Thursday, October 9, 2008

Jaane Tu ya Jaane na

Lo!!!! The times have not changed; bollywood is still as bad as the yester years

First day show of the much awaited jaane tu ya jaane Na (the names dumb too, I know), it’s a jam packed theatre with people from every walk of life, there were the ladies, the middle aged aunties and of course the hot babes, oh yeah and there were men (dragged along or probably gay),
So there we were walking in unaware of how I was going to spend the next three god damn hours when I heard the girls and all the aunties (secretly) shouting because there on the big screen was, yes indeed it was the hero; omigosh what a surprise the hero of the movie is actually seen on the screen!! No wonder those girls were screaming.
For certain reasons beyond my own understanding, or probably because Imran Khan is too big a name, the “hero” will from this point onwards be referred to as “the guy”.

So there I was absolutely numbed by the response, my entry into the theatre received( I prefer to think of the shouting as that) when I started sympathizing with all those aunties that had shouted because if their husbands were with them then they were most probably gay and it is but natural to want a real man. It took us the next 3 minutes to locate our seats scanning those semi glowing alphabets that were placed so low that you couldn’t see them standing upright. Eventually we found them and lowered ourselves. That ladies and gentlemen of the reading audience was a mistake.
Let’s get into the details:
Movie name: jaane tu ya jaane Na (which in English means you know it or you don’t, hmm!! (Deep pondering) isn’t that obvious?)
Tag line: when do u know its love? (When u are getting it god damn it when else, ok ok I’ll have to give the director that, the movie does revolve around the tag line so I guess its ok)
Characters:
1. Rats alias jay (the guy is being called a rat need I say more! but I have to say the actor did do justice to the unimaginative role given to him)
2. Aditi alias meow –will be referred to as gal (that one bunch of friends I definitely don’t want to hang around with. meow!! kathe, you’ve got to be kidding me)
3. Jignesh alias jiggy ( what can I say I dumb Gujrati guy with a Gujrati accent . don’t you notice a trend here that the gujju guy has to be named Jignesh, if this was a sci-fi thriller, jiggu bhai would be the first to die)
4. Fat boy or rotlu (who also chooses his girl from among the same group of friends and gets drunk on cola)
5. Bombs( her parents did not name her that, is just one of those names that we youngsters are supposed to have for each other , its like we’re not young if we don’t have nick names. And no she doesn’t have big boobs, exactly why I’m wondering why she got the name bombs)
6. Shaleen (sidekick that would also be the person to be ripped apart cruelly by a monster in some crazy movie likes DINOCROC, sadly JTYJN does not have a dino –croc, at least that way it would be interesting)
Story board: so rats likes meow, as a friend and she adores him and talks to him all night and calls him for every small little thing, but he’s still a friend, and obviously they realize they are in love after each gets a partner for their own and get jealous and profess their love at the all so clichéd airport last scene.
Wow, that took me a minute to write, and the director made a three hour movie around it, I should get a fucking award.
I can see it the star studded night the beautiful red carpet, and the award for the most crapped up story to be told in the least time goes to........
Mr. Anoop Victor, claps all around the hot babes sitting beside are hugging me kissing me, they love all the attention, the hold my hand and walk with me. Wait a second, do I know these girls???
Ehh who cares, dear tricycle* here I come (please view foot note for the description of a tricycle)

Vokkaay, back to cinema hall number 1 at IMAX
Our guy is trying to make the best of a pathetic movie, but its just not working, so I look around the theatre to see who else is as bummed as me and to my surprise everyone is glued to the large screen, some girls are even drooling , (despos I can see the cobwebs in their pants for sure) so its me in that huge sea of women and gay men actually enjoying genelia’s less than substandard acting, what the fuck, or should I say enna da fuck??? Don’t people have taste, are they not the appropriate audience that is hard to placate, Isn’t it required of actors to take long years of training and even more effort to perfect themselves that they can portray a real life character as is required to be portrayed. Whatever happened to acting schools and the fine tradition of learning a skill before diving full length into it.
It’s just sad that someone with a pretty face can bag a role that influential in the movie, it is perhaps even sadder that the people making the movie are that shallow that they could not go beyond a perfectly shaped ass.
It is utmost remorse, when I see an audience learned in the fields of science and computers, many of them software engineers, students of various fields, who themselves know the value of perfection, accepting such mediocrity as acting. I understand that shortcuts exist everywhere, but it is unfair for me a person that spends three hours of an important Friday watching extremely unprofessional actors, a pathetic script, and covering all that with the crores of rupees being invested in publicising it. Life size posters, news paper reports, TV interviews , why couldn’t that money be put in sending Genelia to acting school, I am sure it would have saved them a lot.
I believe that watching a movie, is a profound decision, for those three hours will decide who the next big thing is. It will decide who all 12 and 13 year olds are going to look up to or want to be. It also tells them what life is, and I am sure I wouldn’t want to have the false image of Jaane Tu ya Jaane na as college life if I was a 12 yr old.
Indeed movies are entertainment, but they are also a business, where the cut throat and hardworking investor needs to be rewarded, not some random person that hides behind beautiful people and A R Rahman to take his movie to success.
Let us as an audience judge as we are expected too, let’s not be bogged down by big numbers, flashy clothes and hot bodies, but let us appreciate true talent when we see it. Let’s also write crazy reviews like this one when people like Genelia decide to act before learning to act

I believe I have nothing more to say and I also believe that cracking a joke would be most inappropriate at this moment.

To the hope that it one day it will be tough to bag a role, tougher to make a movie as it is with all of us to become successful in life.

Penneddown is signing off.







*The Tricycle also referred to as the Threesome with two wheels (women) please not that a tricycle with two handlebars is not a tricycle.
Barney’s influence here is highly appreciated.

Sunday, April 20, 2008

The times of now

These times are made by man alone

Of hate and anger to own us

But we do not the sinners atone

And sin dwells on and man does


For care we not of pain and suffering

Of truth and love and yet

Be whole or so to seem and sing

For true this lie is set


And blossom as before but does not now

The freshness of human spirit

But to crime and wrong does this slave bow

The captive of sin a woeful spirit


And blood so greatly sought that gives life

obtained it is by slash and shot

This cursed world so full of strife

Has neither path than that of rot


And when it seemed that love does bloom

There lay in store a moment after

Of woe and lust of truer gloom

That makes us hope a bleaker


And yet we’re urged to pray and forgive

To cry and weep and be fulfilled

And finally free no longer captive

To inherit the peace to us willed


Then with grace this earth will fill

And one shall greet another

With brother hood and then instill

Faith in us, in all humanity.



Friday, April 18, 2008

The Moral

Time in its path doth deal you a blow
but in all sincerity surely deserve it not i
yet to the mind life in reality does it show
yet comprehension of that is what pending lie

so in confidence in self i stride
not realizing the need of humility
as work of my hands i bore on my side
dejected and depressed i stood in simplicity


i knew stories of sorts were many
thought toi me they were but a fable
and solutions i sought but weren't there any
for was too late already too late to be able

oh indeed it was only in preparation
for after chance doth come chance
to be able to stand further humiliation
and to learn a war like stance

to the mind again it told
of the simple words i had once heard
be humble and yet be bold
and so to action i was spurred

so it is for men after me to remember
that trials bow before work
for 'tis like air to a glowing ember
not in fable but truth
and then in true success i shall lurk

The Gathering

It was there they decided to gather

The sons and daughters of greater men

And luxury than sorrow rather

That hurt, them time and again


Yes these were the privileged few

The envy of simpleton thought

Carefree, as could possibly be true

The dream that others sought


And to them pain was another thing

That was to just once hear off

And once about it to sing

But to feel it not and scoff


For great they were and maybe not

yet their eyes did as always reflect

The lack of solace that spirit sought

Indeed so pitiful this grander sect


Disillusioned they this sect were

Corrupted by mere material gain

And to crave and long for

a thing just, not love not pain


As pain and love are not real

Like things to hold and touch

They’re things of heart to feel

Human and wholly such


No nevertheless they sat and left

An untouched few by life

That life unphysical in form

But an existence verily rife