Manish Dhingra: Entertainment

A new era of celebrity management

Mon, 08 Aug 2005 18:50:30 GMT

We all know him as the innovator in Hindi Cinema. Agreed his releases are few and spread in large periods of time, but when he does do something, he does with class which is un-paralleled. Come Twelveth of August and his movie is going to receive such an over-whelming response that all the releases to date this year will fall flat on the collections this film makes in a week. If you still can't get what or who I am talking about, I won't take the suspense any forward. I'm talking about Aamir Khan and his upcoming release Mangal Pandey-The Rising.

It's Aamir's first release after four years, and I am so glad to see that he has used today's most prolific tool to garner publicity and reach the masses, "A blog". Mangal Pandey has his blog here. Now while a lot of us were not convinced on the initial postings on the blog, treating it more as a publicity gimmic, things changed after Aamir's last post on August 8th, with pictures to boot. I could hear in my mind reactions like "Oh!! It's true Aamir is actually blogging !!", or the women going "Oh my, Aamir looks so cute in those locks, and even cuter with a thinkpad!!". I on the contrary still feel it's not Aamir blogging , but celebrity managers and publicity partners who have tapped the ever growing blogging population (Read here).

Blogs unlike television have an advantage that people can tune into them even from work. It's not a frilly business to create them and maintain them. I guess we all have heard these several times before, so coming back to the title, I feel this will usher a new era of celebrity blogging. Celebrities will reach out to their fans through their blogs. Ofcourse it will be celebrity managers doing a bulk of the work and answering most of the comments, looking after the upkeep of the blog, it would still be a great tool to keep intouch with India's ever growing population of blog savvy and technology savvy people. Mangal ho Mangalwar ko!!

O Bunty..Oye Oye Babli..Catch me if you can

Sun, 29 May 2005 08:14:10 GMT

Saturday evening, with Mom and my Brother out of town, my Dad and I decided to head out for dinner and if good fortune prevailed we should be able to catch the new release "Bunty and Babli" at the PVR cinemas. Well good fortune did prevail and even though all the tickets were sold out, I managed two tickets from these gentlemen who were standing outside the ticket counter waiting to sell their tickets because the authorities did not allow them to take their bags inside the multiplex. After last weeks bomb explosion the cinema owners have become very strict on the carry-on inside the multiplex.

Now it has been a really really long time since I saw a movie in theatre, so I was looking at something light headed and comical. I was looking forward to watching this movie, not only because of the promos which seemed to suggest a light hearted fare, but also to watch Rani Mukherjee and Amitabh Bachchan together again after "Black". So before I go any further with my review of the movie, my rating for this movie is a *** (3 star).

The film seems to have drawn a huge amount of inspiration (yes not copied but inspired) from Steven Spielberg's "Catch me if you can”. Abhishek and Rani play Bunty and Babli respectively, who equate to Frank William Abagnale Jr. (Leonardo DiCaprio), one of the world's most brilliant con men and impostors, who had police in the U.S. and twenty-six countries searching for him all before his 21st birthday. Amitabh plays Dashrat Singh a cop, who equates with Carl Hanratty (Tom Hanks). Spielberg is a marvelous story teller and CMIYC had me engrossed for the entire two hours wondering what Abagnale would do next.

However director Shaad Ali is a million light years away from Spielberg's prowess. He makes a complete mess of the plot which hardly keeps you engrossed. I guess midway through the making the movie Shaad must have realized the same and hence he brought in Aishwarya Rai to do an item number to add more appeal to the masses. If there is one reason to watch the movie then it's solely because of the performances by Rani Mukherjee and the "Big B".

Rani Mukherjee throws in an absolute sterling performance and riding on the crest created by "Black", in Rani we have one of the finest actresses in the Hindi film industry and certainly the best actress in today's world. She stands head and shoulders above her male co-star Abhishek Bachchan in performance, emoting etc. Amitabh Bachchan as usual is tremendous.

Abhishek Bachchan would have to think twice now before acting in a movie which also stars his Dad. It's unfair to compare Abhishek with Amitabh just because it's a father-son duo, but if I try to compare him with an Ajay Devgan or a Manoj Bajpai, he comes no where close. I think Ajay matched Amitabh shot for shot in "Khakee". Abhishek's performance is completely overshadowed by his other more successful co-stars. I think Amitabh would also think twice before casting himself in the same movie as his son, simply because Amitabh is trying to promote his son as an actor, he's not going to be able to do that if he's on the same stage as his son.

So if you are planning on watching a entertainer and some excellent artists of the film world, head to watch Bunty and Babli...which BTW I would also recommend as a movie you could watch on television.

Indian Soaps-Spreading a wave of disharmony

Fri, 13 May 2005 06:39:21 GMT

I can't fathom what our television soaps (a.k.a family dramas) are upon these days. For a change I was having dinner at around 10:30 PM yesterday, while watching television and having no choice at the prime time of the Indian soap scene (because my family was just hooked on) , couldn't help but continue to watch the crying and wailing in our soaps, not to mention the conspiracy theories.

In all of these soaps (or serials as it is known here), the women have been portrayed in such bad light.

Now I don't mean that they have been deglamourized or made fun of or have not been given their due, not quite, in fact almost all of the soaps revolve around women and women play the central characters. What really surprises me is that all the soaps seem to thrive on vendetta.It women conspiring against women, whether it's mother-in-law against daughter-in-law, or mother's against daughter's husband or what you may, they all just show these family feuds going on and on and the bone behind each is a woman(mostly an elderly woman in her late 40's).

I have heard about so many troubled couples of late and the incidences I hear all seemed to have drawn inspiration from these soaps.

When they talk about "reel life imitating real life", this is what they mean. Earlier there was a big hue and cry about how the censors were playing spoil sport to creativity and incidences of crime and eve-teasing had increased because of television, taking a swipe at the younger generation not having a strong head on their shoulders and getting carried away by what they see on television. The older generation is doing no better.

So all those moral policemen and policewomen (Sushma Swaraj could just look at FTV..for priest's sake..she should have seen Ekta Kapoor's mind show), leave the skin and get to malice which is causing even more disorder "Soaps affecting the mind".

Indian Male dominated Idols

Sat, 19 Feb 2005 22:53:26 GMT

I haven't been following this show ever, but the whole country is just glued to their television sets on every Thursday @ 9:30 PM, waiting to see who the Indian music singer idol is ? Not since "Kaun Banaga Crorepati" a. k.a "Who wants to be a millionaire" , has TV seen such fervor among people for a TV show.

Thursday last, I just happened to be visiting a friend for dinner. The time was closing in to 21:30 and my friend warned me that for the next one hour I would have to control my hunger since Indian Idol was going to start. I was hooked on aswell, cause there were only the last three contestants left. During the course of the program (which seemed never ending due to the commercial breaks), a couple of interesting points came up.

Firstly, how much of a money spinner this program has been for Sony Entertainment television. People watching the show vote for their favorites by SMS'ing or calling certain numbers, and Sony gets a cut out of total SMS and call traffic generated in that. Besides this Sony has come out with CDs of the performances of the contestants and those CDs are selling like hot cakes.

Secondly, of the thousands of people who have tried to make an impression on the Indian Idol, only 3 remained (actually 2 now), and both are males. So are we still living in a male dominated society? Sure the audience votes for their favorites on the show, but just a passing thought.

It was an absolutely exhilarating program nevertheless, after a couple of drinks, the music started to seem even more melodious.

And BTW I voted for Rahul Vaidya, but the jinxed me, everyone else voted him out. All the best to Amit Sana and Abhijeet Sawant, I think Abhijeet Sawant will take the crown..oops,did I say that, lets hope the jinx ends there.