Bollywood’s milestones in 2008
The Year of A R Rahman
This year, the maestro was everywhere. And that’s always a good thing.
Not just did Allah Rakha Rahman, now 42, give us a slew of eclectic soundtracks far more than his usual Hindi film quota — Ghajini, Ada, Yuvvraaj, Jaane Tu… Ya Jaane Na and Jodhaa Akbar — but the man also picked up a Golden Globe nod for his phenomenal score in Danny Boyle’s Bombay-lovin’ Slumdog Millionaire.
Ranbir-Deepika, and another tattoo
Saif-Kareena is so last year. Without even nickname speculation (Ranpika? Deebir?), this relationship between the star kids of a badminton player and a Bollywood romantic has taken centrestage.
Gushing tell-all interviews take up magazine spreads, and the attractive Ms Padukone has embellished the back of her neck with her man’s letters: RK, a tattoo that may well just be a banner.
Amitabh Bachchan starts blogging
Opinions were divided on the Big B’s entry into the blogosphere. Some felt he was articulating basic thoughts goodnaturedly, others thought he was undoing the mystique by writing about absolutely everything, while still others smarted at the way Bachchan took potshots at everyone who annoyed him.
Still, the fact remains that before he came along, ‘blog’ was an alien word to the industry: and now everyone’s got one.
Industry uses recession as an excuse
Think Bollywood’s reeling from the ongoing global recession? Sure it is, but not by as much as they’d like to have you believe. This is an industry running on undeclared profits — this currency’s tinted pretty black — yet producers are pretending to scurry for cover just so they can chop down star prices. Stars demanding a crore and a half are now negotiating for about 50 lakhs, and the sky continues to fall.
After the mad rates advertised by Akshay Kumar, everyone’s prices had skyrocketed. The resultant correction had to take place, but this recession excuse really helped hasten its coming.
Dostana, the movie that pretended to like gay people
Karan Johar almost took mainstream Hindi cinema out of the closet, except he realised it was far too risky. Darn.
So while his heroes acted effeminate, they were always clearly homophobic men in self-mocking vein. With every gay character in the film depicted as a flaming queen, the joke was on them. And while nobody expected a Brokeback Mountain, or some searing social commentary, it would have been nice to have just ONE gay character who didn’t behave like a freak.
This is a mainstream film marketed to everyone in the country, and it’s as irresponsible as making a film about terrorism and making every Islamic character a villain. Tsk.
The Ghajini cut
Head to theatres to watch Shah Rukh Khan’s massively hyped Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi, and all you’ll see is Aamir Khan.
Khan has always come up with unique, inevitably trendsetting ‘looks’ for his characters, and in a marketing masterstroke — albeit of questionable aggression — he entered into deals with several nationwide theatre chains, making sure all their ushers and ticket-sellers sported the Ghajini cut.
A buzzcut with a line running through it is all very well now, but hopefully Khan’s benevolent enough to hand out baseball caps gratis if his film turns out to be a dud.
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