At last we meet.....

Another YouTube vid.

Very funny. Meet Chad Vader - lesser known brother of Darth.

Blast From The Past

If you were a kid living in Bombay in the 80s, then this site is certain to strike a chord. References to Chacha Chaudhary, Champak, Giant Robot, Fusen Gum (!) and plenty more.

There is other stuff here as well: my personal favourites are the misheard lyrics animations here and here. ROTFL.

Check it out - you won't be disappointed.

Ramayana... Reloaded

Apparently, Rajkumar Santoshi has announced that he plans to make a film based on the Ramayana.

On Star News today they had an SMS poll on for the best person to play Ram. The candidates were Ajay Devgan, Hrithik Roshan and Salman Khan. And they had expert opinions from er... the experts, namely Arshad Warsi and Irfan Khan (Were you expecting anyone else?) All this interspersed with cheesy footage from the Ramayana TV series.

In the space of a day, this is the second revival/remake of the Ramayana that I've heard of. The first is a set of comics (or graphic novels, if you will) launched by Virgin Comics, and created by Shekhar Kapoor and Deepak Chopra. Yes, that's right - that Deepak Chopra. Perhaps brought in to give Ram a new-age sensitive feel.

The artwork looks stunning though.



Virgin Comics are launching other lines as well - most notably a Lara Croft-esque desi heroine, called Devi, dressed in PVC and looking diabolically divine..



You can get a sneak preview here.

Check out the brooding, angst-ridden Inspector Rahul, dressed like Sam Spade, but no one told him the action had shifted to Sitapur in India.

While on the topic of the Ramayana, Ashok Banker was arguably the first person who started this revival, and you could do a lot worse than read his supremely written modern re-telling of the epic.

KANK Trailer

Most of you may know that KANK, or Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna for those of us who just don't get this damn acronymisation of Hindi film names, is the new Karan Johar flick out sometime this year.

Happened to watch the trailer on YouTube a while back.



It is obviously a slickly packaged product and has Yashraj written all over it - right from the opening shots of autumn leaves in the wind to the rising dramatic background score. This film is also, if Karan Johar is to be believed, "different" to Karan's previous offerings as it is "me all grown up." Rumour also has it that this film is based on 'Closer.' The question I have is - who's playing the stripper?

I digress.

Back to the trailer.

There is a bit where Abhishek Bachchan gets angry because Rani refuses to sleep with him. Rani tries to tell him that a marriage doesn't mean sharing a bed, it means sharing life. The trailer doesn't show Abhishek's reaction after this, but I'm sure he goes 'Oh, so that's where I was going wrong all this time,' and then goes off to do some housework. Understanding fella and all.

Then about a minute and a bit into the trailer, SRK comes on. "In this house, the only thing that's a bigger failure than I am is our marriage," he says, loftily arching his eyebrows. I say. This is SRK trying to underplay, and he does it pretty badly.

I think Ashutosh Gowariker was reasonably successful in repressing his personality in Swades, but in every other role, he is the same person on screen i.e. SRK.

I used to think being in the position that he is, he should maybe experiment a little more. And no, I don't mean grow a moustache. But now I think he just doesn't know how to do a film which doesn't require him to stand with his arms wide open. Or run in slo-mo.

Anyway.

The second thing that got me in the trailer was an Amitabh shot. He's in a hospital bed mouthing 'mohabbat aur maut, dono bin bulaye mehmaan hain." Instead of bringing a tear to the eye, as I'm sure Karan Johar intended, this scene reminded me of an old email that someone had once sent me entitled 'jeevan ki suktiyan', one of which 'sukti' was 'maut aur tatti, kabhi bhi aa sakte hain.' ROTFLMAO!!!

Having said all that, I'm sure the movie will be a mega success, and I'll probably end up watching it as well.

And I'm also sure I'll get loads of flames for criticising The Khan. (Ed: You wish - if there was any traffic at all to this site.) Bring it on.

A fine line between inspiration and plagiarism...

.... and I'm sure Bappi-da and Anu Malik would agree with me.

Take this for an example.

"Don't phunk with my heart" is a very catchy tune by The Black Eyed Peas (who I quite like, btw.)

The opening riff is very familiar, but of course it would be - very straight-forwardly "inspired by" "Yeh mera Dil, Pyar ka Deewana" - that awesome Helen number from Don.

I knew that.

What I didn't know is that The Peas have also lifted the rest of the song from other sources (Shock! Horror!)

The website Pardonmyhindi.com has an article called "Dont Phunk with Kalyanji/Anandji".

The Peas' phunky thievery doesn't end there. The group also snatched lyrics from "I Wonder If I Take You Home," a 1985 hit by Lisa Lisa and the Cult Jam

Moreover -

Maybe the Peas were having a bout of writer's block, so they grabbed a rhythm and melody from the soundtrack to the film "Apradh."

Grabbed indeed. The song is called "Ae naujawan sab kuchh yahan". You can listen to a sample of the song here at the bottom of this page here.

When contacted for comment (not by me), they said (not to me) -

"We fused Lisa Lisa with Bollywood and Miami bass [on "Don't Phunk"] So that's a whole new, different sound."

Hmmph! At least think of an original comment - this sounds uncannily like Anu "Oonchi Hai Building" Malik.

Incidentally, The Peas have done it before. Old news perhaps, but on their first album Elephunk, they "grabbed" an Illayaraja number and "fused" it with some hip-hop beats and called it The Elephunk Theme. While it sounds quite good, I must admit I don't know if Illayaraja has been credited on the album or not.

Go here and listen to both songs.

Btw, pardonmyhindi has a cool T-shirt of Kalyanji/Anandji here. Quite cool in a post-ironic desi retro chic kind of way. Or something like that anyway.

France are through...

...beating Portugal 1-0.

Scolari is not a happy camper.

Ricardo, the nemesis of English strikers, finally fails to save a goal, but then again this time the striker was Zidane.

The English must be experiencing mixed emotions - happy that Portugal is out, but beaten by..... France??

Incidentally, read here that the Enlgish are boycotting holidays in Portugal.

England fans seeking solace from their World Cup woes are shunning Portugal as a holiday destination after the national squad knocked England out of the tournament, travel agents said on Tuesday.

Hmm... I bet the Portuguese are disappointed by this reaction. Damn! No more English tourists getting drunk, throwing up in the middle of the street, and generally making asses of themselves? That's a bummer! Can we have a re-match please?

Read here that some enterprising person had put Cristiano Ronaldo up on Ebay. The entry read "One Ex Manchester united Player (Cheat)"
Ebay have taken it off now, but bidding had reached £10K at one stage...

Also read this about rumours of a vote-rigging campaign to prevent C. Ronaldo from winning the FIFA Best Young Player Award.

PS. I posted this last night but it didn't show up, problem with Blogger I expect...

Hmm.....

Did you ever think that the comics you'd read during your childhood had various sub-texts? Or are we just too cynical these days? Either way, this is pretty funny...

Too many good ones to mention here, but try this, this and this.

Courtesy: Jabberwock's blog here.

In fact, the entire site is quite funny. Check it out.

And the Oscar goes to....

...someone else, because this is so darn awful.

Hard to believe they still make movies like this.



Hilarious. NTR's son, in case you were wondering.

Courtesy: Amit Varma's blog here.

Hyde Park Calling 2 July 2006

Finally the day.

Second day of Hyde Park Calling. A mouth-watering line-up -
1. Ocean Colour Scene. Quite an under-rated band, with a classic 90's brit-pop sound (whatever *that* is).
2. The Zutons. My new favourite. They absolutely rock.
3. Razorlight. Hadn't listened to them much before the show, apart from the songs that they play on the radio.
4. The Who. Of course. This is what we shelled our money out for.

In that order. There was another group which opened, but we missed it as we were at The Carpenters Arms, erm...preparing ourselves for the day :-) And there was another stage where Primal Scream was headlining with some other bands, but we didn't venture there.

How was it?

Pretty &%$*ing amazing is how it was. The music just kept getting better and better as the day went on.

OCS were good. The Zutons (Did I tell ya I love them) and Razorlight were amazing.

And then The Who came on.

The combined age of this band is probably equal to the combined age of the previous two bands, but in terms of sheer energy and performance, in the words of my dear friend Maithu, they made the others look like they were out for a gentle amble in the park. Roger Daltrey belting it out (and he's still got the lungs for it), Pete Townshend windmilling at every given (or not) opportunity, truly an amazing sight.

No broken guitars, unfortunately - I've heard that Pete's given that up. No explosions as well, Keith Moon being dead and all. Yeah, I know - bad taste.

The play list AFAIR:

I can't explain
The seeker
Anyway, anyhow, anywhere
Who are you
Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere
Who are you?
Bargain
Behind blue eyes
Drowned
Baba O'riley
Reign O'er me
The kids are alright
My Generation
Won't get fooled again


I'm sure I've forgotten a couple of songs.

They came back for their encore, and I and Maithu were wondering what they'd play next. They hadn't played Pinball Wizard yet, and there were murmurs of 'Magic Bus' around us. Finally, they played
Substitute,
Pinball Wizard
See me, feel me

The visuals were mesmerising as well. For 'Who Are You?' they showed a speeded-up b/w video taken from the front of a train so all you can are tracks and the countryside rushing by at great speed. And the song ends when the train reachs its destination and the passengers disembark. Gimmicky maybe, but it worked very well.



Click here for more pictures of this event.

All in all, Total paisa vasool!

They are streaming their concert footage here.

And when you're there, look out for us. After 'Who Are You?' and after Pete says 'You guys are younger than us' there is a crowd shot. In the upper right of the frame, you can see Maithu in his orange t-shirt.



Next to him, if you look closely, you can see about half my face.



Our claim to fame.