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Stunning pictures that won prizes

The Media Foundation of India’s (MFI) second National Press Photo Contest had some real stunners from over 6,500 entries received.
by The Diarist | thediarist@themetrognome.in

We attended the awards ceremony for the Media Foundation of India (MFI) and Yes Bank’s National Press Photo Contest at the Nehru Centre, Worli, yesterday. And the event was awesome! There were some truly stunning photographs in five categories – General News, Spot News, Daily Life, Art and Culture, Sports and Photo Story – and the press fraternity cheered madly as each award recipient made his way to the stage.

Chief Minister of Maharashtra officiated as the chief guest at the event.

In random order, a few of the award-winning entries and honourable mentions:

 

To know more about these photographs, and to see all the winners, click here

 

 

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5 lame TV shows

These lame shows are LAME! We watch them only because it feels so good when we switch off our TVs.
by The Diarist | thediarist@themetrognome.in

Good heavens, the idiot box will surely make idiots out of all of us. I’m not saying watching TV is bad, I’m saying watching bad television programmes will give our brains serious injuries. And trust me, there are a LOT of bad television programmes on air right now. So bad, our eyes are bubbling over and our heads are throbbing with the question: Why? Why do I do this to ourselves?

And because I believe that misery, like the food you don’t like, must be shared, I present to you five lame TV shows I’ve tortured myself with in recent times.

Two Broke Girls (Star World)

The creators of this show claim that it is ‘the evil twin of chick lit’. Sure it is. It is also the evil twin of everything that is smart and funny. An interesting premise – two girls working at a diner to raise money for their own cupcake shop – is let down by severely bad acting and terrible writing. In fact, the writing itself could have been salvaged if the two lead actors were any good – but they are not good. At all. The girl who plays Max, especially, is terrible – her face is heavily Botoxed, her mouth is a constant pucker that you want to attack with a blunt instrument, and her imagined poker face when she is being sarcastic, is only reflective of the fact that she cannot do a convincing poker face. Avoid this one at all costs.

Zindagi Ki Haqeeqat Se Aamna Saamna (Colors)

I missed about 10 minutes of the start of a random episode of this show, because I was trying to memorise its name. Once I got the hang of the show, however, I was mesmerised. The channel has done well to periodically announce that the episode is a dramatic representation of real-life events. What Colors failed to say, however, was that the dramatisation was so extreme, you would begin to think about your life for a bit.

The show has two mediators, a panel of bad actors pretending to be the jury, a bickering family/couple, and an on-location ‘investigator’ called Vikram, whose job is to unearth the truth behind the participants’ claims. So, on the episode I watched, Vikram was entrusted with finding the bank details of a man who had encashed a cheque that belonged to his wife – she being unaware of the amount on the cheque (!) or that he had signed various contracts on her behalf (!!). So Vikram got actual bank records – surrendered by the bank without a single question – and got people to confess on camera that the man was a shady ‘un. What’s more, Vikram telephoned people from the studio and introduced himself as “Vikram bol raha hoon, Zindagi Ki Haqeeqat Se Aamna Saamna se,” and the people on the other end of the line fell over themselves to talk to him. He couldn’t have got a better response if he’d said he was Shahrukh Khan looking to cast newbies for his next film.

If you’ve had a bad day at work, this show, with its richly comical production values and casting, is the show for you.

The Vampire Diaries (Zee Cafe)

Let’s face it – vampires are stupid. And given that they are stupid, they should either remain firmly ensconced in their coffins, or when they do come out, they should keep their fangs to themselves. But no. This lot is unable to keep its trap shut. Plus, in the three episodes I watched, there was constant back-biting (and neck-biting) and everything was a bit of a muddle. There was one scene when one of the leads lies down in the middle of the road, thereby prompting a friendly motorist to stop and ask if he is hurt. After some puzzling dialogue, during which he admits that he must kill her but finally tells her that she is free to go, he leaps out at her from the air and bites her anyway. These vampires, I tell you.

Also, I don’t know if the creators wish to convey constant menace, but could they turn the lights up, please? The show is literally so dark, I have to turn up the brightness on my TV set. And when I do that, all these vampires look like crap. I’d much rather watch the really entertaining Supernatural, instead.

Sur Kshetra (Colors)

Answer me this: Who selected the two men on this show? What were they thinking when they put these two on the judges’ seat? When was the last time Atif Aslam did not sound like a goat? Or Himesh Reshammiya, like a soul in torment? And why is the singing on this show so mediocre? Also, who let Ayesha Takia out of her house?

After you’ve answered the above, can you also explain if you’ve been able to figure this show out? All everyone keeps doing is fighting with each other and going jingoistic on each other’s ass. The two men argue all the time, then they have individual slanging matches with the three women judges. From what I’ve seen so far, the show follows a loop – bicker, sing, bicker about the singing, sing, bicker…

Keeping Up With The Kardashians (Zee Cafe)

I have no words for this one? Like, it’s really terrible? And I really wish this entire family would be locked away someplace? Where they couldn’t do any more shows? Why am I talking like this? Because that’s how Kourtney and Kim talk?

 

(Pictures courtesy aapkacolors.com, picgifs.com, 2brokegirls.maxupdates.tv and shandsworld.blogspot.com)

 

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Aww, su**s!

We weren’t really big fans of this show to begin with, and Ashton Kutcher has only made things much worse.
by The Diarist | thediarist@themetrognome.in

Some people, like Katrina Kaif, should only be burdened with looking pretty. They should not be saddled with more taxing jobs, like acting, or having a screen presence. Take Ashton Kutcher, for example. The guy may be a genuinely nice human being. He may be kind to animals. He may be a hit with the women. He may even have a hot girlfriend like Mila Kunis, after a really hot wife like Demi Moore, who he cheated on.

But put Ashton Kutcher in front of a camera, and he sucks. He sucks right out of the room and into the next one. Expect him to act, and what’s more, fill  in the shoes of Charlie Sheen, and Ashton Kutcher makes a complete fool of himself.

We’re patiently plodded through Season 9 of Two And A Half Men (Star World at 11.30 pm), which necessitated the bumping off of don’t-know-how-to-zip-it Charlie Sheen, who had a panga with the show’s creator Chuck Lorre. So they killed off Charlie on the show and got Goofball Kutcher, who plays a billionaire suffering from ennui and constant rejection from his ex-wife, who he still loves. He moves into Charlie Harper’s home, lets Alan and Jake (and Berta) stay on, and we’re expected to just move on with the new addition to the cast.

Except, we can’t move on. Ashton Kutcher comes across as clunky, awkward, and a grown-up version of the character he played on That 70s Show (and he was good in it, too, no doubts about that). But there’s little else to talk about. He looks like a million bucks, gives off that bewildered vibe really well. But try as we might, we just can’t help but miss Charlie Sheen and how sharp he was on the show. We’ve sat through some really mediocre writing in some episodes of the earlier seasons, and that was possible because Mr Sheen was around. It is safe to say that this show actually worked because Charlie was there – now even Jon Cryer and Angus T Jones look better than Mr Kutcher. Even the writing seems to be circling the drain – most of the punches come from Berta, and the situations are just too contrived to be actually funny.

We’re switching channels on this one.

(Picture courtesy www.hotdvdcollection.com)

The Diarist is a TV show junkie. If you’ve come across a new show or have something to say about an existing one, write to thediarist@themetrognome.in.

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Gana wala song

The hilarious spoof of ‘Ishqwala Love’ from SOTY has got over 3,300 likes already. Check it out.
by The Diarist | thediarist@themetrognome.in

We are frankly amazed by how many filmgoers actually dislike Karan Johar and his films. This is evidenced yet again by this spoof of Ishqwala Love, the sweet and slow number from the filmmaker’s latest offering, Student Of The Year, in which the creators of the video, The Viral Fever Videos, have gone to the extent of singing the track again, fitting in their own lyrics as per the situations in the song. The video is very popular on Youtube and has been liked over 3,000 times in just four days of going online.

The spoof is titled Gana wala song: the Q-tiyatic version, and has some hilarious rewritten lyrics. Check out the video here 

Sample some of the new lyrics:

Gana wala song

Shahrukh wala, foreign wala, budget wala song,

In phoolon se bhi halke, lyrics wala song,

Gana wala song…

A rather dismal-sounding male voice croons the song, and we suspect, the same voice has sung the female lines as well. The overall effect is extremely entertaining, to say the least.

Two thumbs up for creativity and coming out with a remixed version that looks and sounds really funny in the new context.

 (Picture courtesy: www.santabanta.com)

 

 

 

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Not happening, mate

Our expectations of Masterchef Australia All Stars were sky-high. But the show is quite unexciting and curiously lacking in flavour.
by The Diarist | thediarist@themetrognome.in

At the outset, let me declare my undying love for Masterchef Australia. I don’t even cook, and I don’t prefer any and every cuisine, but there’s something about watching cactus being cooked and cauliflower being pureed with squid ink on this show that really gets me hooked.

Naturally, I was looking forward to Masterchef Australia All Stars, where selected contestants from the first three seasons of the show would participate in an effort to raise money for their favourite charities. Coming right after the awesome Season Four ended in India last week (on Star World), I confess I expected to be taken on a wild ride from Episode 1 of All Stars. After all, these were people who had done it all before – and two of them were winners – so I really felt that the show would be well worth the interest Masterchef Australia generates in the country.

But, no. Thus far, I have been disappointed, and also very bored with the episodes I’ve seen. There’s some vital ingredient missing from this show, a curious occurrence since its four previous seasons have been total paisa vasool even for non-cooks. Much like the judges’ critique for a dish not up to standard, this season has no zing, no flavour, no inventiveness.

I think the show suffers because none of the participants are ‘characters’, like Alice or Audra from Season 4. Or its flatness could be because it started with team cooking, which I find is not always as exciting as individual pressure tasks. Or it could just be that we’ve seen too much Masterchef Australia this year – there was also Junior Masterchef before Season 4 – and we need a long break from the show.

What do you think of ‘Masterchef Australia All Stars’? Send your opinion to thediarist@themetrognome.in.

 

 

 

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What’s the parrot got to do with it?

Irrelevant additions to Bigg Boss this year include a parrot and a goldfish. Want something more? There’s also a Panic Room.
By M | M@themetrognome.in

I would talk about the first episode of Bigg Boss Season 6, but this column is not a paid press plug. My point is simple – I want to talk about how absurd this show really is.

But first, rewind to Season 5, particularly, to one of the hosts.

In the last season, the Withering Action Heroes broke the stage down the middle when they shook a leg. They not only laughed at each other’s jokes, but also gave us a crash course on detecting the early signs of a Botox job gone wrong, with their perpetual frown lines and sunken eyes. And who can forget the disturbingly scarlet music video with a bunch of goris dancing in the background, and our bhai and baba working their fingers in time to the music? That was actually a choreographed dance move, devised especially for our heroes, where they have to interlock their fingers, wiggle, separate and repeat! Oh, the challenges of choreography.

Clearly based on the audience response last year, the channel wanted a host that could at least walk without making it look like a task from Roadies. So they replaced baba with a Macaw parrot. Now, Macau parrots are magnificent, beautiful creatures that walk and fly, so naturally, the bird would fly right into the Bigg Boss house when the show began. The parrot is called Radhey, and has been hired to draw the most giggles from the audience by mimicking human speech. Radhey does more than this mere act of mimicry. Radhey can talk. Radhey can hold an actual conversation with Salmanbhai (not that that takes much doing). Radhey can sing, and on the sponsors’ demand, Radhey can dance.

Actually, it’s a great move to replace Sanjay Dutt with Radhey. Not only is Radhey, in his own words, (I never imagined I would ever quote a parrot) “smart, talented aur bahut intelligent,” the chances of a parrot turning up on the sets with a hangover are fairly squat.

After replacing one host with a parrot, the channel got further carried away and brought in a goldfish to be the other host. Now, was this a strategy to replace Salmanbhai with a less complex life form? (I am yet to classify Vivek Oberoi under human species). This would be the perfect show, with a flying, singing and talking parrot and a lovely goldfish. A show to break all barriers of family entertainment and change the face of Indian television forever. Just then, in the channel office, a tunnel of light shone on the creative team and reminded them of the harsh  truth – no such substitutions could happen for the bhai of the show – there was a contract to be honoured, or else the channel could be dragged to court. Or at the very least, be run over by a car or two.

So the goldfish is now a house guest on the show. Meanwhile, Radhey will supposedly spy on the housemates.

Also, Fishy Kapoor is Bigg Boss’ alter-ego. The fish will whisper to housemates in a ‘fish voice’. Not all the housemates will know that the fish can talk, and having the fish give the rest of the housemates tasks to do will be great ‘fun’ to watch.

The marketing gurus for the show strongly believe that the house pets – tried and tested with Chiquita, a dog that featured in Big Brother UK a couple of years ago – will become a surrogate child to many, on and outside of the show, thus making this season family-oriented.

Spoiler alert! The housemates do not know that soon, each one of them is to be replaced with an animal like a dog, a fox and a raccoon.

Joke alert! I’m kidding.

As if the animals weren’t enough, this season of Bigg Boss also features a Panic Room – not to be confused with safe havens in the house, concealed from the enemy.  The Panic Room on this show is supposed to create panic for the housemates. Don’t even ask how this idea was thought of. Each time the panic alarm goes off, one of the contestants is nominated to enter the Panic Room, stay in it for the longest time and complete a panic-inducing task, lifted straight out of Fear Factor. They could eat disgusting food or scream as long as possible or watch Ek Tha Tiger on loop, who knows? And if the situation gets too much for them, they can buzz themselves out.

Moral of Bigg Boss 6: Pets on the show make it a wholesome family entertainer. Never mind that the host flashed a T-shirt on the very first episode of the season that read ‘Tere Maaki Youth’.

Sharp as a tack, sitting on more hot scoops than she knows what to do with, M is a media professional with an eye on entertainment. 

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