Desi Galaxy

There is huge speculation going around about Aishwarya Rai being pregnant. We don’t know whether or not its true. Many journalists have asked Aishwarya this question since past few days but she neither denied nor confirmed the news. She dodged the question cleverly.

What ignite the rumor was Aishwarya and Abhishek’s recent interview during the promotion of Amitabh Bachchan corporation’s movie Paa. Aishwarya and Abhishek said that they would announce a good news soon. After that media started noticing Aishwarya who has gained a little extra weight during past month. The rumor further strengthened when the news came up that Aishwarya is trying to complete her work in the coming movies before the schedule.

Aishwarya Rai and Abhishek both has told media that they are considering starting their family soon but its too early to say anything about it. They also assured media that the good news will be delievered to the media in appropriate manner and on the right time. Remember that if Aishwarya Rai gets pregnant now it will seriously effect Ben Kingsley movie on Taj Mahal in which Aishwarya is proposed the role of Mumtaz Mahal. Most probably the Bachchans dont want to let out the news before they sign a contract for this project. Remember since Bachchans are now trying to rejuvenate Amitabh Bachchan Film company, they might also want to compete for the distribution rights of Ben Kingsley’s Taj specially in local market where the Bachchan name would ensure higher returns for the company.

Gone are the days when Bollywood was all about fantastically choreographed dances, music, songs, romance, comedy and fun. Today’s Bollywood is becoming more and more sick and full of diseases. Every other manjor film is about the main lead actor suffering from some rare disease and the plot of these movies revolve around their hardships. Bollywood follows the trends and rare diseases are the latest trend. Bollywood’s first family the Bachchans are all about influence. And whats better way to gain influence than to win Awards? To win Awards it is important that Bachchans do projects that follow the latest trends and offer work to atleast two or members of the Bachchan family.

Paa is a the story of a 13 year old child Paa suffering from a rare genetic disorder which causes him to grow older faster than normal people. Amitabh who is 67 year old is playing the role of Paa in this movie and his son Abhishek Bachchan is playing the role of his father. The synopsis of the movie reminds me so much of Brad Pitt’s oscar winning ‘The curious case of Benjamin Button’. However, it doesn’t look like that Paa will start getting younger like Benjamin Button and I thank God for that. I can’t watch Amitabh getting younger. Forgive me but I am tired and sick of watching Amitabh in every other movie.

Abhishek Bachchan, playing the role of Paa’s father Amol Arte. Mr. Arte is an ambitious politician with a mission to save the universe. Vidya Balan plays Paa’s mother and Paresh Rawal plays the Grand father. The film’s music score is composed by Illayaraja.

I personally think that Paa the movie is a silly attempt to gain critical acclaim and emotionally blackmail the audiences into liking the sad story. Paa is also an attempt to build further upon Amitabh Bachchan’s legendary status. If the film succeeds on the box office then we will have to watch him in television ads and see him in movies like Aladin for another decade or so.

I don’t know if it is just a rumor or a fact but it seems like the web is booming about the news of Aishwarya Rai getting infected with Swine Flu virus. We tried to dig the source of this rumor and we found out that these rumors are based on a blog entry by Amitabh Bachchan on his blog. Mr. Bachchan wrote:

Aishwarya has taken ill and is down with chest infection and flu like symptoms. Had a high fever yesterday but is settling down today. Its worrying to be so far away from children and not be there to look after them.

Mr. Bachchan has never said that Aishwarya is infected by Swine Flu virus. So we hope that it is just some ordinary flu that would eventually go away with little rest. But how could she rest now when she has an important project at hand. Yes we are talking about Ravaan in which she is working with her husband Abhishek Bachchan. However Abhishek is not her love interest in the movie.

The terrorist attack on Mumbai has been a devastating savagery after 9/11 and assassination of late Benazir Bhutto. One could not have imagined that something so destroying can happen. It seems that it is unpredictable even for the high authorities in the government to envisage the next step of these wild dogs (terrorists). Who were involved? Whether they belonged to Pakistan or some place else? Whether they had connections in the India-Pakistan government or not? No one knows. What we know is that people in India and Pakistan have been shaken, all are petrified to even step out and so are our beloved Bollywood actors and actresses. As if everything was seized when this slaughtering started and I do not use the word seized regarding films and movies but tongues seized too. Actors and Actresses were traumatized, did not know what to say or how to react.

Amitabh Bachan who had been shooting for his film Teen Patti in Ballard estate in the southern areas of Mumbai, in the district of the CST station describes the situation as ‘Terrible’.

After a few days of silence he writes in his blog.

‘Mumbai under terrorist attack! Several locations bombed and terrorist firing all over the city. Major hotels under seize. Multiple actions on. Army called on. It is a terrible situation.’

Ajay Devgan and his wife Kajol were cancelled off with their shooting of their animation film Toonpur ka superhero because of the circumstances in the city. It was awfully depressing for them. One of their spokesmen said that several TV channels have asked their employees to stay indoors. Shootings are going slow and that most of them are not even happening.

‘The Four Khans’ of the Bollywood industry were also threatened by the little known about ‘Indian Mujahideen outfit’. They have also claimed accountability for the Ahmedabad blasts. This threatening email was received on a Sunday. It said that the Muslim actors should stop acting in films at once or face death.

A lot of famous personalities in the Bollywood industry commented on this letter. Prashant Pandey, writer of Ram Gopal’s “Contract”, an action thriller movie which is said to be uncannily similar to how the Ahmedabad blasts were plotted (A movie being so similar to the reality is indeed a strange coincidence). He said in his statements that it was very unfortunate that actors were being targeted in the name of religion. One of the most hard statements came out of Aziz Mirza, who’s ‘Kismat Konnection’ had just been released, he said that terrorists must be cold shouldered. He says, “The terrorists are stupid guys. You don’t react to them. You just negate them. They can do whatever they want. Nobody listens to mad dogs. Nobody in the industry will give a reaction. Producers, directors, writers etc. were shocked but remained silent and so does Bollywood stays united behind the four Khans.

We all feel exceedingly remorseful for the loss of our beloved actor Ashish Chaudhury’s sister and brother-in-law. Thousands became sad on reading Ashish’s letter which he wrote to break the silence. I personally do not have words, what to write here for Ashish. We can only imagine that what would those two innocent kids (of Ashish’s sister and brother-in-law) be going through. I had always learnt that life is cruel but never adapted it. Now, I realize that the truth is that people in the form of terrorists make life cruel. On one hand I feel sad for Kanishq (12) and Ananaya (7) but on the other hand I want to tell Ashish that they are lucky to be taken care of. I picture those people who have no one, absolutely no one in this world now. I give my sincere condolences and show my sadness to our beloved actor, to all those people who are survivors and to those who have lost and let them know that we are here standing united to support.

If I had to watch Bruce Almighty in Hindi I would have bought the dubbed Hindi DVD of the original movie. It is such an insult to audience of Indian films to show them a cheap copy of a popular and recent Hollywood movie. I am all willing to see “inspired from hollywood” material if it is well made and properly presented. Even though ‘God Tusi Great Ho‘ has some moments of charm but thats only because of the talented and the most experienced actors of the film industry that were casted into badly sketched roles. Salman Khan looked a 44 year old uncle trying to act juvenile it was a pathetic and shameless display of attempts on being funny. Priyanka Chopra was just looking good which is all she needs to stay in the business. Amitabh Bachchan, well now he is the icon of the Indian Film Industry but I think he should really retire now or at least save his enegies for world tours and advertisements. His attempts on acting God, were pathetic and it was too obvious that he wasn’t even half heartedly interested in the role he was playing.

Check out Rajeev Masand’s review of the movie on CNN-IBN, he writes:

Written and directed by Rumi Jaffery, the man credited with writing some of David Dhawan’s most entertaining films—Coolie No 1, Hero No 1 and Judwaa—God Tussi Great Ho is ultimately a colossal bore.

SearchIndia reviewed it as outright theft and ugly as hell in their review:

Although these two dinosaurs Salman Khan and Amitabh Bachchan have been around in Bollywood for a gazillion years, yet their performance in God Tussi Great Ho is not even a millionth as good as that of Jim Carrey and Morgan Freeman in Bruce Almighty.

Rediff called it Fake:

Instead the rehash is as loud as its interior decoration, as uncool as Salman Khan’s wardrobe, as ugly as Priyanka Chopra’s nose-ring, and as brain-dead as Sohail Khan’s performance.

When I heard that Amitabh is going to do another movie with a young heroine (love interest), I thought that movie would be just like Nishabd (worthless). But, I was wrong. Cheeni Kum is a light romantic comedy with beautiful music composed by Ilayaraja. Director Balkrishan is debuting into Hindi movie with this movie and it also marks the come back of Ilayaraja.

Story of Cheeni Kum

The plot of Cheeni Kum is simple. Buddhadev Gupta (Amitabh Bachchan) is a 64 year old chef who works at a resturant in Lodon and lives with his 85 year old mother. He never married a woman and never fell in love until he meets Nina Verma (Tabu). Nina and Buddhadev fall in love. Now Buddhadev comes to Delhi to ask Nina’s father for her daughter’s hand to marry. Omprakash Verma (Paresh Rawal) is an idealistic follower of Gandhi and 6 years younger than Buddhadev. It is Buddhadev’s job to make Verma change his mind about the age boundaries and allow Buddhadev to marry his daughter.

Review

Three critically accalaimed actors in the lead roles and a light romantic comedy with beautiful music, how could this go wrong. In fact it is quite a good recipe for a good bollywood movie. But it could go wrong if you have an unexperienced director like Mr. Balkrishnan. Paresh Rawal is nearly wasted in the movie. He has no comic lines and the director failed to shed more light on his character. I mean being Gandhian could be hillariously funny in this age if you know how to do it. Remember how Munna Bhai did it in Lage Raho Munna Bhai?

But then who claimed that the movie would be a non-stop laughter package? It is cheeni kum so the humor is light and sweet. Some good emotional scenes that are going to touch you and beautiful Tabu. I would say that the movie is worth watching, utleast once. You get to see some great acting and a story line thats quite mature. Forgive the new director if he fails to tell the story correctly. But if you are going to tell the story to your friends, then I am sure you can do better than Balkrishnan.

Film makers in Bollywood love to cast rivals together. In 1949, Director Mehboob presented Dilip Kumar and Raj Kapoor together in the movie Andaz. Both actors were the top heroes of the industry at that time and the movie created the ‘who is the best’ kind of hype. The film was recieved well by the audiences. But considering Mehboob’s casting options at that time I don’t think that this casting scenario was entirely designed to took advantage of the rivalry. In fact Mehboob didn’t have much choice. he needed a triangle and Raj Kapoor, Dilip Kumar and Nargis were the best actors to do the job.

In 1982 Amitabh was the acclaimed angry young man and he was then signed up to face Dilip Kumar in the movie Shakti. Even though Dilip Kumar was playing the role of his father but fans and media expected the movie like it is a contest between two giants. And it was, Shakti was a story of a broken relationship between a father and his son. There were intense dialogs, emotionally charged scenes, tears and lots of drama just to make sure that audience get what they wanted from the movie. Shakti wasn’t major blockbuster but Dilip Kumar won filmfare for his role in the movie. This was the last time Dilip Kumar and Amitabh Bachchan appeared together in a movie.

In 1991, Rajkumar Santoshi signed Aamir Khan and Salman Khan together for his movie Andaz Apna Apna. Santoshi made a right decission with a hillarious script and wonderful timing. At that time Aamir and Salman were the heartbeat of the youth and the movie created much pre-release press hype. Unfortunately, it took Santoshi three years to complete the movie. By that time the media and the fans lost interest in discussing who is best. Movie didn’t perform well at the box office. But it has its own cult following and is one of the best comedy movies ever (My own opinion).

Even the Shahrukh-Amitabh setting has been tried before. They have worked together in Aditya Chopra’s Mohabbatein (2000) and Karan Johar’s Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham (2001). Both movies did well at the box office. So it seems like Shahrukh Amitabh rivalry is profitable for film-makers.

Shahrukh Khan and Amitabh Bachchan are once again going to appear together in the movie ‘Bhootnaath’. This came out when we have already consumed an over-dose of news about the growing tensions and rivalry between the two stars. The rivalry sparked by media is now going to help with the promotion of the new movie.

While looking at the Mohabbatein page on Wikipedia I found this interesting bit:

On January 9th 2007’s episode of The Colbert Report, during the “We the Mediator” segment. Stephen Colbert mentions the New Year’s feud between Khan and Bachchan. By botching the names of the other stars who arrived at Bachchan’s party, he decided to judge the winner by viewing clips from Mohabbatein (he pronounced as “Mohabah-tee-yahn”)and from Khan’s dancing to Bachachan’s angry look clips, the undisputed winner was Khan. Stephen Colbert described Khan as “Dilip Kumar” to Bachchan’s “Raj Kapoor.”

History repeats itself and Bollywood loves repetition.

Based on a previous post on Desi Galaxy, we ask our readers to vote and tell us what they think about Bachchan’s not inviting Muslims to attend Abhishek’s wedding?

In the previous poll we asked:

Do you think Salman Khan and Katrina Kaif are going to get married?

We recieved a total of 125 votes

49 out of 125 think that Salman and Katrina are really in love.
29 out of 125 voted that they are more interested in Aishwarya Rai and Abhishek Bachchan wedding.
28 out of 125 thought that it is none of their business to spend time thinking about whether or not Salman and Katrina will get married.
19 out of 125 think that it is just a publicity stunt.