Posts from — January 2009

Reuters reports on how a man from Andhra Pradesh paints with his nose.

Sachivalu Rambabu of Hyderabad, the capital city of the southern state, has been painting using his nose for the past eight years. Rambabu says that he wanted to do something different and this is how he came up with the idea of nose painting.

And we all know a singer who wanted to do things differently and sang with his nose.

Shobhaa De blogs:

“Sonam (Kapoor) just doesn’t cut it in the sex appeal stakes.”

The Saawariya girl retorts:

For a 60-something porn writer, I am sure she (Shobhaa) knows what she’s talking about.

LOL, I love these catfights.

There was a man called Ramalinga
Whose staff loved wearing blinga
But when he confessed
“Our careers are messed”
Was all they could singa.

There was a tiger called Thackrey
Never was short of an easy prey
When gunmen came en masse
He turned into an ass
And the typical roaring – turned into a bray

There was a man called Murgadoss
Who made a film on memory loss
It was gore, bore and snore
But raked in two crore
As for terror in Mumbai, short term memory loss

Here was our own Himesh his Highness,
Who was rather known for his slyness
One fine day he paled,
I cannot sing, he wailed
Now that I have got the damned sinus

There was Karan Johar from Bombay
Who swore that he was no way a gay
Snubbed by his jaana
He made Dostaana
And that finally was – the giveaway

In Rab Ne he found a new lass
SRK knew she had looks and class
Tani touched his feet
He thought it was sweet
Until Gauri Khan kicked his ass

I am bad at math and statistics – but I still think there has to be some kind of an index, like the Sensex -  to keep tabs on Bollywood plagiarism. It might take time before someone really works out a convincing formula for it – for the moment let’s call it the BoPla. With each Bollywood release, we could recalculate the BoPla and work out if plagiarism in Bollywood is healthy and kicking or a dying art.

Let’s begin with analyzing all major Bollywood releases in 2008. And let’s work out how many have been plagiarized, copied, lifted, inspired and the one-in-a-while officially remade. The were 70 major Hindi releases last year, and let’s try to calculate how many fall into the BoPla category.

1920: Vikram Bhatt’s mix and match of Exorcist and Exorcism of Emily Rose

Anamika: Anant Mahadevan writes and directs his own version of Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca

Aamir: Straight lift of Filipino film Cavite

Bachna Ae Haseeno: A cross between John Tucker must Die and Teen Deviyan

Dasvidaniya: A lift of The Bucket List, but nicely done.

De Taali: An urbanised remake of the Telugu film Totti Gang

Dil Kabaddi: Based on Woody Allen’s Husbands and Wives

Don Muthuswami: A lift of Sly Stallone starrer Oscar

Dostana: Pretty close to I now pronounce you Chuck and Larry

Ek-the power of One: Remake of Telugu film Athadu – which in any case was a remake of The Wanted.

Ghajini: Remake of Ghajini and a poor copy of Memento

God Tussi Great Ho: Even the poster was a lift of Bruce Almighty

Golmal Returns: Plot pretty close to the 1973 film Aaj ki Taaza Khabar

Hari Puttar: The desified Home Alone

Hello: Official screen adaptation of Chetan Bhagat’s terrible novel.

Heroes: Motorcycle Diaries?

Hijack: yet another Die-Hard lift

Karzzzz: A remake of Karz with additional zzzs. Originally stolen from The Reincarnation of Peter Proud.

Krazzy 4: Rakesh Roshan got caught for stealing Ram Sampath’s tune, but still stole the plot of The Dream Team

Kismat Connection: Aziz Mirza is inspired by Just My Luck

Kidnap: A poor remake of Shattered

Maharathi: Based on Gujarati play of same name.

Mere Baap Pahle Aap: remake of Malayalam film Ishtam

Mission Istanbul: Loosely based on John Grisham’s novel The Firm. The legal firm is changed to a News Channel.

One Two Three: Blame it on the Bellboy

Race: Abbas Mastan continue copying – this time from Goodbye Lover.

Rub a Ru: Lifted from If Only

Shaurya: Samar Khan adapts A Few Good Men

Sorry Bhai: Dan in Real life

Sunday: A remake of the Telugu film Anukokunda Oka Roju

U, Me Aur Hum: Ajay Devgan is inspired by The Notebook

Ugly aur Pagli: Straight lift of Korean film My Sassy Girl

Via Darjeeling: Different scenario, but still inspired by Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon

Of all the above – only Hello and Maharathi are authorized “adapted” screenplays. The rest are plain remakes, lifts, copies and inspirations.

Out of 70 Hindi films, 32 are non-originals. And among orginals, only Jaane Tu and Singh is King could work at the box office. The rest were maha-flops like Drona.

So, that gives a BoPla index a count of 46%. That means more than half of the filmmakers still have the nerve make original Bollywood movies. They ought to be jailed.

TOI reports that a New York gentleman,  involved in a bitter divorce – apparently on advice of his lawyer, has demanded his pound of flesh.

A man locked in a bitter divorce battle wants his estranged wife to return the kidney he donated to her or else pay a compensation of $1.5 million.

“There is no deeper pain than betrayal from someone you loved and devoted your whole life to,” Richard Batista, husband of Dawnell Batista said in an interview. Richard, a surgeon, had been married to Dawnell for 15 years and they have three children. In 2001, he donated one of his kidneys to his wife to save her life. 

I wish she does return his kidney – minced, cooked  with onion,  ginger-garlic paste and garnished with finely chopped coriander.

The stories about Air India keep getting weirder. Forget the fact that air-hostesses are sacked for being overweight. The Hawaai-sundaris (as AI would prefer to call them) can be grounded if they have three or more pimples – reports the TOI.

“If it’s more than three, you’re grounded. They’ll wait for the pimples to disappear. If they don’t, you’re likely to be grounded for three months. If you don’t care for your skin, forget about being a flight attendant,” an airline official told TOI.

I assume Air India has officials at each airport who are called Senior Weight Officers (SWO)  or Chief Pimple Officers (CPO).  Probably, just before a flight attendant is scheduled to fly, she is supposed to report to the Chief Pimple Officer . And I assume a conversation like this is routine.

CPO: Show me the left side – ah one… two. And the right cheek… ah one more! Yeh to kal nahin tha… Three pimples, I have to ground you.

Flight Attendant: Teen kahaan hai? There are only two.

CPO: And what about the one on the right cheek?

Flight Attendant: That’s hardly a pimple. It hasn’t developed yet.  2.5 pimples.

CPO: It’s more like 2.75 pimples.

Flight Attendant: But it’s still less than three. The rules say three pimples.

CPO: Okay, you win today. I’ll ground you tomorrow.

Now, one more reason why wives shouldn’t be allowed to watch Ghajini.

IMDB has a list of top 250 films – based on votes from their regular users. And now you can check your film-addiction levels by clicking this link.

I wasn’t surprised that I have seen just about 3.6% of all the movies in the list. And among those I have seen more than once include just Gandhi and Finding Nemo.

What’s your score?

There are other lists as well. The Time Magazine’s top 100 films of all time (compiled by critics) – which includes Indian films like the Apu Trilogy (Satyajit Ray), Pyaasa and Nayakan.

There’s a recent list of top 10 American movies of all-time by the NY Times. Thankfully, I haven’t seen even a single film from this list.

Chck this video out from the Karachi Railway Station. Chand Nawab is a star now.

Anshu, sends in her set of Bollywood trivia questions.

1. The original climax of this film had the protagonist killing the villain himself.  But the Censor Board couldn’t bear an ex-cop taking the law in his own hands. So the director shot a different climax, where the thoroughly beaten villain is taken away in a police van at the end. Name the film.

2. What is common to: Sarfarosh, Lagaan and Ghajini, other than the main protoganist?

3. What is common to: ‘Jodhaa Akbar’, ‘Once upon a time in India’, ‘A married woman’, and ‘The young wife”?

4. ”Hesitating to act because the whole vision might not be achieved or because others do not yet share it, is an attitude that only hinders progress.”- Mahatma Gandhi. What’s the filmi connection?

5. What is so special about the songs ‘Moh se chhal kiye jaaye’ and ‘Kya se kya ho gaya’ from the film Guide?

6. What is common to: Ram Sharma, Sue McKinley, Raj Kumar Santoshi and Jagdish Gautam?

7. At the age of seven, he played Shashi Kapoor’s child role, but unfortunately the film was never released. In his days of struggle MS Sathyu signed him for his first film. He also worked in Telugu and Kannada films. In his first release, he claimed to be inspired by Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Raj Kapoor-a look he repeated later as well. He went on to win the National Award for Best Actor. His three production ventures have been flops. Who are we talking about?

8. What is common to the numbers: ‘Pretty woman’ (Kal ho na ho), Jaane kyun tanha ho gaye (Bhram) and ‘It’s a good day’ (Aamir)?

9. What is common to the films: Pickpocket, Mudh mudh ke na dekkh mudh mudh ke, Nau do gyarah and  Jhumroo?

10. Her surname is Richardson Khan. Merchant Ivory Productions made a documentary on her in 1973. A book on her called ‘The Life and Times of an H Bomb” was also published. She adopted a girl called Arpita. She is half French, one fourth Spanish and one fourth Burmese. Who is she?