KANK your stars if you ain't seen it yet!
As a self-proclaimed Anti-Hindi-Movie (AHM) Type, I was kinda surprised myself when I found myself at a relatively "newly released" movie last week - Karan Johar's KANK. The interesting thing about the movie was that it was (along with "Corporate") one of those movies that was so extensively marketed or hyped (who can tell the difference these days!), that even I had heard about it.
So, what, you ask, can get you not, one, not two, but a gaggle of five cine-stars of repute interested in a movie? well, as it turns out, not much! :)
KANK is, to put ye dear readers out of your collective misery, a largely atrocious movie. Like most other hindi films in the "Ugh!" category, nearly every one of its 180 minutes is completely unbearable. but then, perhaps that's being a bit too harsh... almost every moment of it is atrocious, but it does have some redeeming features that unfortunately fail to justify forking out a good 100ish bucks on watching this at your friendly-neighbourhood multiplex.
So, what were the things I liked about KANK?? Well, for one thing, I thought its theme was pretty damn progressive, path breaking even, for traditional hindi cinema. "What happens if you meet the person you love after you get married?" they ask, and the answer is not, as one typically expects to find in a good, bharatiya sabhyata protecting Hindi Phillum. No venerable father or mother figures pop out of the woodwork to tell erring youngsters that in the end, ye to janam janam ka saath hai, or... "This is a one way ticket dude" (you'll understand the usage if you ignore my advice and watch this film!). No sanctimonious characters preach how this just ain't done in Indian marriages, and Amitabh at one point even tells the offending party to go ahead and find their happiness (gasp). No bent-out-of-shape, mind-numbingly inconsistent endings to salvage notions of the good Indian marriage here - not one, but two couples get divorced in the film! We even have a scene that depicts adultery! All in all, a truly out-of-the-box story theme at least in the sense that these guys seem to have had the balls to hold on to a logical ending despite showing all signs of succumbing to the typical bharatiya sabhyata protecting instincts that plague most aspects of Indian cinema. Apart from the theme, this movie has two good songs, Mithvaa and KANK, that are pleasant to hear. I really liked the Mithvaa concept as its a fusion of a folksy indian song with some less inspired western rock, but an interesting song nonetheless. Finally, there are two scenes where Abhishek Bachchan impresses with his acting skills... this guy seems to be bringing together the best of Amitabh and then some, an will definitely be an interesting person to watch in the days ahead.
So given the paeans of praise I've just sung, why do i still say I hated ... HATED KANK? To keep from ranting endlessly I've decided to adopt Guy Kawasaki's "Top 10 reasons" style... so here goes... the top 10 reasons why you should avoid KANK like the plague
1) Amitabh Bachchan playing Pimp Daddy - it's true... I kid thee not. In this movie, AB wears a pimp fur coat, a series of outrageous pimp glasses, glugs down champagne, courvoisier and other genuine pimp-drinks, ravishes at least one new woman a day, and lives in a pimpin' big motha'-offa-howse-mon... all of which shout out his genuine, "made in NYC" P.I.M.P bona fides. Which brings us to "What Karan Johar got wrong in this movie" #1 - AB's name ought to have been "Sugartastic Bachchan Trump". Y'see doll, I pimpafied his name at http://www.playerappreciate.com/pimphandle.asp. All ye AB fans and sundry readers might want to get yourselves some good Pimp names - mine is Macktastic sissyphus Large. Plis to be posting comments with genuine pimp names wonly. Really, the guy can afford to be a bit more selective in the roles he chooses, and needs to start setting a higher bar. So you were a superstar 15 years ago, but get with it... dude... stop making an ass of yourself.
2) SRK cannot act to save his life - this is, sadly true... so help me God (and yes, Mitey M, please forgive me too). He has atrophied(?) into this "I can do this one thing" actor who needs to do the right thing and retire. He doesn't seem to have developed any skills beyond this "I'm a boyish cool-dude and I have a carefree attitude and you have to love me" manner... hellooo saar, you're wayyyy too old to be doing this. It's like a shoe that just doesn't fit any more. So for the better half of three hours, we oscillate between his two for-moolah pharmoola acts - a) saying "I'm obssessed by you and i HAVE to get you" with rabid intensity ad nauseum and b) "Ooooh i'm a cutey li'l kid who cracks silly jokes all the time... umm... do you love me now??? .... now??".
3) Atrocious Kaamedi - yes, I can't spell it, and neither could they. It's the kind of stuff that really wants to make you cry... WEEP hysterically. And it is inflicted on you for almost half the movie.
4) The "What do we do now?" syndrome - clearly a script that was written through a democratic show of hands between a bunch of people who've systematically raped the initial concept to make it suitably "philmy", interspersed by the right quantities of everything that "defines" the romantic-hindi-phillum blockbuster.
5) God-awful dialogues - I just don't get it. These guys spend a few crores on each of these actors, a few crores on the music, another few crores on the sets, location, production, and then they get their 5-year-old nephew Bunty to write the dialogues for a lollipop or two. Why skimp there!!? What did we do deserve this!?
6) Bharatiya-sabhyata-protecting-adulterous-sex scenes - Hello, the dudes are screwing non-spouse types, and they aren't even in India, and you do these weird allusion-only sex scenes because... why exactly? Why not focus on a rose, or a lamp for a few seconds and be done with it? I mean that is classic sabhyata-protection-strategy and atleast it isn't forcing you to stay in the theatre for an extra 600 seconds than you need to (because your friends are refusing to leave... fyi). This has nothing to do with my personal preference for healthy doses of nudity in movies, but this was a movie where a few minutes of porn would have actually been a redeeming factor. I mean, by this point in the movie, the audience has endured so much, it deserves a good dosage of porn. And so, we were left lamenting that Tyler Durden wasn't in the projection room splicing porn into the reel.
7) There are not enough morbid accidents - So somewhere 5 minutes into the movie, SRK gets slammed by a car going at 60 mph, and drat it, he survives. Mebbe KJ was super pissed with him that day, but it looks like the producer didn't like the idea of forking out a few crores for 5 minutes work and had him resurrected. This is one of those movies where you're cheering anonymous Mad Max types, praying that they materialize from out of thin air and slam the bejeezus out of each of the characters at different points of time. sadly, your prayers are never heard, because, the scriptwriters, like God, abandon you for the duration of the movie, and no one hears your prayers, or your screams.
8) Pretty Preity and the Sista Act - Just so we have all the proper disclaimers in place, let the record show that I think PZ is super hot, and one of those people who consistently comes across as being a genuinely intelligent person with an opinion of her own which makes her wayyyy hotter. But I think (and maybe I'm in a lone minority), that she's really taking this "Feminsim rocks" thing a bit too far. So in KANK, we have seemingly contrived scenarios where she gets to stand up bravely for her rights as a woman and make cutting statements about how she has a right to work (Aye!), be successful(Aye!!) and how she's the one with balls between her and SRK (no doubting that either! :) ... but you didn't have to say it as such!!! and then again, maybe SRK took it as a complement). I'm tiring of the grandstanding, and I think she should actively choose roles that are meant to be feminist statements, rather than morph generic roles where a strong characters are called for into opportunities to grandstand. But then again, this is probably the minority vote on this...
9) We don't insist that movies should last no less than 180 minutes - There's a billion dollar hollywood movie machine that churns out movies in a 90-120 minute format. You don't HAVE to stretch out stories to last 3 hours. We will forgive you, understand that you didn't have more to say, enjoy your movie and go out for dinner or ice cream.
10) Not all of us carry insulin shots - and don't deserve this hyper-glycemic dose of good-shweeet-Indian-ness that insists you crucify yourself endlessly, not to mention the audience while you figure things out. Keep it short, keep it simple... ishtupid. KIS-ISH as us menagement types would say.
And there ends my rant, as promised, in 10 short painful outbursts... and as you can see, even i ran out of things to say, but atleast I have the grace to admit it unlike certain others who shall not be named... but who I just ranted about for the better part of an hour anyway! :)
Fare thee well, dear reader, may the gods be with you!
Au Revoir... I hope! :)
S
As a self-proclaimed Anti-Hindi-Movie (AHM) Type, I was kinda surprised myself when I found myself at a relatively "newly released" movie last week - Karan Johar's KANK. The interesting thing about the movie was that it was (along with "Corporate") one of those movies that was so extensively marketed or hyped (who can tell the difference these days!), that even I had heard about it.
So, what, you ask, can get you not, one, not two, but a gaggle of five cine-stars of repute interested in a movie? well, as it turns out, not much! :)
KANK is, to put ye dear readers out of your collective misery, a largely atrocious movie. Like most other hindi films in the "Ugh!" category, nearly every one of its 180 minutes is completely unbearable. but then, perhaps that's being a bit too harsh... almost every moment of it is atrocious, but it does have some redeeming features that unfortunately fail to justify forking out a good 100ish bucks on watching this at your friendly-neighbourhood multiplex.
So, what were the things I liked about KANK?? Well, for one thing, I thought its theme was pretty damn progressive, path breaking even, for traditional hindi cinema. "What happens if you meet the person you love after you get married?" they ask, and the answer is not, as one typically expects to find in a good, bharatiya sabhyata protecting Hindi Phillum. No venerable father or mother figures pop out of the woodwork to tell erring youngsters that in the end, ye to janam janam ka saath hai, or... "This is a one way ticket dude" (you'll understand the usage if you ignore my advice and watch this film!). No sanctimonious characters preach how this just ain't done in Indian marriages, and Amitabh at one point even tells the offending party to go ahead and find their happiness (gasp). No bent-out-of-shape, mind-numbingly inconsistent endings to salvage notions of the good Indian marriage here - not one, but two couples get divorced in the film! We even have a scene that depicts adultery! All in all, a truly out-of-the-box story theme at least in the sense that these guys seem to have had the balls to hold on to a logical ending despite showing all signs of succumbing to the typical bharatiya sabhyata protecting instincts that plague most aspects of Indian cinema. Apart from the theme, this movie has two good songs, Mithvaa and KANK, that are pleasant to hear. I really liked the Mithvaa concept as its a fusion of a folksy indian song with some less inspired western rock, but an interesting song nonetheless. Finally, there are two scenes where Abhishek Bachchan impresses with his acting skills... this guy seems to be bringing together the best of Amitabh and then some, an will definitely be an interesting person to watch in the days ahead.
So given the paeans of praise I've just sung, why do i still say I hated ... HATED KANK? To keep from ranting endlessly I've decided to adopt Guy Kawasaki's "Top 10 reasons" style... so here goes... the top 10 reasons why you should avoid KANK like the plague
1) Amitabh Bachchan playing Pimp Daddy - it's true... I kid thee not. In this movie, AB wears a pimp fur coat, a series of outrageous pimp glasses, glugs down champagne, courvoisier and other genuine pimp-drinks, ravishes at least one new woman a day, and lives in a pimpin' big motha'-offa-howse-mon... all of which shout out his genuine, "made in NYC" P.I.M.P bona fides. Which brings us to "What Karan Johar got wrong in this movie" #1 - AB's name ought to have been "Sugartastic Bachchan Trump". Y'see doll, I pimpafied his name at http://www.playerappreciate.com/pimphandle.asp. All ye AB fans and sundry readers might want to get yourselves some good Pimp names - mine is Macktastic sissyphus Large. Plis to be posting comments with genuine pimp names wonly. Really, the guy can afford to be a bit more selective in the roles he chooses, and needs to start setting a higher bar. So you were a superstar 15 years ago, but get with it... dude... stop making an ass of yourself.
2) SRK cannot act to save his life - this is, sadly true... so help me God (and yes, Mitey M, please forgive me too). He has atrophied(?) into this "I can do this one thing" actor who needs to do the right thing and retire. He doesn't seem to have developed any skills beyond this "I'm a boyish cool-dude and I have a carefree attitude and you have to love me" manner... hellooo saar, you're wayyyy too old to be doing this. It's like a shoe that just doesn't fit any more. So for the better half of three hours, we oscillate between his two for-moolah pharmoola acts - a) saying "I'm obssessed by you and i HAVE to get you" with rabid intensity ad nauseum and b) "Ooooh i'm a cutey li'l kid who cracks silly jokes all the time... umm... do you love me now??? .... now??".
3) Atrocious Kaamedi - yes, I can't spell it, and neither could they. It's the kind of stuff that really wants to make you cry... WEEP hysterically. And it is inflicted on you for almost half the movie.
4) The "What do we do now?" syndrome - clearly a script that was written through a democratic show of hands between a bunch of people who've systematically raped the initial concept to make it suitably "philmy", interspersed by the right quantities of everything that "defines" the romantic-hindi-phillum blockbuster.
5) God-awful dialogues - I just don't get it. These guys spend a few crores on each of these actors, a few crores on the music, another few crores on the sets, location, production, and then they get their 5-year-old nephew Bunty to write the dialogues for a lollipop or two. Why skimp there!!? What did we do deserve this!?
6) Bharatiya-sabhyata-protecting-adulterous-sex scenes - Hello, the dudes are screwing non-spouse types, and they aren't even in India, and you do these weird allusion-only sex scenes because... why exactly? Why not focus on a rose, or a lamp for a few seconds and be done with it? I mean that is classic sabhyata-protection-strategy and atleast it isn't forcing you to stay in the theatre for an extra 600 seconds than you need to (because your friends are refusing to leave... fyi). This has nothing to do with my personal preference for healthy doses of nudity in movies, but this was a movie where a few minutes of porn would have actually been a redeeming factor. I mean, by this point in the movie, the audience has endured so much, it deserves a good dosage of porn. And so, we were left lamenting that Tyler Durden wasn't in the projection room splicing porn into the reel.
7) There are not enough morbid accidents - So somewhere 5 minutes into the movie, SRK gets slammed by a car going at 60 mph, and drat it, he survives. Mebbe KJ was super pissed with him that day, but it looks like the producer didn't like the idea of forking out a few crores for 5 minutes work and had him resurrected. This is one of those movies where you're cheering anonymous Mad Max types, praying that they materialize from out of thin air and slam the bejeezus out of each of the characters at different points of time. sadly, your prayers are never heard, because, the scriptwriters, like God, abandon you for the duration of the movie, and no one hears your prayers, or your screams.
8) Pretty Preity and the Sista Act - Just so we have all the proper disclaimers in place, let the record show that I think PZ is super hot, and one of those people who consistently comes across as being a genuinely intelligent person with an opinion of her own which makes her wayyyy hotter. But I think (and maybe I'm in a lone minority), that she's really taking this "Feminsim rocks" thing a bit too far. So in KANK, we have seemingly contrived scenarios where she gets to stand up bravely for her rights as a woman and make cutting statements about how she has a right to work (Aye!), be successful(Aye!!) and how she's the one with balls between her and SRK (no doubting that either! :) ... but you didn't have to say it as such!!! and then again, maybe SRK took it as a complement). I'm tiring of the grandstanding, and I think she should actively choose roles that are meant to be feminist statements, rather than morph generic roles where a strong characters are called for into opportunities to grandstand. But then again, this is probably the minority vote on this...
9) We don't insist that movies should last no less than 180 minutes - There's a billion dollar hollywood movie machine that churns out movies in a 90-120 minute format. You don't HAVE to stretch out stories to last 3 hours. We will forgive you, understand that you didn't have more to say, enjoy your movie and go out for dinner or ice cream.
10) Not all of us carry insulin shots - and don't deserve this hyper-glycemic dose of good-shweeet-Indian-ness that insists you crucify yourself endlessly, not to mention the audience while you figure things out. Keep it short, keep it simple... ishtupid. KIS-ISH as us menagement types would say.
And there ends my rant, as promised, in 10 short painful outbursts... and as you can see, even i ran out of things to say, but atleast I have the grace to admit it unlike certain others who shall not be named... but who I just ranted about for the better part of an hour anyway! :)
Fare thee well, dear reader, may the gods be with you!
Au Revoir... I hope! :)
S
posted by sreeram at 9:34 PM
2 Comments:
ROFTL!!
btw, greatbong has also written an awesome review at http://greatbong.net/2006/08/20/kabhi-alvida-na-kehna-the-review/#more-272. Rashmi has also written a review on this.
Moi will listen to your rant and not watch it.
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