The Sports Thread (5)

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An Jo’s Random Note on KBC 9 (Updated)

I bought-in a subscription to SLING only to watch ‘Kaun Banega Crorepati’ 9 primarily, and secondarily the India versus Australia matches. [Somehow, it is India facing Australia on Australian pitches boosts the adrenalin in me and not that highly vice-versa.]

I am amazed by the vibrancy the show still generates after 17 years and with that same, French-bearded man heralding the show. It requires a special strength to under-play one’s over-whelming influence on people as a cultural icon and let the common man take center-stage: How Amitabh does it, is not only his secret but also a testimony to two facets of his: a) a pan-Indian cultural icon who is still in touch with his roots inspite of annoying wealth and a whopping fandom at his disposal; b) and that of being an out-standing star-actor still not dampened by the sands of time. Whether one picks a) or b), it doesn’t matter; cynicism or fondness, the winners in the end turn out to be the audience and the common man.

The year’s best Indian films go beyond Hindi cinema

The year’s best Indian films go beyond Hindi cinema
n recent times, Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi and Assamese cinema have surpassed Hindi films in storytelling and craft.
Shubhra Gupta

Read from website

Salim’s Viewing! (updated)

A Very Strange Man (book by Ismat Chugtai)
A rather odd fictionalised account of the Geeta Dutt – Guru Dutt – Waheeda Rahman triangle, where various other characters are called by their real names but then the central three are given other names. I imagine the Urdu original would be much better – this translated version didn’t really work for me. But interesting nevertheless.

Judgemental Hai Kya
Fantastic performances from both Rajkumar Rao and Kangana, and a credit-worthy exploration of mental illness against the backdrop of a thriller (or is that the other way around?). Decent film though nothing earth-shattering (there’s been literally nothing great this year so far).

Gulzar’s Aandhi (by Saba Mahmood Bashir)
This is a really well-written short book about Gulzar’s directorial masterpiece. It explores various aspects of the film but also gives background information about the cast and crew. A very enjoyable read.

An Jo on Once Upon a Time In Hollywood

Mild Spoiler alert

Quentin Tarantino’s [QT] latest might be his mildest and one of his most light-hearted movies in terms of execution since, mainly, it starts off as a love-affair with the golden age of Hollywood. The year is 1969, and ‘‘Once Upon A Time … in Hollywood’’ [OUATIH] starts off with its intent crystal clear – nostalgia is the word, and Hollywood at the cusp of its golden age is the gaze. That gaze is quite explicit and pulls you into that age through neon-lit street signs, the clothes, fashion, cars without seat-belts speeding down the narrow roads and the inter-state, cinema theater signs, throw-back to TV interviews, voice-overs, posters of TV shows, the drive-ins,  and movies and television shows (shot in news-reel grain to boot) post WW-II and what have you. And at the center of it all, he places two very interesting middle-aged; winding-down artists – one an actor [Leo’s Rick Dalton] and one his stunt-double [Brad’s Cliff Booth] and concocts a slow-burning, languid tale of their personal/professional relationship shaped mainly by the common profession they are in. While they represent the wane of Hollywood at its grandest, Margot Robbie’s Sharon Tate represents that link – through her husband, Roman Polanski— between the pre- ‘70s studio-Hollywood and the more personalized shape that Hollywood had begun to take in terms of story-choices, story-telling, and execution, or even relations, friendly or other-wise. [There’s a scene in which Rick rues that he has Polanski as his neighbor but still can’t get to act in one of his movies!]

An jo on Super 30

Pleasantly surprised by SUPER 30’s first half. It’s a 70% effective movie, and Anand Kumar and Hrithik Roshan have more to do with it than Vikas Bahl. Vikas actually takes the age-old template of masala and shoves Anand’s story into it, with remarkable ease in the first half and then goes hay-wire in the 2nd half.

Saket on Mard Ko Dard Nahi Hota

Mard Ko Dard Nahi Hota – A Kung-Fu spectacle and a loving tribute to the 80s that’s marred by misplaced existentialism.

Ever since I saw the trailer of MKDNH, I just had to watch this film. It looked so cool; the film even won the Midnight Madness award at TIFF, and its quirky vibe had me hooked from the get go. This is why trailers can be so, so deceptive. MKDNH’s trailer aroused certain expectations that I thought were reasonable. But, as it turned out, the overall experience was similar to ordering a Vanilla ice-cream… only to get a Mint version, with a bit of coconut chutney on the side. A part of me felt like screaming out loud – this is not what I had ordered! I was expecting a desi Kill Bill, but what I got was Tarantino mixed with Ingmar Bergman! How does one go about digesting that?