaal or BB, the Singham franchise is completely dependent on Devgn for its success (so here Shetty can’t hog all the credit). On the rest, Shetty has explicitly stated on numerous occasions that after Zameen didn’t work, no one in the industry wanted to work with him and only Devgn stood by him. So we know who should be grateful to whom. But perhaps you know more than Shetty hinself 🙂 . Oh, BTW while your point on that particular matter stands, Devgn did have Rajneeti, a big hit, outside the Shetty films even if it was a multistarrer.
BTW while Shetty did owe Abhishek a film (or a hit), firstly Devgn need not have produced Bol Bachchan even if he was doing it (Shetty could have very easily gone to Ashtavinayak who had produced the very successful Golmaal films with him which also had Devgn. Or for that matter anyone else). He also didn’t need to readily allow the title of the film to have a “Bachchan” in it. There was need for him to allow Abhishek to take the centrestage during promotions of the film. Forget anything else, he didn’t need to do this particular film when he was (and still is) in a vastly better position commercially than Abhishek was (and is) and the script still had Abhishek in the title role; he could have very easily got a hit by doing something on the lines of Golmaal or SOS (which he did incidentally. And he got a hit here inspite of the JTHJ competition) instead of being a part of Bol Bachchan. But here is the thing, show me another example from any film industry in the world which is remotely similar to Devgn’s gesture towards Abhishek here. I am by no means saying that Devgn was only doing this as a charity, simply putting forth simple, hard facts (I am also not saying that every other actor has to live by Devgn’s standards of ‘fair play’ or generosity, Devgn himself wouldn’t be half as kind towards anyone else. And SRK, atleast in the interviews has been extraordinarily kind towards Abhishek).
Though I shouldn’t say it here (and this is also in response to Sanjana’s comment) but I can’t say that I’ve ever been bothered by what the mob says or does my own sense of BB has always been that even though Abhishek got all the attention from the industry and many of the reviewers and then at the awards and so on I think in terms of the audience response in the theaters (to both Abhishek and Devgan) there was probably parity here. It was certainly a film where both stars had enough to do. Because Abhishek had such a bad phase leading up to this that narrative overtook everything. And not that it’s incorrect to focus on it but this wasn’t the topmost thing in the mind of the audience. And in this sense it’s not about D3 (problematic though it might have been). Abhishek still needs a breakout moment in this inning of his career. Maybe it happens in HNY, I don’t know but much more likely he’ll need his own deal to do this. BB was certainly important for him but just as when you sometimes have the audience on your side and they like you in everything (roughly from Yuva through Guru for him) when they then fall out of love with you it takes a while and the right kind of reinvention to get them back in a similar way. Yes maybe you keeping having deals like BB and the problem goes away but more often that is not likely to keep happening and so you need a deal sooner or later which makes enough of a box office impact and where it’s not only about not losing any credit either way but making the audience get ‘interested’ in you again. The last is quite tricky matter the second time around. With older stars there’s always enough of a base to feed on. At least for someone like SRK (Aamir and Salman don’t have this problem for different reasons). The audience hasn’t really been interested in him for a long time. No one who watches CE ‘likes’ him the way they did after KKHH or something. It’s just a function of age. You then need reinvention. If you don’t do it successfully you always struggle with the big numbers as SRK did between OSO and CE. But even when you get them it’s much more often than not due to ‘extraneous’ factors. A circus, the right director or whatever. The star is of course still crucial to get to a certain threshold. But just as the film cannot get to those numbers without such a star nor can the latter without a certain film. Which is why SRK needs these big circuses and relentless advertising campaigns to get those benchmarks whereas Salman does it mostly in indifferent efforts. Aamir of course does so on accumulated prestige. Or there’s Hrithik who’s one of the biggest openers but in a stagnant sort of way. he’s never done what it takes to really ‘cross’ SRK or Aamir or Salman at different points. This when his box office initials have never been in doubt. So in this sense the narrative is needed at every point. You have to define the terms of the debate at whatever level you are. And in this sense hits can often be deceptive. They’re of course necessary to keep you going but they don’t always build up your narrative. The audience might like you in a film but not necessarily show up for you otherwise. In any case Abhishek needs that breakout moment. HNY, depending on how the actual film has been structured might well work for him but nonetheless he needs something more underlined than that.
Anyway got to run now. trying to catch A Most Wanted Man. Finally!
I used “Khans” for Aamir and SRK .. for obvious reason. Don’t attach it with any sort of racism/religion .. I would be last person in this word to resort to this level.
“O o haaye re meri faniya, Badi funky funky hai
O o haaye re meri faniya, Total nautanki hai”
How I wish they could somehow find this rambunctious dance number showing all the lead characters with caricatured bodies twisting and twirling like dervishes on steroid into the main narrative of ‘Finding Fanny’!
But never mind, the film is quirky and funny as it is, a sweet and sour tale, rather than bitter-sweet, set in a little-town-lost called Pocolim in Goa, peopled by five wonderful characters; Don Pedro ( Pankaj Kapoor), Ferdinad / Ferdy / Fernando ( Naseeruddin Sha), Rosalyn ( Dimple Kapadia), Angie ( Deepika Padukone) and Savio ( Arjun KJapor).
I like films that pay attention to spoken words.
And this one starts with a lovely voice over in Indian English by Deepika Padukone – with lines like ‘ Wishes are bad habits. Like picking your nose and flicking the snoot under the table. Or having too much sarpotel in summer’.
It is such a pleasure to meet these characters, straight out of a Marquez novel – lusty, lonely, a little loony, a little lost, looking for love.
What I love about these characters is that they are defined so very much by their physicality. Dimple with her expansive posterior. Pankaj Kapoor the pompous dandy. Naseer with his shuffling gait, loving his hapless loneliness, pining for Fanny. Deepika the careless seductress, with tears welling up in her eyes every now and then, with genuine emotions. Arjun Kapoor the proverbial slacker, with no energy to take a single proactive step. (Much later in the story, it is Deepika who initiates the lovemaking between the two, and points this out to Arjun, “If I hadn’t come back you would just have sat here sulking, right? “ I like their talk after the lovemaking – about the lovemaking. In Indian films they don’t do that much, do they?
The loudest laugh out loud moment in the film is when Dimple turns down the yet another glass of brandy from Naseer, saying . “Drinking too much is bad for my legs.” “ Gout, I know” Naseer plies in a little sympathy. “ No , they make me spread them’ . Well, that’s an existing joke implanted into the film, though one must admit, Dimple delivers the line perfect. But there are genuine funny moments born out of the film’s own narrative. Not too many. But enough to keep you going through the trip. There is one with the dead cat. There is another when Pankaj Kapooor calls Naseer , “ Casanova of the Konkan.’
But it’s not a film of gags for gags sake. There is an undercurrent of loneliness in each of these characters, and hints of how some kind of a grand passion could lift them from their humdrum existence. But in the meanwhile they must make do with what they get… through grandstanding, through a bit of scheming and lying, through just travelling together for a while.
If there was something really underwhelming it was the end. All along we are expecting Fanny to emerge as something of a grand metaphor. Well if that does not happen nothing else happens either, The final revelation around Fanny is neither very funny; nor touching. They certainly could have been more inventive there.
So in the end, you love the film for its characters, none of them particularly good, or heroic, brought to live with superlative performances by all five. Deepika is as luminous as ever, giving us a glimpse into her sensitive but scheming self through her translucent beauty. Arjun Kapoor is a complete natural as the slacker who must be seduced, surprising us with effortless histrionics in the scene where he bursts out at Dimple pointing out how selfish she has been, letting other people take care of her cat and all that; Pankaj Kapoor is an absolute lark as the painter ‘ who wants to capture the soul residing in a beautiful woman’s eyes with his paint brush in shades of colour for which the word doesn’t have names yet.” . Naseeer and Dimple are perfect. Age hasn’t looked more interesting in films before.
Talking of age I must quote Arjun Kapoor telling Deeepika,” all this madaam this, madam that. When she is just a fat cow.” Of course that’s true, we know that. But Deepika tells Arjun, “Come on. People grow old. We all grow old.’ Interesting touch of empathy to Deepika’s character. But I wish all those life lessons on love not dying after the loved one dies were a little less smarmy and delivered with a bit of humour and irony. (Like say the lines in 3 Idiots.) Or a little more sincerely, more casually. And not all that stuff about if love doesn’t come knocking, to go and knock, even if there are no doors.
If I was writing those lines I would have brought in pork vindaloo somehow, having exhausted sarpotel already.
Susegaad is the laidback Portuguese (Goan here) concept depicted well in this sleepy village (& that’s nearly all that is to it!).
My ‘problem’ is that expectations, credentials, hype don’t have much impact on me. I can usually smell (& neutralise) snob appeal from a distance! Separating wheat from the chaffe is an art just like finding ‘fanny’..
There are some plusses- Mathias deplussy’s music and Anil Mehtas cinematography capturing both the mosaic sounds and postcard Goan landscape is good. Homi Adajania is not short of ambition though ‘aspiration’ doesn’t equal implementation automatically. The styling (by his his wifey Anahita) & the art direction is spot on.
Now let me rip apart the ‘icons’ one by one…
Just by drifting in a pseudo auteuristic indulgent take doesn’t salvage you.
Naseeruddin Shah is pathetic, boring and this may perhaps have to do with his ‘child man’ & ‘babe in the woods character’ but I don’t care. Pankaj Kapoor hams & overstates (except the one scene where he tells dimple he’s done with her!).
Dimple is horribly ‘underused /misused’ and I would go to the extent of saying ‘abused’ (though she does a good job of managing the material she’s given). Arjun lacks panache, style, star appeal but does show effort and improvement. Infact to be fair, he does leave some impact in a scene or two (though it’s not much to talk bout).
Deepikas is an exercise in fakery, desperate posturing (& stripping!). I may revisit her later but didn’t get a ‘feel’ of her ‘soul’ or ‘character’ or ‘compulsions’ or conflicts–basically there was something wrong.
Deepika continues the tradition of reckless needless and indiscriminate exposure.
There’s one noteworthy scene of making out under the moon shot in European cinema style. And deepika doing what she does best in that scene– she’s a literal ‘woman on top’!
It comes as no surprise that utkal uncle liked this generous dose of cleavages, legs, bums and gave a thumbs down to Mary kom.
There’s little substance & soul below the surface. But hey, I’ve not been severe on this aspect alone.
It’s the ‘pretence’ and the nameplay that irritated me.. Who is Deepika (or adajania) fooling by this ‘fanny’ vibe. Naseer certainly was looking for fanny and (unlike deepika) he certainly remained a ‘virgin’ ( a word uttered by deepika and objected to by the censors) till the end of the movie …
Thanx –jus read bits of rangans review of fanny
So it’s a great day indeed
I and Rangan agree on a deepika flick and I don’t agree with utkal uncle –what a feat that is …
Those who were around during the iconic cocktail days know the ‘epic significance’ of this occurrence.,,
But hey utkal uncles review was no surprise. The moment one saw skirts, legs, cleavages et al in the promo, his positive review was a foregone conclusion (as one also saw in Kaam leela and his negative reviews of krish3 and Mary kom amongst others)
And I think my above review has been a bit critical of fanny since I expected more.ll
For me it’s not a surprise since it doesn’t matter who said what and so on. That’s why I never have consistent ‘agreements’ or disagreements about any one person or star of film maker.
The only agreement I have is with ‘truth’ lol
The truth is that I felt helpless and irritated that such a wonderful opportunity was wasted in fanny. Three of the best actors were available, the biggest female superstar and one of the best visual film maker with a great subject but it was thrown away..
While watching I was counting the mistakes and the minor adjustments which would have given the result homi dreamt of (but was incapable of)
I know it sounds big talk but with a few tweaks here n there, could have taken this fanny to safety (and guiding deepika to sanity in the meanwhile) 🙂
“Adjania keeps it pithy. If the characters seem to come straight out of Mario Miranda cartoons, the telling seems to have taken a page out of Amelie. Anil Mehta’s camera paints fluid images and the spoken word keeps alternating between the dreamy (“He could never tell a story unless the story came looking for him”) and the smart and sharp. For a change, the broken Goan English with the generous helpings of Konkani (subtitled, of course) doesn’t sound stilted.
Finding Fanny is all about lost love. Its characters may seem a bizarre bunch, but their search for love is conventional. In fact, it’s the seemingly ‘normal’ Angie who, perhaps, is the most out-of-the-box when it eventually comes to seeking out and embracing love. It’s this sense of whimsicality and romance within the absurd and a simultaneous assertion of the ludicrosity of romance that I found most interesting. However, instead of dwelling more on this delicious dichotomy, the film goes deliberately overboard on the kinkiness and becomes over-indulgent with the loudness and farce. It entertained while it lasted but hasn’t stayed on with me for long.”
When he was asked why he didn’t take an actress from the North East to play Mary Kom, Bhansali blatantly replied that these actresses dont guarantee 100 crore grossers. Good he was honest. But look at the film’s fate now. Struggling to reach 45 crores. A more authentic, well-made film with an actress from the same region with the budget in place would’ve not only ensured profitability for everyone involved (including the poor distributors) but would’ve also brought into focus the fact that people in India who look North Eastern are not “Chinese” or “Nepali.” The makers blew this opportunity by making an exploitative, melodramatic film in an effort to probably salvage the career of a fast fading leading actress.
Tony: Terrific comment, especially the bit that with a North-Eastern actress, you could have reduced the budget and would have made a profit alongside making a good, authentic film.
You brought a lot of yourself to Savio D’Gama. Did you sink into a certain ease with your role in this film?
Savio is a very bitter, angsty guy. The guy has a lot of emotion and is not clear about your how to get it through to people. He doesn’t know how to express and since he is upset with whatever life has thrown his way, he cannot express even more what perturbs him. He takes a long time to make peace with these things. I like the fact that Homi Adajania gave a nice graph to Savio without imposing a back story. This film had a clutter breaking potential in it. And amidst a Gunday, 2 States and all there was this film a director had offered me right after Ishaqzaade. He had shown a lot of faith in me. The language shouldn’t be a barrier to go beyond and perform. Homi knew me as Arjun, saw me as Parma and he imagined me doing Savio. The character wasn’t relatable but Homi used my facets to add hues to the role. The sarcasm, the dead pan humor, the inability to express, I realized all that while watching the film, in retrospect. But the biggest difference is that in all my films, I look mean, arrogant and obnoxious to women. That’s not me. In all my films I end up looking like that and it is not true for me in my personal life. Savio’s life experiences has made him weak and my experiences have made me strong. That’s what sets apart me and Savio.
Finding Fanny Is Decent At Premium Multiplexes
Saturday 13 September 2014 12.30 IST
Box Office India Trade Network
Finding Fanny picked up in the evening at premium multiplexes which was always likely as the these multiplexes always do better business in the evening. The difference between the business of Finding Fanny and Creature was this pick up otherwise they would have ended up with similar figures. The first day collections of Finding Fanny are around 4-4.25 crore nett. The first day totals of some circuits are as follows.
Delhi/UP – 90,00,000
East Punjab – 49,00,000
Rajasthan – 15,00,000
CP Berar – 11,00,000
CI – 11,00,000
The film should do around 1.50 crore nett plus in Mumbai due to decent figures in Mumbai city and Pune but still despite the pick up, the first day return of 4 crore nett is not so good for the amount of marketing done on the film.
The film will show growth on Saturday as the multiplexes that picked up on Friday will follow through on Saturday but it remains to be seen how much it grows. If it can get that 50% growth it can come out with a decent weekend.
inding Fanny Does Well On Saturday
Sunday 14 September 2014 12.00 IST
Box Office India Trade Network
Finding Fanny did well on Saturday as collections improved around 40% as it grossed around 5.75-6 crore nett. The film seems to be liked by its target audience at premium multiplexes although its a limited audience. It remains to be seen how well it can hold on the weekdays. Surprisingly the Hindi version is doing better than the English version and the growth on Saturday came mainly from the Hindi version.
Less than 3 weeks until Bang Bang and there’s been no music release, no trailer, and no promotional events. Only a teaser and 2 songs. Seems like Fox is promoting Finding Fanny more than Bang Bang, wonder why. On the other hand with HNY there apparently a grand music launch tomorrow. IDK why SRK is promoting this movie like he did Ra.1, I think it has to be bad and he wants a big initial like for Ra. 1. Actually his least promoted films in the last few years have turned out to be his better ones-CDI, RNBDJ, Don2, CE. I don’t think it’s a coincidence.
Btw, doing a trailer launch, then after 1 month doing a music launch is not too much promotion. I don’t remember SRK not doing these 2 events for any of his produced movies, he even did for CE. Only YRF don’t like to spend on promotions.
Bang Bang is following the YRF school of marketing. They feel enough awareness/interest already exist. Additional marketing (beyond what they are doing ) will add to the overall cost but will not significantly or proportionately increase the revenue.
HNY is a big (big risk ) ensemble film and cannot afford to following the “just enough” marketing model. They need to introduce all the characters of this large ensemble and then also sell a new a dance / heist structure.
Both films are doing what is best for them. Bollywood today is very calculated, not emotional.
“It was always a given that Finding Fanny would find its audience at the multiplexes while Creature 3D would do better at the smaller centers. Still, one didn’t expect a huge gap between the two films over the weekend at least. However, at the box office it turned out to be Finding Fanny all the way as it went on to do double the business of Creature 3D. Though the two films were not really competing with each other to begin with, eventually the collections spoke the loudest and in that perspective, it is Finding Fanny which is set for a much more stable week ahead.
As was expected, Finding Fanny saw good reviews coming from all quarters and considering the fact that it was parallel cinema despite stars like Deepika Padukone and Arjun Kapoor, that was needed as well to boost the film’s fortunes. That happened too with decent collections on the opening day. However, post that it was word of mouth which did the talking, as a result of which the Homi Adajania directed film managed an opening weekend of 19.90 crore. Now for a film of this genre, it is a good enough start and one waits to see the kind of distance that it eventually covers.”
The movie is not going anywhere. There was hardly any growth on Sunday yet again pointing lack of appreciation. I think baradwaj Rangan yet again got it absolutely right by terming the movie as “finding funny” as there is anything funny in this one. Yet again he proved to be a rare critic who can see the movie like the paying public yet wear his critics hats. And that’s what I meant when I said critics have no idea what the paying public likes. Am actually glad that a phony movie like this is not getting any audience.
Finding Fanny Struggles On Sunday
Monday 15 September 2014 11.00 IST
Box Office India Trade Network
Finding Fanny struggled on Sunday as it could not show much growth from Saturday though Saturday did show a good jump. The film is mainly collecting at premium multiplexes and these tend to drop on Sunday evening and also the film has nothing for the family audience so this is probably why the film could not collect well on Sunday. Still it is a fair weekend for Finding Fanny of around 16.50 crore nett.
The fate of the Finding Fanny will be decided by the weekday business though that solid growth on Saturday gives it a chance to hit the average mark if it can sustain over the weekdays and into the second weekend.
Finding Fanny Crashes On Monday
Tuesday 16 September 2014 11.00 IST
Box Office India Trade Network
Finding Fanny crashed on Monday as collections dropped a huge 60%. The business at premium multiplexes just capitulated and it was other places which are low that were holding better. This was because they could not drop as much as they were low already.
The film has taken its four day business to around 18.25 crore nett. Last week Mary Kom also had a big fall on Monday apart from Mumbai circuit and here Finding Fanny has had an even bigger Monday drop. Like Mary Kom it should be more steadier over the next few days but the damage has been done.
The film has been rejected by its target audience at premium multiplexes who did give the a film chance as they scored well over the weekend but it had to be appreciated by this audience to have any chance which was not the case here.
Finding Fanny Tuesday Business
Wednesday 17 September 2014 11.00 IST
Box Office India Trade Network
Finding Fanny was a little lower on tuesdsay than Monday and has grossed around 20 crore nett in five days and should end the week at 23 crore nett plus. Below are its daily figures for the first five days.
SATYAMSHOT 
September 12, 2014 at 5:33 AM
Mary Kom Struggles On Weekdays With Low Collections
Friday 12 September 2014 11.00 IST
Box Office India Trade Network
Mary Kom struggled on the weekdays with low collections as it recorded a 39.50 crore nett first week. The film started pretty well especially at high end multiplexes and showed good growth at multiplexes on Saturday and Sunday but collections came down pretty badly on Monday. Although the film remained pretty steady over the rest of the week, the damage had been done on Monday.
A near 40 crore nett is a reasonable figure for the first week but the film has not found appreciation with the audience so will not add much after the first week.
A film like Ragini MMS 2 which is heroine centric but in the horror/sex genre so if it is to score will do best initially and manages a 23 crore nett weekend and finishes at 46.50 crore nett. Here a so called content based film is doing a 27 crore nett weekend and struggling to double its weekend like Ragini MMS 2 really tells about how good the content really is. Overall the producers are safe as they got good prices for the film and much of the advertising was done by brands involved in the film but the investors will lose.
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September 12, 2014 at 5:33 AM
Creature 3D And Finding Fanny Open Poorly
Friday 12 September 2014 13.00 IST
Box Office India Trade Network
Creature 3D and Finding Fanny both opened to poor response at the box office with Creature 3D being decent at select single screens. The English version of Finding Fanny was better than the Hindi version which opened to very low occupancies.
Finding Fanny has a lot of screenings at multiplexes with some sites going to 15 shows combined for the English and Hindi versions which is a big number for this type of film. The film should do better in the evening at premium multiplexes of metros but there is a limit to how far these 50 odd multiplexes can eventually take a film.
Creature 3D is better than Finding Fanny at multiplexes of second tier cities like a Ghaziabad and Kanpur but is well behind in multiplexes overall which means it will find it tough to match the growth of Finding Fanny on Saturday. Creature 3D is also much better at singls screens but Finding Fanny is being screened on very few single screens.
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September 12, 2014 at 5:38 AM
Sunil:
http://www.firstpost.com/bollywood/hold-your-breath-people-aamir-khan-plays-an-alien-in-pk-1707771.html
Seems pk is a novel story.
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September 12, 2014 at 9:05 AM
Some journalists are miffed, obviously.
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September 12, 2014 at 10:55 AM
Seriously if this is really a sub plot of the movie, am not sure how the family audience will receive this movie.
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September 12, 2014 at 1:09 PM
I think the ‘tone’ of this First Post article makes it clear that this is a hatchet job; this piece reeks of dishonesty and bad faith, I actually first thought that this is one of those trashy Mid-Day pieces of ‘reportage’. And actually I am not surprised considering someone Mihir Fadnavis is associated with First Post (incidentally he used to write for Mid-Day earlier). He, I must admit, is the most offensive film critic I have ever seen. Apart from his language (“I want to have sex with Gangs of Wasseypur”) which is just plain repulsive, he is simply not educated about things he writes on- he called Mukul Anand’s “Agneepath” a B-Grade film. And if this wasn’t enough, he thinks Ram Leela is a ‘noir’! No kidding!
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September 12, 2014 at 2:24 PM
yeah he’s a rather trashy guy..
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September 13, 2014 at 12:50 AM
This not written by mihir fadnavis.He is aamir khan fan.
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September 12, 2014 at 7:24 AM
In another thread Sunil wrote that ‘ Dimple is proving an embarrassment to Akshay’ , because of her role in Finding FF. He also added that she need not do such roles, or words to that effect.
Really! Dimple Kapadia that terrific survivor had a fantastic debut film and later some good artistic films like Rudali. FFF seems another arty cum zany film, a bold quirky film, with Dimple in an off beat role. Akshay Kumar should be bloody proud to have an individualistic lady like Dimple as mother- in-law. And i am sure he is not ashamed of Dimple’s recent filmi outing. She is doing roles and films that have some meaning, not playing another 45 plus hero’s mother. I say, hats off to Dimple.
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September 12, 2014 at 9:03 AM
Even I felt that Dimple should not become a clown to elicit laughs. She was a unique beauty once and she should maintain her exclusivity by doing roles with dignity. Why to pad her bums and shake them too at this age?
For me Bobby was an ultimate romantic film which is still fresh and Dimple and Rishi pair was wonderful.
Its her call and if she wants to do any role that comes her way.
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September 12, 2014 at 2:01 PM
Its not about Independence,its about deconstructing oneself which isnt necessary now.yes,as i said,no need to do foolish roles now.
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September 12, 2014 at 9:16 AM
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/entertainment/hindi/bollywood/news/Vidya-Balan-looks-forward-to-love-story-Hamari-Adhuri-Kahani/articleshow/42342360.cms
Another Kahani from Vidya.
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September 12, 2014 at 10:53 AM
Finding Fanny is getting bad reviews from the audience. As usual critics have no idea on what audiences likes. The less said about Creature the better. Mary Kom might still show more occupancy than these 2 movies
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September 12, 2014 at 3:50 PM
Krish: But it’s NOT the critic’s job to know what audience the likes. All a critic does his put forward HIS/HER thoughts on the films. Also NOBODY can predict what an audience likes- doing so would be a fool’s errand.
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September 12, 2014 at 4:24 PM
agree.. while I’m hardly supporting Indian critics it’s also the case that too many in India believe in this cult of the audience. The latter isn’t the repository of ultimate wisdom. The audience might just have appalling taste. The fact is that the list of films that audiences have rejected in every great industry and that have then gone on to be considered great or ‘greatest’ films is an encyclopedic one. Not saying Krrish meant to suggest all of this but still the audience becomes too much of a reference point. That the box office is a reality from a commercial perspective is fairly obvious. However the other reality here is that in every industry there are also those willing to risk those box office returns for works they believe in. We would lose half or more of the films we value in a global sense if we didn’t have those foolhardy types!
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September 12, 2014 at 11:05 PM
Satyam
I grant you that “may” exist a long list of movies that were “rejected” by the audience but ended up being looked upon as great films.
BUT
If you research this well, you will find that the the list of movies, liked by audience, which later made to all time greats, might be even longer.
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September 13, 2014 at 1:08 AM
On the first it’s not that there ‘may’ exist such a list, there simply ‘is’. One of course has to know this stuff! But it varies from industry to industry. One could for instance start with Citizen Kane! The very ‘greatest’ on so many lists.
On the second, well.. I’ve already answered this by extension.
But all of this all has to take into account industries with a serious critical culture. India for instance does not have this. So when you don’t have ‘literate’ critics you’re less likely to have serious lists being drawn, you’re also less likely to see obscure films being unearthed, you’re similarly less likely to see even famous films discussed in the right fashion, you’re then likely to get a much higher correlation between the box office and critical opinion. Because in the absence of a serious critical culture there isn’t the kind of ‘churning’ in these matters that one can take for granted in a number of Western industries or in Japan and so on.
Even so once one accounts for this there are lots of interesting examples even here. One has to look no further than Mera Naam Joker or a couple of Guru Dutt films. Again because of the illiteracy of critics it’s harder to rely on lists to make this point the way one could for those other industries but nonetheless certain patterns emerge.
The other corollary that must be added here is that over time the mere box office success unless it is considered ‘meaningful’ or an absolute classic doesn’t really survive that well if at all. Most films don’t have much of a shelf life. This is why stars who just do bargain basement entertainment find themselves so diminished over time. Because the films just don’t have the meaning to be that relevant in later generations. They must then rely on being ‘evergreen classics’ and this too is not a fate granted to most films. and this too connevcts to the earlier point. The great or greatest lists are always in flux. But only films with enough meaning or those considered huge classics even have a chance of being recycled this way. Everything else falls by the wayside.
Incidentally this is true not just for cinema but for many other art forms as well.
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September 13, 2014 at 4:54 AM
The “May” was for use with “long” not “list”. People always talk as if there is a definitive “long” list, but then mention the usual and obvious handful. I have yet to see a “long” list by a NASA like authority. But neither a NASA like authority exists not does a long list.
I do agree that one can definitely name some movies which are considered great but were in their time ( or original format) rejected.
BUT
The larger point is that you fool somebody, sometimes, but not everybody, all the time. The people usually get it right.
Maybe another way is to say this is that list of movies that critics thought were great but ended up in the dustbin of history is equally “long”.
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September 13, 2014 at 8:22 AM
On your last sentence you’re quite factually wrong. Much as ‘the people usually get it right’ is another myth. But in any case and to be rather blunt about it once you don’t know what you’re talking about and the semantic twists you’re providing (as always) and neither convincing nor especially sophisticated. And this isn’t a ‘confrontation’ either.
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September 13, 2014 at 5:18 AM
Bandra.NRI: With all due respect, you are either missing Satyam’s point (rather deliberately it seems) or simply obfuscating things.
“Maybe another way is to say this is that list of movies that critics thought were great but ended up in the dustbin of history is equally “long”. “-
Yes, but I don’t see Satyam suggesting otherwise in his comment. What he is saying is that neither the audience(s) nor the critics are the final barometers regarding a film’s quality or its ‘final position’ in the cinematic history of the respective film industry. However, and to “somewhat” counter your point, in a country like England or America where there is proper apparatus for film criticism, there is a good chance that if a good number of important critical voices support a film which has been rejected by the auduence at that point of time, that film’s reception in the later years may change and it may turn out to become historically important. Also, again in these countries, for a truly worthwhile film (and ‘worthwhile’ is the operative word), the ‘critical reception’ of it may undergo a radical change (as it has happened many times in the past) in the later years even if it was completely rejected by the critics at the time of release (very often the same critics who has panned the film has later changed his views, sometimes even apologised to the director in question for misunderstanding the film on the first go!). Not saying that every worthwhile film gets this sort of benefit, but atleast the option for the same always exists. In other words, in Bollywood if something like Mangal Pandeyor Thakshak is rejected by the audience and critics initially, the door for the film (to ever see a change in its fortune in subsequent years/decades) is ‘almost always’ closed forever; in Hollywood though that’s not the case at all.
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September 13, 2014 at 8:19 AM
good comment Saurabh.. people are not as confused as they pretend to be. And if they genuinely are that’s even more worrying!
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September 13, 2014 at 6:21 AM
Saurabh
With equal due respect to you. Why is EVERYTHING A CONFRONTATION for you ?
My statement can just be a supplement.
I see and hear certain things, and I add to that. This is NOT A BATTLE, just a discussion.
My don’t disagree with what all that Satyam is saying, do you at least get that ?
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September 13, 2014 at 6:22 AM
* I don’t disagree
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September 13, 2014 at 9:21 AM
Yes.The list of films liked by audience which are considered great films is always longer than flop films which are considered great films.Why is that argument raised here in the first place.Is it to say hny or pk are great films?
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September 13, 2014 at 9:30 AM
Satyam
This is not a simple matter. There are multiple facets. Some of what you are saying is true, but to think that what you say completely and comprehensively defines everything is delusional.
The bigger truth is that more often than not people get it right. I have faith in the collective consensus of the people, and yes they can be wrong also.
Do you blame me for being unwilling to be swayed by aberrations to believe that generally people are wrong. The examples of Citizrn Cane, Pyasa etc are genuine but aberrations. People generally get it right.
Summers are generally hot. Well this year, in NYC area, it was not really hot, it was quite pleasant. Perhaps there exist a list of summer days when it has snowed also, but that list does not disprove that it is generally hot/warm in summer.
Now for what ever “reason” you believe you need to have the final word on any issue. You think it is OK to shame and abuse guest into agreeing. I am tired of your “to be blunt” prequel before you explode your nasty personal attack. You are not being nasty as a last resort, being nasty is your goto MO, hence drop the pretense and just be nasty, it does not change the debate o? Just breathe and remember it is just a discussion. Don’t let a simple discussion get you so panicked ?
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September 13, 2014 at 10:32 AM
Pyasa actually did quite well. I was referring to Kaagaz ke phool which was a disaster and then Sahib Bibi aur ghulam.
On the rest I have nothing to add to what I said. I could actually provide that encyclopedic Hollywood list here but what’s the point?
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September 13, 2014 at 11:59 AM
Satyam
As if substituting Pyasa for KKP or vice versa proves that Summers are bitter cold and Winters are hot & humid.
As I said before and let me repeat, there may exist a long list of movies that were deemed “classics etc” after they flopped, but that list is not long compared to the list of all the “classic” movies, or the list of all movies ever made.
You are taking an exception and saying that is the norm. You are showing an Albino and saying that is the normal skin tone of all people. Your examples are examples of cold days in a summer month.
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September 13, 2014 at 3:09 PM
well at least you’re not offering a Goodyear tire analogy. Or a paint analogy or something. The thing you don’t realize (and that many don’t in your situation) is that a certain kind of ignorance might be bliss for the one who exhibits it but it sounds rather appalling at the other end! Not that it’s particularly surprising. In India (and I think in the larger Indian subcontinent) people are all too happy to wallow in ignorance and be dogmatic about things they know nothing about. Now you might say this is ‘nasty’ but beyond a point a thing must be called by its proper name.
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September 12, 2014 at 10:53 AM
That journalist role could be inspired from barkha dutt.
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September 12, 2014 at 12:50 PM
Very insightful piece Rangan piece on the older Indian Shakespeare adaptations. Especially the last few lines are excellent (even something like “Ek Haseena Thi” from Karz was on the lines of the play-within-a-play kinda deal).
“….But once we get used to this apparent dissonance, once we settle into the film (to extent that a modern-day viewer can settle into a film where the acting is so flagrantly silent-film-ready), the lines do begin to make sense. In the scene after the one where Hamlet kills Polonius, Gertrude says, “Hamlet ki deewangi samundar ki toofani ki tarah roz ba roz badhti jaa rahi hai.” But if the line appears overwrought and excessively… well, theatrical, that’s because the source is itself theatrical, and, by today’s standards, wrought very differently. Shakespeare’s equivalent line pitches wildly on the same metaphor. Gertrude: “Mad as the sea and wind, when both contend which is the mightier.”
Some of the equivalencies are quite exquisite, with the dialogues rendered in verse, the way they were in Chetan Anand’s Heer Ranjha. (The “to be or not to be” speech, though, is done fairly straight: “Zindagi ya maut, kisko apnaaoon…”) Here’s the rendering of Hamlet’s “frailty, thy name is woman” soliloquy: Tu woh jaam hai jo sharab-e-makr aur daga se bhara hai / Tu woh chaman hai jo hawa-e-fareb se bhara hai / Bewafaai… tera naam aurat hai / Afsos… mere baap ki maut ko muddat mein guzarne ko aai / Ke tuney shaadi rachaai / Khushi manaai / Aur woh bhi kisse, jo mere baap ka bhai / Ae aurat, ae harjaee / Tujhe yeh surat kyon pasand aai… The dialogues are by Prof. BD Verma and Amanat Hilal, and if Shakespeare had lived and plied his trade in Lucknow, you can imagine him lapsing into these locutions.”
“Some parts of this Hamlet are stunningly faithful to the original text. You’d think that the inevitable songs (the music is by Ramesh Naidu) would kill the mood or look out of place, but they’ don’t. The female solos go to Ophelia, and they’re structured around the typical situations we encounter in Hindi cinema (a flashback to a couple’s happier times, a he-doesn’t-love-me dirge), but this is actually as per Shakespeare’s vision, because, in the play, the only woman who sings is Ophelia, after she loses her mind. And the only song with male voices goes to the gravediggers, who sing in the play too. (Hamlet wonders, “Has this fellow no feeling of his business, that he sings at grave-making?”)”
“Still, watching this film only reaffirms that Shakespeare is made for Indian cinema. Hamlet alone has the rich-boy-poor-girl angle (prince Hamlet and commoner Ophelia), the I’ll-avenge-my-father angle (in the case of Hamlet), the I’ll-avenge-my-family angle (in the case of Laertes), the girl-going-mad-after-being-spurned angle (in the case of Ophelia). There are songs, swordfights, low comedy with the gravediggers, a loyal best friend (Horatio) – the Bard, it appears, was one heck of a Bollywood screenwriter.
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September 12, 2014 at 1:01 PM
Indeed, Karz has that Hamlet moment. As does B R Chopra’s Dastan with Dilip Kumar (double role).
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September 12, 2014 at 1:22 PM
Satyam: Have you seen the Kishore Sahu film?! I really want to see it now.
I will get to Dastan as soon as I can.
BTW how is the film whose poster is there in the Auteur’s Corner. Incidentally a very good film called “Jaatishwar” with Prosenjit in the lead (has some terrific music as well) based on Firingee’s life though it’s not as a straightforward biopic- incidentally after a long time in an Indian films I saw songs really being used this creatively. The director Srijit Mukherjee usually has these ‘artistic themes’ in mainstream commercial films (in Baishe Srabon he uses the ‘thriller format’ to comment on a certain class of Bengali poets and writers). In case you haven’t seen his films, I would urge you to see them (his Autograph incidentally is a very fine tribute to Ray’s Nayak)- Srijit is one of those rare Indian directors who makes mainstream commercial fares, but with artistic sensibilities. The other good thing is that he just don’t make ‘good’ fipms, he also makes ‘Bengali’ ones!
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September 12, 2014 at 2:24 PM
That’s Uttam Kumar. On the Kishore Sahu film no haven’t seen it.
Thanks for the shootout on the Bengali films. Will look for these.
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September 13, 2014 at 11:13 PM
Satyam: The director whom I was talking about (Srijit Mukherji), here is his next film-
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September 15, 2014 at 2:30 AM
Glad to see that you are watching “Autograph”. The director’s best film though is this year’s release Jaatishwar- the one on Anton Firingee- with Prosenjit in the lead. And it has beautiful music (even Autograph has some fine songs my favourite being Beche Thakar Gaan by Rupam Islam). I also quite liked “Tasher Desh” (by Q the guy who made Gandu) which is a psychedelic sort of retelling (a homage as well as deconstruction) of Tagore play of the same name (which I haven’t read)- there are really strong visuals in the film and irrespective of its problems (it gets a little excessive after a point) it is very much a unique film. Among the lighter fable like film (with some biting humour) I really enjoyed Bhooter Bhabishyat as well.
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September 15, 2014 at 2:45 AM
Satyam: Also as and when you get time check out time check out the trailer of Buddhadeb Dasgupta’s (I have only seen one film of this guy “Kaalpurush” though I have been repeatedly been told that he is one of the best directors working in India since the last 4-5 decades. Have you seen anything of his) new film (which is in Hindi and stars Nawazuddin Siddiqui) “Anwar Ka Ajab Kissa” (it is being titled “Sniffer” for the international audience. It is being screened at foreign film where it is getting strong reviews though it is yet to release in India).
Here is a very positive review by the TWITCH guys-
NYIFF 2014 Review:
In SNIFFER A Man Finds Himself In The Dirty Laundry Of Others
http://twitchfilm.com/2014/05/nyiff-2014-review-in-sniffer-a-man-finds-himself-in-the-dirty-laundry-of-others.html#ixzz3DMdW3DpA
“Most people show a lot of who they are through their interactions with others. Sure, there’s the person we think we are, or the person that we imagine ourselves to be on our best days, but it’s really how we treat the people in our lives that determines our legacy. In Buddhadeb Dasgupta’s new film, Sniffer (Anwar Ka Ajab Kissa), a private dick, or sniffer in the Indian jargon used throughout the film, discovers his true self though his search for truth and compassion in others. It is a marvelously humane look at humanity on its best and worst behavior, sometimes simultaneously, and goes to prove that what you do isn’t always who you are.”…
…”Director Buddhadeb Dasgupta is a multiple National Award winning Begali director with a CV going back nearly four decades, but this is the first of his films that I’ve seen. If this is the sort of work I’ve been missing, it’s definitely time to catch up. The combination of a filmmaker with such deep emotional bonds with his characters and India’s greatest character actor turned leading man in Nawazuddin Siddiqui is impossible to ignore, and the results are staggeringly heartfelt. Dasgupta treats his world with care, weaving himself in and out of his characters lives, delicately laying strands between them that will tie themselves into seemingly impossible knots that can only be undone with kindness, it is inspiring stuff.
Any review of this film would be incomplete without heaping praise upon its leading man. I once mentioned in a review that nobody played tortured souls like Nawazuddin Siddiqui, and it’s true, but this is another level for him. Few actors can transition from bombastic performances in films likes Gangs of Wasseypur Part 2 and Monsoon Shootout, to idiosyncratic characters in blockbusters like Talaash, to the tortured yet sympathetic work in Patang and Liar’s Dice, however, Siddiqui is on another level that many actors 20 and 30 years his senior will never see. Siddiqui will soon be gracing American screens in Ashim Alhuwalia’s ode to sleaze, Miss Lovely, and it’s somewhat fitting because his performance in that film is about as close to the character of Anwar as he’s come. This one may be tough to find, but it proves that this man is a force to be reckoned with, and it’s only a matter of time before everyone knows it.”
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September 13, 2014 at 2:06 AM
“The real bright star, who eclipses the rest of the cast, including a surprisingly charming Arjun Kapoor, is Dimple Kapadia’s Rosie. Kapadia started her career playing stereotyped Catholic girl Bobby Braganza, and went on to appear in roles that demanded nothing more of her than a toss of her magnificent mane and a flash of her almond eyes. Adajania recognised that beneath Kapadia’s distracting appearance lay a volcano of anxieties and tics. She was shrill and crotchety in Being Cyrus, and in Finding Fanny, she is desperate, fragile, funny, wise, and the most rounded person in a movie whose characters freeze halfway into creation.”
Nandini Ramanathan in LiveMint
http://www.livemint.com/Leisure/jqVuyG0TaQ4ikpYY4oqD4K/Film-Review–Finding-Fanny.html?utm_source=copy
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September 13, 2014 at 6:00 AM
Dimple is a brave girl taking risks and coming out winner sometimes. Her daughters gave up too easily.
Wish to see Dimple pairing with talented actors more often.
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September 13, 2014 at 8:48 AM
“Dimple is a brave girl..”
Sanju If dimple is a ‘girl’; I’m an ‘infant’ 🙂
Anyhow dimple can still give the girls a run for the money but I’m not a fan of this prosthetic bum that she’s been given. It’s neither funny nor attractive nor involves any ‘acting’
Btw folks should I be seeing fanny -is it worth it ?
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September 13, 2014 at 12:18 PM
“I’m not a fan of this prosthetic bum that she’s been given”
It is finding “fanny” re…and then the last song on “bootiya”…so obvious references are there even if director denies
😉
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September 13, 2014 at 9:30 AM
Watching Finding Fanny last nite in nearby AMC. Throughly enjoyed. Go watch
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September 13, 2014 at 12:21 PM
Abhishek Bhachan by now must have understood the difference between Devgan (bol bachchan) and Khans (D3, HNY) .. @ajaydevgn is man of words and golden heart !!
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September 13, 2014 at 12:51 PM
LOL, funny! You keep repeating this everyday. Were you in that meeting when Ajay made that promise? If you were, good for you.
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September 13, 2014 at 12:59 PM
Coded racism is filthy not funny.
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September 13, 2014 at 1:01 PM
Agree, don’t see any logic in that comment either. So, everyone’s heart is to be judge how much worthy role they give to Abhishek? What sort of logic is that?
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September 13, 2014 at 1:11 PM
The sheer amount of such filth that gets bandied around on this blog is so mind numbing at some point begs the question why is it allowed ?
I give credit to Satyam for censoring the half naked pictures that someone posted today. It was sexist and uncalled for. Thank You Satyam for removing it. I hope you censors this filth also.
We live in the 21st century, why is such racism supported ?
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September 13, 2014 at 3:12 PM
Not sure why that comment is ‘racist’.
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September 13, 2014 at 3:14 PM
Maybe you agree
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September 13, 2014 at 1:22 PM
I think it’s completely unfair to blame Aamir here not the least because he wasn’t the producer on Dhoom. And to be fair one shouldn’t really point fingers at SRK either; Abhishek knew what he was getting into when he signed HNY (by his own admission he took his own sweet time before deciding to do the film), he has been in the industry for over a decade and isn’t really a new kid on the block! Also irrespective of what some of us think on the matter (i.e. whether Abhishek has got a worthwhile role in HNY or not) none of Abhishek’s responses to the media even remotely suggest that he is getting a raw deal here (admittedly even if he would have been unhappy regarding his role or how it eventually turned out, he wasn’t going explicitly state his displeasure. However more often not, these things become visible through a person’s behaviour/body language during events and media interactions. So for example during some of D3’s promotional activities Abhishek didn’t look like his usual self, infact some of his responses (especially to the queries that whether he was playing second fiddle to Aamir in the film) were rather ‘aggresive’, considering that his behaviour in public otherwise has been exceptionally good). If anything he has actually looked more upbeat than ever.
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September 13, 2014 at 1:32 PM
While the comment in question might be illogical, I simply fail to see any racist tone in that comment. If it is so because the Khan label is being used, then perhaps yes. But then by that token 90% of Indian population has indulged in this kind of racism (on innumerable times) including me (considering that even when it isn’t intended that way, the label ‘Khans’ comes loaded with a certain meaning which has entire history, both communal and otherwise, attached to it). I think Yakuza was using ‘Khans’ merely to club together both Aamir and SRK.
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September 13, 2014 at 2:11 PM
Saurabh
Yakuza gets away with his blatant dirty racism because he knows that even after you 1) Acknowledge the linkage; 2) Agree that it is not SRK or Aamir’s fault; and 3) State that the responsibility lies with Abhishek; You will certify his Pork to be Kosher.
You are the enabler. You make his racism happen. The day you stop supporting it he will himself see that it is wrong.
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September 13, 2014 at 3:15 PM
One might disagree with Yakuza (I certainly do) but there is nothing racist about what he’s saying. Your vocabulary is incorrect anyway because if at all one could possibly be guilty of something here it would be about religion and not race. In any case we’ve had enough on this topic. I think everyone should cool it.
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September 13, 2014 at 3:19 PM
Your defense of Yakuza makes me laugh. When did these terms not also represented each other.
If you disagree with Yakuza then stand up and state that clearly otherwise you are giving him and others a green light to continue this nonsense.
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September 13, 2014 at 3:31 PM
No one here has ever had a problem with anything Yakuza has ever said.. it might just be you!
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September 13, 2014 at 4:25 PM
Let me scratch off your previous statement and replace that with the new statement. So now it is OK because no one ever complained about it .
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September 13, 2014 at 3:11 PM
agreed on all counts Saurabh. The co-stars cannot be blamed, it’s certainly not a charity. And your point on body language is an astute one too. Having said that given some of the things he seems to be interested in going forward he might just be happy that he’s leaving this multistarrer phase behind! Then again there are those awful Houseful rumors!
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September 13, 2014 at 1:33 PM
@ Yakuja,
You should stick to just worshiping what bachhan did more then 25 years ago.
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September 13, 2014 at 1:20 PM
I dont know about Devgn’s golden heart, but why Abhi needs this largesse from someone? He has the freedom to reject these deals.
And it is Abhi’s act that made BB a big hit and Devgn should be greatful to Abhi for giving him a 100 crore film.
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September 13, 2014 at 1:40 PM
Let me add something different. People easily forget the directors in these movies. For example, Rohit Shetty famously said: I owe Abhishek a Hit! He wanted to do BB with Abhishek as he was signed his first movie Zameen and wanted to give him back his hit film when he’s successful.
Secondly, Victor has been always good friend of Abhishek(write of D1, D2, Guru, Raavan and a song in Bluffmaster).
Finally, Farah is close to Abhishek as well, if she says she’ll present Abhishek better than ever in commercial format, its his call to sign or not.
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September 13, 2014 at 1:48 PM
“Devgn should be grateful to Abhi for giving him a 100 crore film”-
Yes, because the fact that Devgn had a string of 100 crore or more grossering films which didn’t feature Abhishek- Golmaal 3, Singham- before BB (both of them the director of Bol Bachchan)shouldn’t count. The fact that he had another 100 crore hit right after BB in the form of Son of Sardar (this too didn’t have Abhishek) also shouldn’t count (Devgn has then had another one this year with Singham Returns). The only thing which should count is that since Abhishek was desperately searching for a hit and Devgn served him one (with the title-role) on a platter (of course Devgn knew that Abhishek was best man for the role and only he could pull it off. He certainly wouldn’t have done the same favour for someone like Tusshar Kapoor. Of course the most important thing here is that Devgn is considered almost like a part of Bachchan family) coupled with the fact that even today Abhishek is searching for a solo 100 crore grosser, he was the one would who got Devgn out of the woods by doing BB and not the other way round.
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September 13, 2014 at 1:51 PM
Thanks for the correction grateful.
Devgn got one more 100 crore because of abhi’s act. Not the only one.
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September 13, 2014 at 2:02 PM
To burst your Ajay Devgn bubble, Ajay has just 2 Hit films in last 15 years outside Rohit Shetty. OUTIM and SOS. He should be grateful, Rohit shetty sticks to him and gives him hits every year.
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September 13, 2014 at 2:39 PM
Master: Hey, easy on the snideness man.Actually I am not in a bubble at all. No one is denying that Shetty has been primarily responsible for those hits those featuring Devgn (Devgn’s box-office record outside the Shetty films is questionable to say the least. Even during this phase of his he has had some major flops- Himmatwala, Tezz). Also even when Devgn is enjoying his most fruitful commercial phase, I have never believed that he is some potent box-office force or whatever. However unlike say a Golmaal or BB, the Singham franchise is completely dependent on Devgn for its success (so here Shetty can’t hog all the credit). On the rest, Shetty has explicitly stated on numerous occasions that after Zameen didn’t work, no one in the industry wanted to work with him and only Devgn stood by him. So we know who should be grateful to whom. But perhaps you know more than Shetty hinself 🙂 . Oh, BTW while your point on that particular matter stands, Devgn did have Rajneeti, a big hit, outside the Shetty films even if it was a multistarrer.
BTW while Shetty did owe Abhishek a film (or a hit), firstly Devgn need not have produced Bol Bachchan even if he was doing it (Shetty could have very easily gone to Ashtavinayak who had produced the very successful Golmaal films with him which also had Devgn. Or for that matter anyone else). He also didn’t need to readily allow the title of the film to have a “Bachchan” in it. There was need for him to allow Abhishek to take the centrestage during promotions of the film. Forget anything else, he didn’t need to do this particular film when he was (and still is) in a vastly better position commercially than Abhishek was (and is) and the script still had Abhishek in the title role; he could have very easily got a hit by doing something on the lines of Golmaal or SOS (which he did incidentally. And he got a hit here inspite of the JTHJ competition) instead of being a part of Bol Bachchan. But here is the thing, show me another example from any film industry in the world which is remotely similar to Devgn’s gesture towards Abhishek here. I am by no means saying that Devgn was only doing this as a charity, simply putting forth simple, hard facts (I am also not saying that every other actor has to live by Devgn’s standards of ‘fair play’ or generosity, Devgn himself wouldn’t be half as kind towards anyone else. And SRK, atleast in the interviews has been extraordinarily kind towards Abhishek).
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September 13, 2014 at 3:16 PM
Saurabh, aren’t you ashamed to be the only person putting up these very sensible and persuasive comments? Have some pity on those you’re arguing with!
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September 13, 2014 at 3:30 PM
Though I shouldn’t say it here (and this is also in response to Sanjana’s comment) but I can’t say that I’ve ever been bothered by what the mob says or does my own sense of BB has always been that even though Abhishek got all the attention from the industry and many of the reviewers and then at the awards and so on I think in terms of the audience response in the theaters (to both Abhishek and Devgan) there was probably parity here. It was certainly a film where both stars had enough to do. Because Abhishek had such a bad phase leading up to this that narrative overtook everything. And not that it’s incorrect to focus on it but this wasn’t the topmost thing in the mind of the audience. And in this sense it’s not about D3 (problematic though it might have been). Abhishek still needs a breakout moment in this inning of his career. Maybe it happens in HNY, I don’t know but much more likely he’ll need his own deal to do this. BB was certainly important for him but just as when you sometimes have the audience on your side and they like you in everything (roughly from Yuva through Guru for him) when they then fall out of love with you it takes a while and the right kind of reinvention to get them back in a similar way. Yes maybe you keeping having deals like BB and the problem goes away but more often that is not likely to keep happening and so you need a deal sooner or later which makes enough of a box office impact and where it’s not only about not losing any credit either way but making the audience get ‘interested’ in you again. The last is quite tricky matter the second time around. With older stars there’s always enough of a base to feed on. At least for someone like SRK (Aamir and Salman don’t have this problem for different reasons). The audience hasn’t really been interested in him for a long time. No one who watches CE ‘likes’ him the way they did after KKHH or something. It’s just a function of age. You then need reinvention. If you don’t do it successfully you always struggle with the big numbers as SRK did between OSO and CE. But even when you get them it’s much more often than not due to ‘extraneous’ factors. A circus, the right director or whatever. The star is of course still crucial to get to a certain threshold. But just as the film cannot get to those numbers without such a star nor can the latter without a certain film. Which is why SRK needs these big circuses and relentless advertising campaigns to get those benchmarks whereas Salman does it mostly in indifferent efforts. Aamir of course does so on accumulated prestige. Or there’s Hrithik who’s one of the biggest openers but in a stagnant sort of way. he’s never done what it takes to really ‘cross’ SRK or Aamir or Salman at different points. This when his box office initials have never been in doubt. So in this sense the narrative is needed at every point. You have to define the terms of the debate at whatever level you are. And in this sense hits can often be deceptive. They’re of course necessary to keep you going but they don’t always build up your narrative. The audience might like you in a film but not necessarily show up for you otherwise. In any case Abhishek needs that breakout moment. HNY, depending on how the actual film has been structured might well work for him but nonetheless he needs something more underlined than that.
Anyway got to run now. trying to catch A Most Wanted Man. Finally!
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September 13, 2014 at 7:08 PM
How hard you try to deconstruct SRK. All these loooong comments. So much effort to prove him to be something you want him to be?
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September 14, 2014 at 9:22 AM
“How hard you try to deconstruct SRK. All these loooong comments. So much effort to prove him to be something you want him to be?”
Anybody who knows satyam for past decade or so can tell you this, it’s not a hidden secret. his life revolves around trying to deconstruct srk.
If this site was the only source of information, one woulld think SRK is abhi and abhi is SRK 🙂
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September 14, 2014 at 12:28 PM
I’m so glad you’re a fan of my deconstructions which is why you must be here..
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September 14, 2014 at 10:55 AM
Deconstructing SRK or SRK fans?
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September 14, 2014 at 1:26 PM
Satyam
Seeing this first hand for the last few months, Z is almost Jesus like in the “Den of Thives” trying to overturn their tables.
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September 14, 2014 at 2:59 PM
You must be his Paul. I’d rather be heathen if you guys are Jesus and Paul!
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September 14, 2014 at 3:58 PM
Just a neutral observer. I was there when the world went by.
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September 13, 2014 at 3:06 PM
I used “Khans” for Aamir and SRK .. for obvious reason. Don’t attach it with any sort of racism/religion .. I would be last person in this word to resort to this level.
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September 13, 2014 at 3:10 PM
Two swallows does not a summer make.
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September 13, 2014 at 4:25 PM
“O o haaye re meri faniya, Badi funky funky hai
O o haaye re meri faniya, Total nautanki hai”
How I wish they could somehow find this rambunctious dance number showing all the lead characters with caricatured bodies twisting and twirling like dervishes on steroid into the main narrative of ‘Finding Fanny’!
But never mind, the film is quirky and funny as it is, a sweet and sour tale, rather than bitter-sweet, set in a little-town-lost called Pocolim in Goa, peopled by five wonderful characters; Don Pedro ( Pankaj Kapoor), Ferdinad / Ferdy / Fernando ( Naseeruddin Sha), Rosalyn ( Dimple Kapadia), Angie ( Deepika Padukone) and Savio ( Arjun KJapor).
I like films that pay attention to spoken words.
And this one starts with a lovely voice over in Indian English by Deepika Padukone – with lines like ‘ Wishes are bad habits. Like picking your nose and flicking the snoot under the table. Or having too much sarpotel in summer’.
It is such a pleasure to meet these characters, straight out of a Marquez novel – lusty, lonely, a little loony, a little lost, looking for love.
What I love about these characters is that they are defined so very much by their physicality. Dimple with her expansive posterior. Pankaj Kapoor the pompous dandy. Naseer with his shuffling gait, loving his hapless loneliness, pining for Fanny. Deepika the careless seductress, with tears welling up in her eyes every now and then, with genuine emotions. Arjun Kapoor the proverbial slacker, with no energy to take a single proactive step. (Much later in the story, it is Deepika who initiates the lovemaking between the two, and points this out to Arjun, “If I hadn’t come back you would just have sat here sulking, right? “ I like their talk after the lovemaking – about the lovemaking. In Indian films they don’t do that much, do they?
The loudest laugh out loud moment in the film is when Dimple turns down the yet another glass of brandy from Naseer, saying . “Drinking too much is bad for my legs.” “ Gout, I know” Naseer plies in a little sympathy. “ No , they make me spread them’ . Well, that’s an existing joke implanted into the film, though one must admit, Dimple delivers the line perfect. But there are genuine funny moments born out of the film’s own narrative. Not too many. But enough to keep you going through the trip. There is one with the dead cat. There is another when Pankaj Kapooor calls Naseer , “ Casanova of the Konkan.’
But it’s not a film of gags for gags sake. There is an undercurrent of loneliness in each of these characters, and hints of how some kind of a grand passion could lift them from their humdrum existence. But in the meanwhile they must make do with what they get… through grandstanding, through a bit of scheming and lying, through just travelling together for a while.
If there was something really underwhelming it was the end. All along we are expecting Fanny to emerge as something of a grand metaphor. Well if that does not happen nothing else happens either, The final revelation around Fanny is neither very funny; nor touching. They certainly could have been more inventive there.
So in the end, you love the film for its characters, none of them particularly good, or heroic, brought to live with superlative performances by all five. Deepika is as luminous as ever, giving us a glimpse into her sensitive but scheming self through her translucent beauty. Arjun Kapoor is a complete natural as the slacker who must be seduced, surprising us with effortless histrionics in the scene where he bursts out at Dimple pointing out how selfish she has been, letting other people take care of her cat and all that; Pankaj Kapoor is an absolute lark as the painter ‘ who wants to capture the soul residing in a beautiful woman’s eyes with his paint brush in shades of colour for which the word doesn’t have names yet.” . Naseeer and Dimple are perfect. Age hasn’t looked more interesting in films before.
Talking of age I must quote Arjun Kapoor telling Deeepika,” all this madaam this, madam that. When she is just a fat cow.” Of course that’s true, we know that. But Deepika tells Arjun, “Come on. People grow old. We all grow old.’ Interesting touch of empathy to Deepika’s character. But I wish all those life lessons on love not dying after the loved one dies were a little less smarmy and delivered with a bit of humour and irony. (Like say the lines in 3 Idiots.) Or a little more sincerely, more casually. And not all that stuff about if love doesn’t come knocking, to go and knock, even if there are no doors.
If I was writing those lines I would have brought in pork vindaloo somehow, having exhausted sarpotel already.
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September 13, 2014 at 4:33 PM
Utkal
That should be a law that forces you to submit a review for every new film.
:thumbs: :thumbsup:
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September 13, 2014 at 7:14 PM
The ‘susegad’ search for ‘Fanny’
Susegaad is the laidback Portuguese (Goan here) concept depicted well in this sleepy village (& that’s nearly all that is to it!).
My ‘problem’ is that expectations, credentials, hype don’t have much impact on me. I can usually smell (& neutralise) snob appeal from a distance! Separating wheat from the chaffe is an art just like finding ‘fanny’..
There are some plusses- Mathias deplussy’s music and Anil Mehtas cinematography capturing both the mosaic sounds and postcard Goan landscape is good. Homi Adajania is not short of ambition though ‘aspiration’ doesn’t equal implementation automatically. The styling (by his his wifey Anahita) & the art direction is spot on.
Now let me rip apart the ‘icons’ one by one…
Just by drifting in a pseudo auteuristic indulgent take doesn’t salvage you.
Naseeruddin Shah is pathetic, boring and this may perhaps have to do with his ‘child man’ & ‘babe in the woods character’ but I don’t care. Pankaj Kapoor hams & overstates (except the one scene where he tells dimple he’s done with her!).
Dimple is horribly ‘underused /misused’ and I would go to the extent of saying ‘abused’ (though she does a good job of managing the material she’s given). Arjun lacks panache, style, star appeal but does show effort and improvement. Infact to be fair, he does leave some impact in a scene or two (though it’s not much to talk bout).
Deepikas is an exercise in fakery, desperate posturing (& stripping!). I may revisit her later but didn’t get a ‘feel’ of her ‘soul’ or ‘character’ or ‘compulsions’ or conflicts–basically there was something wrong.
Deepika continues the tradition of reckless needless and indiscriminate exposure.
There’s one noteworthy scene of making out under the moon shot in European cinema style. And deepika doing what she does best in that scene– she’s a literal ‘woman on top’!
It comes as no surprise that utkal uncle liked this generous dose of cleavages, legs, bums and gave a thumbs down to Mary kom.
There’s little substance & soul below the surface. But hey, I’ve not been severe on this aspect alone.
It’s the ‘pretence’ and the nameplay that irritated me.. Who is Deepika (or adajania) fooling by this ‘fanny’ vibe. Naseer certainly was looking for fanny and (unlike deepika) he certainly remained a ‘virgin’ ( a word uttered by deepika and objected to by the censors) till the end of the movie …
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September 14, 2014 at 1:16 PM
Thanx –jus read bits of rangans review of fanny
So it’s a great day indeed
I and Rangan agree on a deepika flick and I don’t agree with utkal uncle –what a feat that is …
Those who were around during the iconic cocktail days know the ‘epic significance’ of this occurrence.,,
But hey utkal uncles review was no surprise. The moment one saw skirts, legs, cleavages et al in the promo, his positive review was a foregone conclusion (as one also saw in Kaam leela and his negative reviews of krish3 and Mary kom amongst others)
And I think my above review has been a bit critical of fanny since I expected more.ll
For me it’s not a surprise since it doesn’t matter who said what and so on. That’s why I never have consistent ‘agreements’ or disagreements about any one person or star of film maker.
The only agreement I have is with ‘truth’ lol
The truth is that I felt helpless and irritated that such a wonderful opportunity was wasted in fanny. Three of the best actors were available, the biggest female superstar and one of the best visual film maker with a great subject but it was thrown away..
While watching I was counting the mistakes and the minor adjustments which would have given the result homi dreamt of (but was incapable of)
I know it sounds big talk but with a few tweaks here n there, could have taken this fanny to safety (and guiding deepika to sanity in the meanwhile) 🙂
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September 13, 2014 at 7:53 PM
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September 13, 2014 at 10:07 PM
ROTFLMAO…’Progressive’ Libtard Rajdick Sardesai’s book’s table of contents..
Leaked table of content of book “2014 The Election That Changed India”
Forward by Ms. Ghose: How the Internet Hindus Became The Nazi Stormtroopers of Modi And Some Other Ruminations On My General Awesomeness.
http://greatbong.net/2014/09/08/table-of-contents/
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September 14, 2014 at 3:10 PM
that’s some funny sh*t!
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September 13, 2014 at 10:41 PM
Namrata Joshi: Outlook
“Adjania keeps it pithy. If the characters seem to come straight out of Mario Miranda cartoons, the telling seems to have taken a page out of Amelie. Anil Mehta’s camera paints fluid images and the spoken word keeps alternating between the dreamy (“He could never tell a story unless the story came looking for him”) and the smart and sharp. For a change, the broken Goan English with the generous helpings of Konkani (subtitled, of course) doesn’t sound stilted.
Finding Fanny is all about lost love. Its characters may seem a bizarre bunch, but their search for love is conventional. In fact, it’s the seemingly ‘normal’ Angie who, perhaps, is the most out-of-the-box when it eventually comes to seeking out and embracing love. It’s this sense of whimsicality and romance within the absurd and a simultaneous assertion of the ludicrosity of romance that I found most interesting. However, instead of dwelling more on this delicious dichotomy, the film goes deliberately overboard on the kinkiness and becomes over-indulgent with the loudness and farce. It entertained while it lasted but hasn’t stayed on with me for long.”
http://www.outlookindia.com/article/Finding-Fanny/291915
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September 14, 2014 at 12:24 AM
When he was asked why he didn’t take an actress from the North East to play Mary Kom, Bhansali blatantly replied that these actresses dont guarantee 100 crore grossers. Good he was honest. But look at the film’s fate now. Struggling to reach 45 crores. A more authentic, well-made film with an actress from the same region with the budget in place would’ve not only ensured profitability for everyone involved (including the poor distributors) but would’ve also brought into focus the fact that people in India who look North Eastern are not “Chinese” or “Nepali.” The makers blew this opportunity by making an exploitative, melodramatic film in an effort to probably salvage the career of a fast fading leading actress.
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September 14, 2014 at 12:39 AM
Tony: Terrific comment, especially the bit that with a North-Eastern actress, you could have reduced the budget and would have made a profit alongside making a good, authentic film.
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September 14, 2014 at 1:50 AM
Mary Kom herself could have played that role with some effort and makeup. For the younger version they could have taken some look alike.
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September 14, 2014 at 1:03 AM
http://www.hindustantimes.com/entertainment/worldcinema/indie-films-from-india-leave-a-mark-on-global-silver-screens/article1-1263806.aspx
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September 14, 2014 at 1:04 AM
You brought a lot of yourself to Savio D’Gama. Did you sink into a certain ease with your role in this film?
Savio is a very bitter, angsty guy. The guy has a lot of emotion and is not clear about your how to get it through to people. He doesn’t know how to express and since he is upset with whatever life has thrown his way, he cannot express even more what perturbs him. He takes a long time to make peace with these things. I like the fact that Homi Adajania gave a nice graph to Savio without imposing a back story. This film had a clutter breaking potential in it. And amidst a Gunday, 2 States and all there was this film a director had offered me right after Ishaqzaade. He had shown a lot of faith in me. The language shouldn’t be a barrier to go beyond and perform. Homi knew me as Arjun, saw me as Parma and he imagined me doing Savio. The character wasn’t relatable but Homi used my facets to add hues to the role. The sarcasm, the dead pan humor, the inability to express, I realized all that while watching the film, in retrospect. But the biggest difference is that in all my films, I look mean, arrogant and obnoxious to women. That’s not me. In all my films I end up looking like that and it is not true for me in my personal life. Savio’s life experiences has made him weak and my experiences have made me strong. That’s what sets apart me and Savio.
http://www.koimoi.com/bollywood-news/i-cannot-make-my-career-choices-based-on-box-office-numbers-arjun-kapoor/
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September 14, 2014 at 3:01 PM
Finding Fanny Is Decent At Premium Multiplexes
Saturday 13 September 2014 12.30 IST
Box Office India Trade Network
Finding Fanny picked up in the evening at premium multiplexes which was always likely as the these multiplexes always do better business in the evening. The difference between the business of Finding Fanny and Creature was this pick up otherwise they would have ended up with similar figures. The first day collections of Finding Fanny are around 4-4.25 crore nett. The first day totals of some circuits are as follows.
Delhi/UP – 90,00,000
East Punjab – 49,00,000
Rajasthan – 15,00,000
CP Berar – 11,00,000
CI – 11,00,000
The film should do around 1.50 crore nett plus in Mumbai due to decent figures in Mumbai city and Pune but still despite the pick up, the first day return of 4 crore nett is not so good for the amount of marketing done on the film.
The film will show growth on Saturday as the multiplexes that picked up on Friday will follow through on Saturday but it remains to be seen how much it grows. If it can get that 50% growth it can come out with a decent weekend.
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September 14, 2014 at 3:01 PM
inding Fanny Does Well On Saturday
Sunday 14 September 2014 12.00 IST
Box Office India Trade Network
Finding Fanny did well on Saturday as collections improved around 40% as it grossed around 5.75-6 crore nett. The film seems to be liked by its target audience at premium multiplexes although its a limited audience. It remains to be seen how well it can hold on the weekdays. Surprisingly the Hindi version is doing better than the English version and the growth on Saturday came mainly from the Hindi version.
The two day business till date is as follows.
Friday – 4.25 crore
Saturday – 5.75-6 crore
TOTAL – 10-10.25 crore nett
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September 15, 2014 at 1:42 AM
Less than 3 weeks until Bang Bang and there’s been no music release, no trailer, and no promotional events. Only a teaser and 2 songs. Seems like Fox is promoting Finding Fanny more than Bang Bang, wonder why. On the other hand with HNY there apparently a grand music launch tomorrow. IDK why SRK is promoting this movie like he did Ra.1, I think it has to be bad and he wants a big initial like for Ra. 1. Actually his least promoted films in the last few years have turned out to be his better ones-CDI, RNBDJ, Don2, CE. I don’t think it’s a coincidence.
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September 15, 2014 at 2:11 AM
Looks like BB team is still shooting for the movie, they have no time for promotions.
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September 15, 2014 at 2:15 AM
Btw, doing a trailer launch, then after 1 month doing a music launch is not too much promotion. I don’t remember SRK not doing these 2 events for any of his produced movies, he even did for CE. Only YRF don’t like to spend on promotions.
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September 15, 2014 at 7:21 AM
Bang Bang is following the YRF school of marketing. They feel enough awareness/interest already exist. Additional marketing (beyond what they are doing ) will add to the overall cost but will not significantly or proportionately increase the revenue.
HNY is a big (big risk ) ensemble film and cannot afford to following the “just enough” marketing model. They need to introduce all the characters of this large ensemble and then also sell a new a dance / heist structure.
Both films are doing what is best for them. Bollywood today is very calculated, not emotional.
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September 15, 2014 at 7:22 AM
*follow
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September 15, 2014 at 8:51 AM
Bang bang has huge buzz.hny has low buzz.
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September 15, 2014 at 8:55 AM
what’s hny?
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September 15, 2014 at 4:02 AM
“It was always a given that Finding Fanny would find its audience at the multiplexes while Creature 3D would do better at the smaller centers. Still, one didn’t expect a huge gap between the two films over the weekend at least. However, at the box office it turned out to be Finding Fanny all the way as it went on to do double the business of Creature 3D. Though the two films were not really competing with each other to begin with, eventually the collections spoke the loudest and in that perspective, it is Finding Fanny which is set for a much more stable week ahead.
As was expected, Finding Fanny saw good reviews coming from all quarters and considering the fact that it was parallel cinema despite stars like Deepika Padukone and Arjun Kapoor, that was needed as well to boost the film’s fortunes. That happened too with decent collections on the opening day. However, post that it was word of mouth which did the talking, as a result of which the Homi Adajania directed film managed an opening weekend of 19.90 crore. Now for a film of this genre, it is a good enough start and one waits to see the kind of distance that it eventually covers.”
http://www.koimoi.com/box-office/finding-fanny-shows-good-trend-creature-3d-is-low-1st-weekend-collections/
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September 15, 2014 at 8:20 AM
The movie is not going anywhere. There was hardly any growth on Sunday yet again pointing lack of appreciation. I think baradwaj Rangan yet again got it absolutely right by terming the movie as “finding funny” as there is anything funny in this one. Yet again he proved to be a rare critic who can see the movie like the paying public yet wear his critics hats. And that’s what I meant when I said critics have no idea what the paying public likes. Am actually glad that a phony movie like this is not getting any audience.
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September 15, 2014 at 7:00 AM
Finding Fanny Struggles On Sunday
Monday 15 September 2014 11.00 IST
Box Office India Trade Network
Finding Fanny struggled on Sunday as it could not show much growth from Saturday though Saturday did show a good jump. The film is mainly collecting at premium multiplexes and these tend to drop on Sunday evening and also the film has nothing for the family audience so this is probably why the film could not collect well on Sunday. Still it is a fair weekend for Finding Fanny of around 16.50 crore nett.
Friday – 4,25,00,000
Saturday – 6,00,00,000
Sunday – 6,25,00,000
TOTAL – 16,50,00,000
The fate of the Finding Fanny will be decided by the weekday business though that solid growth on Saturday gives it a chance to hit the average mark if it can sustain over the weekdays and into the second weekend.
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September 15, 2014 at 9:23 AM
Utkal:
The next atttraction from Srijit Mukherjee:
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September 15, 2014 at 9:25 AM
Utkal:
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September 16, 2014 at 4:17 AM
PK – 3rd poster:
[added to post]
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September 16, 2014 at 4:29 AM
Fully clad but with the same expression.
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September 17, 2014 at 6:31 AM
Finding Fanny Crashes On Monday
Tuesday 16 September 2014 11.00 IST
Box Office India Trade Network
Finding Fanny crashed on Monday as collections dropped a huge 60%. The business at premium multiplexes just capitulated and it was other places which are low that were holding better. This was because they could not drop as much as they were low already.
The film has taken its four day business to around 18.25 crore nett. Last week Mary Kom also had a big fall on Monday apart from Mumbai circuit and here Finding Fanny has had an even bigger Monday drop. Like Mary Kom it should be more steadier over the next few days but the damage has been done.
The film has been rejected by its target audience at premium multiplexes who did give the a film chance as they scored well over the weekend but it had to be appreciated by this audience to have any chance which was not the case here.
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September 17, 2014 at 6:31 AM
Finding Fanny Tuesday Business
Wednesday 17 September 2014 11.00 IST
Box Office India Trade Network
Finding Fanny was a little lower on tuesdsay than Monday and has grossed around 20 crore nett in five days and should end the week at 23 crore nett plus. Below are its daily figures for the first five days.
Friday – 4,25,00,000
Saturday – 6,00,00,000
Sunday – 6,25,00,000
Monday – 1,80,00,000
Tuesday – 1,70,00,000
TOTAL – 20,00,00,000
The way the collections fell on Monday it looks a tough ask for the film to cross 30 crore nett for lifetime business.
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September 17, 2014 at 6:32 AM
24.4 in 5 here:
http://www.bollywoodhungama.com/box-office/special-features/id/385
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