Posts Tagged ‘Karan Johar’
Couple of days back I was watching our legendary film director K Balachander (KB) on an interview on NDTV-Hindu. Balachander has always struck me as a person who has very naturally transitioned to the modern cinema and has not be caught in a time warp like few others from his generation. He has been pretty gracious in appreciating work of current directors and has often publicly praised them in the media. KB also was the first movie director who forayed into satellite television. He produced and directed various down to earth, high quality television serials.
His serials had the realism and were never over the top. So that brings me to the current topic, when the interviewer asked him about the current television scenario, he said that news channels are more interesting to watch than the mega-serials and reality shows. I kind of agree with him. If you think, aside from the sports channels and News channels, the rest of the programming can be categorized into, movies, serials and Reality shows.
The mega serials are over the top, hard to believe and mostly a cry-fest. The reality shows contrary to their name has hardly any realism and movie shows are well, movie shows. The advent of reality shows in Indian television has eaten into the primetime for most of the TV channels in India. The shows look like scripted and rehearsed with no realism. They are also sometimes inappropriate and not a “Watch with the family” types. So let’s look at what the news channels bring to the plate. They have the same star interviews, news around the world, debate shows, showcase sports and other talents across India.
To be frank I feel that a channel like NDTV-Hindu has much more interesting programming compared to probably a Sun TV or a Sony TV. The news channel interviews do not use the regular superlatives to introduce an actor, like probably a Karan Johar does on “Koffee with Karan”. The interviews are much more interesting to watch and actually give a better perspective of the person than watching them on a regular entertainment channel. There are few exceptions though like Star Vijay which has much more balanced programming. Having said that I believe that to each their own and respect individual preferences.
But do I enjoy watching a NDTV-Hindu more than a Sun TV? Yes I do and I totally agree with KB sir. He also said that he would be directing another television serial pretty soon and I am sure that he will bring the necessary realism to television which has been missing altogether in recent times.
My Name is Khan is different
Posted on: March 1, 2010
- In: Bollywood | Entertainment | General | General Lunch Time talk | Languages and Politics | Movies | Music | Real Life | Television | Terrorism
- 1 Comment
My Name is Khan was a good effort from Karan Johar
After the hype generated for “My Name is Khan” by the Shiv-Sena threat and SRK himself after he got detained at the Chicago airport for questioning, I thought to myself what could be so different about a Karan Johar movie? But after watching the movie yesterday I was pleasantly surprised. I never liked Karan Johar type of movie making. His movies are monotonous and his hero worship of Shahrukh Khan often gets on my nerves.
This movie though was completely different from his other efforts in the past. The movie is heavily inspired by “The Rain man” where Dustin Hoffman had played the role of a person suffering from Autism brilliantly. Shahrukh has copied the mannerisms of Dustin Hoffman to perfection and also speaks and behaves exactly like Raymond (Name of the character Hoffman plays) of Rain Man. His repeating of some sentences, avoiding eye contact and also the way he walks are heavily inspired by Dustin Hoffman.
Even though MNIK (My Name is Khan) also has a Tom Cruise sort of brother for Shahrukh’s character, but the similarity ends there. This movie is mostly based on the 9/11 tragedy and one man’s endeavor to meet the president of United States to say “My Name is Khan and I am not a terrorist”. So this movie is about an Autistic Muslim man (Shahrukh Khan) who wants starts off in search of the president of USA after his step son’s death.
The movie on its own was very good and the lead actors performance was very nice. Jimmy Shergil as Shahrukh’s brother was absolutely wasted in a role which seems to have been created just to get the protagonist to US. Shahrukh as Rizwan Khan was absolutely brilliant and has carried off his role with élan. Kajol though doing a good job, has played a character which she has done before on numerous occasions in Karan Johar movies.
The others in the movie are just adequate and do their roles as required. Karan Johar as a movie maker has surely made me change my opinion about his capabilities and I hope that this marks a turning point in his career. Shahrukh also has gotten away from his stereotypes and has tried something different which he had not done since Swades. Overall MNIK is a great effort. Even though the movie suffers from certain clichés associated with Indian cinema, the overall message doesn’t get lost in the same.
I never thought I would ever say this about a Karan Johar movie but I definitely liked this one and I hope that this is his foray into meaningful cinema.
Collection of my thoughts
Posted on: February 19, 2009
- In: tennis | Test match | Twenty20
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Collection of my thoughts
Posted on: February 19, 2009
- In: Cricket | Cricket and Sports | Entertainment | Immigration | Music | tennis
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The Indian team with the trophy in SL
AR Rahman with the Golden Globe
I have had a frustrating last few months which came to an end yesterday with the visa approval. For all of us here the extension process has been a real long and frustrating journey which controlled our thoughts for all these months. I have decided to put in a summary of the happenings in the last few months about which I was planning to write about.
Indian cricket team’s successful 2008 and the NewZealand tour
I would like to begin with the exceptional season the Indian cricket team has been having since they won the Perth test match last Jan. The only blip being the test series in Srilanka. The Indian team under Dhoni has performed really well and are in top 3 in both forms of the game. The recent series in SL where Dhoni’s men won 4-1 further emphasized their raise in the shorter format of the game. The Indian team has found great bunch of youngsters who are hungry for success and want to win every game. Having said all that Dhoni’s great test is just around the corner, the tour of NZ. This will be his first full tour as a captain of the Indian team. India would be looking to win the test and the one-day series against the Kiwis which will not be an easy task.
The Kiwis have had a good series against the Australians recently where they drew the one-dayers 2-2 and lost the one-off Twenty20 by one run. They will be full of confidence and would be hoping to drive their home advantage to trouble the Indian team. The Indians on the other hand would want to erase the memory of their disastrous 2002/03 tour to the Kiwiland by turning in good performances in the both forms of the game. If India play to their potential they should win the series. The series gets underway with the first of the 2 Twenty20 games next wednesday. Lets hope that the series is competetive and may the best team win.
Slumdog Millionaire and A R Rahman
Musical genius A R Rahman made every Indian proud when he received the Golden Globe award for the best original score for his song “Jai Ho” in Danny Boyle’s award winning movie Slumdog Millionaire. There has been lots of speculation in the Indian media reagrding the movie as well as A R Rahman’s music claiming that both are over-rated. Few people in the media have slammed the movie and some also said that it has shown India in a poor light. As far as I am concerned the movie was just okay and was nothing great but thats my opinion. To be frank its a movie made by a British director in India and if Hollywood calls it as the best movie of the year then so be it. I dont think that this movie showed anything wrong about India.
At least the movie was made in India. How many bollywood directors make movies in the slums of Mumbai? How many Indian directors who commented on this movie can make a movie which will prove otherwise? Actually no one cares. Its just that this movie has become so big that people have decided to cash in on its popularity. The Johars and the chopras have stopped making movies in India and few more directors probably will follow suit. I guess we have to treat SM as a hollywood movie which has been made in India with Indian actors, thats about it. We have made so many substandard movies in US and UK, they dont claim those as theirs and slam it in the their media when we give awards to those movies. So lets just be realistic, Hollywood thinks its the best movie of the year so thats where it ends.As far as the award to ARR is concerned I am really proud of him and his achievements. He has put Indian music on the world map.
Whether this is his best composition is open to speculation but there is no denying the fact that he deserves all the accolades he is receiving right now. Lets not unnecessarily dissect the music and enjoy the success of one of the finest composers in India. Congrats to ARR on his Golden Globe and hope he wins Oscars too.
Tennis in India
Tennis in India received a tremendous boost when Yuki Bhambri won the junior Australian Open title earlier this year. His victory along with the performance of Somdev in the Chennai open gives great hope to the Tennis scene in India. Mahesh won yet another mixed doubles championship, this time with our own Sania Mirza to make this the most memorable Australian Open for the Indians. Sania though continued her horror run in singles when she was beaten in the second round. Hopefully Somedev and Yuki can take the Indian Tennis forward and make a successful transition to the senior level.
Thats all for now from me. Lets hope that India continues to shine in 2009 and we have more awards and titles to add.
girisopinion
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