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I found the following read pretty interesting as i always believed that the intent of RNBDJ is strong enough that u r bound to overlook its technical flaws:

“Rose and Jack. Raj and Simran. These were the great romantic duos pre-millenium. Post-millenium - not one good love story. lately there are no good and believable love stories. all comedies. movies that are about the movies. urban films on infidelity. bad marriages etc. after spending about a 100 years believing in love - suddenly the movies - everywhere - are out of love with love. sad. yet, in small places, Rab De was intensely romantic. it made me believe in love. a little. just enough. imagine tanni - small town girl betrayed at the altar, forced to marry a nerd. dance is her way out. a means for dreaming. while dancing she meets raj. she is a little put off by him at first. but then he shows her his good heart when he says she should find another partner. that heart is suri’s heart. she falls in love with this man. it makes complete sense that her moment of revelation comes not when Suri beats the sumo wrestler (that is not who he is, he is not a fighter) but rather when he uses his professional ties to light up the city for her. that is who he is. he does what he is capable of doing. that is who she loves. she rejects him when he tries to be the hero that he is not. when he abjects himself with the wrestler. that scene is so difficult to watch for her because she actually already loves and cannot stand how pathetic he will be for love. I think the amritsar setting is absolutely crucial to this. not village. not metro. but provincial town. a place that is a little bit modern but also a little old-fashioned. a place where one still believes that love is divine.”

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MUMBAI: In spite of the number of brands he endorses, it is kind of funny to think of Shah Rukh Khan as a product and one which is endorsed by an ISI mark.

But that is exactly how King Khan describes himself when asked what worked in driving people to the theatres to see his only release of the year—Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi (RNBDJ)—which Khan says has collected Rs 6.9 crore on its first day across the 900 prints released across India (another 300 for the 30 overseas markets).

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It was in 2007 when Shahrukh Khan appeared on stage, in- front of a thousand-something crowd, wearing a black trouser that finished just a little above his heels, a grey coat and a black hat a la Raj Kapoor style and enacted the ever romantic Pyaar Hua Ikraar Hua Hai song and many such hits.

Back then it was for a concert where King Khan performed in a bid to pay a tribute to B-town’s ultimate showman. Paying tributes to Indian cinema legends is not new to SRK. He paid a tribute to Kishore Kumar through a stage show ‘Shahrukh Khan Live – The Music and Madness of Kishore Kumar’ in 2003, to Dilip Kumar through a performance at IIFA 2003-2004 and also to Amitabh Bachchan through a show called ‘Superhit Muqabla’ about 15 years ago.

And this time, Khan has taken a step ahead. Its not just one star that SRK will be saluting but will also make the tribute eternal and memorable with a 6-minute long song in his soon to be released flick Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi . The song is penned by Jaideep Sahni with music by Salim-Suleiman and has Sonu Niigam behind the mike. The song reminds one of the Kamal Haasan-Rati Agnihotri starrer Mere Jivan Saathi from Ek Duje Ke Liye .

But here, it’s not just the name of movies that form the crux of the song but it’s the choice of movies and song titles segregated into 5 parts belonging to 5 legendary actors.

# The song starts with the impeccable Awara Hoon music and unmistakably reminds one of Raj Kapoor. The next lines talk of the showman’s films like Sangam, Chaliya and Anari and songs like Jeena Yahan Marna Yahan .

What forms as the break and start point of each stanza in the 5 sections of the song is the mention of movies Hum Hai Rahee Pyaar Ke, Phir Milenge, Chalte Chalte , which all belong to the industry’s top Khans, namely Aamir Khan, Salman Khan and Shahrukh Khan respectively.

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Bollywood flop king Abhishek Bachchan’s latest trashy movie Drona is a total disaster at the U.S. box office and may turn out to be the biggest flop of 2008.

Bollywood fans have shown Drona’s hero Abhishek Bachchan the middle finger and basically told this bozo to take his garbage act elsewhere.

For the October 3-5, 2008 opening weekend, the crappy movie had a gross of $199,329 in the U.S., one of the lowest openings for an established Bollywood star.

http://specials.rediff.com/movies/2008/sep/11video1.htm

I saw JA this Saturday. I have rarely seen or enjoyed a historical as far as i remember. Maybe because since the last 15 odd years nobody attempted or a few did but half heartedly (read asoka).

I enjoyed JA very much.

Let’s get two things very straight. You cannot make a historical on kings without a huge budget and making a historical and making common people enjoy and engage with that (especially in times where movies like Heyy Babby, Welcome and OSO were huge hits. I found all of the three pretty mediocre but they rocked BO which kind of surprised me) is a difficult task. So first of all full credit to Ashutosh for pulling this through.

I believe Ashutosh made certain steps very right which helped  him turning JA in a good product: