 |
 |
|
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Split Screen
What a joke!
Misinformation on the electronic medium particularly pertaining to cinema
and music is like a rapidly spreading disease. On STAR News while doing an
altogether admirable story on an Oriya film called Bishwaparakash the dusky
correspondent safely commented, “Some of the best films being made are
in the regional cinema.” Then she added Amol Palekar’s Hindi language
film Kairee to her list of regional films!
The contestant looked puzzled and disgusted. When “gagster” Cyrus
Broacha was busy interviewing the contestants for the Femina Miss India Contest
on DD’s Metro channel, one of the lovely ladies thanked her parents
for what she has achieved in life.
“And what about me?” Broacha beamed brightly. “Without my parents you wouldn’t be here today.” I was still reeling under that one when the irrepressible Broacha (who didn’t even spare Lata Mangeshkar his antics when she appeared on MTV last month) was let loose among the judges to play a gangster instead of a “gagster”.
Pritish Nandy was ribbed about his car parking problems in Pune. The Rajya Sabha MP was asked if he, Broacha, stood a chance among the contestants. Neither Pritish Nandy nor Juhi Chawla (who was Broacha’s next target) seemed particularly amused. Prudently, “everyone’s favourite gagster” (emcee Rahul Khanna’s description) bypassed Shah Rukh Khan with a “Shah Rukh Bhai, how are you”.
So the guy knows whom not to mess around with. If only he would apply the breaks to his exuberance. Cyrus Broacha doesn’t mean any harm. He just means to be funny. A serial that’s trying to do just that is I Love You. Sony’s sweet-and-sour look at an urban marriage has Anup Soni and Anoushka playing newly-married on their own trip. Now Aditya Kapadia, that heart-tugger from Just Mohabbat and Suneel Darshan’s film Jaanwar, has been added to the serial.
Little Kapadia playing a neighbourhood kid named Satellite (if you please!) kept the lonely Anup Soni entertained while his wife was busy visiting her parents in Delhi. When she rang up, the boy asked if it was his wife.
“No,” Soni replied enthusiastically. “It was Manisha from Saans.” This, if we think about it, was killingly funny. Saans was playing on STAR Plus at the very moment when Anup Soni made his wry remark. Incidentally, the wife in I Love You Anoushka resembles another Manisha, of the Koirala kind.
In-house jokes seem to be in vogue in the comedies. Last week in Zee’s Gubbare we had a funny but clumsily concluded story called Bye Bye Zindagi where boss Archana Puran Singh (and female bosses don’t get any bossier than her) pulled up her junior Samir Soni (from China Gate to good-heaven’s gate, eh Soni?) for coming late to work. Soni offered a long-drawn explanation. “We can make a whole episode of Comedy Hour on your excuses,” Singh sang.
Gubbare elaborated the office maid. Chalo at least these urbanised characters possessed a sense of humour. I found it very hard to laugh when I saw Doordarshan’s own version of Zee’s Sa Re Ga Ma. Entitled Sargam (Tuesdays, 9 pm) the music contest on national television reeks of mediocrity.
Last week’s host Sudesh Bhosle repeated his overdone Sachin Dev Burman impersonation. We saw him do Burman dada’s Mere saajan hain uss paar at Stardust’s Millennium Honours. On Sargam, he mimicked Doli mein bithayeke kahaar. Judging by the standard of the contestants we can appreciate host Sudesh Bhosle’s need to make his presence felt. Last week the girl who mauled the immortal Lata-Madan Mohan ghazal Unko yeh shikayat hai happily improvised on poor Rajinder Krishen’s lyrics. Bhosle simply continued to shake his head appreciatively at the novice’s audacious distortions. As a music person wasn’t it his duty to cut the contestant short and tell her where she needs to get off?
Misinformaion on the electronic medium particularly pertaining to cinema and music is like a rapidly spreading disease. On STAR News while doing an altogether admirable story on an Oriya film called Bishwaparakash the dusky correspondent safely commented, “Some of the best films being made are in the regional cinema.” Then she added Amol Palekar’s Hindi language film Kairee to her list of regional films!
Here I must admit that STAR News has safely been devoting a small section to cinema-related stories. Some time ago there was a story on the ailing Bengali film industry. On January 11 STAR News focussed on the patheti plight of a retired cinematographer Rajendra Malone who lies homeless and dying on the streets in Mumbai, attended by his helpless daughter.
Only Anupam Kher had the guts to pull up his colleagues for their apathy towards such displaced and banished fringe-people. He appealed on STAR News to his colleagues to do at least one show every two years in aid of people like Rajendra Malone instead of industrialists and other wealthy patrons.
In the year-end wrap-up on BBC’s Talking Movies host Tom Brook gave us some startling facts and figures about the American box-office. Last year the US box-office made a profit of seven billion dollars! Brook listed The Phantom Menace, The Sixth Sense, The Spy Who Shagged Me, The Matrix and the animation film Tarzan is the five top grossers of 1999. Brooks’ own favourite Hollywood film of 1999 (and mine too) is American Beauty.
In addition there were segments devoted to the popularity in 1999 of horror films like The Blair Witch Project and teen flicks like She’s All That. Why didn’t we get even one such comprehensive story on Hindi cinema on our television? All the year-end wrap-ups were sketchy, if not downright opinionated and biased.
The story on STAR Bestsellers entitled Fursat Mein about the bond that burgeons between two old men in a park was touching, warm, intelligent and well-acted. It was also a straight lift of Herb Gardner’s Tony-award winning Broadway play I’m Not Rappaport which Gardner adapted to the screens in 1996 with Walter Matthau and Oscar Davis playing the lead.
Since Fursat Mein was such a judicious adaptation the source material should have been duly acknowledged.
Subhash K
Jha