It is now official - AR Rahman has apologized for "letting people down" with his song for the Commonwealth Games. Apparently, he is proud of the composition and the anthem. No artist should have to apologize to anybody for having attracted criticism from any quarter, but what composition is he talking about? And what anthem?
What he produced for the CW Games was just plain rubbish. It was sub standard trash and it stood out glaringly. He did not do anything great for Slumdog Millionaire either, but white guys loved it and gave him two Oscars, so that was enough for our dumb (m)asses to cheer him on! Looks like not many even made the attempt to find out Rahman's "Jai Ho" was originally put together for another producer for another film and then plugged into Slumdog Millionaire! Still good enough to win an Oscar!
The Oscar for best song is usually a joke, and it should not take too much research to find what kind of rubbish this category generally attracts. Heard Howard Shore's number for Lord of the Rings? It didn't even feature in the movie, but yes, it won the Oscar too! This category is in itself a joke, but for us Indians, two is always better than one, and coming from whitey, one is better than ALL we have from all non-whiteys!
Now, read this news item from The Hindu.
http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article832718.ece
This clown Rahman has apparently got great feedback from Australia, England, and all "those" places where they heard the song! Sure, they even understood everything in Hindi, loved the beefcake dancers prancing around in designer cheap white see through outfits with green and saffron gloves, and could not get enough of Rahman's singing to the sky. But wait a minute! They are WHITE people who loved this fucking song! So, how can we criticize Rahman?
How can we suddenly think the Commonwealth Games is an Indian affair, just because it was hosted by India, and 70,000 crores of Indian Rupees were spent for this extravaganza, just because this was supposed to showcase our ability to host such big events? How can it be important to satisfy Indian audiences for just 5 crores as payment? This is all about showing how good we are to whitey, whitey mighty whitey!
Sarcasm apart, I have never seen any Indian artist lick whitey ass as much as Rahman. The reason he doesn't get that kind of exotic adulation from Indians is because he is really no great shit and many of us know it. His music is uninspiring crap most often, and by law of averages, good sound engineering, great processing, and sublime packaging, Rahman can come up with something that "works" once in a while. Frequently enough to keep him in the news. And average enough to sell. Quality is a hard sell, so why even go there?
For whitey, however, who is just discovering popular Indian creative output, Ilayaraja is still not accessible. Rahman is the McDonalds variety that is ready off the shelf. Perfect! So, of course they celebrate him. Ask those geniuses if they even know the music of RD Burman, the incredible talent of Kishore Kumar or Lata Mangeshkar, leave alone Jesudas or Janaki. We haven't even started with our purely classical performers, if you noticed. Our classical musicians do not give a shit, because they are all true artists. They do almost no self promotion, and are too absorbed with their work. That is why they have to be "discovered". To mention a few here would be to mock the rest. They are all gods in an unbelievably exalted pantheon - and it would take someone like the Beatles to even scratch the surface of that.
Is it still difficult for us to see this scam artist who isn't worth shit? Are we deaf? Certainly not. And this waking up is exactly what happened with the Commonwealth Games! There was no whitey to tell us all too soon that Rahman was God! We had to hear his shit for ourselves and use our own brains that were asking us all along, "Is this fucker really that good?"! NO! He was never really "that" good, from any yardstick used to measure this nincompoop pretender. That is the point. He is a product of great management, not one of mercurial talent coming to the fore!
Great music is what evokes the accurate emotion, ecstasy or agony, puts us in the right place as intended by the composer. In movies, this is for supporting the director's vision. When songs are played lovingly years later, regardless of what happened to the memories of the movies, that is a very special accomplishment. Rahman had something going with Roja, a bit with Lagaan, and when really forced to work hard and deliver, with a handful of other films including Rangeela. These are the directors who make him work, not worship him. Check out a film called "Karuthamma" if you really want to see how well disco beats work in a Tamil rural movie. Check out the theme song the same fool came out with for the World Tamil Conference. If you aren't deaf, you'd wish you were.
So why doesn't he produce something like the best he has produced so far? Well, shit! Too much competition there. He is clever enough to make his own niche, hence the first run from Chennai to Mumbai and when the novelty has worn out even there, now onwards to Hollywood. They're broke so they'll buy anything cheap right now. If it is brown skinned with two Oscars, ride the exotic buzz!!
"All my life I had a choice between hate and love. I chose love and I am here," said Rahman after his second Oscar. What hate? What love? Overwhelmed by whitey's generosity, this is what can come out of a rank simpleton in flashy clothes! Awkward and insincere - duh! Exactly what his music almost always is. But he spoke about choosing "love" and how it has brought him here. Like an Oscar award is the greatest thing a musician can possibly aspire for! This damn Oscar is now a phallic aspiration for most Indian producers and directors. It is the ultimate sense of belonging with the best in the world! Indeed American cinema has produced some stalwarts and Shankar will never be as good a director as James Cameron, forget Terrence Malick or Spielberg. To a film maker, this is still a legitimate aspirational goal. But to a musician? Come on!
Rahman has no place in any collective of greatness - plain and simple. The fucker should not even be allowed in the same arenas as the masters, to perform his garbage. We don't even need to criticize the fact that he copies a lot. He isn't even good enough to twist that to something great. He has this one dimensional but easily sold thematic approach of "enthuse, lift up, be patriotic, and sing to the sky", that is wearing real thin. Now, he's apologizing? Jai Ho! Oh, yeah, just in case the ONLY song he made for the CW games was not enough value for money, he performed Jai Ho too! This guy is fast becoming an expert at looking out of place.
Bollywood is still that exotic beast to most of Hollywood. There are enough and more morons there who will take to this, in much the way they will take to Indian food. They will never get to taste anything authentic, but a fair bit of what we choose to export. Rahman is export material. In this case, not good enough for us, but good enough for the white consumer. He is easy to sell, just like a dosa can sell if called an "Indian crepe". God bless him for all the good this brings him, but please let's see him for what he really is - an average performer who's running on empty and pretending like his tank is full. Jai Ho! Otha odi po!
BSK.
PS: Spitting is feedback, in its truest sense.
Showing posts with label rahman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rahman. Show all posts
16 October 2010
06 October 2010
The Opening Ceremony Comedy Show!
Whoever asked for these bloody Commonwealth Games?
Why does our wonderful former president Mr. Abdul Kalam have to have his name twisted to Abdul Kalam Azad by a fumbling idiot called Kalmadi? Why does that same idiot have to talk about a "Prince Diana" attending these games, when she is neither alive nor was ever a prince? Was this idiot even awake while he was filling the microphone with his unprofessional filth?
Why do we have Doordarshan doing something it was never meant to do - covering something live that moves more than its mouth?
This idiot Kalmadi never mentioned athletes amongst the people he extended his "Namaskar" to. For a guy who is reading from a piece of paper, the least he could do was make sure he doesn't swallow words like "Association". He said, "Assoshun" a few times. Clearly he isn't cut out for reading a speech, or mouthing one either. He couldn't do much about falling bridges either.
If an airline pilot with the same level of incompetence performed the equivalent of these tasks in his job, the plane would nosedive, throw its doors open mid-air, choke most of its passengers, catch fire, turn upside down and mow into a hill in a fireball.
Who are these clowns still running that embarrassment of a television channel called Doordarshan? Couldn't they get anybody better than the idiots who were reading out names of countries from the screen, telling us of their populations, and when each country got its independence? Isn't that in itself a reminder of the dark side of the whole "Commonwealth" idea?! I wish they had shown the Brit royals each time we were told about each country's independence from them! I wish we had the humour to be told how many years each country had been looted for by her royal bitching highness BEFORE they got independence. Instead, we were told to notice how "happy!" Prince Charles was, when the Wales contingent showed up. To me, the prick and his entourage looked the same when other contingents showed up too.
How much of a genius would it take to see "swimming" below the flag bearer's name and figure out that that person is a swimmer? Do we really need to have someone telling us that person is an "athlete" when we can read "athletics" below his or her name? Who else is going to show up at a sporting event? A fortune teller?
"Here comes Kenya! All the way from Africa!". Seriously, where else the fuck would the Kenyan contingent come from? Jupiter? Who are these juveniles telling us which country's flag is what colour and informing us, just in case, of this marvel of a projection system that projects the same flag on the aerostat for the same country! Hurrah! We got that right! What kind of fucking nonsense is this? This is not Doordarshan in its year of inception either. The CW Games may be a first, (and hopefully last) for India, but these idiots with the exclusive rights to telecast the CWG have been around for a long, long time. Should they not know their job a little better?
We were also told that the magnificent drummers below were beating the crap out of their contraptions to keep the athletes happy. No shit. I would have thought they were frightening stray lions. Even worse - we never got to hear those drums, because we were filled in with an incessant electronic drumbeat that ran right through the programme. Horrible, unless we got Energizer to sponsor that shit.
Why the fuck do we still refer to Charles as His Royal Highness? He may be to his own people, but not to US! Isn't that the whole POINT of being an independent country? None of the assholes in New Delhi seem to know yet.
And why is Charles talking about peace all over the world? Didn't the Brits send their military monkeys including one of Charlie's sons, to participate in the greatest bomb shag of all time in modern history in Iraq? Peace be damned if it is a Muslim country? Bloody hypocrite son of a bitch.
Who writes these goddamn speeches? "Over the next few days - thousands of athletes will take part in competition" - this came from Pratibha Patil, no less than the President of India. "And my dictionary has thousands of words!". DUH!
Everybody spoke of challenges and how they were overcome. Anybody with a brain bigger than a pea will know that there were NO challenges, just incompetence. If New Delhi was hit by an earthquake measuring 7.4 on the Richter scale, and Kalmadi had to dig himself out of a pile of rubble, drinking urine for 12 days, THAT would have been a challenge. Incomplete building structures and falling bridges are not challenges - they are FAILURES!
A bridge the army built in 6 days stands in place of what could have been built 6 years ago and collapsed. This is not a challenge overcome. This is a rescue act pulled off by professionals.
How have we finally made this event a mega showcase of our delusional powers? How we can fool ourselves that this is some sort of success! We are spending 70,000 crores and making 450 crores. So, this cannot be about money.
If this is about pride, what pride do we need to salvage from Tuvalu, Solomon Islands, St. Vincent and The Grenadines, Lesotho, Malawi, Nauru and a whole host of insignificant countries? Sure, we can showcase this to the other "significant" countries, as our grand spectacle, but seriously, who gives a shit about a country that has more people living below the poverty line than Sub Saharan Africa?
This is also touted as the first "Green" Commonwealth Games. Hello? It's getting its electricity entirely from fossil fuel burning National Thermal Power Corporation. (Who in their own words are "one of the world's cleanest fossil fuel power generator", not "generators". Bad English be damned for now) Who the fuck are we fooling here? Why even utter painfully untruthful rubbish like this? I mean, is the greatest opposition to these games coming from the environmental lobby?
Put all rubbish before our people, beat the drums, do the dance and say JAI HIND! And all is well. No fucking questions asked.
On and on our speeches poured out - ".....diverse and beautiful nation with heritage and culture. I am sure you will all experience it." NO! What people will experience is what is available to them. There won't be any diverse and beautiful nation with heritage and culture in the stadium or the village. It will be all security, security, security.
The cultural part - we're fail proof - we have professionals there! It's a good thing there is no quota for Bharatnatyam dancers and Kalari performers. Duds are likely to kill themselves if unleashed in these arenas. All good, nice to see. It doesn't matter how many people understand what is being sung - at the very least we will sing it right. But Oh, Lord! Chaiya Chaiya??? It's a tribute to the common man? Which common man dances on trains with sexy women? If there was one, he would have been danced, not Shah Rukh Khan!
Did I just say we are fail proof with the cultural part? So I am contradicting myself here? Whoever said Bollywood was part of our culture? It is a rowdy beast we have ready for all occasions. For some reason, we showcased a cycle shop. Okay. Then we had politicians campaigning - all part of the Indian landscape one supposes. Fine. But all dancing to Chaiya Chaiya? How the fuck is this a tribute to anything except mediocre unimaginative programming? Mumbai Dabbawalas, with paint dabbas! Fine! The masala chai? Okay. How about showcasing some rapes, molestation in public, burning brides for dowry, illegal mining, and some shitting in the open too!? Oh, we already showed that in the village!
For some reason, right on live television, Two girls fell down doing some acrobatic standing on men's shoulders. Poor things. I hope they got paid for the show they tried to put on.
The biggest of the uncultural, demented, gimmicky clown shows has to be A R Rahman. And who are all those barbaric assholes dancing behind him all the time? Who are those idiots he had behind him with saffron and green gloves and muscular bodies in white chiffon? Bloody beefcakes on the entertainment industry unemployment list? They looked like thugs to me, and do not represent anything but the most mindless things we put together in the name of entertainment. They did not look one bit Indian to me, nor did the stupid song sound Indian. Sure it sounded like Rahman, but was it in any way fit for the show? Whatever happened to Balamurali Krishna and Ilayaraja? They would have put on something magnificent and they would not bow to his royal freaking eyeness as well. Does anybody in the Organizing Commitee even know the real geniuses we have? Heck, Bappida would have belted out something fantastic.
As if the CW song wasn't bad enough, Rahman the copycat had to perform Jai Ho! What the fuck for? The idiot has made this song his go to song. If all else fails, he throws this on your face with that, "I got the Oscar for this. What the fuck do you know?" attitude and regularity. He got paid 5 crores for repeating his old shit?
India, thy middle name used to be mediocrity. Now, thou art, from every part, oozing it.
We're losing it.
BSK.
PS: In hindsight, there was plenty of comedy during the Opening Ceremony. Even beyond all the agony, one had to be swayed by the sheer scale of cacophonic insult unleashed upon us.
Why does our wonderful former president Mr. Abdul Kalam have to have his name twisted to Abdul Kalam Azad by a fumbling idiot called Kalmadi? Why does that same idiot have to talk about a "Prince Diana" attending these games, when she is neither alive nor was ever a prince? Was this idiot even awake while he was filling the microphone with his unprofessional filth?
Why do we have Doordarshan doing something it was never meant to do - covering something live that moves more than its mouth?
This idiot Kalmadi never mentioned athletes amongst the people he extended his "Namaskar" to. For a guy who is reading from a piece of paper, the least he could do was make sure he doesn't swallow words like "Association". He said, "Assoshun" a few times. Clearly he isn't cut out for reading a speech, or mouthing one either. He couldn't do much about falling bridges either.
If an airline pilot with the same level of incompetence performed the equivalent of these tasks in his job, the plane would nosedive, throw its doors open mid-air, choke most of its passengers, catch fire, turn upside down and mow into a hill in a fireball.
Who are these clowns still running that embarrassment of a television channel called Doordarshan? Couldn't they get anybody better than the idiots who were reading out names of countries from the screen, telling us of their populations, and when each country got its independence? Isn't that in itself a reminder of the dark side of the whole "Commonwealth" idea?! I wish they had shown the Brit royals each time we were told about each country's independence from them! I wish we had the humour to be told how many years each country had been looted for by her royal bitching highness BEFORE they got independence. Instead, we were told to notice how "happy!" Prince Charles was, when the Wales contingent showed up. To me, the prick and his entourage looked the same when other contingents showed up too.
How much of a genius would it take to see "swimming" below the flag bearer's name and figure out that that person is a swimmer? Do we really need to have someone telling us that person is an "athlete" when we can read "athletics" below his or her name? Who else is going to show up at a sporting event? A fortune teller?
"Here comes Kenya! All the way from Africa!". Seriously, where else the fuck would the Kenyan contingent come from? Jupiter? Who are these juveniles telling us which country's flag is what colour and informing us, just in case, of this marvel of a projection system that projects the same flag on the aerostat for the same country! Hurrah! We got that right! What kind of fucking nonsense is this? This is not Doordarshan in its year of inception either. The CW Games may be a first, (and hopefully last) for India, but these idiots with the exclusive rights to telecast the CWG have been around for a long, long time. Should they not know their job a little better?
We were also told that the magnificent drummers below were beating the crap out of their contraptions to keep the athletes happy. No shit. I would have thought they were frightening stray lions. Even worse - we never got to hear those drums, because we were filled in with an incessant electronic drumbeat that ran right through the programme. Horrible, unless we got Energizer to sponsor that shit.
Why the fuck do we still refer to Charles as His Royal Highness? He may be to his own people, but not to US! Isn't that the whole POINT of being an independent country? None of the assholes in New Delhi seem to know yet.
And why is Charles talking about peace all over the world? Didn't the Brits send their military monkeys including one of Charlie's sons, to participate in the greatest bomb shag of all time in modern history in Iraq? Peace be damned if it is a Muslim country? Bloody hypocrite son of a bitch.
Who writes these goddamn speeches? "Over the next few days - thousands of athletes will take part in competition" - this came from Pratibha Patil, no less than the President of India. "And my dictionary has thousands of words!". DUH!
Everybody spoke of challenges and how they were overcome. Anybody with a brain bigger than a pea will know that there were NO challenges, just incompetence. If New Delhi was hit by an earthquake measuring 7.4 on the Richter scale, and Kalmadi had to dig himself out of a pile of rubble, drinking urine for 12 days, THAT would have been a challenge. Incomplete building structures and falling bridges are not challenges - they are FAILURES!
A bridge the army built in 6 days stands in place of what could have been built 6 years ago and collapsed. This is not a challenge overcome. This is a rescue act pulled off by professionals.
How have we finally made this event a mega showcase of our delusional powers? How we can fool ourselves that this is some sort of success! We are spending 70,000 crores and making 450 crores. So, this cannot be about money.
If this is about pride, what pride do we need to salvage from Tuvalu, Solomon Islands, St. Vincent and The Grenadines, Lesotho, Malawi, Nauru and a whole host of insignificant countries? Sure, we can showcase this to the other "significant" countries, as our grand spectacle, but seriously, who gives a shit about a country that has more people living below the poverty line than Sub Saharan Africa?
This is also touted as the first "Green" Commonwealth Games. Hello? It's getting its electricity entirely from fossil fuel burning National Thermal Power Corporation. (Who in their own words are "one of the world's cleanest fossil fuel power generator", not "generators". Bad English be damned for now) Who the fuck are we fooling here? Why even utter painfully untruthful rubbish like this? I mean, is the greatest opposition to these games coming from the environmental lobby?
Put all rubbish before our people, beat the drums, do the dance and say JAI HIND! And all is well. No fucking questions asked.
On and on our speeches poured out - ".....diverse and beautiful nation with heritage and culture. I am sure you will all experience it." NO! What people will experience is what is available to them. There won't be any diverse and beautiful nation with heritage and culture in the stadium or the village. It will be all security, security, security.
The cultural part - we're fail proof - we have professionals there! It's a good thing there is no quota for Bharatnatyam dancers and Kalari performers. Duds are likely to kill themselves if unleashed in these arenas. All good, nice to see. It doesn't matter how many people understand what is being sung - at the very least we will sing it right. But Oh, Lord! Chaiya Chaiya??? It's a tribute to the common man? Which common man dances on trains with sexy women? If there was one, he would have been danced, not Shah Rukh Khan!
Did I just say we are fail proof with the cultural part? So I am contradicting myself here? Whoever said Bollywood was part of our culture? It is a rowdy beast we have ready for all occasions. For some reason, we showcased a cycle shop. Okay. Then we had politicians campaigning - all part of the Indian landscape one supposes. Fine. But all dancing to Chaiya Chaiya? How the fuck is this a tribute to anything except mediocre unimaginative programming? Mumbai Dabbawalas, with paint dabbas! Fine! The masala chai? Okay. How about showcasing some rapes, molestation in public, burning brides for dowry, illegal mining, and some shitting in the open too!? Oh, we already showed that in the village!
For some reason, right on live television, Two girls fell down doing some acrobatic standing on men's shoulders. Poor things. I hope they got paid for the show they tried to put on.
The biggest of the uncultural, demented, gimmicky clown shows has to be A R Rahman. And who are all those barbaric assholes dancing behind him all the time? Who are those idiots he had behind him with saffron and green gloves and muscular bodies in white chiffon? Bloody beefcakes on the entertainment industry unemployment list? They looked like thugs to me, and do not represent anything but the most mindless things we put together in the name of entertainment. They did not look one bit Indian to me, nor did the stupid song sound Indian. Sure it sounded like Rahman, but was it in any way fit for the show? Whatever happened to Balamurali Krishna and Ilayaraja? They would have put on something magnificent and they would not bow to his royal freaking eyeness as well. Does anybody in the Organizing Commitee even know the real geniuses we have? Heck, Bappida would have belted out something fantastic.
As if the CW song wasn't bad enough, Rahman the copycat had to perform Jai Ho! What the fuck for? The idiot has made this song his go to song. If all else fails, he throws this on your face with that, "I got the Oscar for this. What the fuck do you know?" attitude and regularity. He got paid 5 crores for repeating his old shit?
India, thy middle name used to be mediocrity. Now, thou art, from every part, oozing it.
We're losing it.
BSK.
PS: In hindsight, there was plenty of comedy during the Opening Ceremony. Even beyond all the agony, one had to be swayed by the sheer scale of cacophonic insult unleashed upon us.
13 August 2010
The usual, rampant, shameless, immature, shrill, robotic bullshit.
SPOILER ALERT:
If you read this (p)review, you are likely to avoid watching "Endhiran".
http://www.thehindu.com/arts/cinema/article566585.ece
For some reason, it is absolutely necessary to bullshit people about an upcoming movie, making it out to be a great freaking, original, stupendous, magnificent, groundbreaking marvel, instead of just telling people the gist of the plot and letting them be blown away by the experience of watching it.
Indian film makers have not yet learnt how to truly make stupendous cinema, no matter how much they have copied from Hollywood, but they sure know how to up the ante on the promotional bullshit that they puke all over us.
Endhiran is no exception, and this nonsense, coming from The Hindu, no less, needs to be torn apart part by part, and shredded for what it is - endless bullshit.
Here is my take on some of this crap.
1. Shankar, the director, is being lauded for being punctual, and he in turn praises Rajinikanth for being punctual! Hello? Aren't all professionals supposed to do this? Even the guy who irons my clothes is very punctual. Does being on time lead to a good film? Of course not. But it is worth putting on this "sincerety" shit for some reason. "Oh, we are all very punctual people, so please see this movie"? A lot of fools who make crappy movies are also punctual. So? Seriously, I don't mind if the director comes drunk if he can make an Avatar, to be honest. In fact, if I know he can make Avatar ONLY if he gets drunk, I'd get him any liquor he wants, and he can come at any time he wants.
2. Endhiran is the country's first sci-fi attempt! ?? This author Malathi Rangarajan, has to be either really lazy, or stupid to imagine we wouldn't check the facts. As recently as 2008, Harry Baweja made a film called "Love Story 2050". In any case, what is so great about being the first to do something in a country, in the world of art? Haven't we already trumpeted how "global" we are!? So, how come we want to go very "local" in this sneaky way while "global" has produced thousands of sci-fi matter? By the way, aren't there plenty of sci-fi elements in the Ramayana and the Mahabharata? Remember arrows welding each other on TV? That was a long time ago, too! Some more bullshit.
3. Oh, please. Sivaji was not a stupendous success. As a ratio of what it cost to make and release the film, the producer would be lucky to have made a marginal profit. The scale of the project was so enormous, it should have collected ten times more. If the producer hasn't made a single film since their last "stupendous" success for a couple of years, what are the chances of this happening because they are still counting the money? More bullshit.
4. Shankar has handled diverse themes? Look a little closer and for some reason, "Gentleman", "Indian", and "Anniyan" all seem to have the same theme - The Individual against the Collective. And what exactly does "completely" original mean? Here's a holler and a hoot. Shankar says "I can't repeat myself. I need challenges" !!!! Here's a challenge for you, Sir - please tell us a good story, and spare us the bullshit. That would definitely mean you are not repeating yourself!
5. "Aishwarya Rai is dedicated and hardworking as a hero". Should we automatically expect her to be a lazy bimbo? "It is superfluous to talk about her screen presence"?? So, would it be profound to talk about her rather limited acting skills? Why can't we have enough integrity to at the very least, leave out this kindergarten level of marketing lousy product? Aishwarya Rai is eye candy. Nobody would have known her as an actress if she hadn't won beauty competitions. Let's leave it at that, shall we? We should already be sick of Shah Rukh Khan selling fairness cream like a gay prostitute. "Ladkiyon wali cream, kabhi nahin!" Ugh.
6. "We have robotic labs and futuristic sets". If a film is called "Robot" in any language, we don't exactly expect palaces and lush verdant valleys, do we? “Endhiran will be a stunning visual experience … I hope,” says the director. What is it with people using adjectives on their own work? Didn't he see what he made? Was it stunning? Considering "stunning" is now a higher bar, set by Avatar? Truth is, this rascal knows it is not that good, but he still could not help bullshitting about it, and then cutting himself short with embarrassment. And the author was stupid enough to publish it like that!
7. And now, the shit that is really missing from this article - What is the story about? Endhiran is about a robot that gradually becomes a human being, I heard. For some reason, that was Terminator, and Terminator two! Or was it too? God, I can think of "Blade Runner" which had a similar concept. In fact, I can think of Robocop as well. If I put some effort, I can think of so many films on this theme. Wonder if Shankar's script leaked out to Hollywood! Thank God their Robots didn't dance to Rahman's music. Now, that must be Shankar's instinctive, "completely original" genius.
And today is Friday the 13th. I swear to God, I ......
BSK.
If you read this (p)review, you are likely to avoid watching "Endhiran".
http://www.thehindu.com/arts/cinema/article566585.ece
For some reason, it is absolutely necessary to bullshit people about an upcoming movie, making it out to be a great freaking, original, stupendous, magnificent, groundbreaking marvel, instead of just telling people the gist of the plot and letting them be blown away by the experience of watching it.
Indian film makers have not yet learnt how to truly make stupendous cinema, no matter how much they have copied from Hollywood, but they sure know how to up the ante on the promotional bullshit that they puke all over us.
Endhiran is no exception, and this nonsense, coming from The Hindu, no less, needs to be torn apart part by part, and shredded for what it is - endless bullshit.
Here is my take on some of this crap.
1. Shankar, the director, is being lauded for being punctual, and he in turn praises Rajinikanth for being punctual! Hello? Aren't all professionals supposed to do this? Even the guy who irons my clothes is very punctual. Does being on time lead to a good film? Of course not. But it is worth putting on this "sincerety" shit for some reason. "Oh, we are all very punctual people, so please see this movie"? A lot of fools who make crappy movies are also punctual. So? Seriously, I don't mind if the director comes drunk if he can make an Avatar, to be honest. In fact, if I know he can make Avatar ONLY if he gets drunk, I'd get him any liquor he wants, and he can come at any time he wants.
2. Endhiran is the country's first sci-fi attempt! ?? This author Malathi Rangarajan, has to be either really lazy, or stupid to imagine we wouldn't check the facts. As recently as 2008, Harry Baweja made a film called "Love Story 2050". In any case, what is so great about being the first to do something in a country, in the world of art? Haven't we already trumpeted how "global" we are!? So, how come we want to go very "local" in this sneaky way while "global" has produced thousands of sci-fi matter? By the way, aren't there plenty of sci-fi elements in the Ramayana and the Mahabharata? Remember arrows welding each other on TV? That was a long time ago, too! Some more bullshit.
3. Oh, please. Sivaji was not a stupendous success. As a ratio of what it cost to make and release the film, the producer would be lucky to have made a marginal profit. The scale of the project was so enormous, it should have collected ten times more. If the producer hasn't made a single film since their last "stupendous" success for a couple of years, what are the chances of this happening because they are still counting the money? More bullshit.
4. Shankar has handled diverse themes? Look a little closer and for some reason, "Gentleman", "Indian", and "Anniyan" all seem to have the same theme - The Individual against the Collective. And what exactly does "completely" original mean? Here's a holler and a hoot. Shankar says "I can't repeat myself. I need challenges" !!!! Here's a challenge for you, Sir - please tell us a good story, and spare us the bullshit. That would definitely mean you are not repeating yourself!
5. "Aishwarya Rai is dedicated and hardworking as a hero". Should we automatically expect her to be a lazy bimbo? "It is superfluous to talk about her screen presence"?? So, would it be profound to talk about her rather limited acting skills? Why can't we have enough integrity to at the very least, leave out this kindergarten level of marketing lousy product? Aishwarya Rai is eye candy. Nobody would have known her as an actress if she hadn't won beauty competitions. Let's leave it at that, shall we? We should already be sick of Shah Rukh Khan selling fairness cream like a gay prostitute. "Ladkiyon wali cream, kabhi nahin!" Ugh.
6. "We have robotic labs and futuristic sets". If a film is called "Robot" in any language, we don't exactly expect palaces and lush verdant valleys, do we? “Endhiran will be a stunning visual experience … I hope,” says the director. What is it with people using adjectives on their own work? Didn't he see what he made? Was it stunning? Considering "stunning" is now a higher bar, set by Avatar? Truth is, this rascal knows it is not that good, but he still could not help bullshitting about it, and then cutting himself short with embarrassment. And the author was stupid enough to publish it like that!
7. And now, the shit that is really missing from this article - What is the story about? Endhiran is about a robot that gradually becomes a human being, I heard. For some reason, that was Terminator, and Terminator two! Or was it too? God, I can think of "Blade Runner" which had a similar concept. In fact, I can think of Robocop as well. If I put some effort, I can think of so many films on this theme. Wonder if Shankar's script leaked out to Hollywood! Thank God their Robots didn't dance to Rahman's music. Now, that must be Shankar's instinctive, "completely original" genius.
And today is Friday the 13th. I swear to God, I ......
BSK.
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