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Film

Censor ki (bleep) ki (bleep)

How do B-grade films with offensive dialogues and scenes evade the Censor Board’s scanner, if English films are often snipped?
by M | M@themetrognome.in

Bhoop, Goa City and “I didn’t do anything”. Put these random words together and what do you get? A film called Cigarette Ki Tarah starring a guy named Bhoop (I am serious), filmed in ‘Goa City’ (not State, mind it) who offends the Queen with every spoken work in English. Watch the promo of this film only if you’re up for a dare. This torture…err, film  will be released tomorrow.

What baffles me the most is how the Censor Board let a film out that has ‘Cigarette’ in the title, when on the other hand, visuals of a lit cigarette are blurred on television and in our films? It would have been rather funny to see what the makers of this film would have done if the Censor Board had decided to snip the word ‘Cigarette’ from the title.

That’s not all, in one of the scenes in the trailer, the lead actress gives the middle finger to, I’m assuming, Bhoop. With a name like that, and a face to match, he deserves it.

Another character played by Sudesh Berry, (best known for his role in Border. Remember him? No? Never mind), calls Bhoop a ‘Bloody assh**e’. The swear words are not bleeped out. The icing on the cake is the song with lyrics that go, Khadi hogi khaat, zindagi ki lag gayi waat.

Our Censor Board is very stern with English shows on television, but seems to be okay with dialogues and songs as good as crap on the big screen if it’s a Hindi film. Also, English films on the big screen are forced to delete scenes depicting the slightest nudity, despite being certified ‘A’. Apparently the scenes or dialogues in those films are objectionable and unfit even for a grown-up adult.

I was furious when The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo was not released in our country because a few of the Censor guys wanted three scenes removed. Those scenes, the filmmakers said, were very crucial to the plot, so they later shunned the cuts altogether and we had to see the film on DVD.

Words like ‘period’, ‘condom’, ‘breast’ et al are beeped out from sitcoms, so much so that sometimes you fail to understand the joke or catch the punch like because of the abrupt acoustics effect that replaces the offending word. English films on television suffer the most. Try watching The Departed on HBO next time it’s on. You will end up cussing more than Mr Wahlberg.

So, to return to my point, how do crappy B-grade Hindi movies, like Cigarette Ki Tarah and Hate Story end up on the big screen will minimal cuts and with all their crappiness intact? It’s actually quite simple. Allow me two examples to illustrate my point.

These are true stories.

Earlier this year, a song from a hit film was about the fun and frolic alcohol can induce at parties. It was expected to be in trouble, because it had words like ‘rum’ and ‘whiskey’ in it. The task to release the song for public viewing was tough, because the party pooping Censor Board would definitely rain on the parade. So the producers sent tapes of the song and a middleman to the Censor Board office, to “work things out”. Two days later, the song was all over TV and radio. Poochho kaise?

Another film was in a similar soup, where it’s famed item song had a desi alcohol name in it; the song was positioned as the highlight of the otherwise grim movie. At first, the Censor Board acted tough, but things miraculously resolved themselves and poor Chameli was allowed to drink and dance to her heart’s content.

It’s such a weird connection between Bollywood and the Censor Board. Your mind boggles at some recent Censor Board decisions, because you’ve tried applying their logic and objections universally, and come up with several inconsistencies. That said, who’s up for some cigarettes tomorrow?

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

(Picture courtesy koimoi.com)

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Film

Pole wallting

The diary of an event manager whose film promotion show was totally ruined by an Indian action hero’s outrageous demands.
by M| M@themetrognome.in

There is a certain man in Bollywood who loves a good stunt, both on and off screen. And here’s  a page from an event manager’s dairy, a person who was given the onerous task of bringing, let’s call him Desi Lee, to a film promotion gig.

‘Dear Dairy,

Today, I searched for a local arms and ammunition shop on Google Maps. I never thought I’d need a gun so badly in my life. I can shoot the lead actor of the project I am currently working on. No doubt he is the only decent action hero in the industry, but he desperately needs a reality check, and today he crossed every line in the book.

It all started a week ago, when the stupendously irritating marketing head of the film decided to throw a last-minute event to launch the film’s theatrical trailer. Why not upload the trailer on YouTube and move on, you ask? Darling, this is Bollywood. Mr K Jo threw an event for the trailer release of his last film, so now everyone else will do the same.

Coming back to my horrible life. I had only a week to pull this big deal of an event. Scouting the venue, drawing the guest list, arranging for the food and booze were the easiest parts. The lurid portion of the party was deciding the ‘entry’ for Desi Lee.

Lee likes to believe that he is a reincarnated avatar of Bruce Lee. Performing his own stunts in his films is commendable, whereas insisting on doing a stunt at a live event is plain foolish. Sometimes I wonder if he does normal, everyday activities like the rest of us. Like, does he sit on the pot like all of us do, or does he somersault and land on it? His antics began when he said that he would not walk to the podium, his ‘entry’ had to be mind-boggling and should leave the audience shocked. Thus began the journey of an endless pursuit for the right action act.

At first, he wanted to land at the venue in a hot air balloon, and I wanted to be King of the world. The multiple licenses and the limited time frame to import a hot air balloon made the task impossible. So that idea was mercifully scrapped.

Then Lee thought that since going up was not an option, coming down would be more exciting. So the alternate idea was for him to come down a fireman’s pole while performing Indian acrobatic acts. This would have been a great idea in an open maidan. But Leebhai grand event was to be held in the ballroom of a five star hotel.

Of course, the hotel refused to allow a hole to be dug in their floor, and worse, to have a pole fixed in the middle of their lavish 5,000 square feet banquet hall.

Lee was furious by now. With only three days to go for the event, he had no dhaasu entry. He was not ready to lose face. Everyone was summoned for an emergency meeting. After wasting hours on discussing options like skateboarding, parkour, stunt bikes and even riding a horse in a closed hall, Lee finally agreed on making his entry on a Segway, but with a twist (there has to be a twist, this is Desi Lee who lands on his pot after a somersault). Just riding a Segway also requires some practice, but this was not challenging enough for our action hero. So he decided to break a wall through the Segway and come rolling onto the stage. At this point I was looking for a wall…to bang my head against!

The production team starting working on building the wall out of cardboard. If I had my way, I would bring in the masons that worked for Mughal-e-Azam because they would know how to build a wall to bury Lee alive. Then Lee saw the blueprints of the construction and didn’t seem very excited. Next, came the tantrums.

With just two days to go, the preparations were in full swing when he dropped the first bomb – he wanted a change in the event’s timing. Next, he wanted an executive suite at the hotel to rest before he commenced the event. The final demand was to change the venue to a location convenient to him and closer to his house. Change the venue now? How was that going happen? All the other halls were booked and only one available in the desired location was way too expensive. The additional cost for procuring a new venue made the management fall off their chairs.

They gave an ultimatum to the marketing team – retain the venue or cancel the event. There was no way on Earth they were going to incur additional cost to build and later break a wall.

Mr Lee didn’t budge an inch and so the event was called off.

My hard work, all week, round the clock, was flushed away by a star and his demands.

I am still looking for that gun shop.’

Sharp as a tack and 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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Film

The actor and the Godfather

Our system is lenient towards film stars, not others. What else explains how a star got off easy despite DUI?
by M | M@themetrognome.in

Guess who decided to visit a Bollywood superstar on a recent morning? The law. This superstar was summoned by the court in a hit-and-run case dating back to 2002, in which one man was killed and four other injured when the star’s car ran over the employees of a Bandra-based bakery. The star was arrested, but in the mind of the layman, despite the severity of his crime, the star was not compelled to serve jail time or appear in the court unless absolutely necessary. The star goes to court on December 27 next.

The star was arrested in 2002 and denied bail four times until his release later that year. His family went door-to-door in this period of catastrophe, because (as per their bail petition) the ‘sole bread earner’ of the family was behind bars. They even conducted a religious ceremony at their residence where young kids living in and around Bandra were invited to participate in a mass prayer service for their son/brother’s release. Such prayer ceremonies are seldom conducted for those running over people asleep on footpaths at midnight and killing them – Alistair Pereira’s family didn’t have one, for instance. Finally, the actor was released on bail.

But what had changed in his fifth bail plea? Why was he released this time and not before?

Enter the Godfather.

The Godfather is a very powerful leader of Maharashtra State politics. 10 years ago, he was next-in-command in the ruling party, with a very firm grip over the administrative affairs of the state. In the case of our star, at first, the Godfather was hell-bent on punishing the guilty for the crime; but this changed rather quickly after the star’s family started visiting him at his office and residence.

The family is said to have played every trick in the book to emotionally hook the Godfather, including the one that probably tipped the scales: the star’s mother belongs to a Maratha Hindu family that has always supported the Godfather and his politics. The actor even agreed to pay a heavy compensation to the victims’ families and personally apologised to the deceased’s mother. However, latest news reports reveal that only four families received the compensation amount, whereas the family of the man who died in the accident was denied compensation because they could not provide proof of identity.

With a little arm-twisting, our star was out sooner than he should have been. Ever since, he has travelled across the world without any restrictions, hosted TV shows and acted in several Hindi blockbusters. The police force has been accused of showing leniency towards him, falsifying evidence and delaying the investigation. In return, the star has showed his gratitude by attending police functions with regularity.

Prayers or politics? Maybe both worked in his favour, while others arrested for DUI have not been so fortunate. Nooriya Haveliwala was recently sentenced to five years in prison for killing two people with her SUV. We all know what happened with Alistair Perreira. We will probably have to wait for the courts to decide on what we like to believe is the ‘parity of justice’. Till then, we will see a man responsible for killing another human being under the influence of alcohol, week on week on national television, hosting a show and becoming a bigger star than he already is.

Sharp as a tack and 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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Film

Brand new stories

It seems like Bollywood just can’t do without brand integration in its films. The newest example is Aamir Khan’s ‘Talaash’.
by M | M@themetrognome.in

Brands and products have been used in films for a very long time now, under the guise of innovation. Terms like brand integration and product placements have recently been coined and abused ever since. While brands have been seamlessly woven into certain films’ narratives, even in films from the Dev Anand and Rajesh Khanna era, the truth is that the lone objective of these deals these days is to mint money. At times, the entire production budget can be recovered with multiple brand promotions in a single film.

Many films have tried and tested this formula but few have succeeded in carrying this out subtly, without in-your-face promotions. Don 2 deserves an honorary mention in affiliating with Tag Heuer watches and Microsoft flawlessly. The brands carry the same value associated with the characters in the film – haute and tech savvy – thus making it a good fit. Even the on-screen time dedicated to the products was not overly long.

But at other times, you wonder: why are teens endorsing bourbon biscuits for Student of the Year, when clearly they have been starving to look as skinny as poles for the film? Where is the connect? There’s an increasing tendency to force brands into films’ promotions, despite many brands not fitting in with the overall storyline at all.

Windows 8 tied up with Aamir Khan starrer Talaash (releases November 30, 2012) and the commercial has being doing the rounds of the Internet and TV. As long as the ad features an intense Aamir Khan, I don’t have a problem with it – I just don’t want Aamir, in the film, to tell the audience how Windows 8 helped him solve the mystery.

Talaash’s brand integration reminds me of an interesting anecdote – a story of a director-producer who thought of reinventing this concept.

This is a true story.

In his film, a song featuring various communication devices like phone, PC, et al in the new age presented a great opportunity for making some quick moolah. For one of the scenes in the songs, the over-confident director used a mobile handset manufactured by a leading company without striking a deal with them first – he thought he could ask for endorsement money once the film was complete and the marketing kicked in.

The brand was approached for money a couple of months before the film’s release. To his astonishment, however, the brand rejected the business proposition. The reason? The phone used in the film was out of production and they didn’t want to promote it. The deal never happened.

For another film, a handset manufacturer asked for money from the producers to use the product. This is a reverse of the concept. In this case, the film was a small banner production, so the brand had leverage. Of course, the deal never happened.

Films like Ra.One and Don 2 have set benchmarks for brand integration in the Hindi film industry, and now, every film runs after brands like they’re the elixir of life. Special agencies to look after this concept have been set up in media companies, while new ones keep mushrooming with every film. It’s almost like Bollywood’s forgotten to make money from other avenues, like storytelling, for instance.

As long as it’s done in a fashion that doesn’t mess with the entertainment value attached to the film and doesn’t annoy the audience (like the Amitabh Bachchan film Viruddh), it’s totally okay. Make all the money you want, but here’s a sincere appeal: after recovering your costs and making a profit, keep the ticket prices low. The reason I walked away from watching Jab Tak Hai Jaan was the Rs 400 ticket price; though it did turn out to be a blessing in disguise.

Moral of the story: Plot your brands before the script is frozen, and plot them well.

(Pictures courtesy koimoi.com and rateon10.com)

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Film

The Bollywood Book Club

Bollywood has been a good adapter – so many of our films come from classics by foreign or Indian authors.
by M | M@themetrognome.in

Life of Pi releases later this week, and it looks good. This got me thinking, how many books-to-films success stories does Bollywood have?  There are a few exceptions like Anurag Basu, who take a roundabout turn to inspiration – some portions of Barfi! were copied from the English film The Notebook, that was based on a novel of the same name by Nicholas Sparks.

Bollywood has largely been an early adapter. The first full-length feature film, Raja Harishchandra (1913) was adapted from the folklore and legends of the Ramayana and Mahabharata.  Many have since then followed suit – Dil Diya Dard Liya (starring Dilip Kumar and Waheeda Rehman) was inspired by Emily Brönte’s classic Wuthering Heights. Dev Anand’s Tere Mere Sapne was based on The Citadel, a novel by AJ Cronin. Angoor, starring Sanjeev Kumar and Deven Verma, was based on Shakespeare’s The Comedy Of Errors.

And while there have been several instances where filmmakers have failed to give credit to the author or even announce that their film is based on a book, most recent filmmakers have honestly included the name of the author in the opening or closing credits of their films. They even do some PR around the film’s release. Sanjay Leela Bhansali did this for Saawariya (based on Fyodor Dostoevsky′s White Nights) and Vishal Bharadwaj for Maqbool, Omkara, and The Blue Umbrella; the former two are based on Shakespeare’s Macbeth and Othello respectively, and the latter is a short story by Ruskin Bond.

Many times, you will also feel that the book has been wasted on the film; cases in point are Aisha, a bad adaptation of Emma or The Namesake, a film by Mira Nair and a book by Jhumpa Lahiri. But these have been few and far between.

Here’s our list of the best adaptations of books in Bollywood:

Guide: The RK Narayan classic was adapted with little difference, save for the end theatrics, for the silver screen. Dev Anand and Waheeda Raheman were brilliant in the film.

Black Friday: Undoubtedly Anurag Kashyap’s best work till date. S Hussain Zaidi’s book captures the essential details of the 1993 Bombay bomb blasts, and the actors in the film relive the characters from the book. The soundtrack by Indian Ocean is a hit!

Devdas:  Sarat Chandra Chatterjee’s masterpiece has been adapted to Hindi cinema four times over two centuries. The one to watch is Bimal Roy’s starring Dilip Kumar and Suchitra Sen.

Maqbool: Vishal Bhardwaj’s adaptation of Macbeth is very, very close to the original. The phenomenal cast of Pankaj Kapoor, Naseeruddin Shah, Om Puri and Tabu were all critically acclaimed for their performance.

Shatrang Ke Khiladi:  Adapted from Munshi Premchand′s story of the same name; the list would not be complete without Satyajit Ray’s work of art. This film was a nominee for the Golden Bear for Best Film at the 28th Berlin International Film Festival.

Note to readers: Chetan Bhagat was deliberately not included in this list. Don’t make me say why.

M is a media professional with an eye on entertainment.

(Picture courtesy www.santabanta.com)

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Film

In Blade we trust

The Dabanng 2 poster is copied from Blade. And Brad Pitt was recently a body double for another Bollywood actor.
by M | M@themetrognome.in

Salmanbhai is back in action with Dabangg 2. The highly-anticipated sequel is scheduled to release soon and a teaser poster of the film was made public yesterday. Naturally, excited fans lapped it up at once.

While it is too early to comment on the merits and demerits of the film, it is safe to say that Dabangg 2 has some very big shoes to fill. Dabangg was super successful at the box office and the audience’s expectations from this one will be much higher. For now, though, let’s talk about the poster released yesterday – we are happy to note that while it is not a very creative poster, it sure is properly copied.

That’s right. Check out the evidence.

                                               

Clearly the poster is ‘inspired from Blade. Considering how most creative agency meetings go, I am sure the brief for the creative agency that handled Dabangg 2 went something like this: “We want it to look like this (shows Blade’s poster on the iPad), just replace the blade with Chulbul’s goggles and the black man with Sallu… So easy it is na! (laughs at own wit).”

In recent times, the poster for Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara was copied from Lords of Dogtown.

 

And that’s not all. Check out the other poster of Dabangg 2.

Notice the slimmer version of Salman? Now, this is not just photoshopping. Since carving away a few pounds at the waistline with an edit brush is very time consuming for Bollywood, many have come up with quicker and easier alternatives.

What you are about to read is a true story.

At a lengthy and pointless marketing meeting for a then upcoming spy film, the film’s poster was in jeopardy. The release date of the film had to be announced that week and a poster was critical for the announcement. The problem was, the actor had wrapped up his shooting schedule and was on vacation with his girlfriend at a non-accessible location. Plus, the actor, who had beefed up for the role, was now out of shape and would take at least a month to be fit for the photo shoot. Given how the industry usually functions, the eventuality of the poster causing trouble was not contemplated when the actor was still in the country and fit enough to be photographed.

So one of the producers, who also happened to be the actor’s business partner, proposed a solution that left most of the people in the room shocked. To be able to release the poster with the actor looking like a million bucks, the producer suggested that the creative team use a body double for the poster and stick the actor’s head on that body.

A body double was immediately arranged for. His name was Brad Pitt, and after said Bollywood actor’s head was pasted on Brad’s body, the poster was released a week later.

There are many who struggle and strive to be as fit as their heroes on screen, sometimes even resorting to bodybuilding drugs, ignoring the side-effects that can even be permanent. Little do they know that not just the concept of the creative, but nowadays even the bodies on the posters are ‘imported’ from Hollywood.

Moral of the story: As long as Brad Pitt is in shape, our actors Khan be too.

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

(Featured image courtesy www.image.buzzintown.com)

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