Thursday, November 09, 2006

Jaaneman, tick

Have fallen behind with Bollywood. The Diwali releases’ backlog is being taken care of now and I made a dent in the pile with Jaaneman today.

People had said it was whacky and so it was. Shirish Kunder seems taken with the Broadway musical and I was vastly entertained with the first half. It was a quirky, merrily-paced narrative and I laughed readily at all the jokes: archival footage of Filmfare Awards from god-knows-when, and particularly the troupe of qawwals walking insouciantly out of the closet to add ambient sound. When wannabe star Suhaan Kapoor (Salman Khan) knocks producers’ doors in search of work, the scene brings a faint whiff of the Maestro Gene Kelly, when he so famously declared ‘Gotta dance.’ Of course all this tapers off quickly as the story turns earnest but it was great while it lasted.

Seriously, it is time our movie makers cut down on reel time – this one was half hour too long. I may have time on my hands, but I like to have it respected. And our heroes have taken to crying too much. New Man and all is very well but a little less of that please.

Tomorrow, Vivah. Doing good, aren’t I? I wish I had smileys, I’m needing a wide toothy grin.

2 comments:

The Marauder's Map said...

I got put off from watching Jaan-e-Mann (hope the hyphens are in the right places) by the terrible promos, especially one that showed Akshay Kumar tearing off his shirt in wild anguish. And I thought Preity Zinta looked barely interested in the proceedings as she stylishly wound her arms around first one hero and then the other. Hope she gets up more animation in the movie proper?

Sheetal said...

Yes, what was with the promos? I didn't know there was such a movie till Diwali came about. I got my hopes up for this one after everyone gave it at least one more star than Don.

Well, Salman howls loud enough for the two of them, her restraint is actually a good thing, Marauder.