Amir Peterpan Khan

Amir Khan is definitely from Neverland. The actor never seems to grow old. It has been 22 years since Khan first got noticed in 'Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak' in 1988 as a young college graduate. And 22 years later when most of the kids that were born in that year are now graduating from colleges, Amir is still doing college flicks (he also did a movie as a school student 'Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikander'.) To put it simply it's absurd. Oh wait... Amir is from Neverland, he has decided to never grow old.

I saw 3i a few days back and I think Chetan Bhagat did a good job by creating a controvercy. because if it wasn't for the controversy, I would have not been able to connect 3i with 5PS. The two stories, except for a few parallels, are totally different. I guess Chetan must have felt as if he got kicked in the nuts when the movie started making billions where as he had sold the story to Vidhu Chopra Co. for a meager sum of 1 million rupees (before taxes).

Gross revenue generated by 3 idiots may be highest ever by any Indian movie. But I personally think that even though 3i and Ghajini (the 2nd highest grosser) have been the most financially successful Indian movies of all times yet they cannot be kept at par with movies like Sholay, Deewar, DDLJ etc. I can illustrate this with a simple example, how many of you can recall even a single dialogue from Ghajini? I can't. And even in 3 Idiots, "Aal iz well" was force fed to us. They devoted a whole song to this phrase and Amir Khan kept repeating it  through-out the movie. Consider, Sholay on the other hand, "Tera kya hoga kaliya?", "Kitney aadmi the?" and many more such dialogues have become colloquial. Movies like, Deewar, DDJL, Lagaan, Sholay, Mughal-e-Azam have proven the test of time and have stood out from the crowd. But same is not true for Ghajini? We don't even talk about Ghajini anymore and neither will we talk about 3 Idiots in a few years.

Anyway, 3i did touch a critical subject which is very close to my heart i.e. our education system. But I would like to talk about that in a new post.

The Avatar Experience

Yesterday, I went to Toho Cinemas to watch Avatar. About Avatar, all I can say is that James Cameroon knows how to create a lot of hype. On top of everything, I am surprised that these so called movie critics 'the experts' got carried away by the hype. Or are these critics a part of the publicity machinery? Anyway, I didn't feel the 3D the way I was expecting. I was told by the media that Cameroon had invented a new 3D technology for this movie. The Titanic's famous "I'm flying" scene was much more exhilarating than any scene that 3D saga Avatar had to offer.

Here are some fun facts about the movie Avatar:
1. The Man-mounted killer robots were exactly same as the ones in Matrix III
2. The rituals that Jake (the Avatar form) had to perform in order to mount the flying creature was a complete rip-off of the rituals that Harry Potter had to do in order to mount Buckbeak in Prisoner of Azkaban.
3. The style of narration by Jake (the paraplegic) during the entire movie reminded me of the narration in Max Payne 2 (the game).
4. And at the climax when Eywa suddenly sends the entire wildlife of Pandora to attack humans is totally Chronicles of Naria.
5. And yeah one more thing, over all it was sort of reverse of Independence day.

Anyway, this was my first 3D movie and I'm guessing that this is just the beginning of 3D movie era. A front line movie maker, such as James Cameroon, has entered into the 3D movie making business, I'm sure that other movie directors will join in too and soon 3D will completely replace the existing technology. Isn't it amazing to see that in period of just over 100 years we've traveled from
Silent >> Talkies >> Color >> Digital >> Animation >> 3D (My grand ma still refers to the Movie Theaters as Talkies).
And I do think that 3D is the next-gen movie technology and I'm really excited about it except for the heavy and annoying glasses. Somebody will have to do something to get rid of the them . They are annoying and stupid and I got a severe headache after the movie because of the glasses.

One really silly thing happened at the theater that I must mention here. You see we Indians have a habit of springing out of our chairs as soon as the movie is over and the credits start rolling in. In fact, the minute the movie is over some of the theaters in Delhi even turn off the projector. And frankly speaking I don't really see the point in reading the names of the people who made a contribution in making that film, unless I am an agent or a casting director. But to my initial astonishment which turned into annoyance after a while (because I got stuck in between, next time I'm taking corner seat) these stupid Japanese sit right till the end. Up to the point when 'THE END' appears on the screen and the whole thing goes blank and the lights are turned on. What's the deal with that?