RGV's Guide To Making a Hit Hindi Film (As Seen In The Movie Rakt Charitra-Part 1)

1. Hire a narrator who is either having throat cancer or is Soorma Bhopali suffering from asthma. The purpose of this narrator is to move the plot along by saying extremely long, cliche-filled monologues in an obnoxious, grating voice every 5 minutes. This narrator must also be an MBA from a highly reputed institute and must be well versed in management terminology. This is so that he is able to identify the best management procedures used by naxalite warriors when they are attacking their targets. (Sample dialogue:"Bukka ko maarne ke liye Ravi ne action team banayi" How very modern of you.)

2. Every time the narrator speaks his dialogue, it must be followed by a montage of people getting killed. This step is critical because there has to be action and violence in a masala flick. Otherwise nobody would want to see the movie. Always make the means of your killing different, unique and very creative so your audience will feel involved in this movie. Any and all killing must done to the music of pounding drum beats and a singer ominously chanting random Hindi phrases or Sanaskrit shlokas repeatedly

CAUTION!!!!!!
Now, there is a chance that repeated use of violence in this manner will turn some people off or may bore some people to sleep. To avoid that, you can choose to replace this montage of people getting killed with a montage of people getting tortured or a montage of women getting raped.(The latter part is a brilliant innovation in the annals of Hindi cinema. You can just show women getting kidnapped, women in various stages of undress, women getting raped, then women getting killed/ dumped on the street. Why must there be dialogue at all during a rape scene? Even the legen-wait for it-dary auteurs of Hindi Cinema such as Kanti Shah always had the women shouting bachao bachao. )

3. Every montage of people getting killed must be followed by people speaking cliched statements on democracy, caste divide, economic divide, worsening state of law and order and any hot button issue. Every actor must have a crazy eccentricity or tic which would humanize them in the audience's eyes (Sample: Actor saying "Topic over" in Southern accented English at the end of each scene). The scene must be scored to the same music used in Step 2.
Note: The actors involved must all be males. Women are not allowed to speak in this movie unless they are agreeing in servile manner with the male characters or are a lady cop, in which case you get to shout dialogues about the role of cops not doing their jobs of protecting and serving the people until the villain tires of you and puts a bullet in your brain to shut you up.

4. Repeat step 1-4 until the movie is 2.5 hours long.

5. Now, you already know you have a hit product on your hands. And you know your audience will definitely want to see more movies about the same characters and milieu (Women rape montages and people- killing montages. Everyone would want to see more of that). So you shoot the sequel to this movie, Kill Bill style, and end the movie with a trailer of the sequel movie and announcing the release date of the sequel to the entire world (Rakt Charitra 2-Releasing 19th November 2010). This is so that frustrated mind-raped bloggers who have seen the movie and have hated it so much that they have put time and energy into pouring these frustrations out in a blog (like this one) would now have to shell out more money to see the sequel just to see how this miserable, pretentious train wreck will end.

Prince Of Persia Manual On How To Usrp The Throne Of Persia

RATIONAL WAY
1. Kill the elder brother and rightful heir to the throne when you are young and make it look like an accident. E.g. Not saving him when he is attacked by a tiger

CIRCULARLY ROUNDABOUT 12-STEP HOLLYWOOD WAY
1. Save your elder brother from the tiger and gain his undying love and respect.
2. Wait for elder brother to grow up, get married and have two kids.
3. Go to the market with elder bro so that he can be impressed with the aerobics of a young orphan street urchin and let him adopt said street urchin.
4. Keep a secret band of extremely competent pot smoking crossdressing snakecharmers/assassins and learn the existence of a way to turn back time from them.
5. Instead of sending the extremely competent pot smoking crossdressing snakecharmers/assassins to kill the princess who has the dagger which activates the device to turn back time, you devise a complicated ruse to get your kingdom to wage war against the princess' kingdom.
6. After achieving victory, discover that the dagger has now gone into the hands of the street urchin, who has grown into a prince.
7. Kill the king and frame the young prince for the crime so that he becomes a fugitive from the law.
8. Instead of asking the captured priests or the assassins as to where the device exists, insist on organizing a long winded search through the city.
9. Send the extremely competent pot smoking crossdressing snakecharmers/assassins aafter the prince to get the dagger back.
10. After they get the dagger back, instead of going to the device immediately, get the device and keep it in a safe so that you can lure the prince back and some family melodrama can take place.
11. Take the dagger and go by the long twisted route to the dagger, so that the prince can catch up.
12. Activate the device to go back in time to stop your younger self from saving the elder brother so that you can be king. Here is the critical thing. Make sure the young prince cannot shut the device, otherwise he will go back in time and kill you at the end of Step 5.

FINAL NOTE: Ensure that all action sequences and Special effects feel so good that the audience does not feel cheated at the end of the movie.

Kites: Watching paint dry in Ladakh

Had to go to a college reunion in Gurgoan to catch up with some friends. After catching up with 7 or so friends who had actually turned up, me and a friend decided to cap of the day with a show of Kites. So me, my friend and couple of his work buddies booked the l8 nite showing of Kites at the PVR in Spice mall, Noida at 9.30 in the night and reached there for the 11pm show at 10.30 sharp.

So, after being mindraped entertained for two hours, here is a brief review of Kites........

The Good

1. The Las Vegas-Mexico area is absolutely gorgeous with colors that pop out of the screen. Shot after shot of gorgeous desert vistas and shiny Vegas lights fill the screen. The scenic vista shown at the end of the movie is just beautiful. Once you see the movie, you'd want to spend ur next vacation there.

2. Kangna Ranaut could keep up with Hrithik Roshan in their dance sequence. Utterly beautiful and gorgeous dance sequence.

3. The trailer for Raavan is absolutely amazing.

The Bad

1. Watching this movie is like going to Ladakh to watch paint dry. Beautiful scenery, boring movie.

2. Shame on you, Rakesh Roshan for insisting to shoot through the movie when Hrithik was suffering through a bout of constipation. Scene after scene of Hrithik emoting were actually silent pleas for the film crew to give him some Eno or Hajmola.

3. The "forbidden" love story between Hrithik Roshan and Barbara Mori could have been absolutely amazing.....if it wasn't revealed that Hrithik was married to her before she met her Sugar daddy husband to be.... So lets see, you marry the girl, you bring her to the USA, get her green card, but the minute she is marrying someone else, you start to like her? It reminds me of how children absolutely hate a toy until they see somebody else wants it. Then its like their favorite toy in the world.

4. It makes me sad to think that I could have seen the movie at half-price by negotiating with PVR to let me in after the intermission. Because, well, NOTHING happens in the first half of the movie.

5. First movie I've seen in which a high speed car chase is shot scored to the background music of a slow love ballet. Atrocious music by Rajesh Roshan here. I can see the thought process here....

Rajesh Roshan: Bro, you're shooting a movie in Vegas and Mexico...I don't know how to score the music to match the local flavour there...

Rakesh: But you're my brother. I'm spending buttloads of money on the high speed car chases and the scenic vistas and the Spanish tutors and the costumes and stuff. I need to cut back on money somewhere dude and you're the only composer who'll provide the music for me for free. So I need you man....

Rajesh: I have a brilliant idea...I have these slow love songs I had recorded sometime in the 70's and 80's. I'll just improve on them a little bit and you can use them. Its as if you'll be bringing the Indian flavour to the US. Its not at all going to be inappropriate and tacky.

Rakesh: Cool.

6. I feel bad for Kabir Bedi's son here. First, I discover that my fiancé is married to someone else and is actually going out with him on the night before our wedding. Then I discover that have eloped with 2 million of my diamonds. After which, they come back and rob me for 2 million more. And then Hrithik Roshan kills me with a machine gun pulled out of his ass.

7. PVR security SUCKS. My friend, who had the misfortune of coming directly from work had a laptop with him. But PVR does not allow laptops. The guard at PVR says that laptop bags have to be kept at the car. Of course, we don't have one. Then we are told that the 1st floor has a baggage counter. So we go there and the guard there absolutely refuses to keep the bag there. His reasoning? We don't have space to keep a laptop...Um...then WTF are the big square things built into the wall where you are keeping the belongings of the other patrons of the mall. So we decide that guards here are moronic automatons who refuse to apply common sense and logic and choose to follow the draconian and idiotic mall rules and decide to plead our case at the ticket counter...Thier solution? We can't keep the bag but we'll be glad to refund the money for the ticket....Although, after watching the movie, we could safely say that that was the better option than what we did. Which is dump the laptop at the house of a friend who was fortunately living close by.

The WTF is this?

1. Best line of the movie spoken by the audience: If she doesn't understand English, Hrithik might as well speak in Hindi instead of trying to be Constipated Christian Bale. (Italics added by me)

2. Speaking of which. Lead couple's ability to understand foriegn language is directly proportional to the place in their story.

2. Best line of the movie spoken by a character: Villain Son: I was driving very fast when I hit her. When I came out of the car I saw two legs. Between the legs was the gateway to heaven. (Seriously. Led Zep should commit suicide)

3. Glad to see the Las Vegas Police Department adopting the best practices of the Bollywood Police Manual and letting the main villain participate in police chases and then intimidate the witnesses to the crime by slapping and threatening them right in front of the police.

4. Um..., I totally would let a random stranger who I'm pretty certain is marrying my daughter for money, see me torture and kill a man just to show the audience how eeevill I am.

5. I would also use the last 200 dollars which I have obtained by robbing a bank to buy tight fitting clothes which completely show off me and my girlfriends hot body.

6. ...And even though the police of two countries as well as as an evil gangster clan is after me and my girlfriend, I shall only drive around in revealing clothes which make me stand out in a crowd and drive only top-down cars and motorbikes without helmets.

7. Kangna Ranaut agreed to this movie to get dance classes from Hrithik, which is why she's not seen after her final exam( dance sequence at dance competition).

In summation. Kites is a must watch movie... Definitely watch it on mute and imagine its one of those Discovery channel travel programs....

5 Point Review Of Iron Man 2

Went to see Iron Man 2 over the weekend. Here's my short 5 point take on the movie...

1. Tony Stark remains the best payboy-smarter than everyone else in the room-a nut shorter than everyone else in the room after Jack Sparrow. Robert Downey Jr. plays the character with such charm and ease and its one of the best performances in his career.

2. Ivan Vanko owns this movie. He's dark, huge, does'nt speak much and even when he does, its generally in Russian. Mickey Rourke plays the guy with such quiet menace that its easy to feel afraid of the guy.

3. The Whiplash costume is amazing. It's so cool and amazing that you'd come out of the movie wishing you had one of your own. The first time we see the suit in full flow in the car race sequence in Monaco is just breathtaking...

4. Speaking of which, the special effects in the movie are absolutely gorgeous and beautiful. Whether, its the intro of Iron Man at the Stark Expo or the action sequences at Monaco and the end shootout with the robots, each sequence is done with such care and precision that it just gets the adrenaline pumping and your heart leaps into your mouth. The integration of the comedic and action beats are done seamlessly and are executed to perfection. I don't believe any movie has made people laugh over the launch of a missile before.

5. The supporting actors are superb, whether its the smarmy Senator looking to procure the Iron Man suit for the government or Justin Hammer, who tries to be like Tony Stark but just does'nt have the flair or the charisma, all the actors are note perfect. Samuel Jackson has nailed Nick Fury's sneer and demeanor to the T. The Black Widow is introduced and Scarlet Johannsenn gets to bust to some fancy moves in a nifty action sequences.

And now, a bonus point

6. I was'nt as wowed by the movie as much as I wanted to be. Some parts of the movie are good, and they're very good but the movie as a whole does not feel so coherent. There's a little bit of chaotic randomness in the movie which is distracting. Certain story elements were introduced but then were arbitrarily dismissed. I thought they could have done more with Tony's illness. A little less story would have done wonders.

To sum it up, IM 2 is a great movie in the time hounored to tradition of good second movies in a superhero franchise. A lot of fun was had while viewing the movie in the big screen. While certain things don't gel together but as a whole, the movie works and certainly a must see.

3.5/5

P.S: If you do go to the theatres and you're a comic book fan, DO NOT leave until the entire credit sequence finishes running. You'll be in for a pleasant surprise.

How I Met Your Idiot (Spoilers galore)

Do ensure that you have seen 3 Idiots before you read this post as there some spoilers for the movie....

Just came back from a showing of 3 Idiots and I do believe the movie is a must watch.......once. Its a good movie with great acting, but certain moments of logic failure threaten to derail the entire enterprise. And while the storyline of the future was necessary to expand on the core theme of the movie (it was necessary to show Aamir Khan as successful to show how flawed the current system is), it could have been done with entirely. I'd really have been fine with them just showing a few scenes of the future at the close of the movie. Showing us the future took away a lot of the tension from the engineering college portion of the story. Moments like Sharman Joshi jumping from a building or Aamir Khan being rusticated or the climactic scene Mona Singh (Kareena's sis) giving birth would have had more impact if we did not know that Sharman Joshi was alive or that Rancho had got his degree. And the time spent on the future storyline could have been better spent on the college hijinks........

........because that part of the movie was fun. Being a college student, and an engineering student at that, I just loved the look at college life and the ages old debate between ghissugiri and thinking outside the box. Those scenes were fun and hadme wishing there were more of them. Maybe some scenes at a collegefest or two.

So, in summation, while I do think the movie is a lot of fun and has a couple of really funny moments, I was'nt as satisfied as I'd have liked to have been.

The one thought which did enter my mind (and is the reason for the post's title) is that Rancho is kinda sorta like Barney Stinson. The more I thought about it, the more I became convinced that Rancho is very very similar to Barney Stinson.

Reasons Why Rancho Is Like Barney Stinson
1. Barney likes girls. Rancho likes to learn.

2. Both are generally accepted to be the coolest person in thier entire friends circle.

3. Both have a way of life which is different from that which is considered the norm.

4. Both generally come up with out-of-the box solutions to commonplace problems of life.

5. Both of them have two best friends.

6. Both of them use fake names to get what they want

7. We never know what happened to both of them in the future, until now.(Future Ted has never mentioned Future Barney during the course of the series.)

Until next time

Really funny Ad I just saw

SPIDER-MAN 3: WHY DID ALL THESE VILLIANS COME?

SPIDER-MAN 3: WHY DID ALL THESE VILLAINS COME?

The first time I saw Spider-man 3, I wasn't bored but I wasn't terribly excited about it either. I thought then that I would not be able to sit through another sitting of this movie. I was right.

Yesterday, I saw the movie again with a friend who was unable to see the movie and I tried my best to keep looking at the screen. But by the time the film ended, I had:

1. Fallen asleep at the cinema for the first time in my life
2. Discovered how to play Sudoku on my cellphone.
3. Made a list of plot points that Sam Riami must have picked up from Hindi movies.

What the hell were they thinking? They took three villains with excellent motivations(Goblin and Venom both want Peter Parker dead and Sandman wanted to save his daughter), Peter Parker and Mary Jane's relationship problems, Peter's thirst for vengeance(that was smartly retconned)and they made a complete mess of it. They took enough material for atleast two movies and then they tried to cram it into two hours.

And what was on screen for the two hours was a terribly concocted mishmash of a movie which was a complete letdown from the awesomeness that was Spider-man 2.

The good:
1. The special effects were again out of the world. The first battle between Spider-man and the Goblin was breathtaking. Coming a close second was the sequence where the Sandman is created (They really should have better security at those particle Physics test facilities:)

2. James Franco, Rosemary Harris and Tobey Maguire are all fantastic in their roles. Franco in particular is breathtaking.

3. The comedy sequences are really funny and fit the tone of the movie really well. Every scene with JJ Jameson is a hoot. The sequence at the French restaurant was the kind of gentle but biting humor the series does really well.

4. The old Spider-man theme song was a nice touch. In fact the music in the whole movie was excellent.

The bad:
1. The movie was marking time and worse, you could see it doing that. Harry regains his memory-because he had to in order to move the story forward. Peter gets rid of the symbiont-because it was about two hours in and they have to shoot the big climax. Venom and Sandman join forces because it was time for the big climax. You see where I am going with this.

2. Speaking of which, either make your villains really bad without explaining their actions or give a solid base for their actions and make them a sympathetic villain. Don't start giving them back stories if you have no intentions of following through with it. Why introduce the Sandman's daughter if you are going to make him King Kong without the heart or the sadness? Why give Eddie Brock a girlfriend and make us sympathize with him if his sole purpose is to sneer "I love being bad" in the last half an hour of the movie?

3. The Green Goblin tells you to break up with your boyfriend and you do it? Have some confidence in your boyfriend, Mary Jane. And your singing really is terrible.

4. A powerful alien symbiont, which enhances your aggressive side turns Peter into an even bigger dork? Also why was it so easy to remove the suit earlier in the movie but not later?

Things Sam Raimi picked up from a Hindi Movie
1. The hero dancing in the street and making passes at girls as he goes by.
2. The heroine sings-twice.
3. That old staple of Hindi cinema, hitting your head and then suffer from memory loss.
4. Said Memory returning upon being kissed by the heroine.
5 Last but not the least, the naukar who sees everything but says nothing because he wants to protect the ghar ki izzat. The emotional impact of that particular scene is completely lost in the ridiculousness of it.

Maybe they really should have split the movies into two and keeping the Venom storyline for the next one. I hope that this was a momentary aberration and that the franchise doesn't go the Batman (before Batman Begins) way and think the story is an excuse to string breathtaking special effects together.

**1/2 out of 5 stars