Desicritics Author: George Thomas

Movie Review: The Killer - Damaged Collateral

George Thomas — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 14:42:29 EDT

I submit that the core appeal of The Killer (in which we give you the pioneering rip-off of Michael Mann's Collateral by the Dhaaper Duo of Hasnain Hyderabadwala and Raksha Mistry and not the John Woo classic) lies in how subliminally Irrfan and Zakir Hussain seem to be undermining every pore of Emraan Hashmi's being on film. Listen carefully to the dialogues and you might walk away from this farce with a smile of satisfaction. While the Liplocking Loser preens, pretends to drive a taxi and offers enough proof that he's as capable of acting as men are of giving birth, Irrfan and Zakir Hussain deliver their bits with paycheque-earning delicious slices of stoked ham.

Zakir Hussain's interpretation of JABBAR (the capital letters come from the strange choice of case in the middle of a newspaper headline seen in the movie) derives from all the footage of Brando's egoistically extravagant contribution as Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now combined with the axiom that just being in the same frame as Emraan Hashmi would beat standing in the middle of the dumping ground at Deonar. Irrfan's character, since it's based on one of the two main characters in Mann's original, gets some help from the writer's department. Hyderabadwala and Mistry take the prevailing Vincent, rechristen him as the strong Vikram, give him a passport in the name of Roopchand Swaroopchand, confer upon him a varied taste in music (Begum Akhtar, Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, remixes), an interest in urdu poetry and even give Irrfan a chance to sing (which, in keeping with the character, would invite responses like "aaj gaane kii zid naa karo").

Did I mention that the two things his smart-talking wisecrack-spouting Intel Centrino Duo-using contract killer doesn't like are garamii kaa mahiinaa aur A/C me.n pasiinaa? The aforementioned laptop is also the victim of the most egregious bit of product placement in a while. It's bad enough that you can read and figure out what laptop it is; what's worse is that the filmmakers choose to cater to the reading-impaired market (the grotesque subtitles cater to the hearing-impaired cognitively dysfunctional segment of the populace) by giving Hashmi's character the subtle line "Intel Centrino Duo; Good Choice."

Which brings us to Hashmi himself. His presence in the film is an assurance that Bollywood refuses to abandon its desire to make the "star" (a term loosely applied lest it offend reasonably good-looking and more deserving peons in government offices around the country) more important than the character. Hashmi plays a cab driver (first gulp) named Nikhil Joshi (second gulp). The name has no bearing on what are essentially the same rabbits jumping out of the same rejected magic hat that he peddles for his multitude of adoring fans. The effeminate woman-abusing platypus is rewarded by the writers with an annoying pet phrase ("correct boluun?") and invocations like "e hello! hameshaa khulii rahane waalii khi.Dakii!"

Which was addressed to Riya, played by Nisha "Strut-My-Stuff" Kothari, the latest bag of chaff from RGV's Factory (whose assembly line has been producing only interesting character actors and mostly moronic lead players). She's a bar dancer -- an inspired migration by the writers of this flick from the seemingly less noble federal prosecutor played by Jada Pinkett Smith in the original. Kothari embellishes the sparse opening credits in a dance number set to abhii to mai.n jawaan huu.N with her brazen jiggle and wiggle. Had this been the extent of her involvement in this star vehicle for the ragpickers, one could have rested easy. Alas, she attempts to act. This proves to be a development as disastrous, perhaps, as India's exit from the recent World Cup was to television advertising. This wet dog gets a bonus shower thanks to the inclusion of a Dubai cop who utters lines in Urdu and then proceeds to translate them into simple Hindi, a counter official who thinks he's God's gift to cool, the predictable Bollywood song sequitur that transports our hero to the sylvan desert and the brilliant deduction made by investigating officials that Vikram is a professional killer simply based on the bodies found. A glimmer of hope comes when the film features a clip from the Sunny Deol starrer Indian featuring the classic snatch of dialogue " main sirf ek police officer nahin huun; indian huun ." Alas, 'tis but a glimmer. If you're still thinking of catching this reeling migraine, I have a tip and a reference. The tip is, dear worshipper of Hashmi's stubble that he does not indulge in his trademark unobfuscated osculations in this film (this is revealed at the end when he says to the drooling camera, "abhii nahiin"). The reference is to a Gaalib quote that Vikram drops in the film: dil-e-naadaan tujhe huaa kyaa hai.

Given that Hyderabadwala and Mistry are devotees of the Bhatt Camp of Inspired Filmmaking, their second release The Train is also a filch. The source is the Clive Owen starrer Derailed, which already found a local cousin in Gautham Menon's Pachaikili Muthucharam. Irony rears its ugly head thanks to the rest of the film's composite title: Some lines should never be crossed. Cross ye kiyaa re, kiyaa re!

Movie Review: Omkara

George Thomas — Wed, 2 Aug 2006 00:32:19 EDT

The short version: do yourself a favour and go watch it.

After the wonderful Maqbool, Vishal scores with Omkara, his adaptatation of William Shakespeare's Othello (as the first opening credit proclaims). Vishal digs deep into Leone territory and the trappings of a Bollywood film to craft an expansive saga of love, betrayal, jealousy, strife and violence. A second viewing is called for in order to appreciate the intricate weave of the tapestry, but some scattered notes and hosannas should suffice for now.

The cast: I have had doubts about the cast, and I still nurse a gnawing "what if" scenario with actors instead of box office magnets (for what they're worth). Devgan fits the vision of Om Shukla/Othello, but he brings nothing much physically to it that hasn't already been seen before (most importantly in Company). This déjà vu threatens to hamper the viewing, but not so critically.

Kareena Kapoor does not grate. This alone is an achievement. The much touted "erotic" scene becomes a truly aesthetic element of a mural of dissolves and fades. She even manages the the naïveté of Dolly/Desdemona and is definitely sincere in her efforts for the role. Yet the "what if someone else had played this part" feeling didn't quite go away. However, as with Devgan, Vishal seems to have used her presence and iconography well.

Viveik Oberoi fits Kesu Firangi/Cassio well enough not to get on your nerves. And kudos to him for taking the effort to get the chords right for I just called to say I love you (and to Saif who helped him).

Konkona Sen reportedly couldn't relate to her role, but her wonderful performance as Indu/Emilia is a testimony to her calibre as an actress.

Saif gets the best part in the play and he does a great job as Langda Tyagi/Iago. After being reluctant to get his hair cut, he's gone to the look of delicious evil and does well on the dialogues too. If there's any doubt about this man's ability to turn in a good performance given the right material and director, watch the shots of his face as Om Shukla appoints Kesu as the new baahubalii. Vishal wanted Langda Tyagi to look like Gabbar Singh and Langda becomes a favourite just like people loved Amjad's classic villain despite his evil deeds. Saif goes the long way with tarnishing his physicality and even though the limp seems to change through the film, this is a wonderful turn.

In Maqbool, Pankaj Kapur walked away with the extended part that Vishal created while adding more detail to the backstory of the film; Saif does the same here, but this time both Bard and Bhardwaj are on his side.

With everyone going ugly or without make-up, Bipasha Basu gets the best deal: she looks beautiful, is photographed well (didn't notice the squint) and even gets the best name of the year -- Billo Chaman Bahar.

Deepak Dobriyal seems to have missed out on media attention despite an earnest wonderful turn as Rajju/Roderigo.

As with Maqbool, Naseeruddin Shah's brief turn as Tiwari Bhaisaahab/The Duke is bound to worry a few; yet, once again, Vishal chooses the actor wisely to infuse a small part with the most life for what it's worth.

A special note for the old lady who gets the most authentic lines in the film and delivers them with crowd-pleasing aplomb.

The technical crew: Tassaduq Hussain's a great D/P. The wonderful long shots (e.g. Tyagi walking away after tossing Rajju into the river), the close-ups of the boots, the textures and tones of the earth, the green lighting for Saif (especially in the final confrontation) underscoring the theme of jealousy; and that wonderful sequence in the rain outside the train.

Dolly Ahluwalia's costumes (not to mention the banner bearing the remnants of her cameo as Auntyji); more about the colour coding will be clear after a second viewing

Meghana Manchanda's editing which aids Vishal's desire to stop short at the right time before moments in the film can devolve into the morass of standard assembly-line Bollywood. There's a nice cut where Rajju's look as he arrives in a vehicle matches a look in the next scene. Coincidence or accident?

Mappings: Vishal handles the mappings well. The handkerchief becomes a family heirloom (a cummerbund); whispers and overheard conversations translate to cell phones; and in a brilliantly ingenious move, he leaves Om and Dolly unmarried, waiting for a suitable muhuurat. The twist in the tale that he adds to the narrative gets Konkona her big moment of expression; the change fits in reasonably well, and extends the crescendo of the tragic events of the climax. All this, however, didn't resonate with the ingenuity of the mappings in Maqbool (the 3 witches and "when Birnam Wood comes to Dunsinane").

The comparison is unfair since there's little one can do about the source material; yet the novelty and the cast of Maqbool score higher than this painstaking labour of love. Vishal also tends to skim over a set of sequences as the narrative proceeds and people might feel cheated with how little time and space are devoted the Omi/Dolly dynamic, the political angle in the goings-on and such, Omkara's power as a leader; yet there seems to be some merit in the effectiveness of the unsaid. Yet, both films achieve different goals for Vishal and Omkara marks a strong step forward for him creatively (when was the last time you had a film this big where one person shared screenwriting credit, wrote the dialogue, composed the songs for the film, even sang one of them and directed the damn thing to top it all?). One eagerly awaits the release of The Blue Umbrella and wishes Vishal the very best for his next venture.

Nibbles

* The presence of authentic instruments during the item songs adding to their diegetic flavour

* Dialogue transcending scene boundaries across cuts

* Vishal tinkers with the songs to overlay dialogue over the interludes (o saathii re, bii.Dii), to cut straight to the scene (the opening of namak), to fit the visuals (the modified extended interlude on o saathii re); he even adjusts the lengths so that the songs never end up being the conventional Bollywood toilet break indicators; Suresh Wadkar's jag jaa appears twice: once in a not-on-the-soundtrack-release a cappella version and the second time in the place it was meant to be (if you've read Othello you know what I mean)

* That audacious single shot in the opening of o saathii re

* The crackling dialogue, the fresh wit, the bawdy jokes

* Was the sequence when Ajay Devgan gets a rinse from the water pump at the end of the duel underscored by the title track a tip to the end of the godown fight in Deewar?

Trivia: Diegetic music included Preeti Sagar singing my heart is beating. Also noted the copy of Godaan in Naseeruddin's prison "residence." Great product placement for Dainik Jagran too. Did anyone notice the phone number for the Billo Chaman Bahar Orchestra? And Tyagi Hostel has to be one of the best subtle references in the film.

Excisions: What happened to the college sequences at the University? The flashback fragment features in the film but I don't remember Ajay riding a bike (clearly they mixed up Viveik and Ajay) or even the campaigning.

The grand scheme of things: Vishal seems to have served himself a Catch-22 situation. The choice of stars seems to have been motivated by the desire to reach a wider audience and also to be able to snag the funds to make a film on a larger canvas. While having succeeded on the budgetary front, Vishal's creatively admirable and satisfying desire to remain faithful to the dialect might alienate the very audiences that he has tried to attract. Not to mention the language that the censor board has been prudent enough to leave intact.

Anticlimax: The film, reportedly, isn't doing too well. Disappointing.

Vishal just wanted "the film to make enough money to let me make another film the way I want to." Here's hoping we see many more films from him.

Movie Preview: Anthony = Cletis Tout?

George Thomas — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 14:41:34 EDT

There's been some buzz about the Sanjay Dutt/Arshad Warsi starrer Anthony Kaun Hai?. The Nose's tunes are already raking in the moolah. There's not much meat as far as story of Raj Kaushal's new film (Pyar Mein Kabhi Kabhi, Shaadi ka Laddoo) is concerned. Providence, however, led me to a film called Who is Cletis Tout?. Lo! The similarities are scary.

Critical Jim is a hitman who "sees everything in terms of movies." Tim Allen's character maps to Sanjay Dutt's Master Madan (nice name that; was the reference to the child prodigy who died in 1942 intentional?).

Trevor Allen Finch is a forger with an identity crisis (that's the Cletis Tout/Anthony angle for you). On our end, we have Arshad Warsi's character Champ, an "ace conman who's changed his identity more than his underwear." What do we have next? The Soggy Bottom Boys?

Richard Dreyfuss and Portia de Rossi play Micah Donnelly, a magician-thief and Tess Donnelly, his alluring daughter. Jump cut to Bollywood and we get Raghuvir Yadav as "the ingenious magician Raghu, who can work magic with his deft hands. But one trick too many costs him his freedom."; we also have Minissha Yahaan Lamba as Jiya the "beautiful daughter of ingenious magician Raghu."

More mappings will be clear when YT gets a chance to catch both films; but this exercise feels so much like the discoveries on Rakht/The Gift.

CD Review: Omkara

George Thomas — Wed, 5 Jul 2006 13:41:10 EDT

Aah. Sheer bliss this. Worth every nano-ounce of the wait. Gulzar's way with words, Vishal's sense of sound and the flavour of the region where the movie's events transpire come together in a delicious aural offering.

The title song OMkaaraa opens with an infectious plucked-string riff that situates the song in its locale. Sukhwinder's voice is accompanied by more rustic percussion (the pattern's the same as the one on City Don't Cry from No Quarter), a swirling sound sample, and an enthusiastic multi-part chorus. There's even a riff from the strings that's as addictively dissonant as the central riff on David Bowie's The Hearts Filthy Lesson. Gulzar's lyrics mix onomatopoeia and dialect and metaphors that only he is capable of.

Up next, Vishal steps up to the microphone and joins a restrained dulcet Shreya Ghoshal on o saathii re. The jaw drops as he begins to sing. This man is (to borrow cricket metaphor that's not so inappropriate for trivia mongers) an all-rounder. So far, he has written lyrics, composed music, scripted and directed films. All that is left is an acting turn. The lovely second interlude played out the guitar is wonderfully split across the ears. Lovely segue from the mukha.Daa to the a.ntaraa sans interlude. With wonderful lines (aa chal din ko roke.n / dhuup ke piichhe dau.De.n / chhaa.Nv chhue naa) Gulzar also gets away with more than murder (terii merii aTTii-baTTii / daa.Nt se kaaTii kaTTii). This man never loses his power to amaze.

With her effortless impassioned performance on bii.Dii, Sunidhi Chauhan's going to have a tough time shaking off her image as an "item song specialist." Sukhwinder Singh, Nachiketa Chakraborty and Clinton trade turns as Gulzar goes on a wild rhyming spree (naa Gilaaf naa lihaaf / Tha.nDhii hawaa bhii Kilaaf). There's a receptive chorus complete with harmonies and then smack in the middle there's a segue to the harmonium. A minute later, the harmonium and the tabalaa take over for about 10 seconds or so.

When was the last time a lorii began with the words jag jaa? The bouncy interlude featuring the flute and the string section (the Chennai String Orchestra) doesn't help matters much. The irony is absent in the calming rendition from Wadkar or in the short first flute interlude. And lines like halkaa-saa kosaa, subah kaa bosaa help. Stay tuned for a reference to king dasharath's promise.

Rekha's first song on the album finds me still at sea about just how talented she is. namak, with its earthy flavour, percussion, the harmonium, the occasional tinkling piano, able support from Rakesh Pandit, and a host of supporting singers is a revelation.

The first thing naiNaa does is give me a far far better idea of what Rahat Fateh Ali Khan is capable of than man kii lagan had in Paap. Toss in a rippling electronic riff, a motif on the guitar and a swirling heady trance mix. The eyes have been a familiar object of Gulzar's poetic interpretation (juuThe nainaa bole, juuThe tere nain) and their fickle intent receives a fresh salvo here: bhalaa ma.ndaa dekhe Naa paraayaa Naa sagaa re / naiNo.n ko to Dasane kaa chaskaa lagaa re / naiNo.n kaa zahar nashiilaa re.

laaka.D is Rekha's second song on the album. It opens with the sound of oars hitting water before Rekha's voice breaks in against a 14-beat cycle. Vishal's uncomplicated melody includes a wonderfully expressive touch when Rekha sings the word khaak the first time. The arrangements mix multi-tracked echoes and reverbs, acoustic and electric guitar riffs and rich sweeps lending a general feeling of suspension to the lyrics: laaka.D jal ke koyalaa hoye jaaye / koyalaa hoye jaaye khaak / jiyaa jale to kuchh naa hoye re / naa dhuaa.N naa raakh / jiyaa naa jalaiyo re.

the tragedie of omkara rounds up the album; it's the sole instrumental cue on the soundtrack release. Carmina Burana-esque with a portentous crescendo fraught with despair.

This is one of the best Hindi film soundtracks of the year.

Movie Review: Souten -- The Other Woman

George Thomas — Sun, 25 Jun 2006 10:44:14 EDT

After borrowing the copyright of Souten from Saawan Kumar Tak, Karan Razdan, the intellectually bankrupt descendant of Salacious Crumb responsible for the soporific mix of incompetence, lesbianism, violence and money shots called Girlfriend, embarks on an attempt to drill a shot in the arm of Rajasthan's tourism industry.

Since this is a Bollywood film some semblance of a "script" must be provided. Razdan wields the baton for story, screenplay and dialogue (in addition to "directing" this flick to nowhere in particular) and whips up a gazonga-thong disguised as a story of forbidden love. Gulshan Grover plays Ranabir Singh (don't they all), the standard upper class filthy rich royal two-dimensional character you've seen on the silver screen for ages. Mahima (or should I say, mahaa-ham) Chaudhari plays his wife Mitali.

Shakti Kapoor, another Bollywood villain, ends up as Sumer Singh married to Smitaa, played by Padmini Kolhapure, who, for those who remember the original Tak film, offers the trivial link of no consequence. Enter Raaj, played by Vikram "Wimp" Singh, Sumer's brother, who has the useful ability to fake violin playing come rain or come shine. He dedicates the "shine" to a dark stormy booze-laden night that cuts to a song of revelations of mounds of various kinds in the desert, and reserves the "rain" for a virtuoso romp in the rain with Sapanaa, played by Kiran Rathod. Aha! You have spotted the three vertices of the triangle.

What makes this one interesting? Well, Sapanaa is Ranabir's daughter, and Mitaalii is her step mother. With this scandalous set-up for disaster, there are scenes where the two assert that they are friends. These scenes are solely for the benefit of the weak-hearted NRI with principles and morals derived from the Raichand family.

Mahima excellently blends hamming with a general Poison Ivy-esque abandon, a latent promiscuity, and total cooperation as far as waving her assets for the benefit of The Wimp and front benchers who haven't dropped off during the dramatic scenes.

Despite its promise as a front bencher-pleasing oglefest, the film's primary failure is an attempt to spend more time on stupid sequences of no consequence: scenes with dialogue, scenes with familiar Bollywood conflict.

Had he focussed on the T n'A, Razdan would've given B-mongers something to be proud of. It's not all a loss though. If you survive the vapid sequences that connect the unsatisfying intimate sequences, you're in for a treat during the second run of the song mohabbat ho gayii hai. Mahima sashays and dances against what looks like a matte background; In a tribute to Eisenstein, we cut between this and shots of some random cha.nduu off the street filmed separately; cha.nduu gets onto his motorbike in faux cool style, and, after a dangerous glance back to the dancing Mahima, hits a rock, and, in a bad fake stunt move, flings himself forward to fall off the bike.

Razdan also pays tribute to David Lean and other makers of epic picturesque sagas in the style he adopts to shoot the film. We are treated to sweeping approaches to and departures from vistas of Rajasthan that contribute nothing to the film. In one sequence, however, Razdan strikes gold. The set-up is ridiculous: Kiran Rathod and The Wimp have driven far away from their respective residential abodes to the middle of the desert in their respective vans for a dramatic confrontation.

The sequence begins with a long crane shot of the two vans parked head-to-head. Cut to the camera approaching Rathod from the right. Cut to the camera approaching The Wimp from the left. Cut back to the camera approaching Rathod from the right. Cut back again to the camera approaching The Wimp from the left. Cut to a crane descent on Rathod. Cut to a crane ascent on The Wimp. Cut back to a crane descent on Rathod. Assembly line confrontational music inundates the background for this back-and-forth Mexican stand-off approach to filming a dramatic scene that could have taken place anywhere else but here in the real world. Wait till the end of the silly scene to watch The Wimp execute a wonderful chest-out move of defeat as he is forced to bite the dust of Rathod's departing van.

It's a wonder that such films get funded, made and even find enough known names to fill the cast roster. Having done a disservice to Rajasthan, human relationships, hams around the world, sand dunes and horses, Razdan nails his creative coffin shut with a boring title: Souten: The Other Woman. That's as good as screaming duh!. Why not something like Souten: Tea Is Served or Souten: Her Horny Highness or Souten: Camel Lot or Souten: Hot Humps and Then Some.

Filmfare Awards: Pain Is A Many-Splendoured Thing

George Thomas — Sun, 29 Jan 2006 16:38:08 EST

Anticipating the 51st Filmfare Awards with a retrospective of the Golden Jubilee edition in 2005

As award ceremonies begin rewarding Bollywood activity by solely focusing on maximising their horizontal coverage of achievements, one awaits[sic] the most important one of them all, the Filmfare Awards. Being dubbed as our equivalent of the Oscars seems appropriate when you consider the auto-congratulatory, clique-y spirit embellished with glitz, glamour and hype. It's much closer to the MTV Movie Awards, if only in spirit (what with awards like Scene of the Year). YT looks back at the awards ceremony last year to see how some trends persist, how some things are only destined to get worse, and how some things will never change.

The most significant aspect of these awards was the change in sponsorship. After the flavoured tobacco sponsorship from Manikchand (or, to be precise, Dhariwal Industries) had given the awards some much-needed context and counterpoint, Filmfare (or, to be precise, Bennett Coleman and Company, the owners) decided to switch to The Swarup Group of Industries after Interpol issued Red Corner notices to Rasiklal Dhariwal, the owner of said brand of gutka, for his alleged underworld links.

Filmfare must've been really desperate and on their knees, because the chairman and MD of SGI (that's the Swarup Group of Industries, puTTan), Sri Guru Swarup Srivastava himself, appears to present a couple of awards (for art direction and choreography, two fields he knows quite a bit about) and contributes the second most embarrassing moment of the show. He stands there before the mike with nary a clue about what to do or say. And looks blubberingly to the emcee (Saif Ali Khan, dressed badly, sporting extremely unfortunate painful comic timing, and trying be an Atlas with this disintegrating world) for help. I don't care of this dude makes more money than everyone in my apartment complex, but he needs to be given a script, forced to go through a few rehearsals just to make sure he gets it right. How would he feel if Sunil Shetty proxied for him during a board meeting one fine day?

This move means that one can no longer make fun of the "Manikchand Filmfare Awards." Rest assured, the awards themselves will continue to provide fodder for many an evening of rollicking repast.

The ceremony hits you on the head with explicit product placement. It's as if the text you were typing turned bold in a font several points larger. This is actually in keeping with the rules of exposition in Bollywood films. Never assume any intelligence in the audience; make sure they are always on the same page as far as the intent of each scene and line of paltry dialogue is concerned. After all, your multi-layered film supports at most one POV and invites at most one possible interpretation.

So you have Farida Jalal doing a painful product plug for Coke, Sonali Bendre (dressed in something that looks like it was rejected from the list of costumes for the dwellers of Skull Island in King Kong) plugs for The Times of India, Radio Mirchi, Sony Entertainment Television.

The change in sponsorship, however, does (and will continue to do) little to improve the quality of the proceedings as far as presentation and production design are concerned. Every year it seems like they hire people who seem to have managed events solely on a village-to-village basis. The sets look amateur, the lighting's abysmal, the sound's terrible (wait till a wind blows and you'll hear what I mean).

No one has the faintest clue about packaging something like this. They insist on having this out in the open and then fail to find someone who understands the sensitive complexities of managing sound in such a domain. Most of us watch these proceedings on our television sets, and the experience only gets worse. For one such show, YT thought that the gross collective was suffering from a harmonious attack of flatulence after hearing the wide assortment of non-vocal sounds heard during the show.

Just as America's view of "the world" is geographically screwed up, Filmfare's awards corrupt the view of "national/Indian" cinema. Make no mistake. These are awards of Bollywood, for Bollywood and normalised from reader votes by Bollywood. The quality of voting can never rise to commendable standards, once you consider the kind of people who (a) read Filmfare on a regular basis (b) watch and crave nothing else but mainstream Bollywood trash (c) actually take the time out and cast votes that elevate Salman Khan's cameo in Kuch Kuch Hota Hai to winning the Best Supporting Actor award (thus trouncing Bajpai's turn in Satya, a clear winner if there was any).

In true Bollywood tradition, the proceedings lack a decent script. Most people improvise off the cuff, and this is something they are really not capable of (hell! They can't even mouth scripted lines of dialogue with the appropriate emotion on screen, and you expect them to improvise? The name is John Abraham not John Coltrane). The only sign that there was some scripting involved is the presence of pieces of numerously folded paper that some of the presenters unfold and proceed to make sense of (which means they were written in Esperanto short-hand). Then you have missed segues (Saif Ali Khan and Abbas-Mustan, who arrived to present the technical awards); Mukesh Bhatt (brother of Mahesh, not the character actor) saying 'wow' over and over again during his presentation stint; Celina Jaitley reading the list of nominations for Best Lyrics (all five trumped by Javed Akhtar) and reading the winner's name (duh!) without naming the film, despite repeated hints from Sonali Bendre. Ms Jaitley is better suited[sic] to stand half-submerged in water wearing a piecemeal bikini and pretending to play the violin; Dev Anand refusing to stop his blabbering and denying Priyanka Chopra a chance to speak after winning an award for her role as Demi Moore in Aitraaz (Ms Chopra eventually has to interrupt Farida Jalal to get a chance to speak).

The linguistic standards of the proceedings continue to flounder helplessly in the swamp of Hinglish dreg. Most of the people you will see (the ones who're emcees, the ones who present awards, the ones who present retrospectives, the ones who accept the awards) are competent in only one language: cool-glish. They can barely pass muster on a class V spoken Hindi examination, they possess an adequate English vocabulary from class VIII, and cannot put a complete sentence together in all their ramblings. All this is fine during kaTTaa talk, or IM conversations, but not on a show that seeks to earn itself some serious reputation (instead of the notoriety it merits thanks to the shoddy package). So when Ashutosh Rana made his acceptance speech in Hindi (for the award for Dushman), it deserved all the resounding applause you could offer.

In an attempt to get breadth coverage, the show features numerous other awards guaranteed to (a) soothe some souls wounded by populist idiocy [Satya swept the Critics' Awards in the year that Salman trounced Bajpai] (b) keep some egos fondled [the Power Award, bestowed this year to Shah Rukh Khan, who plants his expensive-boot-covered foot firmly in his mouth by indulging in extremely juvenile and non-PC utterances about being proud to be in India by referring to Michael Jackson as a small black boy growing into a rich white lady and mounting criticism for Bush being re-elected after all the craven carnage he had effected; the Golden Glory award which went to Dev Anand and then Rekha] (c) auto-fellatio [who can forget the Kapoor home video dedicated to the marriage of Karishma Kapoor? Who cares, dude!]

Each show boasts some innovative showpieces where our stars who make tons of money dancing abroad in over-priced specious shows, repeat their shenanigans to enthral one and all. Most people chosen to perform rarely lack the basic ability to dance that even the most unimaginative dance choreographer possesses. Some items are usually tinged with a tablespoon of nostalgia. This usually gives you a mixed bag of duds and delights. This year's show featured 1.5-left-footed Rani Mukherjee and Priyanka Chopra doing separate items that could be classified as "down memory lane." Each performance featured attempts to dance to a medley of songs from the past topped with some recent hits that are destined never to die the death they deserve.

How one can even attempt to tackle songs like aaj phir jiine kii tamannaa hai or honTo pe aisii baat (both featuring vastly more capable dancers [Waheeda Rehman and Vyjayanthimala respectively) is jaw-droppingly befuddling. Just about the only interesting aspect to the proceedings would be that Priyanka Chopra would be a good dead ringer for the late Parveen Babi when they decide to make a biopic about her. Mahesh Bhatt, who seems like the most obvious person to do something like this, seems have already begun something like this with a flick called Actress, but chooses to use Bipasha Basu to do the needful (the phrase "lack of taste" seems too mild here), along with the usual host of duds like Emraan Hashmi and Deepal Shaw. Shah Rukh Khan inevitably does his item, and this time it features him romancing actresses old and new [Vyjayanthimala, Sharmila, Zeenat, Jaya Prada, Rekha, Kajol, Rani, Preity].

The best item of the evening however was a strip-show by Sonu Nigam. In a bid to present a trip down melody [read: aural malady] lane, Sonu decided to sing snippets of songs from films from the 50s to the 00s. He also hit upon the bright idea of switching costumes for each decade, and so began his performance looking like a stuffed teddy bear, and with each decade, more clothes came off. Mercifully, he didn't do songs from the future. One thing was clear: there is a reason some of those old songs stand the test of time -- no one around today can muster enough talent or dedication to tackle those songs. Despite continuing to be a talented, trained, effeminate watered-down clone of Mohd. Rafi, Mr. Nigam managed to salvage some post-modern reputation by doing a competent imitation of Kumar Sanu's patent-pending nasal attack when he sang saa.Nso.n kii zaruurat hai jaise.

A lot of deserving bad jokes got trashed by bad comic timing as Saif Ali Khan did a sole riff of getting cell phone calls throughout the show. Wasted jokes include a call for B Subhash to propose a cross-product film called Tarzan the ja.nglii car where the car swings from tree to tree, and another call from Nandu Nylon for Mallika Sherawat.

Rule of thumb: If you're a winner in the technical awards section, don't bother preparing an acceptance speech; they're not going to let you talk. In fact, just give them a mailing address, and spend the awards evening elsewhere with your family.

Auto-fellatio moment: Abhishek Bachchan, when announced as the winner of the Best Supporting Actor award, drags his father the Big B to the stage, refuses to accept the award and gives it to his father, who (in true Big B diplomatic grace) returns it with a joke.

most embarrassing moment of the evening: Jackie Shroff, called to present the scene of the year award, calls Yash Chopra, Saif Ali Khan (who's already on the stage), Rani Mukherjee and Kunal Dasgupta (CEO of Sony Entertainment Television, AFAIR) to the stage to accept the award for Hum Tum, but not the director and script filcher, Kunal Kohli. Saif salvages the moment by requesting Kunal Kohli to come up and accept the award. Kohli also managed to make the first acceptance speech of the night.

Gaffes: Gulzar is conspicuously absent from the list of people who've won the most Filmfare Awards.

Runner-up: Most interesting presenter pair: Jaya Prada and Sanjay Khan presenting the R D Burman Award.

Moment of the most Delicious Irony of the evening: Dev Anand presents the award for Best Actor in a Comic Role.

Greatest moment of the evening / Winner: Most interesting presenter pair:Bappi Lahiri and John Abraham (aka Appu Raja) arrive to present the award for Best Female Playback Singer. Abraham's at sea, incoherently mumbling sweet nothings that work for his fans who make his movies hits, but Bappi takes over instantly. He first congratulates Filmfare for their "50th Golden Jubilee" and then dedicates a song to the nominees. He then proceeds to belt out this song, a Bappi classic for aficionados like YT: dil me.n ho tum, dha.Dakan me.n tum. Abraham, meanwhile, has just experienced core shutdown and is left stammering like a duck on steroids.

This means that YT is looking forward to the awards this year. Hopefully, a splendid time is guaranteed for all. In the meantime, let us tune in to the songs of Mr. Prime Minister.