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December 23, 2004
Eight Days a week
FILM
Writer/Director Rajat Kapoor had to scramble frantically to put the money together to make Raghu Romeo, his second directorial feature after Private Detective and had to ask friends and family to invest in the film. But based on the final result I doubt if he’s going to want for investors for quite some time to come. Raghu Romeo is a terrific little comedy which will have you in splits a number of times but which also has an underlying serious theme (that of the impact of cable and satellite television in our lives).
The movie boasts uniformly great performances – all the actors show excellent comic timing and improvisational skills – and it is very tightly directed by Kapoor. So, it’s a great way to spend a 100 minutes.
Vijay Raaz, who received great acclaim for his turn as P.K. Dubey in Monsoon Wedding, is even better here as the title character. Raghu is a 30-year-old waiter in a bar and his problem is that he can’t distinguish between fact and fantasy. He’s addicted to a TV soap opera and thinks its leading character, Neeta, is the ideal woman who actually exists. But the actress who portrays Neeta, Reshma (Maria Goretti) couldn’t be more different than the character she plays. So enamoured is Raghu of Neeta/Reshma that he can’t see how fond bar dancer Sweety (Saadiya Siddiqi) is of him while Sweety has her own admirer in a hoodlum called Brother (Saurabh Shukla). When Reshma’s life is threatened, Raghu decides to take matters into his own hands setting the stage for a madcap adventure.
Raghu Romeo won a number of awards at the recently concluded 4th Kara Film Festival in Karachi. While Rajat Kapoor won for his direction, Saadiya Siddiqi got the Best Supporting Actress award and Vijay Raaz was a unanimous choice for Best Actor. And though Maria Goretti didn’t win in the Best Actress category she proved herself to be quite a revelation to those who were only familiar with her as an MTV India VJ. Highly recommended. —Khusro Mumtaz
OR
Mahesh and Pooja Bhatt’s Rog received a lot of attention this year at the Kara Film Festival for being a major Mollywood production to have its World Premiere here in Pakistan. However, there was another Indian movie that also had its World Premiere at Kara –- the off-beat, low-budget English-language White Noise. But, unfortunately, in this case off-beat and low-budget did not translate to an interesting movie. Quite the opposite, in fact.
White Noise brings us the tale of the damaged Gauri (Koel Purie), a writer of Indian TV soaps, who is having an affair with her married boss and drinks a bit too much. When she is dumped both professionally and personally, she tries to start anew as the head writer of a floundering soap which had once been at the top of the ratings. But Gauri finds that her reputation precedes her, making it doubly difficult for her to do what she wants with the series. And her erratic behaviour doesn’t help either. But she has one sympathizer in the film editor, Karan (Rahul Bose doing his by now very familiar cool-but- reticent shtick) who decides (for unfathomable reasons) to save Gauri from herself.
Directed and co-written by Vinta Nanda, the chief writer of Tara, one of the earliest Indian soaps to make an impact in the satellite era, one suspects that White Noise has at least a little bit of an auto-biographical element to it. But that still doesn’t prevent the movie from coming across as rather clichéd. Instead of being a hard look at modern Mumbai lives (which is probably what the makers of the film intended it to be), White Noise turns out to be full of inane dialogue and psycho-babble. To make matters worse, most of the cast looks like it was uncomfortable acting in English (the exception being Bose). A highly irritating movie. —K.M.
OR
Inteqam is a pointless and needless remake of Basic Instinct with Isha Koppikar in the Sharon Stone role and Manoj Bajpaee doing Michael Douglas. Despite the passage of almost 15 years the original is still fresh in the viewing public’s minds and remains so thanks to video and cable TV. The movie is also still widely available in the market on tape and video-disc and boasts a lot more graphic sex and violence –- which, after all, was the whole point of Basic Instinct. So then why on earth would you want to watch a much tamer Indian version even if it does switch a few things around in the script? Give it a miss. —K.M.
ALBUM
Manic Street Preachers are a true “cult” band. They have loyal, almost obsessive, fans and most of the rest of the world doesn’t even know their name. Their incredible seventh and latest CD Lifeblood should be good enough to change that image, but only time will tell. The trio truly gives their all, however, with rich, dark epics of anthemic pop that could rival U2, New Order or even Cure at their best.
Songs worth checking out include the much talked about but quite overrated Love of Richard Nixon, the poignant Empty Souls and the philosophical Almost/Never. This new subtle pop strand that has entered the band’s sound really works and on many of the tracks, frontman James Dean Branfield emotions are genuinely heartfelt. In fact, as he echoes mantra-like the words “No going back” on 1985 or his harmonizing his sorrows on Song for Departure and Live To Fall Asleep, his cry is truly touching.
The band seems to be coming into its own but it’s ironic that this once quintessentially nineties band that loudly proclaimed to hate the eighties has gone retro! The lyrics, production and whole feel of this CD are all pure eighties and without a doubt the Manic Street Preachers have never sounded better. —T. U. DADU:
SINGLE
Some of you might remember the 1984 classic single Do They Know It’s Christmas by Band Aid. The brainchild of Boomtown Rat Bob Geldof and Ultravox’s Midge Ure, this catchy collaboration featuring the top UK singers of that time –– including Bono, Wham!, Duran Duran and Boy George –– raised millions for famine relief in Africa. To commemorate its 20-year anniversary, Bob Geldof has put together a Band Aid 20 group of current stars to remake the song with the hopes of recreating the magic.
Among the 40 artists included in the modern version are Chris Martin (of Coldplay and Gwenyth Paltrow fame), Robbie Williams, Dido, Joss Stone, Jamelia, Ms. Dynamite and Travis frontman Fran Healy. Musical legend Paul McCartney contributes as well, along with Bono who makes a reappearance singing the exact same lines he sang 20 years earlier!
Although the original and remake are both good songs, the former still has a certain alchemy that the newer version lacks. Still, some of the integrated rap segments in the new version are undoubtedly cool. Check out the website BandAid20.com to listen to a repeat loop of part of the single. However, full downloads are only available at the moment in the UK and Europe on Apple’s iTunes music download service. In Pakistan, it is available on a variety of mixed CDs, but obviously the proceeds of the sales on those will not go to the African famine relief fund. As an FYI, the song was actually remade once before in 1989 without much success and featured Kylie Minogue and Wet Wet Wet, among other artists. —T. U. Dawood
WEBSITE
Living with diabetes is a challenge that many diabetics find difficult to cope with.This disease is spreading at an alarming rate all over the world, so it is extremely important for everyone, regardless of their condition, to read and understand some basic facts about it. www.diabetes.org is a portal that not only summarizes important highlights about the disease but also features the latest news and developments about it. The “All About Diabetes” section compiles information on different aspects of diabetes including Type I and II, symptoms, risk factors, heart diseases and stroke etc. Some really resourceful information on weight loss, exercise and nutrition can also be found on the site. Diabetes dictionary is yet another interesting section to go through. —Azeem Haider
TV
A TV channel that has been launched this week is Hum TV. Headed by a lady, which incidently is a first in the country, the programmes will go on air soon after. Former PTV producer, Sultana Siddiqi, has worked hard to make a place for herself in an area completely dominated by men. —A.S.
ELECTION
The Arts Council election campaign is in full swing as it nears the voting day, December 26. Dinners, lunches and speeches have been the order of the day and one must commend the participants in putting in so much effort and time into the campaign. What is important to remember is that the Art Council is for the people and not who wins or loses. The losers should accept their defeat with grace and help in making the Arts Council a place to be proud of. In the same way the winners should be magnanimous and hear the other side’s suggestions throughout the year. Harmony wins the day. May the best team win. —A.S.
OR
Karachi Press Club is getting ready for elections to be held on December 30. The elections are being held three months earlier owing to the resignation of the KPC president and five members of the governing body. —A.S.
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