Facts n Fiction

He wants an Oscar for the music score of Slumdog Millionaire , not his personal interest but for India, for its one billion people, says the Madras Mozart , A R Rahman. You will get it Sir, I am sure. I am so much happy, thrilled, excited on his feat today, the first Indian to be felicitated with the Golden Globe Award. Allah Rakha Rahman, the only music composer I am an ardent fan of. Not that I don’t like others or their genres, but Rahman is a class apart, ever since the first time I heard, “Dil Hai Chotasa” from Roja. I do respect seniors and elderly people, who go ga-ga about the legendary music directors of their times like Naushad, O. P. Nayyar, C Ramchandra, S.D., and so on. However, I don’t particularly remember of having tuned in to their music or any music of the yesteryears. R.D. has a great fan following and great respect. Sadly, however, I haven’t liked him much either. I listen to their songs, if it is being played alongside, or if I don’t have the choice to change the

2007 for me has been a year full of movies, with the highest number of movies I watched in a year. Moving to Pune and leading a “hostelier” lifestyle has increased (and improved) my affinity to films. I watched too many films and in every possible way – theaters, CDs, DVDs, and the best of all was in Neeta Volvo while traveling Mumbai to Pune and back on weekends. To begin with, I was quite impressed with “A Life in a Metro” the way it presented things was quite shocking – in a way a Madhur Bhandarkar style. And such a stunner from a debutant filmmaker was even more impressive. Two movies that, I guess had a good background research were “Parzania” and “Black Friday” , both very well made, based on real life stories and incidents. The next beautiful cinema work I watched was “Chak De” , and it soon faded off my “Metro” hangover, as the best movie seen till then. It was thoroughly inspiring movie and again mirrored the way we still think of women and undermine their capabilities. Ano

You will make a fool out of yourself if you go to watch “Dus Kahaniyaan” with intentions of finding something common in the 10 short stories shown in the movie. There is no common plot, no common origin or end between the stories. This anthology of short films is nothing but an attempt to showoff, polish, and learn directorial skills. All fail however. I did not understand what Sanjay Gupta, Sanjay Dutt were trying to do with all the money that they have, as “Dus Kahaniyaan” turns out to be a real messy viewable experience. One would quite surely get impressed with the style, camera effects, shots taken etc, but that’s if you don’t understand movies. The content and the story telling are pathetic. I think Ram Gopal Varma is good at this – taking some stories and weaving them into a thriller. The short stories, “Matrimony”, “Zahir”, “High on the Highway”, “Sex on the beach” are a real pain and unbearable in terms of content quality. All these just bring out negative elements like d

“Om Shanti Om” (OSO), supposedly the pompous movie of the year is full of spoof, colors, drama, action, romance, personalities from Indian film industry, and all the ingredients required for a masala movie. I was not expecting anything big or special from the movie, and Farah Khan has delivered just what is expected from her, considering her earlier directorial attempt – " Mein Hoon Na" . And there are mixed reviews on the movie (OSO). However, I found it to be entertaining and tickled your funny bones at times. I won’t go into comments on acting or songs or direction or any other aspects of the movie, as there are too many already floating. I enjoyed it and what I enjoyed the most was the lively song, “Deewangi Deewangi” , which had too many stars of the industry, and ofcourse has good composition, music, and presentation. I can still visualize that song and think about so many people in that single song. Having had enough effect of that song on me, I started wondering how