Tuesday, October 20, 2015

20 Years of DDLJ

Twenty years ago, a movie released ... the first movie of a rookie director, the son of an established producer-director, with fairly new, there-but-not-quite-there actors, a great supporting cast, some fabulous music, of which one song had already started making waves.

Shahrukh Khan was known already, as an actor who held promise ... but his image was more negative at the time ... Baazigar, his biggest hit, had him playing the bad guy with the heart of gold, or the good guy gone bad ... and he was becoming a rage. Small rage ... but getting there. I remembered him from a play I'd seen in Delhi, also he was from my brother's school, a fellow Delhi-ite. Had missed both his super hit TV shows ... college and work left me no time for TV serials for well over a decade. But I knew who he was, and watched Baazigar ... liked him and the SRK-Kajol Jodi.

The SRK-Kajol Jodi had been appreciated in the movie, and all concerned agreed that Kajol, despite her unconventional looks and her devil-may-care attitude towards all things feminine and graceful, was a bundle of as yet untapped talent. I'd noticed her in the Saif-Akshay-Kajol starrer, a remake of Sabrina, and loved her spark with both Saif and Akshay in the film. Liked her in Baazigar too ... a girl with spunk and determination, her character was different from the usual vapid heroines of most films those days, whose sole purpose was to exist so that the hero could fall in love with them.

Farida Jalal was an old favourite.

Amrish Puri was the quintessential bad guy, the wicked dominating father who didn't care about his wife, his family, relationships ... he cared only about his pride and his self-respect. Typecast, yes ... but he was good in his slotted roles, and his booming voice lent a lot of depth to his characters.

Anupam Kher was ... well, Anupam Kher. Versatile enough not be slotted into any category, a brilliant actor who could change from comic to tragic to emotional, and play all with equal ease.

And then came DDLJ.

And everything changed.



Monday, October 12, 2015

Sanaya in JDJ8 - Finale

Sanaya loses the trophy but emerges winner of a million hearts and more. First runner up, that too, to a trained dancer against the norms of Jhalak, which is supposed to be the journey of a nondancer to becoming a good dancer. So she lost to a trained dancer ... which means she was best in terms of votes + scores among the rest, nondancers and dancers alike.

From the various sources and news coming out from the sets, not only was Sanaya deliberately underscored in the finale acts, but despite her extremely high votes being enough to offset the low scores, she was still cheated of the trophy. From various reports from people on the sets, she was 'the highest voted contestant by far', 'the winner was already decided before the finale performances', 'the votes were discarded for the final result', and she was 'the highest EVER voted contestant on JDJ'. These are not only reports from Sanaya fans, but from neutral viewers on the sets while filming was going on.

Hence for this blog and Sanaya lovers here, Sanaya is the winner of Jhalak. She has emerged a stronger person, a more confident live performer and a better dancer ... and in losing graciously and unfairly to a trained dancer, she has emerged a true winner.

Faisal gave a excellent solo act with Vaishnavi, also a trained dancer ... his choreographer is brilliant, and will go places.

Will post review of her performances later ... am not doing a full review this time, as I am not interested in the rest.

Adding link to Team Sarun review ... TS were there on the sets during the filming of the finale.

http://teamsarun.com/jhalak-dikhhla-jaa-reloaded-post-finale-review/

Back!

 Received a message about a spam comment, logged in to delete it, and browsed through the blog after AGES!!!! With work and home life gettin...