I’m set for first day 6-9, unless the maligned fog re-appears!

Sure will do.

and

I hope its thumping action.

Abhishek has taken more after Jaya ji than Big B, it is quite obvious.

Satyam, members will come and go but your fascination will remain the same. I will prefer Abhishek to make his own mark. I do not think he can become the real heir of Amitabh. Even Amitabh would have struggled to repeat his success.

I think I’ve made this point clear many times. That the ‘once a year’ policy is justified only when you’re seen to be shifting the ‘debate’ if you will. Coming back after one year and doing RNBDJ doesn’t quite cut it. Because absence signifies (Hollywood or otherwise) a degree of ‘care’ that the actor puts in in terms of choosing a project. So both TZP and Ghajini can be easily justified for all the reasons we’ve discussed many times before. If absence doesn’t signify prestige and careful selection then it becomes only about the box office. The subliminal message with an aging star also is that the one superhit a year is great but the star clearly doesn’t want to ‘risk’ more exposure than this.

Even a younger star is not entirely clear of this danger. So JA is perfectly defensible, Kites isn’t. With that gap.

Any advantage that Aamir gains by having one release a year is balanced out by the risky genres he gets involved with. On the other hand when you do formula films (whatever your strength genres might be) then you actually convert even the absence into a strength. So people want a Yashraj love story in any case but being away for a while means they want it even more! Despite this RNBDJ did not get off to a rocket start on day 1. The publicity argument is lame. The ads were all over TV every single day. As if people needed to be persuaded anyway to watch SRK and Yashraj!

But the competition also comes in here. Why is is that Akshay can do multiple formula films a year but not SRK? Why is it that Abhishek has a Mehra/Rathnam double and no one else does? It can be argued very plausibly that only Aamir could have such a combo if he so desired. Even he couldn’t come up with a more prestigious deal!

It is impossible to argue that stars other than Aamir or Abhishek are actually not interested in a Hirani, a Mehra, a Rathnam or what have you. The obvious conclusion is that either the star isn’t getting these offers or doesn’t have the nerve to take real risks.

Now we’ve heard the old spiel before where mysteriously certain stars keep rejecting every good project in town. With SRK the drama is that he coincidentally has fights with every prestigious maker and refuses to work with them! All a little silly if you ask me. Hard to believe who could buy this kind of story!

But there is nonetheless another kind of truth to this structure. SRK for example at his age wants blockbusters once a year. He doesn’t feel he can get the same result if he does a risky film and rightly so. Given that he’s predicated his career for so long on being big or even the ‘biggest’ he can’t compromise his box office in any way. Because remember Aamir doesn’t just do a Hirani but often does films with less than established setups (DCH, TZP, Lagaan). SRK is not willing to do this. Which leaves the other option of established prestige names coming to him. This doesn’t happen either. At least not often.

Which brings me to yet another point. Will Smith might be the biggest Hollywood star of the moment but Fincher is not about to cast him in a Benjamin Button anytime soon! For the prestige subject just being the biggest box office star might not be enough. Guess which ‘Italian’ Scorsese was casting? Not Stallone! It’s not just about acting prestige. There’s a certain box office logic to this as well. Actually Stallone couldn’t have delivered more even in box office terms in Scorsese’s films. Because authentic subjects depend on the actor appearing authentic as well. Again an old example of mine. Name me the ‘top’ star who does more in a different film than Abhishek does in Guru (in box office terms). There is none. And this isn’t the most ‘commercial’ film around by a long stretch and depends even more on the central protagonist than most other different films in the same period. No frills here. Except for the publicity of the lead performance. Or let’s turn it around. What star considered Abhishek’s equal or lesser than him grosses as much in a ‘different’ project?

All of this has to be understood. If this were not the case many directors would be idiots for not just taking the top 3 stars at the box office at any given time! This is where all the debates about star rankings also miss the point. yes, in an absolute sense Stallone and Schwarzenegger were bigger than De Niro. But in a system that values prestige this fact is not the only one that matters. India is also now becoming a Hollywood kind of system which is why one sees even stars with proven box office ability venturing in other directions. Why did Hrithik need to do a JA after Krrish/D2? He could do a couple of these movies every year and become absolutely the top box office star? Would Akshay do only comedies if he could get ‘better’ films and find them viable? Of course not. The same held for Stallone as well!

This holds especially for stars who have proven box office ability or a fanbase and who walk away from it. Aamir’s is again the best example. But also take Abhishek. Had a great ‘05. Walked away from it. To this day no BnB like followup, no Dus like followup. SR as a sequel came three years after the first one (however it worked there was quite a gap; it couldn’t have been his only show!), even BM which helped him greatly in urban centers does not have a followup. Finally there’s a Dostana three years later and even this cannot be universal because of the gay theme! And what about Guru? Why not another film or two, even inferior ones, that exploit the overman thing? It’s easier than ever in this multiplex age to prosper from formula. But these are the only two stars who have demonstrably walked away from obvious advantages. It takes time and discipline. Aamir went through the 90s (though he was always one of the top stars) before he got to his current triumphs (he had hits then also of course but it was a different environment).

All of this is connected to your point. You have to look at contexts. No one thinks that SRK doing a RNBDJ once a year and Aamir doing a Ghajini is the same thing. And I’m not even getting to TZP or what have you. Even with ‘prestige’ certain projects are safer than others. Would you bet on Hrithik/Ash in a Bhansali or Abhi/Ash in Rathnam? In pure box office terms? Aamir has never even gone for this kind of ‘obvious’ choice, or not often. The same holds for Abhishek.

There’s also another parallel. When Aamir got commercial flops (Mela) or even earlier after QSQT he abandoned those paradigms. He didn’t try to do better versions in the same genres. Abhishek also does this. Aamir also learnt that being ‘different’ had its limits. Abhishek has been learning that as well. He still seems to have enough volume but Aamir at that age wouldn’t have disagreed with doing Mehra, Rathnam, Johar, RGV, Rohan Sippy, Balki or what have you!

So it’s all about contexts, the narrative a star has or the narrative he ‘controls’.

“”"When a star does one film at a time it becomes critical. Unless of course you’re Aamir and then even that one film never fails!”"”

Which other star having one film a year have failed ????

Thanks for your review of the movie of the year – CCTC!

Q, I also hope that you saw a different film….maybe billoo barber

Got a chance to watch it at the snazzy New York Premiere on 42nd street, which had Akshay, Deepika and Nikhil Advani in attendance. Seemed like the mother of all premieres, as it seems to be well in advance of the movie’s release next week. Advani must be really confident of his product – and rightfully so.

The film was hardcore comedic desi masala with a side of lo mein. Akshay Kumar is now a genre of his own – especially his brand of humor which appeals from front-benchers to the elitists.

Technically, this has got to be one of the more superior projects to emerge out of Bollywood. The martial arts sequences, the eye-caressing shots of the Great Wall (did you know this is the first flick ever to be shot there? EVER!? DAym!).

Don’t expect a brilliant storyline or a gripping plot. CC2C is like how Austin Powers would do Enter the Dragon. Sheer madness and insanity. Comic-bookish – so please leave that condescending and sarcy brain of yours at home, which always goes to watch a Bollywood movie to mock it afterwards for “weak storyline”, “sequences were difficult to believe”. Arrey? Its a fantasy movie about a cook from Chandni Chowk who gets sucked into being the reincarnation of a Chinese Warrior, and eventually saves a village. Do you know anyone who can say, “Hey, that happened to my brother-in-law, last week!”. I mean, please. Just goin for the laughs, enjoy the over-the-top-ness, savor the superior production quality that Bollywood lovers will soon get used to, as more corporate houses like Warner Bros emerge on the desi scene.

Hardcore recommendation! Watch CC2C. It rocks! Haiiiiii-ya!

–

The thing with SIK is that I think it could have actually trended much better than it did if it had been more over the top!

Boo hoo to people dissing Singh Is King on here. It’s a guilty pleasure film that I love to bits. Altogether now: “All my ladies going crazyyy, with rhythm of the music spinning, it’s heating up the niiight.” Woohoo!

side note: clint eastwood simply ROCKS!. “gran torino” is way better than i thought!. one of the best films of the year.

Dus Numbri has ‘yeh duniya ek numbri..’

SRK would have asked for option C — mother-in-law!

Yeah you are on dot, PAC was called out in not only Aligarh but even in Agra and Bulandshaher.

Ye ghalat baat hai. You had promised to meet me in India!

Ghazni was strictly OK for me.
Utkal has made a very valid pont above-

And I think Ghajini did it so beautifully. It was telling an old-fashioned revenge story, with a chatterbox heroine, and an obnoxious villain, but with the new twist of ‘ short term memory loss’ and lot of technical chutzpah and a different way of using songs for some songs. The way it is done, the multiplex generation does not realise they are watching a an old-fashioned revenge dram and don’t feel alienated. That is the achievement of Murugadoss and Amir.

The scene you’re referring to was indeed a superb one..

Roy also thinks its too late to learn any new tricks — Ritesh’s character disabuses him of that in the climax. For it is love that has taken Roy off his game in a sense, that is his true vulnerability: in this film that is a homage to a vanished cinema, this is an old-school touch.

On BM I see where you’re coming from though I think it is ultimately a true deconstructive take on masala cinema. And only Rohan has the sensibility to make such a film one of solitude! Life is always poorer without masala! In fact isn’t this the lesson that in some ways the makers of Tashan or JBJ did not learn? You cannot have ‘half-masala’. You cannot enter that world and then also try to stay on the margins as commentator.

Rohan makes a ‘tale of cinema’ and that entire ‘meta-critique’ also doubles as an allegory on the vanishing of masala cinema. And Abhishek’s entire character and body language project this in the film. Ritesh is the character of yesteryear who still thinks the old tricks can be learnt.. Abhishek however knows it’s too late.. at the very end they arrive at a hotel or structure that if memory serves me right was also used for some of the shots in Desai’s Naseeb. It would be fitting if this is indeed the case.

I said this in the context of Ghajini but BM is another kind of mausoleum — of cinema, also of a more specific tradition.

But these attempts nevertheless found masala cinema an ‘issue’ to be engaged with. In OSO though you get what seems to be the ultimate homage but what is really the ultimate scam. It is the masala of the most fake kind. It is essentially the garb Yashraj needs to update itself in this post-Switzerland period. Of course only farah Khan has had the intelligence to understand this.

This and DAUD have to be the best ‘road’ movies that RGV has made. They were pretty funny for their times.

Now it is true that things have been much better in this decade and I think one can even be hopeful for the future but it’s hard for me to shake off the sense that if the set has been enlarged (principally by way of the little multiplex film) it has created a world which too often betrays a certain bourgeois perspective. So yes there are interesting characters in films but as these would appear to the ‘multiplex crowd’. The humor generated is often a result of such ‘vision’ where the audience can be smug about being on the ‘outside’ of such a world.

Even RGV’s films too often fell into the trap of relying on ethnic stereotypes (in the guise of realism) though the Sarkar films are a step up in this sense where RGV introduces a bit of masala into the proceedings.

Now a point should be made clear here. Akbar in AAA or Anthony in the same film are also stereotypes. But these are completely idealized ones (the Tamil stereotype in masala was far less benign.. revealing thereby the North/South divide of that cinema).. and these in effect were the film’s most lovable characters (even if this was otherwise problematic for other reasons..). ‘Amar’ is perfectly ‘normal’ and perfectly dull as well! So on the one hand the minority as the lovable rogue is also someone who doesn’t seem to have any serious mission in life he is nonetheless portrayed in a way that makes him more desirable as friend or lover than the faintly nasty Amar. As I once said before in Desai’s world the minority is always privileged!

In any case these minorities, even if stereotypical, always aligned the audience on their side. In today’s cinema we sometimes laugh at the little guy, rarely with him (or her). Similarly the RGV films precisely because they’re ‘realistic’ let no idealization occur. Sarkar is better because two ‘non-Maharashtrians’ occupy the film’s center (isn’t this the ultimate slap to the Thackerays?! and they’re great admirers of these films too!) and furthermore there are more masala villains here than was ever the case in Satya or Company.

Stereotyping therefore does not always have the same effect on the audience. Much as masala itself is treated as parody today a similar move is also performed in ‘little films’ (not always but quite often).

One of the notable recent exceptions in this regard was Omkara (not Maqbool very much) where Bhardwaj had a cast of characters who didn’t all seem to belong to that hinterland he was portraying but it didn’t matter. He didn’t do an RGV here and have actors who would all then have looked like quintessential UP/Bihar ‘rural’ denizens.

But the model has been interestingly addressed/revised/revisited throughout this decade even in films like Omkara, RDB, BM.

*[Akshay is one of the exceptions; while he had gotten a bad press for allegedly lopping off Suniel Shetty's or Govinda's roles, the fact is that he is actually more generous than many others.]

I think masala in Bollywood suffers from two afflictions. One is the distance which current bourgeois audiences (I mean especially target multiplex viewers) have from the tradition. In Tamil cinema that heritage has never been lost and has been upgraded at every point. Now one might not be a fan of the genre but that’s a different point. One does have a choice to see what a healthy masala tradition would look at present. In Hindi cinema there is a sense in which it is not taken seriously enough. People who watch masala films and are a little embarrassed with what they perceive to be ‘crude’ elements in those films from the comedy to the action sequences to what have you.

What is however missed is the extent to which masala depends on such a combination of the high and low. This is why Deewar is not really a masala film. It is akin to Shakespeare in many ways where you have the most lofty thoughts expressed in the most exquisite poetry in one moment and then you suddenly get the most obscene sexual puns! The overall effect of Shakespearean drama depends on such a juxtaposition of elements. These are in many ways questions of ‘filmic’ time. The comedy portions rudely interrupt the more serious dramatic ones and vice versa. The same is true for masala cinema. The genre operates in linear fashion on the one hand but also laterally in other ways. There are sequences that take the story forward and others that simply keep it ’still’. But both are equally necessary. What you see with a certain kind of cinema is that the comedy bits are taken out, in another kind it’s only the comedy. The other vital ingredient is always missing one wat or the other. Masala cinema is therefore always a bit of a roller-coaster reader. It’s not just that too much happens (a thriller could do as much) but that it happens in different ‘time zones’. It is then the job of the director to compress these different ‘zones’ into one at the very end of the film. Of course this also involves a literal spatial element as well. Characters who start off within a common space, are then scattered, but reunite at the very end. The ‘communal’ (in the sense of community) space is therefore always present only as an ideal. Once in the very early portions of the film and then in the film’s ‘afterlife’ which we again imagine but do not actually witness. In between there is only to introduce Hamlet once again ‘time out of joint’.

Similarly the technical values to the extent that these might be judged ’substandard’ (this is not true for all masala) are also very much a part of the film’s fabric. This is why the idea of updating Don the way Akhtar tried to do also misses the point. Don works as a kind of B movie with a megastar at its center. Don is not Bond even if Akhtar imagines this to be the case!

Goodfella once very usefully suggested that masala cinema depended on a certain “kinetic” quality and energy to keep things going. This is perfectly correct (though most masala reworkings today, spoof or not, don’t have this.. referring only to Hindi cinema). This is also what Shakespeare has (but Bhardwaj never seems to have).

But the other affliction is that masala cinema depends on a notion of the ‘epic’ that is sadly completely foreign to the sensibilities of most contemporary multiplex audiences (again within Bollywood). One understands that genre fashions change with time. I don’t lament the loss of masala simply for its own sake but because of what it represented which is to my mind the most inclusive and politically progressive cinema in Bollywood film history. Despite all the caricatures and all the stereotyping masala cinema ‘represented’ more groups and more identities than any other before or since. It was simply a more variegated world. A richer cinema.

Similarly when I bemoan the loss of the ‘epic’ I am also referring to ‘rootedness’ and cultural artifacts that have informed Indian sensibility in many ways, whether we know it or not. Masala engaged with this as well, or took up this heritage consciously. The film scripts that I would consider ‘great’ from the 70s married this epic inheritance with Western romanticism and Shakespeare and so forth. This was ‘real’ writing not just a cobbled together script that could be written in ten minutes by any one of us here.

But it wasn’t only masala. Many other little films around the same time (Mukerjee’s in particular) operated at a kind of tangent to this cinema and were also richer for this reason. Certainly for Mukerjee the opposite of masala was never the ‘un-rooted’.

And it is hopefully not ‘judgmental’ to suggest that a film tradition that fed off the Mahabharata was ‘better’ than one that relies on Saved by the Bell (the ‘college’ in KKHH? The entire ethos of all these romances (which even if one enjoyed them at the time are really no more advanced than Disney teen romances) operates at a somewhat infantile level. Qalandar once said that films in an earlier age (not just masala but the cinema in general) was one for adults. Now it generally is not and the entire movie going demographic confirms this! People are too happy seeing Gen X films made into small budget clones in Bollywood to ever dream of returning to the epic challenges of J P DUtta (in the 80s to be exact.. the one director who did ‘update’ masala but was perhaps too late..). No audience nurtured on KKHH will ever be able to digest Ghulami. Just won’t happen! I was rather surprised to see Khakee underperform at the time. Perhaps the fact that the film made as much as MSK is a tribute to the film’s quality but really it should have been a massive blockbuster. It might have done better today (I wonder sometimes..) but in any case this dark film was too much for the audience.

When one turns to Tamil cinema the nicest thing about it is the extent to which masala there is not an ‘issue’. It is as normal as any other genre! This is why I didn’t even notice Ghajini too much when it first released there. I did see it and didn’t think much of it. Because that tradition offers much better. But in Bollywood this film (of course I think it’s better in the remake) has all the shock of a seismic event and little wonder that it has registered one at the box office. An authentic one! This is also why I wrote that specific piece on the film. In contemporary Bollywood such a film cannot be divorced from the entire history I’m talking about. In any case this has very much been Aamir’s aim. As I said the other day people have misread his career. He’s always erred on the side of masala in his career, never done the Switzerland romance. Dharmesh Darshan, Indra KUmar, Ghulam, Fanaa, now Ghajini are all examples of this.

Okay, maybe not near-Rajni, but still. Pretty enthusiastic.

One would have to be extremely lucky to hear/read a more insightful comment for the rest of the week. Masala movies are kind of spoof-proof.”

LOL Jay.

Kidding aside, I think some of the commenters on this thread are confusing two distinct issues: i.e. “if Q dislikes it, it will be a hit” is a rather different issue from “if Q thinks it will flop, then it will be a hit.” i.e. with Welcome, Dhoom 2, Om Shanti Om and Singh is King, whatever I thought of the films I never thought the films would flop. Whereas, when I came out of watching Tashan or Jhoom Barabar Jhoom I was not optimistic about the box office prospects. With Fanaa and Ghajini I wasn’t sure, because I wasn’t sure to what extent such throwback masala remained acceptable given where the contemporary market/audience is. I was unsure about Rang de Basanti because of the whole “kill the DM” business; with Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna I was pretty sure it would not be a big hit.

All in all, with Chandni Chowk I am not feeling too good about the box office prospects. I have been wrong before, and hope I am wrong this time too, but there you have it.

Utkal: Re: Oye Lucky Lucky Oye: chill yaar, it was a lighthearted comment.

I disagree with utkal on “rootedness”, in the sense that nothing about films like Welcome, Singh is King is rooted in the sense of a Bala, Jaideep Sahni, etc.; and yet they made bucketloads of money.

But Abhishek was the life of the latter film, and made it far, far better, and really shaped a very different character than what he’s accustomed to playing.

I must say I prefer BnB overall as a film. On Abhishek’s performance I find it good but I’d take his work in BM over this.

speaking of which Rohan Sippy directing and him producing are evidently not the same thing!

This places me in a rather large minority, of course, which bodes well for CCTC!

But yes I would rate is over a Tashan which barring certain Akshay moments did not work for me at all.

There are moments of great humor. My personal favorite is a sight gag involving Akshay trying to close his luggage bin in an airplane. Has to be seen.

Come here often buddy.

As for GHAJINI, the movie manages to pull off a absolute 100%, hardcore masala film with utmost conviction-Aamir is no doubt at the top of his game and 2008 belonged to him!

CCTC I was looking forward to as it would give Akki a double whammy with SIK and CCTC back to back at the start of the year…but who knows…the boxoffice can be unpredictable;)

IMO the top 3 are still SRK, Aamir and Akshay. Hrithik will deliver big in KITES, but the hype isn’t much at all compared to 3 IDIOTS and MNIK!

A.Shah

Not sure that follows. Khaki definitely had soul and sole in plenty

Actuallu no one in Bollywood can make even a Rush Hour let alone Kungfu Hustle or Shaolin Soccer. If anyone can pull sucha thing off, it has to bea Tamil director, who has the zaniness to pull off the action and physical comedy. ( Kamla Hassan in Daaavatar half pulls off what he tries. Rajnikant manages it to some extent. No, Mani dint manage it in Thiruda, Thiruda, but RGV dida half decent job in Kshnam Kshnam. I dont even know some of the others who do action comedy there.But my bet is one of them, rather than DVD watching South Mumbai types.)

The movie would surely open big…

The movie would surely open big…

It is too early to discount the movie Utkal.It is just couple of our NG members who have seen and disliked it.The reactions on NG do not necessarily coincide with the WOM of average paying public.

CCTC Preview:

The movie takes you on a madcap Journey from the by-lanes of Chandni Chowk in Delhi, to Shanghai, the Great Wall and rural China, marrying in its wake hilarious gags, breathtaking action, spectacular locations, and heart stirring emotions.

Our protagonist Sidhu (Akshay Kumar) is the lowest on the totem pole, cutting vegetables at a roadside food stall in Chandni Chowk in Delhi. He longs to escape his dreary existence and looks for shortcuts- with astrologers, tarot readers and fake fakirs – believing anything except himself, despite his father figure Dada’s (Mithun Chakraborty) best efforts. His redeeming moment arrives when two strangers from China claim him as a reincarnation of a war hero in the past and takes him to China.

Sidhu now dreams of wine, women, and a princely existence in foreign lands. Thanks to the devious translator, a conman by the name Chopstick (Ranvir Shorey), little does he know that he is being taken to the Promised Land to rid the Chinese village of the vicious smuggler Hojo (Gordon Liu)!

Therefore, Sidhu blissfully sets forth to China with Chopstick who instigates dreams of a delicious future and forgets to reveal the perils, which await him. Along the way, he meets Sakhi (Deepika Padukone), Ms. Tele Shoppers Media (Ms. TSM) who has embarked on a journey to pay homage to the land of her birth and her dead father and twin. Initially, Sidhu through a series of lucky coincidences manages to sidestep being beaten by Hojo’s men but finally Hojo catches up with him and exposes him as the country buffoon that he really is. Sidhu has the fire of revenge in his belly and finds the one man who will make him a Kung Fu expert and set the village free. Armed with his Sifu (master), faith in himself and the love of the fair Sakhi, Sidhu sets forth to conquer all!

Opening week 40 cr.
End of run at between 90 and 98 cr.

1. Nikhil Advnai has shown no sparks of being a great ditrecxtor. With S-E-L he showed what a wannabe he is.

2. Some directors have a sense of humour. Some dont. David Dhwan has it. Manmohan Desai has it. Anees Bazmi has it. Priyadarshan has it. Kundan Sha has it. Hrishikesh Miukkherjee had it. Manish ( Loins of Punjab) Towari got it. rajkumar Hirani has it. Abbas Tyrewallla has it. The Tashan guy doesn’t have it. Shirih Kunder doesn’t have it. Shaad Ali doesn’t have it ( He manged in B&B though.)

3. The problem with wannabe filmmakers is that they aren’t roted. Their inspiration comes from watching foreign DVDs and not any inherent lesons or observations from life. That’s what makes a Rajkumar Hirani different from a Nikhil Advani or Shirih Kunder and a Murugadoss or Shankar different from Sridhar Raghvan ( though he is really good.)

4. The Kungfu Hustle kind of genre is impossible for any bollywood direcor to pull off. It comes to Chinese directors naturaaly, because they have a thousand year tardition of martial arts and physical comedy, which are interlinked. ( We ahve a similar tradition in melodramatic romantic tales and song-and-dance masala entertainment a la Radha-Krisna and Shakuntala, a la Ramaleela and Nautanki). So the whole thing will fall flat.

It might open big on Day 1, but is going to crash pretty fast. May fare the fate of Tashan.

‘Opening’ ka credit goes to Akki-Kat aur film ‘chalne’ ka credit goes to the whole team.

I will say Welcome was entertaining, not great, but better than SIK, the success of which I am unable to understand.

On a serious note, the makers have made it clear that its an Indian equivalent of the typical kung-fu Hong Kong stuff, so I know what to expect here and if the makers fail to give me that, I will be disappointed.

and yes, the promos deceived completely. I think this film would be safer at the BO if advertised as another Singh is King, rather than as the uber-cool, Warner Bros. co-production, etc. But the it isn’t as single-minded as Singh is King, it is definitely a schizophrenic film

and add to that – warner bros. pumping in lot of money there….don’t these people have something called “think- tank” or maybe they just thought that akki is a happening star to let us jump? Sony burnt its hands with Saawariya and now warner bros.’ turn? btw, SONY has good chance to recover with R2 – especially if CCTC is this poor a product…

Nikhil advani seems to have lost it all after KHNH…Salaam-E-Ishq had so much hype around it and it bombed miserably…the man is not sure what he wants to do…he’s gonna have a tough time ahead….

akki has tremendous potential and how i wish that he does different kinda films now onwards….

flashback ke andar flashback….yeh to major narration flaw hai.

My favorite part of the screening: Nikhil Advani, in his preshow speech, making twenty people clapping in an enormous theater sound as if it were a standing ovation.

I’m no fan of Ghajini, but I’d endure that over this.

My friend got to shake hands with Akshay, and became a fan: he said the guy was really friendly and warm…

The audience reaction was mixed: many people left before the film’s end, but many of those who stayed were cracking up with laughter. I don’t know if Akki’s and Deepika’s presence in the theater made peoplereact differently (to an extent I suspect so; there were tons and tons of catcalls for Deepika, different from what one normally hears).

Akshay’s entry got a big reception.