Technicolor Dream

Totally over the top and completely bizarre is Farah's new found signature style and with the success of Om Shanti Om I am guessing it's for keeps. The movie is totally bling with its giddy music and psychedelic colours. It was a complete treat to the senses. After a seismic speculation I've decided not to get in to the glaring loop holes in the plot or reviewing the complete lack of story line. But I must say, I loved the movie. So what is the plot? You're clearly reading the blog this is just film appreciation.

The film was a celebration of the 70's as Bollywood painted it, a world of flashy make up, elaborate hairdos. The film has glorified all Bollywood stereotypes - the ma, the sindhur and the dialogues are cheesy, but really funny. The lines were oozing with melodrama and kiran kher has done full justice to it with all the necessary overacting. I would have never known you can keep the audience enthralled for three hours without a story!

Looking all dolled up was the debutant Deepika Padukone. She was a decent actress and good dancer although I must admit she didn't have a crucial role, she made her presence felt with those perfectly timed and dimpled smiles. It's a movie reveling in everything typical to the tinsel town – the red carpet stroll, award ceremonies, gossip and bitching.

What's worth a mention here is the filmfare awards ceremony, my personal favourite sequence. 'we are just good friends' haven't we heard that a zillion times before but Farah's movie has a different take on it. SRK, Akshay and Abhishek starring in films like Dhoom 5, Return of the Khiladi and Phir Bhi NRI are competing to clinch the best actor title, this one is a laugh riot. One can find the clip below.

After the super fun first half the second half was a tad stretchy. After all we are on real time again, but the song and dance sequence salvaged it. Ok, what Farha is really known for is here creds and for that let the drums beat and red carpets roll out, and let the real heroes take the stage. It's worthy of another post.

All said, it's a fun colorful film, and that too coming from a person who is not an SRK fan. I am sure that says a lot.

Bollywood on the Blogsphere

Bollywood is probably the most bizarre, the most melodramatic, the most unprofessional and the most unorganized industry and yet between their song and dance sequence one could learn a lesson or two on marketing. A lot of debate has been brewing on the web about the big banner movies hitting the box recently, and I was curious to find out how much Bollywood has impacted the Consumer Generated media (CGM).

The results were surprising at times and predictable at most others. The cumulative marketing efforts by production houses and films had a trickle down effect on the blog. For instance Om Shanti Om(OSO) had started doing the rounds in the media almost a year before its launch. To top it all there were a zillion promotions, interviews, contests, 70’s line being launched at Shopper’s Stop and hype leading up to the day of its premiere. News like the release of the film across an unprecedented 2000 plus screens worldwide, and the Manoj Kumar fiasco further drove the film towards a box office success.The chart indicates the presence of both OSO and Saawariya in the blogsphere over the past 6 months and clearly OSO has had a head start over Saawariya. My guess would be the latter is here only because of the former.

Three month tracker of OSO and Saawariya starting almost 2 months before release on November 9th till 20th of November.

OSO and Saawariya have managed to get over 50% of their blog posts in the last month alone, a time little before and after the launch.

One can only applaud the Integrated Marketing Campaign since its ROI has been tremendous. Despite the lack of any real story the movie has been a box office grosser and it’s a buzz on the blogging space with a total of 7669 blog posts only over the last 3 months alone. Some say, a great story doesn’t need over the top marketing, but I say it wouldn’t kill it either.

Its rival Saawariya hasn’t been doing too badly either. My guess would be that the two big budget films were pitted against each other by the media and the drama that followed was exciting and saw a nail biting finish for both. The numbers also indicate that despite a more sober marketing campaign the media hype saw Saawariya to a great start and still sees about 53 blog entries a day. The Razzle Dazzle of Farah’s Om Shanti Om still rules the roost and the blog pulse is an indication enough.

Another flick, Jab We Met by Imtiaz Ali that hit the silver screen on 26th October manages to scrape an average of 38 posts. The film with its fantastic story line and music tracks came only third to Om Shanti Om or Saawariya.

In the last 3 months Jab We Met has lesser posts than what OSO had in the last month alone.

The Maduri Dixit starrer - Aaja Nachle has been averaging 10 blogs over the last 3 months, and this month alone the average has been 13 plus. Now I hope there is a change of tide and the numbers are just as racy as her Jhatkas Matkas. Not only is she looking better than where she left off personally, I feel she hasn’t lost her edge despite competition. Madhuri’s return and her being the mother of two is causing quiet and uproar. She has everything going for her; great looks, dazzling smile, and what seems like a great story. What better come back could the Ek, Do, Teen gal look forward to?

Aaja Nachle is likely to rake in more posts as its edging towards its release. One can only wait and see if it challenge the astronomical numbers of OSO.

Author’s Note: I have used two tools to do the tracking one is IceRocket and the other BlogPulse (a service of AC Nielsen Metrics). I liked different features in each of them and hence have used both. In Ice Rocket the results are neatly tabulated and indicate average posts per day, average percent of all blog posts and total posts till date. Where as, Blog Pulse allows me to see a trend over a longer period of time. However, what both the tools lack is the ability to track really old data, so one is unable to track the growth or trends that have impacted the blogsphere over a couple of years. These tools are really useful nonetheless.

Legendary Bollywood Villains

There have been some movies in bollywood that have been better known for its villains and their trade mark comic dialogues that have been repeated over and over again for generations after. And these characters have become larger than life bollywood icons. With their gaudy clothes, flashy wigs and corny dialogues, who wouldn’t remember Loyan, Gabbar or Pran? So this blog is for the good old bollywood that has for so many years entertained us, shaped our lives in just more than one way and has endured all our criticism silently. Bollywood is perhaps the most dynamic industry constantly changing, evolving and growing. I have grown up watching these bollywood badies and even today I like them just as much.

Gabbar Singh of Sholay

‘Pachas pachas kos door gaon mein jab bachcha raat ko rota hai to maa kahti hai beta soja ..soja nahin to Gabbar Singh aa jaayega’ booms Gabbar’s voice and the place rings with his manic laughter, his tobacco-stained teeth and the trademark ferocity showing. No one could have done it better than Amjed Khan. And Gabbar is by far Bollywood’s best villain. He is unarguably the most legendary character of tinsel world. ‘Aare Oh samba Kithne aadmi thei?’ Gabbar Singh went on to become the movie’s most memorable character. Post this Amjad Khan appeared in advertisements as Gabbar Singh endorsing Britannia biscuits, and it was the first incidence of a villain being used to sell a popular product.

Mogambo of Mr. India

He is my all time favourite comic-book-villain. The audiences were thrilled every time Amrish Puri glared down at them with his fiercely bulbous eyes sporting an atrocious blond wig and garish knee high silver heeled boots. They came back again and again to hear him mouth possibly the most repeated line of Hindi cinema (post 80s), ‘Mogambo khush hua’. Mogambo has carved a niche for himself amongst Bollywood’s most classic villains.

(Lion) of Kalicharan

‘Sara shehar mujhe Loyan (Lion) ke naam se janata hai’ Lion found ample support in his overly made-up sexy assistant, Mona. Together they epitomized the ‘smuggler villain’ and his dumb-but-sexy moll of the 70s and delighted us by making a complete mockery of their mean act. He always played the suave smuggler with his typical nasal twang drawl of ‘Mona Darling’ and with his comic threat like ‘is ko liquid oxygen me duba do. Liquid ise jine nahin dega aur oxygen ise marne nahin dega’. His liking for names like Michael, Robert, Peter and Lilly is almost legendry. My favourite has got to be ‘Lilly don’t be silly’

Chopra of Bobby

‘Prem naam hain mera. Prem Chopra’ and a chill runs down your spine as he menacingly looks on. This famous line from the film Bobby gave him his ticket to Bollywood Hall of Fame.

These are my all time favourites. Gulshan Grover, Pran, Kulbhushan Kharbanda who played Shakal in Ramesh Sippey’s Shaan, and Danny Denzongpa of the Burning Train came a close second. In the more recent times there is Kkkkkkiran (Sharukh Khan) of Darr and Bhiku Matre (Manoj Bajpai) of Sathya who are also pretty memorable characters.

Over the years peoples’ tastes have changed, so has the industry. The newer villains are stylish slick and plain cold blooded. Its hard imagining Hrithik, Abharam John wearing garish clothes and delivering semi comical dialogues. I wouldn’t even remember them a fewer years down the lane unlike Gabbar who’ll live forever.

Madhur Bhandar's Corporate

Last night my roomie and I decided to catch the last show of Corporate at INOX, Garuda. After a trip down tinsel town in Page 3 Madhur Bhandarkar in his next venture Corporate failed to provoke any though what so ever.

It’s a shame a filmmaker of his caliber, who has always treaded a path less traveled by Bollywood, would give a subject like Corporate such a shoddy treatment.

Corporate is a battlefield of power-hungry people (and sex starved professionals). A world filled with deceit and corrupted minds. Where wealth, fame and success are fought over. And rules don't exist.

CORPORATE tells the story of two leading industrialists in the food sector, led by Vinay Sehgal [Rajat Kapoor], Managing Director of Sehgal Group of Industries and Dharmesh Marwah [Raj Babbar], Managing Director of Marwah International P. Ltd. Powerful, ambitious and relentless. This war also extends to the choice of their women.

While there are many diligent people working for these companies, there is also Nishigandha (I wonder why they made her sound like Ranjnigandha). played by Bipasha Basu, a businesswoman with high aspirations and hunger to move to the top. She in the thick of all the action. The overly caked VP of the Sehgal group of industries is the face on every business magazine in the country. Even the most powerful let their guard down once in a way and she did just that - she falls hopelessly in love with Rithesh (KK Menon), CEO and brother-in-law of Vinay Sehgal. A pretty spineless character who has incurred loses that run in corers for the company.

Nishi steals highly confidential launch details of a mint based soft drinks right from under Marwha's nose and passes it on to Sehgal. He then decides to hasten the launch of their own drink (Just Chill), which was originally scheduled to hit the market a year later, and launch it within 45 days! (Some marketing target)

Shit hits the roof when 10 days before the launch traces of pesticides are found in the water that is used to make the drink. To keep his face in the media Vinay still goes ahead and launches the drink. The drink apparently captures 65% market share within a week of the launch (a feat not yet achieved by either of the Cola giants). The Marwah group gets hold of this scoop and plays the media, who very true to their reputation blow it up!

And from then on its turmoil of love, sex, power and money! And the intelligent Nishi is the pawn in the hands of the Sehgal family, who despite her own personal ethics takes the blame for the mishap and gets the Sehgal family the clean chit.

The movie had several good in- film placements. All the laptops used in films were Lenovo - excellent association, corporates and laptops go brilliantly together. Bisleri bottles were featured in all conference rooms. The power blue outfits of Bipasha are from Allen Solly. There are a few shots of the film inside the shops as well, very clearly indicating smart clothes for smart women. Times Now also has good screen presence - they are the media that covers all breaking news in business. Even a pencil brand should have been featured; every desk featured a pen stand with over 100 pencils neatly arranged. Bips is seen drinking Kingfisher strong - I cant really say strong beer for strong women :)

Madhur's Corporate philosophy in a nutshell

-Men obviously think between their legs (Bipasha says so!).
-With every promotion comes more sex!
-Pimping is a lucrative industry
-A woman with a rather colourful social life is tagged public ltd.
-Media is the biggest dog who mulls over anything and everything that comes its way
-Indians have a very short-lived memory
-PR gets one more than just a good media coverage it gets you into the sack!

Cheers

Dhivya