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BO update: Action Jackson opens to mixed response
By Bollywood Hungama News Network, December 5, 2014 – 15:45 IST
After last week’s slow performers UNGLI and ZID, this week we see the release of two contrasting films, ACTION JACKSON and BHOPAL: A PRAYER FOR RAIN. While one features the action star Ajay Devgn, the other is based on one of the biggest industrial disasters that rocked the world. With both films catering to different genres, the audience has a choice on what they want to watch.
ACTION JACKSON opened to a mixed response. While northern territories have reported good opening, other sectors report a rather sluggish response with single screens showing a better response to the film as compared to multiplexes. On the other hand, BHOPAL: A PRAYER FOR RAIN, that has received better reviews from the critics, does not feature in morning shows. Simultaneously since the film caters to a rather niche audience and deals with a more dramatic cinematic experience with no big Bollywood star presence, its collections will be rather limited.
On the whole, while ACTION JACKSON will have to rely heavily on good word of mouth to combat the less than appreciative reviews, BHOPAL: A PRAYER FOR RAIN, that features known Hollywood names will find better acceptance at multiplexes.
Action Jackson Opens Below The Mark
Friday 05 December 2014 13.00 IST
Box Office India Trade Network
The opening of Action Jackson is below the mark all over. The response at mass centres is better but even there it cant be called good. The opening in multiplexes of Mumbai and Delhi is poor and even multiplexes in other big centres are low be it Jaipor, Indore or Lucknow.
The single screens in above mentioned cities have opened to an average response but for this type of film they should have opened at 90-100%. The opening is better than the releases of the last few weeks due to single screens but that is not saying much as the releases in November did not open well. The opening on average is 15-20% at multiplexes and around 50-55% at single screens.
The same time last year R… Rajkumar had a 9.50 crore nett approx first day and looking at the morning collections of Action Jackson it won’t get to that number unless there is a rapid improvement in collections. The release is wider than R… Rajkumar but occupancies are much lower.
Ungli And Zid First Week Business
Friday 05 December 2014 11.00 IST
Box Office India Trade Network
Ungli grossed a very poor 14.50 crore nett its first week. The collections were lower than Raja Natwarlal releases earlier this year and also lower than other recent Emraan Hashmi box office flops like Shanghai, Ek Thi Daayan and Ghanchakkar. The film will do 16-17 crore nett lifetime business which is a disaster for the film
Zid was not much better as it grossed around 5.50 crore nett in week one and despite it having a low budget the film is still going to be a loser.
The other release of the week was Zed Plus and it was a disaster failing to even hit 50 lakhs nett in week one. All in all it meant the poor run since Happy New Year continued with the week having two box office disasters and a flop.
People are saving their money for PK…its that simple. Glad to see shitty movies like Hamshakals and AJ flopping so badly. No talent hacks like Said Khan and Prabhu Deva think that they can just show up on the set, copy and paste some old movie and the audience will just show up.
Absolutely. I don’t think it is much else as its surprising to the extent the films in November and now this one have been sombre openings. With 2 weeks left, PK is the only film on ppl’s radars now.
‘Two things were clear: Firstly, Salem and Sanjay were no longer friends. Two, Salem was gunning for Sanjay.’
‘The actor was in Goa at the time, along with his friend and the director of Kaante, Sanjay Gupta, known to him as Gups. Salem’s instructions to his boys were clear: Go after Sanjay and kill him in Goa or at Mumbai airport upon his return.’
‘But Sanjay and Gups heard of the planned hit and desperately began working the phones to get help. They asked several friends of Salem’s to mediate, but these men found Salem in no mood to forgive Sanjay Dutt.’
An exclusive excerpt from S Hussain Zaidi’s latest book, My Name Is Abu Salem.
The courtroom was packed to the rafters. The tension was palpable.
The hundred accused of the Mumbai serial blasts were present in the court and so were over a dozen lawyers and several CBI officers. The specially designated TADA courtroom wore an air of eerie grimness.
At the centre of attention were two distinctly different men, regarded as frenemies of sorts.
Film actor Sanjay Dutt was riding high on the recent success of Munnabhai MBBS — his comeback vehicle to stardom. The other was Salem — clean-shaven, nattily dressed, wearing nice shoes, sporting gelled hair and smelling of expensive cologne, quite in contrast to the morose and weary Sanjay. Salem, unlike his former friend, was smiling, displaying his characteristic chirpy disposition.
Sanjay and Salem were of course good friends once upon a time — Salem in complete awe of Sanjay and the star enjoying the attention. The running joke in the Mumbai underworld had been that Salem did not bathe for three days after having delivered the AK-56 to Sanjay Dutt before the riots. After that, the two had kept in touch over the phone and met several times in Dubai during Sanjay’s foreign shoots or events. Their friendship was in fact a much-discussed subject within the Bollywood-mafia circles.
But times change. Those who know Sanjay claimed he had grown uncomfortable with Salem. Salem often used intimidation and coercion to retain Sanjay as a friend, something the star detested.
It wasn’t the same case with Chhota Shakeel, Salem’s arch-enemy and Dawood Ibrahim’s right-hand man, with whom Sanjay shared an easy, comfortable equation.
A telephone conversation recorded on July 14, 2002, exposed Sanjay Dutt’s connections with Shakeel. The transcripts would later be produced in the MCOCA (Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act) court where Sanjay would have to explain them away by saying he was too drunk and didn’t have the slightest clue who he was talking to.
Salem had by then fallen out with his former boss Anis Ibrahim and was aware that he and Shakeel were stalking him at every turn. What he did not know was that they had also allegedly involved his one-time friend Sanjay Dutt in a plot to eliminate him in New Jersey.
For the record, the actor has always denied his involvement in such a conspiracy.
According to unconfirmed reports, Salem had told his old friend Sanjay that he would attend one of the star-studded live Bollywood shows in New Jersey.
Salem wanted to drop by and say hello to Sanjay and his other ‘friends’ in Bollywood. After all, this was 2001 and he was living inconspicuously in the US. Not many in Bollywood knew that Salem was trying to settle down in Chicago and was making efforts to extend his base to Los Angeles and New Jersey.
Salem had confided only in Sanjay about his plans to attend the event. Maybe he wanted to make it seem like a casual visit to a ‘Bollywood night’ while he was on a trip to the US, and wanted to give away nothing about his whereabouts in the country.
At the very last minute, however, the gangster received some chilling intelligence and cancelled his visit to the event.
Chhota Shakeel had hatched a plot to kill Salem in New Jersey, he was told. Shakeel’s gunmen had conducted a recce of the stadium and were planning to strike as soon as Salem appeared at the glittering event.
Salem had heard that it was Sanjay who had tipped Shakeel off about his expected presence at the event. Salem was only too well aware of Shakeel’s skills and resourcefulness and how well he could plan an attack.
Only a few months ago, on September 15, 2000, Shakeel had orchestrated an audacious attack on Chhota Rajan in his den in Bangkok. Rajan had survived by the skin of his teeth.
Salem decided to cancel his visit to New Jersey, but harboured a massive grudge against Sanjay and had decided to punish him for his treachery and betrayal.
A few months later, Salem organised four gunmen to ‘take care of’ Sanjay. The actor was in Goa at the time, along with his friend and the director ofKaante, Sanjay Gupta, known to him as Gups. Salem’s instructions to his boys were clear: Go after Sanjay and kill him in Goa or at Mumbai airport upon his return (Left: Sanjay Dutt in Kaante). But Sanjay and Gups heard of the planned hit and desperately began working the phones to get help. They asked several friends of Salem’s to mediate, but these men found Salem in no mood to forgive Sanjay Dutt. Sanjay and Gups remained holed up in the hotel room until they managed to get hold of a close friend of Salem’s in Mumbai by the name of Akbar Khan. This man had helped Salem in the days when the don was on the run from the Mumbai police after the serial blasts.
Khan had helped Salem cross the border and had even driven him to Kathmandu in his own car. It was a huge risk for him to take and Salem was so grateful to Khan that he never refused him a thing.
When Gups asked Khan to intervene, the latter agreed. After all, who would not want to oblige a successful and affluent filmmaker?
Khan called up Salem and asked him to rein in his shooters.
Salem was furious, but also couldn’t say no to Khan. He told him that his hitmen would not touch the two Sanjays so long as they travelled in Khan’s car.
The news of amnesty was conveyed to the beleaguered actor-director duo, much to their immense relief. They managed to reach Mumbai airport and Khan ferried them across town in his Hyundai Santro, saving them from the wrath of Salem and his shooters.
Khan was no Good Samaritan. Over the next few months, he regularly visited Sanjay Gupta’s plush office in Lokhandwala and took lakhs of rupees for something or the other, part of the unwritten price for his help.
Gupta resented it, but shelled out the money quietly. He could hardly irk Khan and invite bad luck home. While Khan extracted hard cash from Gupta, he ensured that Sanjay Dutt, whose market price at the time was a couple of crores per film, worked in his own movie for free. Market analysts dubbed the movie as the most disastrous of Sanjay’s career and wondered what made him take up the movie just as his career was peaking.
Salem later boasted that he decided to forgive Sanjay because the actor had called him on his satellite phone (which used to cost Rs 1,000 per minute for a call) and tearfully sought his forgiveness.
Salem would boast about this incident, saying to his audience that he had decided to forget Sanjay’s betrayal out of the goodness of his heart.
Two things were clear from these incidents: Firstly, Salem and Sanjay were no longer friends. Two, Salem was gunning for Sanjay.
The veracity of Salem’s claim of forgiving Sanjay could never be verified though. That’s why, in court, the actor decided to avoid Salem and preferred to take a seat on the last bench along with a few of the accused. The officers from the ATS who had surrounded Salem from all sides (for his own safety) were also there to ensure that Salem did not abuse Sanjay in any way.
Soon after the serial blasts case chargesheet was filed on November 4, 1993, at the TADA court (in the Mumbai sessions court near Colaba), the city police were faced with the massive problem of security. The case involved over 200 accused, over a thousand witnesses and scores of lawyers and police personnel.
It was going to be a major challenge to ferry all these accused from Arthur Road Jail to Colaba on a daily basis. This would involve several dozen vehicles and complicated security paraphernalia. Any security glitch would easily result in a major catastrophe for the city which was still recovering from the serial blasts.
The police were not willing to take any chances. So, in an unprecedented step, the state government vacated a major portion of the Arthur Road Jail and dedicated it for the specially designated TADA court meant only for the serial blasts trial.
This arrangement allowed the accused to meet their lawyers in the court premises itself. Relatives could also drop in to meet the accused. This section of the jail sprawled across acres of land and some of the accused even discovered nooks and crannies to grab an intimate moment or two with their wives, right within the court premises. But Sanjay, of course, was too prominent a personality to hide in some secluded corner. He knew that he had to go through the motions of paying obeisance to the don. During the recess, several accused hugged Salem and greeted him with extreme cordiality, some of them fawning over him. Sanjay remained standing in a corner.
Salem was, in fact, eager to meet Sanjay or at least give him his famous glare that was capable of having a spine-chilling effect on the recipient. Eventually, as he came down the stairs along with his ATS escorts, he spotted Sanjay standing there. It was quite an awkward moment for Sanjay, although Salem kept smiling.
Not knowing what to say to dispel the awkwardness, Sanjay took the initiative and said, ‘Salaam alaikum, bhai (Peace be with you, brother). Salem promptly replied, ‘Walaikum salaam (And peace unto you as well)’.
Sanjay then asked, ‘Khairiyat? (Is all well with you?)’ Salem merely nodded to this question about his well-being and moved on.
The actor heaved a sigh of relief — the storm had passed and all was well.
Having arrived in Mumbai on November 10, 2005, Salem was produced in the TADA court the next day. He preferred not to inform his family members of his arrival. At the time, he did not have a lawyer, but several lawyers of varying levels of skill were jostling for his attention. Salem was remanded to custody. He was allowed home food and other facilities during his time in the jail.
Special Public Prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam told the court that the CBI’s Special Task Force which was spearheading the prosecution would file a supplementary charge sheet against Salem in the next 30 days.
Salem was kept in the high-security anda cell — the egg-shaped enclosure in Arthur Road Jail — to protect him from any hostile gang rivals among the inmates. He hated it. Cramped space, discourteous staff, stinking toilets, mosquitoes, no bedsheets and other such miseries threatened to make his incarceration insufferable.
Slowly though, Salem began to settle in, especially when he came to the realisation that jail authorities react positively to the stature and wealth of gang members. With everyone being respectful to Salem, he started enjoying his time in jail.
Fun read..…somewhat of mob story…….always thought Sanjay Dutt was a ‘phattu’ at heart for all the strong exterior he posed.
Why get involved with the underworld when you don’t have the balls to stand up to them….and what did he gain……khaya oiya kuch nahin glass toda baara ana…!!!
He put me off on KWK when he was shamelessly talking about screwing women sitting next to his sister who was the other guest beside him. All he was talking was nailing women….….
You could sense the discomfort of her dignified politician sister….cringeworthy !!
“It could be just coincidence that all the major releases of the month were poor but with the sort of openings taken, it could also be that the public has little interest outside the big budget films at today’s ticket rate prices which average over 200 rupees in the metros and the releases were targeting metro multiplexes as none of them had content which would appeal in B and C centres. Only time will tell if the high ticket rates are a major concern.”
I would say pretty accurate inference / supposition to the state of affairs. This is where the big ticket movies are winning and unless the trio superstars are directly challenged on festive dates there is no go for young’un.
Based off the PK trailers/songs which I really like, I won’t be surprised if the weekend of PK is greater than the lifetime total of every movie that’s released post HNY
the biggest weekend ever would certainly be on the cards.. usually Hirani’s films don’t have the biggest opening days but they make up for this over the weekend. And again post-3I I wouldn’t be surprised at all if they also got the biggest opening day. I can see it go either way.
The Munna Bhai’s didn’t have the biggest openings but 3I as far as I remember did have the biggest day/weekend and PK doing the same wouldn’t be surprising. However I don’t think even PK can break HNY’s opening day however it can easily substantially cross (by 10 crores) HNY’s saturday and Sunday. So a 37-34-39 type weekend is my estimate
Also the combined BO of the 3 Khan’s this year (probably 700 crores) will probably greater than the total of all non-Khan hits. Aamir will cross SRK in number of biggest hits per year but I also read in an interview that Aamir doesn’t think that his next film will release before 2017 which is just absurd imo.
” the first half of 2015 will see mostly films catering to the city multiplex audience and if results don’t improve by a margin it will be time for a rethink by the major production studios in the sort of cinema being made and the huge promotion costs spent for an initial box office response which hardly ever materialises”.
8.5 1st day according to BOI- I don’t think it’ll cross 50 crores lifetime. But <10 crores is what Ajay's BO pull really is. It's so obvious now that the Singham brand+RS+Holiday got SR the 30 crore opening.
Action Jackson Looking At Low First Day
Friday 05 December 2014 23.00 IST
Box Office India Trade Network
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Action Jackson has not collected well on day one though collections in mass centres especially in the single screens has meant its not as bad as the releases of the past few weeks. The first day is heading for a total of around 8.50 crore nett as per early estimates. A film like Action Jackson should be recording higher figures on day one because its not the type of film than show much growth on day.
The film has managed to do better in Mumbai, Rajasthan, CP Berar, CI, Nizam and Bihar while North India has recorded poor collections. Even the collections in UP are pretty low.
The collections could go up on Saturday as multiplexes are dull but as mentioned above its not the sort of film which can show major growth like of over 30%.
that’s not fair on Devgan.. I’m not saying he’s Salman or something. On the other hand when was the last time one of the really big stars had this sort of ‘blockbuster’ type release on such a date? So they haven’t been tested in a long time either. Now some of these things are the perks of being that kind of star where you get the big dates and the deck is cleared for you and so on. But that still doesn’t contradict my other point. Yes even on this date some of the other stars would do a lot better than this but then one has already conceded that Devgan isn’t in that league. That difference would show up on a holiday date as well as a non-holiday one. But it’s not fair to say that is what Devgan is worth. Now it could be that he’s had a lot of box office damage recently (barring Singham 2) and some of this also became a problem for him. In any case we also have to account for all these factors with him and with the others. Aamir of course remains separate from such a grouping because of the sort of stuff he usually attempts.
I think problem with Action Jackson is that it is just a bad,bad film. Some of the stuff one has been reading about the film is nauseating. Feel bad for Sonakshi that she had to get involved in such cheap stuff.And, Devgun doesn’t have the star power to carry a bad masala film to a good total.
It is all lined up for PK to deliver the big blow but it has to be a film in Hirani mode. If he has deviated, it may not end up being the monster we are expecting. Trailer so far don’t give away much.
Forget the 3 Khan’s, I put Ajay and Akshay in the same league so I’m comparing the two of them. Rowdy Rathore with the same team as AJ had a 14 crore opening on a holiday. And it was a similar situation for Akki BO wise-coming off 1 huge hit (HF2) but a ton of flops before it. Even “Entertainment” had a bigger opening than AJ and that film was sandwiched between Kick and SR.
There’s also the Rohit Shetty factor which I think contributes a lot-even for CE.
Aamir’s choice of projects make such a mockery of these guys’ (AD/SRK/AKKI) choices – I m not mentioning sallu as he is someone like Big B in his prime – but the other 3 are dishing out crapes one after other…..and Aamir stands tall – very tall with his choices and the BO outcome……..
Also comparing a 2 year star with 4 months star (based on release dates) is quite a stupidity. Each are their own, will have different level of expectations and will get a different level of opening.
Till all stars does same frequency he cannot be called in the same league
Action Jackson Set For Drop On Saturday
Saturday 06 December 2014 22.30 IST
Box Office India Trade Network
Action Jackson is set for a drop in collections on Saturday. The film has seen a noticeable drop in collections where the collections on day one were decent. Gujarat, CP Berar and CI are all down. Some centres are down to the tune of 20-25%.
The other areas that did not not open well like Delhi and East Punjab have not managed to show any growth. The theatres in these areas are similar or slightly down. A drop in collections would not be much of a problem if the film had taken a strong opening but with collections on day one being less than 10 crore nett and a drop on Saturday leaves the film with little hope of success.
The second day business will come in at around 8 crore nett mark which means even a 30 crore nett weekend is looking an impossible task for Action Jackson.
Action Jackson Saturday Business
Sunday 07 December 2014 14.30 IST
Box Office India Trade Network
Action jackson fell on day two as single screena across the country which opened pretty well could not sustain. The circuits which did not show big drops were East Punjab, West Bengal and Mysore but they were very low to start with. The two day approx business of Action Jackson is as follows.
Friday – 9,25,00,000
Saturday – 8,25,00,000
Total – 17,50,00,000
The weekend business of the film will be in 27-28 crore nett range depending on how Sunday does.
I saw the film, it was pretty atrocious 1/5. Some of the songs are annoyingly catchy. However the “Gangster Baby” song was disgusting. The first half is ok but it’s the second half that’s just terrible. Regressive, vulgar, very very abusive towards women and too violent. The story’s basically a ripoff of Don except much much worse. Ajay Devgn is a terrible dancer and Sonakshi Sinha is just wasting her career. The other two actresses are terrible. The look of the villains literally made me want to throw up, they look disgusting. There’s no fun in the action like there was in PD’s Wanted, RR and RR, it’s just gruesome and violent here. I’ve never heard of Baba Films (the producer) but I’m damn sure that this film was made with Black Money. Also EROS is a disaster of a company, they’re about to lose 125+ Crores in a span of 2 weeks from this film and Happy Endings. I wish PK released tomorrow so I could rejuvenate myself after watching AJ, HE, KD, Shaukeens one week after the other
PK will be the first 300/600 grosser
Reasons:
1) Imagine if 3 idiots was releasing now what would it gross. Well imagine something better than it
2) Raju Hirani
2) Aamir Khan is the path breaker whether it is 100 200 or 250
3) This will also be the first 100 crore second week movie.
4) People are fed up with garbage like AJ KD HE
5) Recall that 3 idiots did not have extraordinary buzz. But content was king.
6) Below average D3 collected 280.
7) Sunjay Dutt is at his best with Raju
8) Sushant really is talented
9) Anushka is very good complementary actress
10) Boman is also at his best with Raju
Action Jackson Weekend Business – Does Well At Single Screens On Sunday
Monday 08 December 2014 11.30 IST
Box Office India Trade Network
Action Jackson has grossed around 28-28.50 crore nett in its first weekend which is the the 13th highest weekend of the year and well short of what it should have done. The business in single screens was decent on Friday, dropped on Saturday but was good to very good on Sunday. Multiplexes are dull.
The film has cost 90 crore plus to release and promote so you really need to recover at least 50 crore as share from the domestic market and for that a 40 crore nett plus weekend is a must and Action Jackson is well below that. The good business on Sunday at single screens gives it a chance to sustain in single screens over the next two weeks but that wont be enough..
The plus is probably that the film did find an initial audience in some parts as Ajay Devgn is a mass star which mad sure the film did not have the low figures that the other releases of November saw.
My film is releasing in a couple of weeks and I expect no worse than 17th highest weekend of the year and with some luck I could have 14th best weekend..
yes that’s one of the unfortunate things about the release schedule. Being a fan of Aamir and Hirani I don’t wish to damage their project. The other thing is that with a delay I could possibly get the 14th highest weekend of the year. Either way I know BOI will give me credit.
Is it a premium mtiplex film or a single screen deal?
Have you been approached by VVC or Hirani or Aamir to delay the release?
They are running scared.😄
Saif was unlucky with Happy Ending as was Devgan with Action Jackson. These films should have opened better and even more so the former. Kill Dill looks to be the sort of thing that would have collapsed anyway.
Although organized and shot on such a grand scale, the anniversary show of Aap Ki Adalat did not live up to its hype due to lack of content. A disappointment for me a and a case of lost opportunity for the organizers since this must have been some sort of record for the most diversified high profile turnout at a single event. I did not see Big B and Sachin..….though Jaya B represented the Bachchans.
PM Modi speech was nice and crisp but what’s with those inane questions which did injustice to the gathering and show in general…..
The much hyped trio gathering of the Khans too was a damp squib which got awkward at times due to unprepared material and this where SRK gained the upper hand. He was much at ease, real and very quick witted with a ‘damn’ good sense of humor. I mean Big B may trump him with gravitas and solidity due to prepared material, but there is no denying he is the Badshah of ceremonies and stage and it was delight to watch the show till he was there on stage.
So called ‘Khandaan’ stuff starts around the 22 min mark..
its pretty clear that Aamir is nervous as hell. This kind of function is not Aamir’s ‘forte’. SRK shines best in this kind of forum and Sallu kind of tries too hard sometimes. I agree with MSDhoni that they seemed unprepared so I wish they were more prepared. But it was still cool to watch them…pretty clear all three of them have a solid relationship for years and all the other ‘junk’ was just for show.
I think he was okay. It was a mix of audience; it was not a filmy function to do Salman’s towel dance when you have in audience Pranab, Modi, Jaitley and whole bunch of political leaders.
I think Aamir should have asked question when Sonu went to his table instead of just congratulating.
agree…those factors probably added to his nervousness (personal opinion is that Aamir comes across as someone who gets embarrassed easily and the other two don’t care). he was clearly hesitant to even go up on the stage and then even more hesitant to do the ‘group’ towel dance.
Aamir’s low-key appearance at th
e Aap ki Adalat show seems to have riled up the SRK-Salman fan-commenters brigade on the net. Aamir is being termed a hypocrite and spoilsport for letting his hair down at Arpita’s wedding (looking decidedly tipsy and singing-dancing on stage — and even then Salman had to call him to the stage)– but not being gung ho on stage with SRK-Salman. These two did the expected nautanki on stage– and Aamir applauded and laughef along– so what’s the big deal if he played a minor part in the proceedings?
One remembers RS’s aap ki adalat with Modi – LOL it was so staged and pre planned that Rifat Jawaid quietly resigned and left when he saw the downfall of this channel.
In this candid interview, Shah Rukh Khan says after so many years in the industry, he is still trying hard for everything, trying hard to be a better person. He says that it is easy to be a star but difficult to remain there unless you are trying hard. He is of the opinion that charity comes from inside. He says that being materialistic satisfies him.
Agree. It is indeed a scam. Why else would the owner of Maratha Mandir not exhibit (for that show) a Ghajini, Wanted, Dabangg, 3 idiots or a Gadar. He’s being paid by YRF.
The movie was running for only morning 11am show and tickets are like 150-15 bucks or so. There is a link on bollywood hungama with Manoj Desai who is the theatre owner. He has few interesting things to say. Watch when you get time..
There are plenty of lovebirds scouting for some alone time in a dark space during the college going hours at a very cheap price in today’s economy……plus air condition is still a luxury in India.
Faridoon the interviewer at that Bollywood Hungama link himself seemed to have watched it many times while he stayed in Byculla in early 2000s and later to check out if its running empty or there are few souls sitting and watching.
don’t tell me that an 11 am fdfs of Ghajini, 3 idiots, Dabangg, Singham, Gadar or Border (when these movies released) will make less money for the theater owner than a 900th show of DDLJ
Why can’t the theater owner vacate DDLj’s show for these brand new movies (which are sure to get at least an initial weekend) and then return to DDLJ when they fizz out..It’s crystal clear that he’s in some sort of deal with yrf who want to showcase this as some kind of magical legacy.
Not going to defend the movie and I do understand the reasons must be more than just financial…may be YRF never took their cut for screening the movie…Mumbai has acute shortage of space and whatever available is very expensive esp this theater is located in Central Mumbai and heart of the city so this simply cannot be about just sentiments only and this long a period…. Also we need understand DDLJ qualifies under the evergreen movie slot and cutting across all segments plus the lead actors / makers of the movie are still very relevant and making news.
Prior to this I believe they ran Mughle Azam for 7/8 years too……so they have a track record for doing this.
I am not even going into the content wise merit and demerit of the movie
# 1- Since DDLj there have been at least 50 movies that guaranteed a blockbuster opening especially in a theater like Maratha Mandir yet they screened DDLJ for a reduced price
# 2- If DDLj indeed gets some viewership, then why not screen it only when no other big movie is doing good. What’s the fixation with screening it consecutively.
# 3- If screening DDLj for Maratha Mandir is indeed profitable then wouldn’t it be the same for other single screens too? So during this month of november, when movies are failing miserably, why aren’t other theaters in Mumbai and the rest of cities all screening DDLJ to make some money.
# 4- If the argument is that it’s basically running because of the airconditioning and a habitat for making out couples- then why screen DDLJ for that..Why not something like a Aashiq banaya aapne or Julie or something on those lines..I am sure the lovers (though least inetersted in the movie) would prefer a movie that sets the mood rather than a movie that has babuji. mataji and om jai jagadish aarti.
All fair points and only YRF and Manoj Desai know the truth behind this….rest all is speculation. On the last part a movie like Julie will bring a very different set of viewers and not very amiable but DDLJ strikes a younger gentry and there is some watchable content in between breaks….lol.
Look here is a link to 3 part interview of the theater owner Manoj Desai and you can make your inferences -.
“Time flies.. the distance between us and DDLJ at this point is almost the same as that between DDLJ and Deewar when the former released.”
Indeed time flies and it’s been close to 20 years for DDLJ and somehow this movie is so fresh in the minds. Initially, I was never a fan of the movie when I watched it in my hometown and was a bit upset when Rangeela got overshadowed the same year within a month or so. Aamir performance there was path breaking…Then this year also had Karan Arjun which I had enjoyed thoroughly being a multistarrer coming after a long time then and I had a lot of difficulty in getting tickets.( perhaps the last such instance where I stood in a line to purchase movie tickets )
Over period of time and since I was a hostelite in Mumbai and doing my professional exams, our group would get sick of cramming the whole day and by late evenings we as group would take booze and head to New Excelsior in Fort area, buy cheap stall tickets for night show to empty theatres and hoot throughout the movie and dance around too……zara sa jhoom loon mein was an absolute riot for us esp when asha bhonsle put on an accent to sing …Thandi Thandi Pavan …Jalta Hai Ye Badan …( try hearing it again to notice the way she says thandi thandi ). Its then I must have watched DDLJ 6/7 times in theatre and enjoyed each time though a thrill of watching a movie goes up few notches when watched in a group.
It’s a clean start and hope this step formalizes the boxoffice in India. Hope others follow suit.
Makers of PK tie up with Rentrak to monitor box office collections:
“As per Chopra’s statement, Rentrak will document the box office collections of PK, providing a day to day break up comprising of collections across the country. Commenting on the same Rajkumar Akella, Managing Director of Rentrak India stated, “We are very excited about this, and the whole team of Mr. Chopra, Disney and UTV is hoping that we achieve maximum coverage with this movie and we are currently making all efforts to accomplish the same.”
“Globally we have a track record of accurately tracking 40 markets, for India this is something that has been waiting to happen for a long time. Besides all markets would benefit from this since getting an insight into the Indian market is so very difficult and complex. Not forgetting that with this, our true potential will be captured and projected accurately,” adds Rajkumar.”
This is just to disguise to give producers numbers. How is this different from anyone else is doing? The problem is not the source, the problem is the structure of theater chains and connection till the grass root level, that is not transaperant. Even Rajesh Roshan can tie up with Rentrak and then give his numbers through them as Rentrak. There isn’t anyway to get correct collections accurately within a day.
*** What a gruesome way to make Ashok, Kishore, and Anoop suffer even after-life!! ***
This could be something that Arjun Kapoor should be beaming about this time. If sources are to be believed, Arjun will be playing Kishore Kumar’s role in the remake of the classic comedy, ‘Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi’, which starred all the three Ganguly brothers — Ashok, Kishore and Anup Kumar.
The project, an official remake of ‘Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi’ (1958), is helmed by Rohit Shetty. SRK is said to have agreed to play the eldest brother Ashok Kumar’s character in the film. According to a source, “The original script had three brothers and we are sticking to the concept. However, it is not finalised if Arjun will be playing Kishore or Anup Kumar’s role.”
And who would be playing the role of lovely Madhubala? (Remember Ek Ladki bheegi bhaagi si?). It is said that the makers are still undecided about who to offer that pivotal role. “The team is also working on the script. Right now, they can’t reveal much about the film,” adds a source.
Naseeruddin Shah: My favourite Dilip Kumar film is Mughal-e-Azam. It is certainly one of the greatest films made in India. Except for the wig which marred his look, his performance is exceptional for its understated intensity and dignity. His performance in Amar is another favourite.
Subhash Ghai: I had the privilege, honour and pleasure of directing India’s greatest actor in three films. It’s hard to pick my favorites. But it would have to be Devdas, Ganga Jumna and Mughal-e-Azam.
It is always amusing to see how incredibly Hindi-centric many of these responses are. ‘Hindi’ and ‘Indian’ are glibly used interchangeably. Great star-actors from Bengal to the South need not even apply! I am not getting into the ‘Bollywood’ debate here even if Javed Akhtar’s statement is unfortunately revealing in a different sort of way (and he ought to know better). Again the Hindi-Urdu centric worldview.
Getting to Naseer’s comment MeA is one of the ‘greatest’ Indian films the way Gone with the Wind is one of the ‘greatest’ Hollywood films. In each case you have a film representing a great cultural moment, a great moment of iconicity if you will, and certainly each is a great classic. But in Hollywood a better job is done in keeping Citizen Kane and Gone with the Wind apart! Which is why on any significant critical list you will see the former hobnobbing with great films from other industries but not the latter. Similarly in an Indian context MeA (and assuming there were literate critics or such culture ever in place) would never be on the same list as Ray or Adoor or even in a more commercial sense (and again sticking to Hindi) Bimal Roy or Guru Dutt or the best of Raj Kapoor. Why? Because there’s a difference between a great classic and a great commercial film that does something more than this. You have a film like the Searchers for example or some other Fords. These are not high art efforts but they’re very important films within the commercial format and additionally they represent an ‘artistry’ (for want of a better word) which is far in excess to the industry norms for those formats. Again MeA is like the Ten Commandments or something. I wouldn’t even give it as much as Ben-Hur. Because again within the commercial format there is a level of accomplishment in this film that is not easily matched (even in Hollywood). India has such films. Sholay is the most obvious example. Here you have a great commercial film that is also something far more than this. And though I have never been much of a fan I can see the argument for Mother India. There is Awara, there are lots of examples really. MeA though is something else (in other words it isn’t like a great Ford). This doesn’t mean I have a problem with it. I certainly acknowledge its cache. But as always it’s about these glib, superficial and often ridiculous characterizations that even some of the ‘better’ minds of Bombay cinema regularly indulge in and that I militate against. One must be a little serious!
And I’ll say again at the end.. if you’re Mohanlal or Uttam Kumar or some other non-Hindi titan you need not even apply to this ‘Hindi=India’ club! By the way all of this doesn’t mean Dilip Kumar’s seminal stature can be denied in any way. I am arguing for (and against!) something else here.
People are expressing personal opinion in the aricle as far as I understood. So if anyone thinks MEA is the best, I hardly think they mean it otherwse than their own choice, because *that* was the question asked – ‘which was their favourite film’.
BTW my answer too would have to be MEA, Gunga Jamuna, and Aan, though he was great in most.
I hope you’ll leave the pooe 92 year old man alone.
If you think Sholay is better, it’s OK. Though one mustn’t forget Sholay was made a decade+ after MEA.
I’m not from the cultural age when MEA was made & yet like it more than the films made in my cultural age.
“It is certainly one of the greatest films made in India. ”
This is Naseer’s comment. Think it speaks for itself. I wasn’t arguing with the others there other than Javed Akhtar. Admittedly I have increasingly little patience for an attitude where India is just about the Hindi-speaking parts of the country. I am not naive about how hegemonic Hindi has been but it’s a bit late in the day to keep asserting the same stuff. Specially so in an age where people seem to be aware of Iranian cinema and West African cinema before Southern cinema of various sorts! And this applies equally to the larger discussions of culture.
On leaving the ‘poor guy’ alone I’m afraid I tend not to be sentimental in matters of judgment. One can have an emotional attachment to stars, I have mine too, I also think there’s a place for the discourse of ‘respect’ in these matters (even if this cannot be a bourgeois attitude about simply respecting one’s ‘elders’ or what have you) but I was arguing these things as a critical matter. And I do this across the board. Including on Bachchan’s own blog and about his work and offscreen interventions. So I’m not being selective here.
Incidentally my favorite Dilip Kumar performance is probably Amar. This is also the film I like most in his oeuvre with the exception of Footpath.
Finally on Sholay, most films all these decades after are not better than Sholay even on ‘technical’ grounds let alone anything else. But as for MeA there are films made around the same time or before it that are better in similar ways. Which is not to say that MeA isn’t an achievement of sorts in that large-scale spectacle format. Gone with the Wind is one too. But again the great classic is often something other than a fine film in the more elevated sense of the term.
I’d take Mughal-e-Azam any day over Sholay. The dialogues, the sets, the songs, the costumes, the performances – it’s my favourite film and I don’t thing it’s ‘wrong’ for Naseer to call it one of the greatest films of India, which is invariably going to be a subjective statement. I understand that you disagree with him, but not why you have an issue with that being his choice.
While I will agree that MeA is not in the same class as films of Ray or Adoor, it is in my eyes better than Pyaasa and Awara, though these two would be in my list of all-time great Hindi films. And if you think people like Naseer and Javed like MeA for its spectacle, then you just don’t get where they are coming from. It is the mature and assured dramaturgy of MeA that makes it a classic. Another aspect that makes it an iconic film is the way it manages to crystallize romantic love as a metaphor for individual volition and rebellion against social tradition. Be it the song ‘ Pyar kiya toh darna kiya’ or ‘Yeh Mohabbat Zindabad’ the film gets this message across powerfully. The scene with Dilip cressing Madhubala’s face with a feather with Bade Ghual Ali Khan on the soundtrack has to be one of the best scenes of erotic passion in Indian films. I used to be obsesed with Gurudutt and Pyaasa too. But after seeing both MeA and Pyaasa again recently I prefer the surefooted dramaturgy of MeA over the arty indulgence of Pyaasa. Dilip’s understated but unmistakable evocation of smouldering passion is unparalleled in the history of Indian cinema. Mohanlal and Uttam Kumar are great actors and I havent seen enough of Mohanlal, but based on the filmography that includes Amar, Andaz, Aan, Devdas, Madhumati, MeA, Ganga Jmauna, Ram aur Shyam, Shakti and Sagina, he is certainly ahead of Uttam in range and versatility.
Actually Uttam Kumar has done every conceivable kind of role. Literally every kind. And in Bengal where he isn’t less than a god I doubt many would agree with your statement! I’d take him over Dilip Kumar personally but that’s another matter. In terms of the kinds of stuff he’s attempted though it wouldn’t be easy for any major Indian star to surpass him, irrespective of who one prefers eventually. Mohanlal similarly has attempted all kinds of parts. These guys have massive filmographies. In each case I’ve seen a lot of the work but I’ve not been able to see way more. These guys are events for their industries. One cannot just pass over these things and fall back into the default ‘Hindi’ position.
Again you keep referring to ‘Indian’ films. But Tamil cinema for example has a massive archive of period pieces, many of them legendary in that part of the country. Not that I have a very high opinion of those either but they’re culturally important and my larger point is that again one cannot keep equating ‘Hindi’ with ‘Indian’.
I wouldn’t dream of putting MeA in the same space as Awara or even Pyaasa. It’s not even close and I’m not the greatest Guru Dutt fan.
To get back to the older point when you have actors like Mammootty or Mohanlal having done every conceivable kind of role within a commercial format and then worked with important filmmakers at the high art end of things, the same for Uttam Kumar (from Ray to again every kind of commercial genre), one has to take all this much more seriously. It’s not about seeing a few films here and there. These bodies of work are entire worlds. And the reason I get irritated about all this is that there’s such towering work elsewhere. Mammootty has worked multiple times with Adoor. The Uttam Kumar -Suchitra Sen pair was legendary. So on and so forth. We can’t keep indulging in these glib statements about what the better erotic pair has been or who the most versatile actor has been and so on without enough exposure in these areas. Again not being naive about this. I know it’s about Hindi hegemony in these matters. But there’s no reason why we should be so careless in these matters when we otherwise are quite happy to talk about film festival works from around the globe. The big problem over the last decade or more as this film festival culture has really become part of the conversation in India is that we still tend to make not the slightest effort to get exposed to these other riches of ‘Indian’ cinema! This in an age where so much is available online or on DVD or whatever and with subs. No one ‘has’ to watch this stuff but at the very least the Hindi-centric worldview must be discarded.
I agree with you regarding this absurd equating of Hindi cinema with the whole of Indian cinema and hence picking out their choices from the same but don’t you think, at the end of the day any such remark (greatest film ever or greatest actor ever in India) is just a personal opinion and just like any other personal opinion it comes from the exposure of that particular person. So its possible Naseer has or hasn’t seen Kamal Haasan’s Tamil work (even his hindi work for that matter) or adoor’s cinema, but the bottom-line is for him dilip Kumar is the best actor in India.
don’t you think, however incomplete this may be, it still is what a personal opinion stands for?
Your point is a fair one perhaps but again I just have very little patience with people in Bollywood who keep spreading this sort of narrative. I’d also say that while these things are ultimately subjective these choices are not defended in any articulate way in Bollywood. Naseer can certainly do better than this as can Javed Akhtar. The same carelessness would be ok in a different context but in this case it too easily feeds into an existing narrative where the ‘South’ (for example) is still ‘avoided’ in a cultural sense (on that note a well-known BJP spokesman on TV recently said that all Indian languages came from Sanskrit.. there might be bigger fish to fry!). Certainly when you get Hollywood actors who make similar statements they tend to be far more precise about why they have those choices. They don’t offer essays justifying their favorite films but they are usually quite articulate about them even in a line or two. They at least manage to say something interesting. You’re right about the exposure but one shouldn’t make such statements, at least this late in the day, if that is the case. So when Javed Akhtar says that Ghalib is to poetry what Newton is to science or Patanjali is to Sanskrit I find this to be problematic. Because again Ghalib might be that for North Indian poetry but this doesn’t hold for every other part of the country. Again a casual comment perhaps but one, which as very often in these cases, reveals more than it intends to. Javed Akhtar could have said Tagore for example (and incidentally he has praised him greatly in some other specific contexts.. which too is part of the problem.. when it’s about ‘Bengal’ Tagore can be praised, when it’s about India-as-such it’s back to the Hindi hegemony). But in any case if you collect all such comments from different folks they confirm the same narrative. Yes we are all limited by our experiences but it’s surely not too much to expect in this day and age that one be a little more careful when one makes such statements?
“on that note a well-known BJP spokesman on TV recently said that all Indian languages came from Sanskrit.. there might be bigger fish to fry!”
I don’t know why you jump in different directions. Anyways, this is a fact. All indian languagues including every regional language spoken in india and Yes including URDU were derived from sanskrit. Just a week ago, debate on a pakistani news channel, one intellect represented this fact to present this fact. Urdu and current spoken version of hindi were derived from Hindi(which is obsolete now), as per him. Even my muslim friends from bangladesh say so.
Also, last year i saw a debate on some hindi news channel where once participant said all indian languages were originated from prakrit (ancient language) which was itself derived from sanskrit. Though, prakrit is not directly derived from sanskrit. But, He presented a long hierarchy which ends at Sanskrit.
Urdu is certainly derived from Sanskrit but it’s utter nonsense to suggest that every Indian language is derived from it. The Southern languages belong to a different language family altogether. They have absorbed a fair bit of Sanskrit vocabulary but that’s a different thing. Tamil or Telugu have nothing whatsoever to do with Sanskrit. But leaving aside these major examples there are a number of Northeastern languages not related to Sanskrit. There are other less known languages all over the country that are unrelated to Sanskrit. The languages that are derived from the various Prakrits are Hindi or urdu or Marathi or Gujarati or Punjabi or Bengali and so on. But these do not include all Indian languages.
Won’t get into the Urdu/Hindi debate except to reintroduce part of an older comment:
[The Hindi establishment of letters frowned upon him for the longest time because he used to rely on various colloquial registers, a kind of ‘folksy’ tone and so on. It is therefore an irony (and I’ve said this on Bachchan’s blog) that the son has moved towards a much more formal register of Hindi. Or better still the Doordarshan version which is more or less ‘invented’ (the kind of thing made fun of in Chupke Chupke actually came to pass!), a bureaucratic, administrative language in which new terms are coined all the time whereas the ‘actual’ varieties of Hindi (which is to say those that arose more organically in different parts of India) have been ignored (though these are still represented in literature.. both the formal varieties and the dialects). According to some scholarly estimates this is still not the lingo understood in most of Hindi speaking India unlike say the ‘Hindustani’ of 70s cinema which is. Of course since people have been formally educated in this newer Hindi for a long time you now have a class of people everywhere who are perfectly comfortable in this language.
Linguistic history though is another thing which always subverts every kind of nationalist or ethnic myth or what have you. It would take a while to explain this but the Doordarshan version I’ve been referring to isn’t just an existing Hindi dialect that was privileged but is Sanskritized Urdu. Or what was called Urdu was the dialect that was Sanskritized over time. On the other hand Urdu itself is Persianized Hindi! Which is to say it is a dialect that wasn’t even called Urdu except rarely before the mid-19th century (the earlier names were rekhta or Hindvi.. even the classical Urdu poets referred to it this way). In the same way it is another myth (though a near-universal one) that Urdu is a camp language of the Mughals and so on. It isn’t. It’s as Sanskritic a language as any other variety of Hindi (or for that matter Marathi or Bengali or Punjabi or Gujarati or what have you). Even the Persian vocabulary in it still does not exceed the Sanskritic inheritance. In any case both Hindi/Urdu are derived from khadi boli which is just one of the major Hindi strands. And I’ll cap this with a factoid — the oldest version of Urdu or a Hindi that is recognizably like the language that eventually was named Urdu comes from Gujarat (Gujri) and dates to the 11th century or something.]
Linguistic history though it is always appropriated by every nationalism is also that which subverts every such nationalism provided one is willing to follow the historical thread sincerely enough and not submit to the crudest forms of propaganda. And now you know why I jumped into this direction. When people don’t even know the difference between an Indo-European language and a Dravidian one the ‘jumping in’ is necessary!
LOL at Aryan and dravidian theories. These theories were introduced by british , and are based on racism and colored skin hatred to suffice superior complex of british.
You keep them with you.
Do you think i havent seem ever? But, to satisfy your highbrow attitude, you pull down everyone else as if you are universal encyclopedia with non challenging words.
Dilip Kumar, Uttam Kumar, Mohanlal, Mamooty, Kamal Hasan and Amitabh Bachchan are all towering actors. But it would be arrive at an unbiased appraisal of them as they operated in different industries in different eras. One could argue in favour of one or the other with all sincerity. Kamal would perhaps score in range and versatlity over others but may lose marks for showyness. Mamooty and Mohnalal may not score that high in charisma. Uttam Kumar may have played a few odd rustic roles, but certainly they are not in the same league as Gunga Jamuna, Naya Daur or Sagina. And his try at song and dance routine in a film like Chhotisi Si Mulaqat was pathetic. And so on… An there would be hardly anyone who has seen the full body of work of all these actors…so personal opinions too would prove only a limited perspective – that’s a given.
“Boyhood”
“Foxcatcher”
“The Imitation Game”
“Selma”
“The Theory of Everything”
Best Comedy
“Birdman”
“The Grand Budapest Hotel”
“Into the Woods”
“Pride”
“St. Vincent”
Best Director
Wes Anderson, “The Grand Budapest Hotel”
Ava Duvernay, “Selma”
David Fincher, “Gone Girl”
Alejandro González Iñárritu, “Birdman”
Richard Linklater, “Boyhood”
Best Actress in a Drama
Jennifer Aniston, “Cake”
Felicity Jones, “The Theory of Everything”
Julianne Moore, “Still Alice”
Rosamund Pike, “Gone Girl”
Reese Witherspoon, “Wild”
Best Actor in a Drama
Steve Carell, “Foxcatcher”
Benedict Cumberbatch, “The Imitation Game”
Jake Gyllenhaal, “Nightcrawler”
David Oyelowo, “Selma”
Eddie Redmayne, “The Theory of Everything”
Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy
Ralph Fiennes, “The Grand Budapest Hotel”
Michael Keaton, “Birdman”
Bill Murray, “St. Vincent”
Joaquin Phoenix, “Inherent Vice”
Christoph Waltz, “Big Eyes”
Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy
Amy Adams, “Big Eyes”
Emily Blunt, “Into the Woods”
Helen Mirren, “The Hundred-Foot Journey”
Julianne Moore, “Map to the Stars”
Quvenzhané Wallis, “Annie”
Best Supporting Actress
Patricia Arquette, “Boyhood”
Jessica Chastain, “A Most Violent Year”
Keira Knightley, “The Imitation Game”
Emma Stone, “Birdman”
Meryl Streep, “Into the Woods”
Best Supporting Actor
Robert Duvall, “The Judge”
Ethan Hawke, “Boyhood”
Edward Norton, “Birdman”
Mark Ruffalo, “Foxcatcher”
J.K. Simmons, “Whiplash”
Best Screenplay
Wes Anderson, “The Grand Budapest Hotel”
Gillian Flynn, “Gone Girl”
Alejandro González Iñárritu, Nicolás Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris, and Armando Bo, “Birdman”
Richard Linklater, “Boyhood”
Graham Moore, “The Imitation Game”
Best Foreign Language Film
“Force Majeure Turist,” Sweden
“Gett: The Trial of Viviane Ansalem Gett,” Israel
“Ida,” Poland/Denmark
“Leviathan,” Russia
“Tangerines Mandariinid,” Estonia
Interstellar shutout! Think it deserved at least a nomination for best film…probably will get an Oscar nod. Guess I have to watch Selma and Boyhood (anyone watched Boyhood yet?).
watched, boyhood is bring and forgettable for most part. Story was not just focused on the boy, but her mother which i liked and her character portrayal was very good. Her scenes are best thing about the movie.
It marred in displaying what was going through boy’s life and in his mind, it was more about disjointed characters he passes through his life. i think this movie was not bold enough to show teenage complexities.
it was shot in 8 years of time of boy’s life from 11-19 years age and only thing it does justice to is boy’s growing looks over this period of time and that is not an achievement, it is natural.
SATYAMSHOT 
December 5, 2014 at 6:15 AM
BO update: Action Jackson opens to mixed response
By Bollywood Hungama News Network, December 5, 2014 – 15:45 IST
After last week’s slow performers UNGLI and ZID, this week we see the release of two contrasting films, ACTION JACKSON and BHOPAL: A PRAYER FOR RAIN. While one features the action star Ajay Devgn, the other is based on one of the biggest industrial disasters that rocked the world. With both films catering to different genres, the audience has a choice on what they want to watch.
ACTION JACKSON opened to a mixed response. While northern territories have reported good opening, other sectors report a rather sluggish response with single screens showing a better response to the film as compared to multiplexes. On the other hand, BHOPAL: A PRAYER FOR RAIN, that has received better reviews from the critics, does not feature in morning shows. Simultaneously since the film caters to a rather niche audience and deals with a more dramatic cinematic experience with no big Bollywood star presence, its collections will be rather limited.
On the whole, while ACTION JACKSON will have to rely heavily on good word of mouth to combat the less than appreciative reviews, BHOPAL: A PRAYER FOR RAIN, that features known Hollywood names will find better acceptance at multiplexes.
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December 5, 2014 at 6:16 AM
Action Jackson Opens Below The Mark
Friday 05 December 2014 13.00 IST
Box Office India Trade Network
The opening of Action Jackson is below the mark all over. The response at mass centres is better but even there it cant be called good. The opening in multiplexes of Mumbai and Delhi is poor and even multiplexes in other big centres are low be it Jaipor, Indore or Lucknow.
The single screens in above mentioned cities have opened to an average response but for this type of film they should have opened at 90-100%. The opening is better than the releases of the last few weeks due to single screens but that is not saying much as the releases in November did not open well. The opening on average is 15-20% at multiplexes and around 50-55% at single screens.
The same time last year R… Rajkumar had a 9.50 crore nett approx first day and looking at the morning collections of Action Jackson it won’t get to that number unless there is a rapid improvement in collections. The release is wider than R… Rajkumar but occupancies are much lower.
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December 5, 2014 at 6:17 AM
Ungli And Zid First Week Business
Friday 05 December 2014 11.00 IST
Box Office India Trade Network
Ungli grossed a very poor 14.50 crore nett its first week. The collections were lower than Raja Natwarlal releases earlier this year and also lower than other recent Emraan Hashmi box office flops like Shanghai, Ek Thi Daayan and Ghanchakkar. The film will do 16-17 crore nett lifetime business which is a disaster for the film
Zid was not much better as it grossed around 5.50 crore nett in week one and despite it having a low budget the film is still going to be a loser.
The other release of the week was Zed Plus and it was a disaster failing to even hit 50 lakhs nett in week one. All in all it meant the poor run since Happy New Year continued with the week having two box office disasters and a flop.
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December 5, 2014 at 7:55 AM
People are saving their money for PK…its that simple. Glad to see shitty movies like Hamshakals and AJ flopping so badly. No talent hacks like Said Khan and Prabhu Deva think that they can just show up on the set, copy and paste some old movie and the audience will just show up.
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December 5, 2014 at 9:41 AM
Absolutely. I don’t think it is much else as its surprising to the extent the films in November and now this one have been sombre openings. With 2 weeks left, PK is the only film on ppl’s radars now.
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December 5, 2014 at 12:51 PM
Isn’t it stupidity to call a movie shitty without seeing it?
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December 5, 2014 at 1:19 PM
Not if you read enough reviews to get an idea.
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December 8, 2014 at 9:28 AM
It would be more stupid to watch these films in the first place 😉
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December 5, 2014 at 11:19 AM
‘Two things were clear: Firstly, Salem and Sanjay were no longer friends. Two, Salem was gunning for Sanjay.’
‘The actor was in Goa at the time, along with his friend and the director of Kaante, Sanjay Gupta, known to him as Gups. Salem’s instructions to his boys were clear: Go after Sanjay and kill him in Goa or at Mumbai airport upon his return.’
‘But Sanjay and Gups heard of the planned hit and desperately began working the phones to get help. They asked several friends of Salem’s to mediate, but these men found Salem in no mood to forgive Sanjay Dutt.’
An exclusive excerpt from S Hussain Zaidi’s latest book, My Name Is Abu Salem.
=====================================================
The courtroom was packed to the rafters. The tension was palpable.
The hundred accused of the Mumbai serial blasts were present in the court and so were over a dozen lawyers and several CBI officers. The specially designated TADA courtroom wore an air of eerie grimness.
At the centre of attention were two distinctly different men, regarded as frenemies of sorts.
Film actor Sanjay Dutt was riding high on the recent success of Munnabhai MBBS — his comeback vehicle to stardom. The other was Salem — clean-shaven, nattily dressed, wearing nice shoes, sporting gelled hair and smelling of expensive cologne, quite in contrast to the morose and weary Sanjay. Salem, unlike his former friend, was smiling, displaying his characteristic chirpy disposition.
Sanjay and Salem were of course good friends once upon a time — Salem in complete awe of Sanjay and the star enjoying the attention. The running joke in the Mumbai underworld had been that Salem did not bathe for three days after having delivered the AK-56 to Sanjay Dutt before the riots. After that, the two had kept in touch over the phone and met several times in Dubai during Sanjay’s foreign shoots or events. Their friendship was in fact a much-discussed subject within the Bollywood-mafia circles.
But times change. Those who know Sanjay claimed he had grown uncomfortable with Salem. Salem often used intimidation and coercion to retain Sanjay as a friend, something the star detested.
It wasn’t the same case with Chhota Shakeel, Salem’s arch-enemy and Dawood Ibrahim’s right-hand man, with whom Sanjay shared an easy, comfortable equation.
A telephone conversation recorded on July 14, 2002, exposed Sanjay Dutt’s connections with Shakeel. The transcripts would later be produced in the MCOCA (Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act) court where Sanjay would have to explain them away by saying he was too drunk and didn’t have the slightest clue who he was talking to.
Salem had by then fallen out with his former boss Anis Ibrahim and was aware that he and Shakeel were stalking him at every turn. What he did not know was that they had also allegedly involved his one-time friend Sanjay Dutt in a plot to eliminate him in New Jersey.
For the record, the actor has always denied his involvement in such a conspiracy.
According to unconfirmed reports, Salem had told his old friend Sanjay that he would attend one of the star-studded live Bollywood shows in New Jersey.
Salem wanted to drop by and say hello to Sanjay and his other ‘friends’ in Bollywood. After all, this was 2001 and he was living inconspicuously in the US. Not many in Bollywood knew that Salem was trying to settle down in Chicago and was making efforts to extend his base to Los Angeles and New Jersey.
Salem had confided only in Sanjay about his plans to attend the event. Maybe he wanted to make it seem like a casual visit to a ‘Bollywood night’ while he was on a trip to the US, and wanted to give away nothing about his whereabouts in the country.
At the very last minute, however, the gangster received some chilling intelligence and cancelled his visit to the event.
Chhota Shakeel had hatched a plot to kill Salem in New Jersey, he was told. Shakeel’s gunmen had conducted a recce of the stadium and were planning to strike as soon as Salem appeared at the glittering event.
Salem had heard that it was Sanjay who had tipped Shakeel off about his expected presence at the event. Salem was only too well aware of Shakeel’s skills and resourcefulness and how well he could plan an attack.
Only a few months ago, on September 15, 2000, Shakeel had orchestrated an audacious attack on Chhota Rajan in his den in Bangkok. Rajan had survived by the skin of his teeth.
Salem decided to cancel his visit to New Jersey, but harboured a massive grudge against Sanjay and had decided to punish him for his treachery and betrayal.
A few months later, Salem organised four gunmen to ‘take care of’ Sanjay. The actor was in Goa at the time, along with his friend and the director ofKaante, Sanjay Gupta, known to him as Gups. Salem’s instructions to his boys were clear: Go after Sanjay and kill him in Goa or at Mumbai airport upon his return (Left: Sanjay Dutt in Kaante). But Sanjay and Gups heard of the planned hit and desperately began working the phones to get help. They asked several friends of Salem’s to mediate, but these men found Salem in no mood to forgive Sanjay Dutt. Sanjay and Gups remained holed up in the hotel room until they managed to get hold of a close friend of Salem’s in Mumbai by the name of Akbar Khan. This man had helped Salem in the days when the don was on the run from the Mumbai police after the serial blasts.
Khan had helped Salem cross the border and had even driven him to Kathmandu in his own car. It was a huge risk for him to take and Salem was so grateful to Khan that he never refused him a thing.
When Gups asked Khan to intervene, the latter agreed. After all, who would not want to oblige a successful and affluent filmmaker?
Khan called up Salem and asked him to rein in his shooters.
Salem was furious, but also couldn’t say no to Khan. He told him that his hitmen would not touch the two Sanjays so long as they travelled in Khan’s car.
The news of amnesty was conveyed to the beleaguered actor-director duo, much to their immense relief. They managed to reach Mumbai airport and Khan ferried them across town in his Hyundai Santro, saving them from the wrath of Salem and his shooters.
Khan was no Good Samaritan. Over the next few months, he regularly visited Sanjay Gupta’s plush office in Lokhandwala and took lakhs of rupees for something or the other, part of the unwritten price for his help.
Gupta resented it, but shelled out the money quietly. He could hardly irk Khan and invite bad luck home. While Khan extracted hard cash from Gupta, he ensured that Sanjay Dutt, whose market price at the time was a couple of crores per film, worked in his own movie for free. Market analysts dubbed the movie as the most disastrous of Sanjay’s career and wondered what made him take up the movie just as his career was peaking.
Salem later boasted that he decided to forgive Sanjay because the actor had called him on his satellite phone (which used to cost Rs 1,000 per minute for a call) and tearfully sought his forgiveness.
Salem would boast about this incident, saying to his audience that he had decided to forget Sanjay’s betrayal out of the goodness of his heart.
Two things were clear from these incidents: Firstly, Salem and Sanjay were no longer friends. Two, Salem was gunning for Sanjay.
The veracity of Salem’s claim of forgiving Sanjay could never be verified though. That’s why, in court, the actor decided to avoid Salem and preferred to take a seat on the last bench along with a few of the accused. The officers from the ATS who had surrounded Salem from all sides (for his own safety) were also there to ensure that Salem did not abuse Sanjay in any way.
Soon after the serial blasts case chargesheet was filed on November 4, 1993, at the TADA court (in the Mumbai sessions court near Colaba), the city police were faced with the massive problem of security. The case involved over 200 accused, over a thousand witnesses and scores of lawyers and police personnel.
It was going to be a major challenge to ferry all these accused from Arthur Road Jail to Colaba on a daily basis. This would involve several dozen vehicles and complicated security paraphernalia. Any security glitch would easily result in a major catastrophe for the city which was still recovering from the serial blasts.
The police were not willing to take any chances. So, in an unprecedented step, the state government vacated a major portion of the Arthur Road Jail and dedicated it for the specially designated TADA court meant only for the serial blasts trial.
This arrangement allowed the accused to meet their lawyers in the court premises itself. Relatives could also drop in to meet the accused. This section of the jail sprawled across acres of land and some of the accused even discovered nooks and crannies to grab an intimate moment or two with their wives, right within the court premises. But Sanjay, of course, was too prominent a personality to hide in some secluded corner. He knew that he had to go through the motions of paying obeisance to the don. During the recess, several accused hugged Salem and greeted him with extreme cordiality, some of them fawning over him. Sanjay remained standing in a corner.
Salem was, in fact, eager to meet Sanjay or at least give him his famous glare that was capable of having a spine-chilling effect on the recipient. Eventually, as he came down the stairs along with his ATS escorts, he spotted Sanjay standing there. It was quite an awkward moment for Sanjay, although Salem kept smiling.
Not knowing what to say to dispel the awkwardness, Sanjay took the initiative and said, ‘Salaam alaikum, bhai (Peace be with you, brother). Salem promptly replied, ‘Walaikum salaam (And peace unto you as well)’.
Sanjay then asked, ‘Khairiyat? (Is all well with you?)’ Salem merely nodded to this question about his well-being and moved on.
The actor heaved a sigh of relief — the storm had passed and all was well.
Having arrived in Mumbai on November 10, 2005, Salem was produced in the TADA court the next day. He preferred not to inform his family members of his arrival. At the time, he did not have a lawyer, but several lawyers of varying levels of skill were jostling for his attention. Salem was remanded to custody. He was allowed home food and other facilities during his time in the jail.
Special Public Prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam told the court that the CBI’s Special Task Force which was spearheading the prosecution would file a supplementary charge sheet against Salem in the next 30 days.
Salem was kept in the high-security anda cell — the egg-shaped enclosure in Arthur Road Jail — to protect him from any hostile gang rivals among the inmates. He hated it. Cramped space, discourteous staff, stinking toilets, mosquitoes, no bedsheets and other such miseries threatened to make his incarceration insufferable.
Slowly though, Salem began to settle in, especially when he came to the realisation that jail authorities react positively to the stature and wealth of gang members. With everyone being respectful to Salem, he started enjoying his time in jail.
Source: Rediff.com
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December 5, 2014 at 2:56 PM
Fun read..…somewhat of mob story…….always thought Sanjay Dutt was a ‘phattu’ at heart for all the strong exterior he posed.
Why get involved with the underworld when you don’t have the balls to stand up to them….and what did he gain……khaya oiya kuch nahin glass toda baara ana…!!!
He put me off on KWK when he was shamelessly talking about screwing women sitting next to his sister who was the other guest beside him. All he was talking was nailing women….….
You could sense the discomfort of her dignified politician sister….cringeworthy !!
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December 5, 2014 at 12:17 PM
Only PK month….waiting to spend my family $$ on PK only.
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December 5, 2014 at 2:16 PM
November 2014 Is Worst Month At Box Office
“It could be just coincidence that all the major releases of the month were poor but with the sort of openings taken, it could also be that the public has little interest outside the big budget films at today’s ticket rate prices which average over 200 rupees in the metros and the releases were targeting metro multiplexes as none of them had content which would appeal in B and C centres. Only time will tell if the high ticket rates are a major concern.”
http://www.boxofficeindia.com/Details/art_detail/november2014isworstmonthatboxoffice#.VIIEstLF-So
I would say pretty accurate inference / supposition to the state of affairs. This is where the big ticket movies are winning and unless the trio superstars are directly challenged on festive dates there is no go for young’un.
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December 6, 2014 at 2:52 PM
Based off the PK trailers/songs which I really like, I won’t be surprised if the weekend of PK is greater than the lifetime total of every movie that’s released post HNY
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December 6, 2014 at 4:22 PM
the biggest weekend ever would certainly be on the cards.. usually Hirani’s films don’t have the biggest opening days but they make up for this over the weekend. And again post-3I I wouldn’t be surprised at all if they also got the biggest opening day. I can see it go either way.
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December 6, 2014 at 5:24 PM
The Munna Bhai’s didn’t have the biggest openings but 3I as far as I remember did have the biggest day/weekend and PK doing the same wouldn’t be surprising. However I don’t think even PK can break HNY’s opening day however it can easily substantially cross (by 10 crores) HNY’s saturday and Sunday. So a 37-34-39 type weekend is my estimate
Also the combined BO of the 3 Khan’s this year (probably 700 crores) will probably greater than the total of all non-Khan hits. Aamir will cross SRK in number of biggest hits per year but I also read in an interview that Aamir doesn’t think that his next film will release before 2017 which is just absurd imo.
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December 7, 2014 at 1:29 AM
Hello All, Been busy and haven’t been able to contribute much. Now moved to Australia for few months. Reached Melbourne today.
I doubt it will do biggest first week but it can do 100 crores over 3 days surely if content is good. I expect first day to be around 35 crores.
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December 7, 2014 at 6:19 AM
Enjoy the Melbourne swing..!
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December 7, 2014 at 10:38 AM
1st day = 42 cr
2nd = 45 cr
3rd = 45 cr
4-7 = Total 90 cr
——————–
1st week = 222 cr 🙂
Aisan tukur tukur ka dekh rahe ho 🙂
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December 5, 2014 at 2:18 PM
and then from the same link above –
” the first half of 2015 will see mostly films catering to the city multiplex audience and if results don’t improve by a margin it will be time for a rethink by the major production studios in the sort of cinema being made and the huge promotion costs spent for an initial box office response which hardly ever materialises”.
Nicely stated
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December 5, 2014 at 3:45 PM
8.5 1st day according to BOI- I don’t think it’ll cross 50 crores lifetime. But <10 crores is what Ajay's BO pull really is. It's so obvious now that the Singham brand+RS+Holiday got SR the 30 crore opening.
Action Jackson Looking At Low First Day
Friday 05 December 2014 23.00 IST
Box Office India Trade Network
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Action Jackson has not collected well on day one though collections in mass centres especially in the single screens has meant its not as bad as the releases of the past few weeks. The first day is heading for a total of around 8.50 crore nett as per early estimates. A film like Action Jackson should be recording higher figures on day one because its not the type of film than show much growth on day.
The film has managed to do better in Mumbai, Rajasthan, CP Berar, CI, Nizam and Bihar while North India has recorded poor collections. Even the collections in UP are pretty low.
The collections could go up on Saturday as multiplexes are dull but as mentioned above its not the sort of film which can show major growth like of over 30%.
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December 5, 2014 at 10:06 PM
just glad the ‘fad’ for this genre is dying. RIP.
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December 6, 2014 at 2:53 AM
What? Only so much? In spite of Modi promoting it?
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December 6, 2014 at 6:45 AM
that’s not fair on Devgan.. I’m not saying he’s Salman or something. On the other hand when was the last time one of the really big stars had this sort of ‘blockbuster’ type release on such a date? So they haven’t been tested in a long time either. Now some of these things are the perks of being that kind of star where you get the big dates and the deck is cleared for you and so on. But that still doesn’t contradict my other point. Yes even on this date some of the other stars would do a lot better than this but then one has already conceded that Devgan isn’t in that league. That difference would show up on a holiday date as well as a non-holiday one. But it’s not fair to say that is what Devgan is worth. Now it could be that he’s had a lot of box office damage recently (barring Singham 2) and some of this also became a problem for him. In any case we also have to account for all these factors with him and with the others. Aamir of course remains separate from such a grouping because of the sort of stuff he usually attempts.
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December 6, 2014 at 9:24 PM
I think problem with Action Jackson is that it is just a bad,bad film. Some of the stuff one has been reading about the film is nauseating. Feel bad for Sonakshi that she had to get involved in such cheap stuff.And, Devgun doesn’t have the star power to carry a bad masala film to a good total.
It is all lined up for PK to deliver the big blow but it has to be a film in Hirani mode. If he has deviated, it may not end up being the monster we are expecting. Trailer so far don’t give away much.
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December 6, 2014 at 11:42 PM
Forget the 3 Khan’s, I put Ajay and Akshay in the same league so I’m comparing the two of them. Rowdy Rathore with the same team as AJ had a 14 crore opening on a holiday. And it was a similar situation for Akki BO wise-coming off 1 huge hit (HF2) but a ton of flops before it. Even “Entertainment” had a bigger opening than AJ and that film was sandwiched between Kick and SR.
There’s also the Rohit Shetty factor which I think contributes a lot-even for CE.
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December 6, 2014 at 3:37 AM
Aamir’s choice of projects make such a mockery of these guys’ (AD/SRK/AKKI) choices – I m not mentioning sallu as he is someone like Big B in his prime – but the other 3 are dishing out crapes one after other…..and Aamir stands tall – very tall with his choices and the BO outcome……..
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December 6, 2014 at 6:40 AM
” I m not mentioning sallu as he is someone like Big B in his prime”
now let’s not get completely carried away here.. I seem to have to repeat this point from time to time.. they’re not even in the same galaxy!
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December 6, 2014 at 6:53 AM
i m talking in terms of BO
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December 6, 2014 at 7:02 AM
me too…
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December 6, 2014 at 9:53 PM
Akki’s choices recently were OMG, Holiday, Special 26, and now Baby.
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December 6, 2014 at 9:57 PM
Also comparing a 2 year star with 4 months star (based on release dates) is quite a stupidity. Each are their own, will have different level of expectations and will get a different level of opening.
Till all stars does same frequency he cannot be called in the same league
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December 6, 2014 at 7:02 AM
Abhishek interview:
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/et-now/brand-equity/brand-equity-in-conversation-with-abhishek-bachchan/videoshow/45393192.cms
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December 7, 2014 at 6:18 AM
Action Jackson Set For Drop On Saturday
Saturday 06 December 2014 22.30 IST
Box Office India Trade Network
Action Jackson is set for a drop in collections on Saturday. The film has seen a noticeable drop in collections where the collections on day one were decent. Gujarat, CP Berar and CI are all down. Some centres are down to the tune of 20-25%.
The other areas that did not not open well like Delhi and East Punjab have not managed to show any growth. The theatres in these areas are similar or slightly down. A drop in collections would not be much of a problem if the film had taken a strong opening but with collections on day one being less than 10 crore nett and a drop on Saturday leaves the film with little hope of success.
The second day business will come in at around 8 crore nett mark which means even a 30 crore nett weekend is looking an impossible task for Action Jackson.
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December 7, 2014 at 6:19 AM
Action Jackson Saturday Business
Sunday 07 December 2014 14.30 IST
Box Office India Trade Network
Action jackson fell on day two as single screena across the country which opened pretty well could not sustain. The circuits which did not show big drops were East Punjab, West Bengal and Mysore but they were very low to start with. The two day approx business of Action Jackson is as follows.
Friday – 9,25,00,000
Saturday – 8,25,00,000
Total – 17,50,00,000
The weekend business of the film will be in 27-28 crore nett range depending on how Sunday does.
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December 8, 2014 at 1:57 AM
I saw the film, it was pretty atrocious 1/5. Some of the songs are annoyingly catchy. However the “Gangster Baby” song was disgusting. The first half is ok but it’s the second half that’s just terrible. Regressive, vulgar, very very abusive towards women and too violent. The story’s basically a ripoff of Don except much much worse. Ajay Devgn is a terrible dancer and Sonakshi Sinha is just wasting her career. The other two actresses are terrible. The look of the villains literally made me want to throw up, they look disgusting. There’s no fun in the action like there was in PD’s Wanted, RR and RR, it’s just gruesome and violent here. I’ve never heard of Baba Films (the producer) but I’m damn sure that this film was made with Black Money. Also EROS is a disaster of a company, they’re about to lose 125+ Crores in a span of 2 weeks from this film and Happy Endings. I wish PK released tomorrow so I could rejuvenate myself after watching AJ, HE, KD, Shaukeens one week after the other
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December 8, 2014 at 2:05 AM
I must applaud your courage to watch all these films one after the other!
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December 8, 2014 at 2:23 AM
Haha thanks, I watch every medium-big hindi movie regardless of its reviews/BO…even saw Humshakals!
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December 8, 2014 at 3:19 AM
prabhu deva works like this: Give me 5 cr as my fees – 25 cr as production budget and 30 days to complete the film 🙂
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December 8, 2014 at 5:33 AM
What a review!
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December 8, 2014 at 6:31 AM
There was a Vishal movie called Thimuru some years back..After reading reviews, I felt this is a copy of that movie.
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December 7, 2014 at 10:46 AM
Continuous rumours about this http://www.boxofficeindia.co.in/aamir-khan-to-play-wrestler/
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December 7, 2014 at 12:07 PM
PK will be the first 300/600 grosser
Reasons:
1) Imagine if 3 idiots was releasing now what would it gross. Well imagine something better than it
2) Raju Hirani
2) Aamir Khan is the path breaker whether it is 100 200 or 250
3) This will also be the first 100 crore second week movie.
4) People are fed up with garbage like AJ KD HE
5) Recall that 3 idiots did not have extraordinary buzz. But content was king.
6) Below average D3 collected 280.
7) Sunjay Dutt is at his best with Raju
8) Sushant really is talented
9) Anushka is very good complementary actress
10) Boman is also at his best with Raju
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December 7, 2014 at 1:08 PM
PK is looking flop at this stage.
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December 7, 2014 at 2:32 PM
Naveen..guess u r sad seeing AJ flopping.. Hehe ..that surely will not b the case with PK .. In hyd lingo i would say to ub..kal aao 😉
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December 8, 2014 at 6:45 AM
Action Jackson Weekend Business – Does Well At Single Screens On Sunday
Monday 08 December 2014 11.30 IST
Box Office India Trade Network
Action Jackson has grossed around 28-28.50 crore nett in its first weekend which is the the 13th highest weekend of the year and well short of what it should have done. The business in single screens was decent on Friday, dropped on Saturday but was good to very good on Sunday. Multiplexes are dull.
The film has cost 90 crore plus to release and promote so you really need to recover at least 50 crore as share from the domestic market and for that a 40 crore nett plus weekend is a must and Action Jackson is well below that. The good business on Sunday at single screens gives it a chance to sustain in single screens over the next two weeks but that wont be enough..
The plus is probably that the film did find an initial audience in some parts as Ajay Devgn is a mass star which mad sure the film did not have the low figures that the other releases of November saw.
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December 8, 2014 at 6:46 AM
My film is releasing in a couple of weeks and I expect no worse than 17th highest weekend of the year and with some luck I could have 14th best weekend..
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December 8, 2014 at 1:37 PM
Must be a good film if you are releasing against PK!
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December 8, 2014 at 2:20 PM
Absolutely. He intends to damage PK just like HAIDER SOLELY threw spanner in the works of BANG BANG marching toward 300 cr…
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December 8, 2014 at 3:43 PM
yes that’s one of the unfortunate things about the release schedule. Being a fan of Aamir and Hirani I don’t wish to damage their project. The other thing is that with a delay I could possibly get the 14th highest weekend of the year. Either way I know BOI will give me credit.
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December 8, 2014 at 3:44 PM
Only Aamir plays that dirty game of acting in good or substantial films. Though I’m a fan I can’t stoop as low as him on this score.
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December 8, 2014 at 2:33 PM
Is it a premium mtiplex film or a single screen deal?
Have you been approached by VVC or Hirani or Aamir to delay the release?
They are running scared.😄
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December 8, 2014 at 3:41 PM
I’m being realistic about it. Which is why I’m just hoping for the 17th biggest weekend of the year. I also hope BOI will give me credit for this!
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December 8, 2014 at 6:46 AM
Kill Dil Happy Ending And Ungli Update
Monday 08 December 2014 11.30 IST
Box Office India Trade Network
The three major releases of November fared very poorly. The approx business of Kill Dil, Happy Ending and Ungli tilld ate is as follows.
Kill Dil – 30 crore (24 days)
Happy Ending – 22.25 crore (17 days)
Ungli – 16 Cr (10 days)
Happy Ending and Ungli are amongst the biggest flops of the year
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December 8, 2014 at 6:47 AM
Saif was unlucky with Happy Ending as was Devgan with Action Jackson. These films should have opened better and even more so the former. Kill Dill looks to be the sort of thing that would have collapsed anyway.
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December 8, 2014 at 9:27 AM
Nice interview:
http://m.rediff.com/movies/interview/sharmila-tagore-i-was-an-accidental-actress/20141208.htm
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December 8, 2014 at 10:23 AM
Although organized and shot on such a grand scale, the anniversary show of Aap Ki Adalat did not live up to its hype due to lack of content. A disappointment for me a and a case of lost opportunity for the organizers since this must have been some sort of record for the most diversified high profile turnout at a single event. I did not see Big B and Sachin..….though Jaya B represented the Bachchans.
PM Modi speech was nice and crisp but what’s with those inane questions which did injustice to the gathering and show in general…..
The much hyped trio gathering of the Khans too was a damp squib which got awkward at times due to unprepared material and this where SRK gained the upper hand. He was much at ease, real and very quick witted with a ‘damn’ good sense of humor. I mean Big B may trump him with gravitas and solidity due to prepared material, but there is no denying he is the Badshah of ceremonies and stage and it was delight to watch the show till he was there on stage.
So called ‘Khandaan’ stuff starts around the 22 min mark..
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December 8, 2014 at 4:07 PM
Aamir needs to loosen up from time to time. Why so serious?
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December 8, 2014 at 7:52 PM
its pretty clear that Aamir is nervous as hell. This kind of function is not Aamir’s ‘forte’. SRK shines best in this kind of forum and Sallu kind of tries too hard sometimes. I agree with MSDhoni that they seemed unprepared so I wish they were more prepared. But it was still cool to watch them…pretty clear all three of them have a solid relationship for years and all the other ‘junk’ was just for show.
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December 8, 2014 at 8:19 PM
I think he was okay. It was a mix of audience; it was not a filmy function to do Salman’s towel dance when you have in audience Pranab, Modi, Jaitley and whole bunch of political leaders.
I think Aamir should have asked question when Sonu went to his table instead of just congratulating.
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December 8, 2014 at 10:29 PM
agree…those factors probably added to his nervousness (personal opinion is that Aamir comes across as someone who gets embarrassed easily and the other two don’t care). he was clearly hesitant to even go up on the stage and then even more hesitant to do the ‘group’ towel dance.
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December 9, 2014 at 12:14 AM
Aamir’s low-key appearance at th
e Aap ki Adalat show seems to have riled up the SRK-Salman fan-commenters brigade on the net. Aamir is being termed a hypocrite and spoilsport for letting his hair down at Arpita’s wedding (looking decidedly tipsy and singing-dancing on stage — and even then Salman had to call him to the stage)– but not being gung ho on stage with SRK-Salman. These two did the expected nautanki on stage– and Aamir applauded and laughef along– so what’s the big deal if he played a minor part in the proceedings?
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December 10, 2014 at 9:33 AM
I think Amir knows that this is the most corrupt show on TV channels.
This Rajat Sharma is totally sold out to Modi brigade and therefore his aap ki adalat makes khabar vahi jo Modi mann bhaye.
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December 10, 2014 at 9:37 AM
One remembers RS’s aap ki adalat with Modi – LOL it was so staged and pre planned that Rifat Jawaid quietly resigned and left when he saw the downfall of this channel.
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December 10, 2014 at 9:41 AM
It indeed is a right wing channel. But then which TV news channel is not leaned towards one ideology or the other?
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December 9, 2014 at 12:26 AM
In this candid interview, Shah Rukh Khan says after so many years in the industry, he is still trying hard for everything, trying hard to be a better person. He says that it is easy to be a star but difficult to remain there unless you are trying hard. He is of the opinion that charity comes from inside. He says that being materialistic satisfies him.
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December 9, 2014 at 3:42 PM
[post created]
This is actually pretty chilling.
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December 9, 2014 at 3:49 PM
Bipasha is the official superstar of the Horror genre now 🙂 good career-choice at this juncture of her life
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December 10, 2014 at 6:45 AM
Xhobdo:
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December 10, 2014 at 6:47 AM
Time flies.. the distance between us and DDLJ at this point is almost the same as that between DDLJ and Deewar when the former released.
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December 10, 2014 at 8:44 AM
This might be the longest running scam/sham ever at Maratha Mandir..
Actually the Chopras & Khan could have shifted their office to Maratha Mandir itself…
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December 10, 2014 at 9:08 AM
Agree. It is indeed a scam. Why else would the owner of Maratha Mandir not exhibit (for that show) a Ghajini, Wanted, Dabangg, 3 idiots or a Gadar. He’s being paid by YRF.
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December 10, 2014 at 9:19 AM
The movie was running for only morning 11am show and tickets are like 150-15 bucks or so. There is a link on bollywood hungama with Manoj Desai who is the theatre owner. He has few interesting things to say. Watch when you get time..
There are plenty of lovebirds scouting for some alone time in a dark space during the college going hours at a very cheap price in today’s economy……plus air condition is still a luxury in India.
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December 10, 2014 at 8:16 PM
No journalist has investigated about the politics, economics of this.
Longest film running? Or longest film limping?
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December 11, 2014 at 8:20 AM
even the ones carrying it on a stretcher are now limping with exhaustion!
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December 10, 2014 at 9:22 AM
I meant 10-15 bucks there for ticket prices….
Faridoon the interviewer at that Bollywood Hungama link himself seemed to have watched it many times while he stayed in Byculla in early 2000s and later to check out if its running empty or there are few souls sitting and watching.
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December 10, 2014 at 9:35 AM
don’t tell me that an 11 am fdfs of Ghajini, 3 idiots, Dabangg, Singham, Gadar or Border (when these movies released) will make less money for the theater owner than a 900th show of DDLJ
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December 10, 2014 at 9:38 AM
Why can’t the theater owner vacate DDLj’s show for these brand new movies (which are sure to get at least an initial weekend) and then return to DDLJ when they fizz out..It’s crystal clear that he’s in some sort of deal with yrf who want to showcase this as some kind of magical legacy.
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December 10, 2014 at 9:56 AM
Not going to defend the movie and I do understand the reasons must be more than just financial…may be YRF never took their cut for screening the movie…Mumbai has acute shortage of space and whatever available is very expensive esp this theater is located in Central Mumbai and heart of the city so this simply cannot be about just sentiments only and this long a period…. Also we need understand DDLJ qualifies under the evergreen movie slot and cutting across all segments plus the lead actors / makers of the movie are still very relevant and making news.
Prior to this I believe they ran Mughle Azam for 7/8 years too……so they have a track record for doing this.
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December 10, 2014 at 10:19 AM
I am not even going into the content wise merit and demerit of the movie
# 1- Since DDLj there have been at least 50 movies that guaranteed a blockbuster opening especially in a theater like Maratha Mandir yet they screened DDLJ for a reduced price
# 2- If DDLj indeed gets some viewership, then why not screen it only when no other big movie is doing good. What’s the fixation with screening it consecutively.
# 3- If screening DDLj for Maratha Mandir is indeed profitable then wouldn’t it be the same for other single screens too? So during this month of november, when movies are failing miserably, why aren’t other theaters in Mumbai and the rest of cities all screening DDLJ to make some money.
# 4- If the argument is that it’s basically running because of the airconditioning and a habitat for making out couples- then why screen DDLJ for that..Why not something like a Aashiq banaya aapne or Julie or something on those lines..I am sure the lovers (though least inetersted in the movie) would prefer a movie that sets the mood rather than a movie that has babuji. mataji and om jai jagadish aarti.
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December 10, 2014 at 11:02 AM
All fair points and only YRF and Manoj Desai know the truth behind this….rest all is speculation. On the last part a movie like Julie will bring a very different set of viewers and not very amiable but DDLJ strikes a younger gentry and there is some watchable content in between breaks….lol.
Look here is a link to 3 part interview of the theater owner Manoj Desai and you can make your inferences -.
Part 1
“SRK-Kajol Will Perform On Dec 12 for 1000 Weeks Of DDLJ”: Manoj Desai
Part 2
“I Talked To Shah Rukhji To Come On Dec 12th”
Part 3
“Shah Rukh ji Bada Mast Hass Rahe The”: Manoj Desai
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December 10, 2014 at 9:00 AM
“Time flies.. the distance between us and DDLJ at this point is almost the same as that between DDLJ and Deewar when the former released.”
Indeed time flies and it’s been close to 20 years for DDLJ and somehow this movie is so fresh in the minds. Initially, I was never a fan of the movie when I watched it in my hometown and was a bit upset when Rangeela got overshadowed the same year within a month or so. Aamir performance there was path breaking…Then this year also had Karan Arjun which I had enjoyed thoroughly being a multistarrer coming after a long time then and I had a lot of difficulty in getting tickets.( perhaps the last such instance where I stood in a line to purchase movie tickets )
Over period of time and since I was a hostelite in Mumbai and doing my professional exams, our group would get sick of cramming the whole day and by late evenings we as group would take booze and head to New Excelsior in Fort area, buy cheap stall tickets for night show to empty theatres and hoot throughout the movie and dance around too……zara sa jhoom loon mein was an absolute riot for us esp when asha bhonsle put on an accent to sing …Thandi Thandi Pavan …Jalta Hai Ye Badan …( try hearing it again to notice the way she says thandi thandi ). Its then I must have watched DDLJ 6/7 times in theatre and enjoyed each time though a thrill of watching a movie goes up few notches when watched in a group.
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December 10, 2014 at 9:04 AM
It’s a clean start and hope this step formalizes the boxoffice in India. Hope others follow suit.
Makers of PK tie up with Rentrak to monitor box office collections:
“As per Chopra’s statement, Rentrak will document the box office collections of PK, providing a day to day break up comprising of collections across the country. Commenting on the same Rajkumar Akella, Managing Director of Rentrak India stated, “We are very excited about this, and the whole team of Mr. Chopra, Disney and UTV is hoping that we achieve maximum coverage with this movie and we are currently making all efforts to accomplish the same.”
“Globally we have a track record of accurately tracking 40 markets, for India this is something that has been waiting to happen for a long time. Besides all markets would benefit from this since getting an insight into the Indian market is so very difficult and complex. Not forgetting that with this, our true potential will be captured and projected accurately,” adds Rajkumar.”
http://www.bollywoodhungama.com/more/news/view/id/2783007
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December 10, 2014 at 9:55 AM
This is just to disguise to give producers numbers. How is this different from anyone else is doing? The problem is not the source, the problem is the structure of theater chains and connection till the grass root level, that is not transaperant. Even Rajesh Roshan can tie up with Rentrak and then give his numbers through them as Rentrak. There isn’t anyway to get correct collections accurately within a day.
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December 10, 2014 at 4:15 PM
*** What a gruesome way to make Ashok, Kishore, and Anoop suffer even after-life!! ***
This could be something that Arjun Kapoor should be beaming about this time. If sources are to be believed, Arjun will be playing Kishore Kumar’s role in the remake of the classic comedy, ‘Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi’, which starred all the three Ganguly brothers — Ashok, Kishore and Anup Kumar.
The project, an official remake of ‘Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi’ (1958), is helmed by Rohit Shetty. SRK is said to have agreed to play the eldest brother Ashok Kumar’s character in the film. According to a source, “The original script had three brothers and we are sticking to the concept. However, it is not finalised if Arjun will be playing Kishore or Anup Kumar’s role.”
And who would be playing the role of lovely Madhubala? (Remember Ek Ladki bheegi bhaagi si?). It is said that the makers are still undecided about who to offer that pivotal role. “The team is also working on the script. Right now, they can’t reveal much about the film,” adds a source.
Arjun and Rohit remained unavailable for comment.
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December 10, 2014 at 4:54 PM
This may be a good alter ego movie. As much unfunny as the original was funny. Same thing for the talent of the actors.
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December 10, 2014 at 7:56 PM
this is a hilarious scene…looks something to look forward to from pixar!
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December 11, 2014 at 8:14 AM
Utkal:
Naseeruddin Shah: My favourite Dilip Kumar film is Mughal-e-Azam. It is certainly one of the greatest films made in India. Except for the wig which marred his look, his performance is exceptional for its understated intensity and dignity. His performance in Amar is another favourite.
Subhash Ghai: I had the privilege, honour and pleasure of directing India’s greatest actor in three films. It’s hard to pick my favorites. But it would have to be Devdas, Ganga Jumna and Mughal-e-Azam.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/entertainment/bollywood/bollywood-celebs-select-their-fav-dilip-kumar-films/article1-1295442.aspx
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December 11, 2014 at 9:27 AM
It is always amusing to see how incredibly Hindi-centric many of these responses are. ‘Hindi’ and ‘Indian’ are glibly used interchangeably. Great star-actors from Bengal to the South need not even apply! I am not getting into the ‘Bollywood’ debate here even if Javed Akhtar’s statement is unfortunately revealing in a different sort of way (and he ought to know better). Again the Hindi-Urdu centric worldview.
Getting to Naseer’s comment MeA is one of the ‘greatest’ Indian films the way Gone with the Wind is one of the ‘greatest’ Hollywood films. In each case you have a film representing a great cultural moment, a great moment of iconicity if you will, and certainly each is a great classic. But in Hollywood a better job is done in keeping Citizen Kane and Gone with the Wind apart! Which is why on any significant critical list you will see the former hobnobbing with great films from other industries but not the latter. Similarly in an Indian context MeA (and assuming there were literate critics or such culture ever in place) would never be on the same list as Ray or Adoor or even in a more commercial sense (and again sticking to Hindi) Bimal Roy or Guru Dutt or the best of Raj Kapoor. Why? Because there’s a difference between a great classic and a great commercial film that does something more than this. You have a film like the Searchers for example or some other Fords. These are not high art efforts but they’re very important films within the commercial format and additionally they represent an ‘artistry’ (for want of a better word) which is far in excess to the industry norms for those formats. Again MeA is like the Ten Commandments or something. I wouldn’t even give it as much as Ben-Hur. Because again within the commercial format there is a level of accomplishment in this film that is not easily matched (even in Hollywood). India has such films. Sholay is the most obvious example. Here you have a great commercial film that is also something far more than this. And though I have never been much of a fan I can see the argument for Mother India. There is Awara, there are lots of examples really. MeA though is something else (in other words it isn’t like a great Ford). This doesn’t mean I have a problem with it. I certainly acknowledge its cache. But as always it’s about these glib, superficial and often ridiculous characterizations that even some of the ‘better’ minds of Bombay cinema regularly indulge in and that I militate against. One must be a little serious!
And I’ll say again at the end.. if you’re Mohanlal or Uttam Kumar or some other non-Hindi titan you need not even apply to this ‘Hindi=India’ club! By the way all of this doesn’t mean Dilip Kumar’s seminal stature can be denied in any way. I am arguing for (and against!) something else here.
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December 11, 2014 at 11:23 AM
People are expressing personal opinion in the aricle as far as I understood. So if anyone thinks MEA is the best, I hardly think they mean it otherwse than their own choice, because *that* was the question asked – ‘which was their favourite film’.
BTW my answer too would have to be MEA, Gunga Jamuna, and Aan, though he was great in most.
I hope you’ll leave the pooe 92 year old man alone.
If you think Sholay is better, it’s OK. Though one mustn’t forget Sholay was made a decade+ after MEA.
I’m not from the cultural age when MEA was made & yet like it more than the films made in my cultural age.
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December 11, 2014 at 11:24 AM
*poor*
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December 11, 2014 at 12:19 PM
“It is certainly one of the greatest films made in India. ”
This is Naseer’s comment. Think it speaks for itself. I wasn’t arguing with the others there other than Javed Akhtar. Admittedly I have increasingly little patience for an attitude where India is just about the Hindi-speaking parts of the country. I am not naive about how hegemonic Hindi has been but it’s a bit late in the day to keep asserting the same stuff. Specially so in an age where people seem to be aware of Iranian cinema and West African cinema before Southern cinema of various sorts! And this applies equally to the larger discussions of culture.
On leaving the ‘poor guy’ alone I’m afraid I tend not to be sentimental in matters of judgment. One can have an emotional attachment to stars, I have mine too, I also think there’s a place for the discourse of ‘respect’ in these matters (even if this cannot be a bourgeois attitude about simply respecting one’s ‘elders’ or what have you) but I was arguing these things as a critical matter. And I do this across the board. Including on Bachchan’s own blog and about his work and offscreen interventions. So I’m not being selective here.
Incidentally my favorite Dilip Kumar performance is probably Amar. This is also the film I like most in his oeuvre with the exception of Footpath.
Finally on Sholay, most films all these decades after are not better than Sholay even on ‘technical’ grounds let alone anything else. But as for MeA there are films made around the same time or before it that are better in similar ways. Which is not to say that MeA isn’t an achievement of sorts in that large-scale spectacle format. Gone with the Wind is one too. But again the great classic is often something other than a fine film in the more elevated sense of the term.
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December 11, 2014 at 12:38 PM
Agree with you about this hindi vs regional language problem.
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December 11, 2014 at 7:39 PM
I’d take Mughal-e-Azam any day over Sholay. The dialogues, the sets, the songs, the costumes, the performances – it’s my favourite film and I don’t thing it’s ‘wrong’ for Naseer to call it one of the greatest films of India, which is invariably going to be a subjective statement. I understand that you disagree with him, but not why you have an issue with that being his choice.
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December 11, 2014 at 11:44 AM
Would be interesting to find out who sounds more genuine speaking bhojpuri, Amir (PK) or Dilip (gunga Jamuna).
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December 11, 2014 at 11:54 AM
Dilip was authentic. Aamir is good but not at the same level or class from whatever little that has come.
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December 11, 2014 at 12:45 PM
While I will agree that MeA is not in the same class as films of Ray or Adoor, it is in my eyes better than Pyaasa and Awara, though these two would be in my list of all-time great Hindi films. And if you think people like Naseer and Javed like MeA for its spectacle, then you just don’t get where they are coming from. It is the mature and assured dramaturgy of MeA that makes it a classic. Another aspect that makes it an iconic film is the way it manages to crystallize romantic love as a metaphor for individual volition and rebellion against social tradition. Be it the song ‘ Pyar kiya toh darna kiya’ or ‘Yeh Mohabbat Zindabad’ the film gets this message across powerfully. The scene with Dilip cressing Madhubala’s face with a feather with Bade Ghual Ali Khan on the soundtrack has to be one of the best scenes of erotic passion in Indian films. I used to be obsesed with Gurudutt and Pyaasa too. But after seeing both MeA and Pyaasa again recently I prefer the surefooted dramaturgy of MeA over the arty indulgence of Pyaasa. Dilip’s understated but unmistakable evocation of smouldering passion is unparalleled in the history of Indian cinema. Mohanlal and Uttam Kumar are great actors and I havent seen enough of Mohanlal, but based on the filmography that includes Amar, Andaz, Aan, Devdas, Madhumati, MeA, Ganga Jmauna, Ram aur Shyam, Shakti and Sagina, he is certainly ahead of Uttam in range and versatility.
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December 11, 2014 at 1:09 PM
Actually Uttam Kumar has done every conceivable kind of role. Literally every kind. And in Bengal where he isn’t less than a god I doubt many would agree with your statement! I’d take him over Dilip Kumar personally but that’s another matter. In terms of the kinds of stuff he’s attempted though it wouldn’t be easy for any major Indian star to surpass him, irrespective of who one prefers eventually. Mohanlal similarly has attempted all kinds of parts. These guys have massive filmographies. In each case I’ve seen a lot of the work but I’ve not been able to see way more. These guys are events for their industries. One cannot just pass over these things and fall back into the default ‘Hindi’ position.
Again you keep referring to ‘Indian’ films. But Tamil cinema for example has a massive archive of period pieces, many of them legendary in that part of the country. Not that I have a very high opinion of those either but they’re culturally important and my larger point is that again one cannot keep equating ‘Hindi’ with ‘Indian’.
I wouldn’t dream of putting MeA in the same space as Awara or even Pyaasa. It’s not even close and I’m not the greatest Guru Dutt fan.
To get back to the older point when you have actors like Mammootty or Mohanlal having done every conceivable kind of role within a commercial format and then worked with important filmmakers at the high art end of things, the same for Uttam Kumar (from Ray to again every kind of commercial genre), one has to take all this much more seriously. It’s not about seeing a few films here and there. These bodies of work are entire worlds. And the reason I get irritated about all this is that there’s such towering work elsewhere. Mammootty has worked multiple times with Adoor. The Uttam Kumar -Suchitra Sen pair was legendary. So on and so forth. We can’t keep indulging in these glib statements about what the better erotic pair has been or who the most versatile actor has been and so on without enough exposure in these areas. Again not being naive about this. I know it’s about Hindi hegemony in these matters. But there’s no reason why we should be so careless in these matters when we otherwise are quite happy to talk about film festival works from around the globe. The big problem over the last decade or more as this film festival culture has really become part of the conversation in India is that we still tend to make not the slightest effort to get exposed to these other riches of ‘Indian’ cinema! This in an age where so much is available online or on DVD or whatever and with subs. No one ‘has’ to watch this stuff but at the very least the Hindi-centric worldview must be discarded.
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December 11, 2014 at 1:00 PM
Satyam,
I agree with you regarding this absurd equating of Hindi cinema with the whole of Indian cinema and hence picking out their choices from the same but don’t you think, at the end of the day any such remark (greatest film ever or greatest actor ever in India) is just a personal opinion and just like any other personal opinion it comes from the exposure of that particular person. So its possible Naseer has or hasn’t seen Kamal Haasan’s Tamil work (even his hindi work for that matter) or adoor’s cinema, but the bottom-line is for him dilip Kumar is the best actor in India.
don’t you think, however incomplete this may be, it still is what a personal opinion stands for?
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December 11, 2014 at 1:17 PM
Your point is a fair one perhaps but again I just have very little patience with people in Bollywood who keep spreading this sort of narrative. I’d also say that while these things are ultimately subjective these choices are not defended in any articulate way in Bollywood. Naseer can certainly do better than this as can Javed Akhtar. The same carelessness would be ok in a different context but in this case it too easily feeds into an existing narrative where the ‘South’ (for example) is still ‘avoided’ in a cultural sense (on that note a well-known BJP spokesman on TV recently said that all Indian languages came from Sanskrit.. there might be bigger fish to fry!). Certainly when you get Hollywood actors who make similar statements they tend to be far more precise about why they have those choices. They don’t offer essays justifying their favorite films but they are usually quite articulate about them even in a line or two. They at least manage to say something interesting. You’re right about the exposure but one shouldn’t make such statements, at least this late in the day, if that is the case. So when Javed Akhtar says that Ghalib is to poetry what Newton is to science or Patanjali is to Sanskrit I find this to be problematic. Because again Ghalib might be that for North Indian poetry but this doesn’t hold for every other part of the country. Again a casual comment perhaps but one, which as very often in these cases, reveals more than it intends to. Javed Akhtar could have said Tagore for example (and incidentally he has praised him greatly in some other specific contexts.. which too is part of the problem.. when it’s about ‘Bengal’ Tagore can be praised, when it’s about India-as-such it’s back to the Hindi hegemony). But in any case if you collect all such comments from different folks they confirm the same narrative. Yes we are all limited by our experiences but it’s surely not too much to expect in this day and age that one be a little more careful when one makes such statements?
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December 11, 2014 at 2:48 PM
“on that note a well-known BJP spokesman on TV recently said that all Indian languages came from Sanskrit.. there might be bigger fish to fry!”
I don’t know why you jump in different directions. Anyways, this is a fact. All indian languagues including every regional language spoken in india and Yes including URDU were derived from sanskrit. Just a week ago, debate on a pakistani news channel, one intellect represented this fact to present this fact. Urdu and current spoken version of hindi were derived from Hindi(which is obsolete now), as per him. Even my muslim friends from bangladesh say so.
Also, last year i saw a debate on some hindi news channel where once participant said all indian languages were originated from prakrit (ancient language) which was itself derived from sanskrit. Though, prakrit is not directly derived from sanskrit. But, He presented a long hierarchy which ends at Sanskrit.
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December 11, 2014 at 3:14 PM
Urdu is certainly derived from Sanskrit but it’s utter nonsense to suggest that every Indian language is derived from it. The Southern languages belong to a different language family altogether. They have absorbed a fair bit of Sanskrit vocabulary but that’s a different thing. Tamil or Telugu have nothing whatsoever to do with Sanskrit. But leaving aside these major examples there are a number of Northeastern languages not related to Sanskrit. There are other less known languages all over the country that are unrelated to Sanskrit. The languages that are derived from the various Prakrits are Hindi or urdu or Marathi or Gujarati or Punjabi or Bengali and so on. But these do not include all Indian languages.
Won’t get into the Urdu/Hindi debate except to reintroduce part of an older comment:
[The Hindi establishment of letters frowned upon him for the longest time because he used to rely on various colloquial registers, a kind of ‘folksy’ tone and so on. It is therefore an irony (and I’ve said this on Bachchan’s blog) that the son has moved towards a much more formal register of Hindi. Or better still the Doordarshan version which is more or less ‘invented’ (the kind of thing made fun of in Chupke Chupke actually came to pass!), a bureaucratic, administrative language in which new terms are coined all the time whereas the ‘actual’ varieties of Hindi (which is to say those that arose more organically in different parts of India) have been ignored (though these are still represented in literature.. both the formal varieties and the dialects). According to some scholarly estimates this is still not the lingo understood in most of Hindi speaking India unlike say the ‘Hindustani’ of 70s cinema which is. Of course since people have been formally educated in this newer Hindi for a long time you now have a class of people everywhere who are perfectly comfortable in this language.
Linguistic history though is another thing which always subverts every kind of nationalist or ethnic myth or what have you. It would take a while to explain this but the Doordarshan version I’ve been referring to isn’t just an existing Hindi dialect that was privileged but is Sanskritized Urdu. Or what was called Urdu was the dialect that was Sanskritized over time. On the other hand Urdu itself is Persianized Hindi! Which is to say it is a dialect that wasn’t even called Urdu except rarely before the mid-19th century (the earlier names were rekhta or Hindvi.. even the classical Urdu poets referred to it this way). In the same way it is another myth (though a near-universal one) that Urdu is a camp language of the Mughals and so on. It isn’t. It’s as Sanskritic a language as any other variety of Hindi (or for that matter Marathi or Bengali or Punjabi or Gujarati or what have you). Even the Persian vocabulary in it still does not exceed the Sanskritic inheritance. In any case both Hindi/Urdu are derived from khadi boli which is just one of the major Hindi strands. And I’ll cap this with a factoid — the oldest version of Urdu or a Hindi that is recognizably like the language that eventually was named Urdu comes from Gujarat (Gujri) and dates to the 11th century or something.]
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December 11, 2014 at 3:15 PM
Linguistic history though it is always appropriated by every nationalism is also that which subverts every such nationalism provided one is willing to follow the historical thread sincerely enough and not submit to the crudest forms of propaganda. And now you know why I jumped into this direction. When people don’t even know the difference between an Indo-European language and a Dravidian one the ‘jumping in’ is necessary!
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December 11, 2014 at 3:36 PM
LOL at Aryan and dravidian theories. These theories were introduced by british , and are based on racism and colored skin hatred to suffice superior complex of british.
You keep them with you.
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December 11, 2014 at 4:22 PM
I suggest you look up a Wikipedia link if nothing more serious than this.
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December 11, 2014 at 4:28 PM
Do you think i havent seem ever? But, to satisfy your highbrow attitude, you pull down everyone else as if you are universal encyclopedia with non challenging words.
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December 11, 2014 at 2:03 PM
Dilip Kumar, Uttam Kumar, Mohanlal, Mamooty, Kamal Hasan and Amitabh Bachchan are all towering actors. But it would be arrive at an unbiased appraisal of them as they operated in different industries in different eras. One could argue in favour of one or the other with all sincerity. Kamal would perhaps score in range and versatlity over others but may lose marks for showyness. Mamooty and Mohnalal may not score that high in charisma. Uttam Kumar may have played a few odd rustic roles, but certainly they are not in the same league as Gunga Jamuna, Naya Daur or Sagina. And his try at song and dance routine in a film like Chhotisi Si Mulaqat was pathetic. And so on… An there would be hardly anyone who has seen the full body of work of all these actors…so personal opinions too would prove only a limited perspective – that’s a given.
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December 11, 2014 at 3:18 PM
Bachchan in front of a new Dadasaheb Phalke mural.
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December 11, 2014 at 11:28 PM
MOTION PICTURES
Best Drama
“Boyhood”
“Foxcatcher”
“The Imitation Game”
“Selma”
“The Theory of Everything”
Best Comedy
“Birdman”
“The Grand Budapest Hotel”
“Into the Woods”
“Pride”
“St. Vincent”
Best Director
Wes Anderson, “The Grand Budapest Hotel”
Ava Duvernay, “Selma”
David Fincher, “Gone Girl”
Alejandro González Iñárritu, “Birdman”
Richard Linklater, “Boyhood”
Best Actress in a Drama
Jennifer Aniston, “Cake”
Felicity Jones, “The Theory of Everything”
Julianne Moore, “Still Alice”
Rosamund Pike, “Gone Girl”
Reese Witherspoon, “Wild”
Best Actor in a Drama
Steve Carell, “Foxcatcher”
Benedict Cumberbatch, “The Imitation Game”
Jake Gyllenhaal, “Nightcrawler”
David Oyelowo, “Selma”
Eddie Redmayne, “The Theory of Everything”
Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy
Ralph Fiennes, “The Grand Budapest Hotel”
Michael Keaton, “Birdman”
Bill Murray, “St. Vincent”
Joaquin Phoenix, “Inherent Vice”
Christoph Waltz, “Big Eyes”
Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy
Amy Adams, “Big Eyes”
Emily Blunt, “Into the Woods”
Helen Mirren, “The Hundred-Foot Journey”
Julianne Moore, “Map to the Stars”
Quvenzhané Wallis, “Annie”
Best Supporting Actress
Patricia Arquette, “Boyhood”
Jessica Chastain, “A Most Violent Year”
Keira Knightley, “The Imitation Game”
Emma Stone, “Birdman”
Meryl Streep, “Into the Woods”
Best Supporting Actor
Robert Duvall, “The Judge”
Ethan Hawke, “Boyhood”
Edward Norton, “Birdman”
Mark Ruffalo, “Foxcatcher”
J.K. Simmons, “Whiplash”
Best Screenplay
Wes Anderson, “The Grand Budapest Hotel”
Gillian Flynn, “Gone Girl”
Alejandro González Iñárritu, Nicolás Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris, and Armando Bo, “Birdman”
Richard Linklater, “Boyhood”
Graham Moore, “The Imitation Game”
Best Foreign Language Film
“Force Majeure Turist,” Sweden
“Gett: The Trial of Viviane Ansalem Gett,” Israel
“Ida,” Poland/Denmark
“Leviathan,” Russia
“Tangerines Mandariinid,” Estonia
http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/2015-golden-globe-nominations-complete-list-nominees/story?id=27513357
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December 11, 2014 at 11:31 PM
Interstellar shutout! Think it deserved at least a nomination for best film…probably will get an Oscar nod. Guess I have to watch Selma and Boyhood (anyone watched Boyhood yet?).
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December 11, 2014 at 11:55 PM
watched, boyhood is bring and forgettable for most part. Story was not just focused on the boy, but her mother which i liked and her character portrayal was very good. Her scenes are best thing about the movie.
It marred in displaying what was going through boy’s life and in his mind, it was more about disjointed characters he passes through his life. i think this movie was not bold enough to show teenage complexities.
it was shot in 8 years of time of boy’s life from 11-19 years age and only thing it does justice to is boy’s growing looks over this period of time and that is not an achievement, it is natural.
Overall- hugely overrated
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December 11, 2014 at 11:55 PM
*boring
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