Salaam E Ishq.

There’s an item-girl. There’s a lowly ex-waiter and current rich boy flying around the world like reactions to racism against Shilpa Shetty. There’s a much-married man who ogles at nubile younglings’ cleavages in public places while dutiful Indian wife manages two now-they’re-there, now-they’re-not kids. There’s a bridegroom-to-be who shares more screentime with his bumbling best friend’s camera than his own girlfriend. There’s a horny couple from Haryana who are so ‘dying to do it but are unable to’ that one wonders how couples in our villages find the privacy to generate 8-9-10 kids. And then there are the two silver linings to this misuse of raw stock; a cab driver who falls in love with white girl who’s hunting high and low for cheating-Indian-boyfriend, and a news-editor who’s wife has lost her memory in a train accident. Really, save for Govinda (HE’S BACK!!!!!!!!!!) and John Abraham (surprisingly restrained and powerfully moving, the guy CAN act), this one should’ve been called Salaam-E-Tsk tsk tsk.

Guru.

There’s a village bumpkin who oscillates from looking like a coke addict between lines, to a slimy fixer-upper walking the streets outside Mantralaya. Lo and behold, in one magic blocked camera movement, safari-suit goes from 1 factory to 5 factories to 20 factories, and everyone is expected to reach for their kerchiefs and dupattas when aam-aadmi comes up to him in his worst time (which happens without reason, explanation or coherence) and tells him that aam-aadmi owes his Maruti 800 with detachable stereo panel, daughter’s marriage to fuckwit wife-beating NRI, wife’s lucknowi sarees with zari-work and son’s education to him, to which bumpkin safari looks all wierded out and surprised. And rightly so, no one told him how and why he managed that either. And inbetween some god-awful shots that use ‘international techonolgy’ to create awe-inspiring scenes that are not even a patch on ganpati-visarjans in Bombay, ‘Guru’ suddenly ends, wondering if it’s the same director who gave us ‘Bombay’. Mani sir, Disas-ter.

Untitled.

So the story goes, that amitabh's son salman has the hots for rani mukherji, and they get married in the 15 minutes of screentime that salmanbhai has given to the chopras, who in return have given him a 'special appearance' billing. he's thus promptly killed off, and rani wails and howls, probably because he got more money for 15 minutes than she did for the entire film. anyway, so mr bachchan now has to find the one guy on the planet who likes rani despite the howling and wailing, but unfortunately, that guy aka john abraham has made life worse for bachchan by going off to afghanistan to interview a talib. one wonders why, because he could've easily made up a fictitious talib and concocted an interview like all normal journos do. will bachchan reach afghanistan and hunt john down and bring him back before john is mauled by a pack of wild donkeys? the answer to that question lies in the new hit film BABUL EXPRESS. eminently tear jerking stuff, ie you'll want to tear the jerk's head off.

D2.

Dhoom2 cast returned home after the shoot.

YC: Happy now, beta?
Uday: Thank you mummy … bhaiyya … daddy …

Bip’s dad: Hi beta, how did it go?
Bip: I’m playing a cop so they’ve given me these fancy guns! The unit is so nice, all the guys on the set were so happy to see me. Ok now I’m going to walk out the door and come back in and you ask me the same question again, ok?
Dad (confused): Why?
Bip: Because I have a double role in the film!
Dad: Ohhhhhh hahahhahaha nice joke beta.
Bip: Er, dad … it wasn’t a joke, seriously, ask me again …

Ash’s dad: How’d it go?
Ash: Like, bahut mazaa aaya … like, andheri is so cool, like … the idiot should’ve like, wired the money instead of sending like, cash … like, in dollars … what do I do with, like … euros? That’s not even like, a currency of like, a country …
Dad: Beta please repeat in hindi or english yeh kaun si bhasha hai

Bada B: Aye saala hain, how’d it go.
Chhota B: Papa papa, Hrithik stole my thunder and made me look like chicken shit and also kissed my girlfriend you please call Rakesh uncle and tell him to scold him.

RR: Beta Abhishek’s dad just called …
HR: Gimme a break, dad. I spend all day being the saving grace of a film and kissing corpses, I don’t deserve this shit when I come home.

Apna Sapna Money Money.

With his debut ‘Kya kool hain hum’, Sangeeth Sivan hinted that he didn’t want anything to do with cinema that’s remotely sensible. With ‘Apna Sapna Money Money’, he drives home that point explicitly. The entire bighan-ki-jad are supposedly some diamonds that by themselves have more brains than the entire cast and crew put together, so they show up only in the first and last 5 minutes of the film. Beech mein there’s a scamster who’s got no money for rent but lots for extravagant disguises, a henpecked mechanic who’s never held a wrench in his life except for when he wants to jack off, a semi-blind pujari who can’t tell real titties from oranges so he keeps reaching out to squeeze those of a man dressed in drag, and there are subsequent lewd jokes about santra juice and neeche ka AC and an entire sequence with sandals that has innuendos like ‘andar daalo, chhota hai, tight hai’ etc.

Everyone in this insipid drab keeps spreading women’s legs to take out bags from under them and reaching out to grab the private parts of men, women and everything else. Then there are assorted unattractive women in various stages of undress who all look alike and keep thrusting their jubblies at the camera, probably causing erectile dysfunction to the director of photography of this monstrosity. And there’s a dog that keeps stealing the pujari’s lota till you want to feed them Jamaal ghota so they both need the damn lota in unison. I am getting increasingly convinced that the one thing Bollywood films ensure is that the title of ‘The worst film ever made’ changes hands every Friday. Somewhere lost in the middle is the reason why everyone wants the damn diamonds, there’s a little girl with a hole in her heart who needs 15 lakhs for surgery or she’ll die. This one is so bad that you wish you had the hole in your heart instead and you’d sooner die than suffer ‘Santa Banta and Runny Tummy’.

VIVAH.

(approx runtime 140 mins)

Boy meets girl. (0-35 mins)
They get engaged. (35-70 mins)
Girl gets burnt. (70-105 mins)
Boy marries girl. (105-140 mins)

Don.

'HOW TO REMAKE A CLASSIC'.

1. Take script from daddy.
2. Don't read it.
3. Ignore intensity, soul, catharsis, motive.
4. Add half-baked technique, shoddy performances.
5. Add gadgets, blow up cars, make all females on screen wear wonderbras.
6. Rehash and screw up quintessential item song.
7. Rehash and fuck up classic song by showing protagonists on the run from cops consuming banned substances freely in a country where there's a death penalty for doing so.
8. Package film for 2006, retain dialogues and delivery-styles from 1978.
9. Add annoying twists, including a software engineer who overnight becomes a masterthief and expert rapeller.
10. Get confused between remaking, paying tribute, and wanting to make a few crores.
11. Make a big deal about a disc which has all details about crime bigwigs, despite all the bigwigs being dead during course of disc exchange.
12. Massacre classic dialogues by repeating them till the audience walks out shaking heads.
Regards, F.J.Akhtar