Bollywood meets Dickens

Mumbai may be reeling after the terror strikes, but Slumdog Millionaire, a film about a Mumbai slum kid rising to the top of Kaun Banega Crorepati, is making waves in the West. Sandip Roy meets its director Danny Boyle

Anil Kapoor was nervous about his first English film. “He kept saying, don’t be frightened to tell me to tone it down,” remembers director Danny Boyle. “But I like big performances. I like it full on.”

Boyle also gives it full on in his new and critically acclaimed film Slumdog Millionaire. It’s loosely based on Indian diplomat Vikas Swarup’s novel Q & A — a rags-to-rupees plot about a slum kid rising to the top of Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC) and then being accused of cheating. The film hurtles back and forth through time, like a jam-packed Mumbai local train, stuffed with everything you can imagine — hookers, pimps, mafia dons, Hindu-Muslim riots, orphans, maimed beggars, open latrines, the Taj Mahal and a big dance number at Victoria Terminus station.

It’s Bollywood meeting Dickens in Maximum City. “You can call it melodramatic but we respond to that on a human level,” says Boyle. “It’s no coincidence that Dickens’s work came out of that Victorian explosion of opportunity and wealth creation. Suddenly a mass of poor people had a little bit of purchasing power. And they wanted to be entertained. Dickens provided that. And Bollywood does too.”

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Voice politics

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Jumbo, the animation film for children and families which is being heavily promoted by Akshay Kumar, has been seeing some rather jumbo-sized politics backstage. The whisper is that Akki was paid a hefty Rs 9-crore fee by Percept, only for lending his voice to the main character, as a bait for completing their other film, Eight By Ten. Of course, that fee was paid before the market turned cautious over elephantine salaries. But it has ultimately worked out well because once Akshay came on board he didn’t stop at providing only a voice over. He roped in star names like Lara Dutta to dub for the other characters, held rehearsals at his house, took a personal interest in turning Jumbo into a glossy biggie and he has now pulled out the stops for its promotion. He’s virtually functioning like the brand ambassador for the film.

It has been a successful deal after all for Percept as their incomplete Nagesh Kukunoor film Eight By Ten also huffed and puffed to the finish line last week. The film had got stuck when an entire schedule in Canada went haywire and Akshay’s precious dates were wasted. That had miffed the actor and thereafter wooing him to complete the film was a screenplay of its own and took over a year to accomplish.

An inside source says that Akshay may have finally done all his shooting for Nagesh’s film but it was all far from hunky dory. On the sets, Akshay had his own ideas for executing a scene which, of course, differed widely from director Nagesh’s vision. Kukunoor wanted scenes done his way, underplayed and natural, while Akshay Kumar has a predilection for louder, commercial acting. So after a scene was shot Kukunoor style, Akshay would say, ‘Ok, you’ve done it your way. Now let’s do it my way.’ And the scene would be shot all over again!

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Bachchan 220 & 221 (two very strong statements)

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Slumdog scoops Indie film awards

Slumdog scoops Indie film awards

Slumdog Millionaire sees a young boy enter Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?

A movie about a poor Indian boy who wins a game show fortune has taken three prizes, including best film, at the British Independent Film Awards.

Slumdog Millionaire, which is not out in the UK until January, also won best director for Danny Boyle and best newcomer for 18-year-old Dev Patel.

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Hrithik tops Cosmopolitan Sexiest Men

We generally see sexy babes toplist by number of magazines like Maxim. Cosmopolitan does the role reversal with its list of ‘Cosmos 20 Sexiest Men’. Hrithik Roshan tops the list followed by: Farhan Akhtar, Arjun Rampal and Kunal Kapoor.

List feature some of the popular and well known faces from bollywood like Shahrukh, Aamir, Saif, Salman and Abhishek. It also has some non filmy names like Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Rahul Gandhi, Leander Pace etc. Checkout full list in images.

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´Chand­ni Chowk To China´: Three Songs To Be Unveiled On December 9

´Chand­ni Chowk To China´: Three Songs To Be Unveiled On December 9

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In memory of the Mumbai Attacks – Photo Cover – Vande Mataram – Aakash Gandhi

In memory of the Mumbai Attacks – Photo Cover – Vande Mataram – Aakash Gandhi

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Aamir-Gul’s superb Tata Sky ads

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Slumdog Millionaire: Songs Online

Only 5 songs are in this link:

http://www.rahmanism.com/2008/11/listen-slumdog-millionaire-songs-online.html

Love Mausam & Escape and Liquid Dance… Brilliant fusion!!!

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Baradwaj Rangan reviews Kanchivaram

Priyadarshan makes the most surprising film of his career. More surprisingly, it’s the film of his career.

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´Ghajini´ : Aamir’s Power Styling By Van Heusen

´Ghajini´ : Aamir’s Power Styling By Van Heusen

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Milliblog music review: Slumdog Millionaire

Shorn of the customary Indian’ness, Slumdog’s soundtrack is extremely accessible and engaging. And Rahman’s best international work to date!

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Bachchan — 219

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Franco wants Oscar for Ledger´s role in ´The Dark Knight´

Franco wants Oscar for Ledger´s role in ´The Dark Knight´

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Aamir Khan: The Bikini Killer?

Aamir Khan: The Bikini Killer?

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“There is one major difference between A. R. Rahman and all other music directors…” –Madhushree (an interview)

“There is one major difference between A. R. Rahman and all other music directors…” –Madhushree (an interview)

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God Tussi Great Ho Emerges A Success

God Tussi Great Ho which did poor business at the box office apart from a few single screens has emerged a success on the Home Video circuit.

The film has very good DVD/VCD sales across the country since it was … Read More

What They Hate About Mumbai (NY Times)

November 29, 2008
Op-Ed Contributor
What They Hate About Mumbai
By SUKETU MEHTA
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MY bleeding city. My poor great bleeding heart of a city. Why do they go after Mumbai? There’s something about this island-state that appalls religious extremists, Hindus and Muslims alike. Perhaps because Mumbai stands for lucre, profane dreams and an indiscriminate openness.

Mumbai is all about dhandha, or transaction. From the street food vendor squatting on a sidewalk, fiercely guarding his little business, to the tycoons and their dreams of acquiring Hollywood, this city understands money and has no guilt about the getting and spending of it. I once asked a Muslim man living in a shack without indoor plumbing what kept him in the city. “Mumbai is a golden songbird,” he said. It flies quick and sly, and you’ll have to work hard to catch it, but if you do, a fabulous fortune will open up for you. The executives who congregated in the Taj Mahal hotel were chasing this golden songbird. The terrorists want to kill the songbird.

Just as cinema is a mass dream of the audience, Mumbai is a mass dream of the peoples of South Asia. Bollywood movies are the most popular form of entertainment across the subcontinent. Through them, every Pakistani and Bangladeshi is familiar with the wedding-cake architecture of the Taj and the arc of the Gateway of India, symbols of the city that gives the industry its name. It is no wonder that one of the first things the Taliban did upon entering Kabul was to shut down the Bollywood video rental stores. The Taliban also banned, wouldn’t you know it, the keeping of songbirds.

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JayShah’s Saturday Box Office Column – Yuvvraaj extremely poor, Dostana registers significant fall…

Note all numbers are from Trade Guide

Reporting Methodology

1) New films most of the time where possible will be benchmarked against other films ‘in the same range’. The gross used for the older films will be either one’s I have computed or a BOI gross or a gross from Joginder’s column
2) Films currently playing – I will always do some trending analysis. This is always against the ‘week before’
3) To compute subsequent week grosses I will always benchmark against ‘the first week’. Before it was always the preceding week, but Week 1 is always the best base because it gives maximum centres to use
4) Going forward I will show ONE example in FULL and show the results of the remaining scenarios

New Releases

Yuvvraaj

Before getting into film business, the terrorist attacks will almost certainly hit film business. The full extent hasn’t been noticeable this week because only Wednesday and Thursday are affected and these two days anyhow would be the lowest grossing days during the week nonetheless. I suspect this weekend will be a disaster not only in Mumbai but to some extent the rest of India.

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Taran on Rab Ne and Ghajini

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Rudresh’s Box Office : Week 28-11-08

Salman and Anil Starrer Yuvraj opened to Poor response all over the country.The movie has collected around 11 Crore in the first week accross the country.Movie has performed better in smaller centers as compare to big centers.Smaller center collections are double of collections of Dostana in second week, where as in bigger cities and metros collections of both Dostana and Yuvraaj are almost similar.

Dostana, on other hand, has taken a drop of about 68% in second week.Ignoring the mumbai gives the second week estimation around 8.44 Cr where as considering the mumbai drop equivalent to the 60% gives the estimation around 8.84 Cr. Movie has taken a big drop in smaller centers where as group D centers have minimum drop of around 61%.

Full Estimation:

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Video: Title Song (Chandni Chowk To China)

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BTW, music album of CCTC will be officially released next week in a grand way. Producers here can afford to spend lavishly. 

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“OLLO is basically a work of research, imagination and memories” – Dibakar

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Mumbai – The war within the city from Kunal Kohli’s Blog

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From Anushka to RNBDJ’s Taani; The real story!

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That Anushka Sharma is a model from Bangalore is a fact well known to one and all, but as always we bring you exclusive inside details about Anushka Sharma, the hottest new find (after Deepika Padukone) in Bollywood.

Anushka comes from a very disciplined army family background. Her father is an army officer and mother a housewife. She was an intelligent and hardworking student during her army school days and completed her higher studies from Mount Carmel College, Bangalore. She was an all–rounder and was brilliant in athletics too. She had a great personality with good looks, a super figure and confidence!

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