How do the masses lap up these movies and so they become big hits?!
Golmaal Returns is no masterpiece. The cinefans are up in arms against such litter thrown their way. The producer of “Aaj ki Taaza Khabar” suddenly realises that this movie is a LaserJet copy of his 1973 epic! Last heard, she was consulting lawyers. Arshad Warsi has publicly expressed his anger at his length of role. Rohit Shetty is happy for all the publicity. All the stars plug the movie for all its worth. And, Hallelujah, the movie goes on to rake in 72 crores in its two week run. They are now advertising that too.
But how did this happen?
There were other such ‘no brainers’ released before too. The marketing has been similarly high pitched for many a multi starrer in the near past. The television appearances, the timely publicity releases, the snippets from the actors, some gossip and radio stuff that are now being routinely attempted by all movies that are to be released.
But, there was a distinct air about the wait for this movie. I felt it. Its promos communicated something that “distinguished movie freaks” like us missed. Here, I ask the readers to rewind to the time the promos were being aired on television before Diwali. That promo where Hirjee is up in the air and mouthing some inanities and the other one where Tushar is mouthing his language and Shreyas picks on that to do his version of the language. Both the promos were right on the button. It told the viewers exactly what to expect. Unadulterated fun riot. Gags that seamlessly blended into the next one with some high energy acting by the actors.
The promise was delivered. Many people I know would squarely put the success to Diwali and the crowds that throng to get entertained. But then, why did Roadside Romeo, still fresh in the theatres, did not work? Again, a comedy. Again, full of supposed gags with Anna and his female consorts. Good voice actors. But, a wishy washy promise and below par delivery!
I know of a lady colleague whose sole aim during Diwali was to see Golmaal Returns. She did that. Twice. With Family and then again with friends. I quizzed her on her take away from the film. She could not express it in words. But, as I conversed I found that there was a child like glee in rewinding to many scenes from the movie. The climax had her rolling. She had generally missed some of the references, the Ekta Kapoor ones and the Sawaariya ones were not the highpoints for her. She was completely taken up with Tushar and his antics. She cracked up over the Anthony Gonsalves thing. Then that climax. Now, was it that good? I have not figured that out as yet. But, am I the target audience for a Rohit Shetty film. Definitely not. He makes films for tired, over worked and under entertained masses. They hang on to whatever he dishes out. They were entertained.
Om Shanti Om and Singh is Kinng were other such movies that are looked upon with glee by the paying masses. Also, we all are aware about Welcome and No Entry’s spectacular success. By the way, No Entry is extremely popular on TV reruns too. How is a question that we need to ask our families. My wife sees it only for Anil Kapoor’s responses to perfectly innocuous questions because he is triggered by his guilt. Hell, there must be some intelligence at work here. I detested the movie at the first go and would not even talk about it in any forum. But its lasting popularity has me thinking again.
There was a time when I enjoyed such inanities just for the entertainment value. I have a list here:
1. Amitabh Bachchan in the mirror and Band Aid scene in “Amar Akbar Anthony”
2. AB again in the drunk mode with a cockroach in “Kasme Vaade”
3. AB again in “Pag Ghungroo” in “Namak Halaal”
4. AB and the bottle in “Naseeb”
5. Govinda in most of “Aankhen”
6. Govinda in “Coolie No. 1” at the home of Paresh Rawal
7. Aamir’s act in “Rangeela” when he takes Urmila out to a five star hotel
8. The Kader – Shakti combine in “Maqsad”
9. Johnny Lever as the Malayali in “Khiladi”
10. Sushmita Mukherjee as Kitty in the serial “Karamchand” (Felt like including her here)
Then, Satya happened. Elsewhere, because of easier availability of Foreign Cinema, I had been weaned off my staple diet of Hindi cinema and the world changed.
Today, I am a convert. I am looking at Dasvidaniya to succeed and the world and its mother are lining up for Dostana. I am looking at Sorry Bhai and Dev D to make history whereas others are talking about RNBDJ and its 3D poster.
But, has the world really changed around us? My mom still makes the same chappati – curry for us every night. Laxmi Restaurant’s Idli still tastes the same. A rickshaw played “Hum to chale pardesi” in full blast the other day as I hitched a ride from Malad to Chembur. My young cousin has enrolled for “Agarwal Classes” for his IIT JEE exams. His elder sister called me up to ask if the serial producer strike was going to go on for long. When I expressed total ignorance, she retorted in chaste Bengali as to what am I doing in Mumbai then??!!
If so many tastes have still remained intact, then would inane but simple entertainers that tickle audiences’ sides be out of fashion? No, not by any chance. They are what they are. Entertainment capsules.
Intelligent and gripping cinema is a different kettle of fish. It is taking roots. Genres are developing in its own way. There will be followers of this kind of cinema too and if made well, they shall be popular too.
After all, at one time in India, Joy Mukherjee, Dilip Kumar, Rajendra Kumar and Mehmood coexisted. And that too very successfully. The population has only tripled since then. The audience has also many more means of knowing about the film to release.
So, good film makers – Just Deliver to Your Target Audience!
Tags: Golmaal Returns, hindi cinema, Indraneel
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Golmaal Returns is great great fun. Mindless stuff, yes. But it does what it’s supposed to do, does it very well.
‘Jab mian biwi raazi to kya karega adivasi!’
@ Indraneel
I really liked your take on the situation.The way I see it today there are different types of cine viewers ( not deciding it on socio economic factors but doing it on the basis of interest).
1. Type 1- The hard core masses- be it the rickshawalla’s of Kolkata who throng flicks of Mithunda or Prosenjit to people of the highest economic order who need their regular dose of entertainment.For them its movies like OSO,Singh is Kingg & even Golmaal Returns which gives it to them.
2. Type 2- The converts like you- with passage of time having got access to world cinema & having always had a taste for middle of the road cinema who now as you said swear by Dasvidaniya rather than Dostana, who are geared up for Dev D & Sorry Bhai but dont like the fuss generated for RNBDJ or even Ghajini for that matter.
3. Type 3- The people caught in the middle- like me- want to be entertained when needed but otherwise derive cinematic pleasure from the more ” intellectual films”.Citing my own example I watched Dostana last night- purely for some fun & frolic and didnt feel let down.Tonight I plan to watch Vaaranam Aayiram & tomorrow Dasvidaniya for I know these are movies that will keep me thinking.
I think in terms of numbers the type 1 junta would far, far outweigh type 2 & type 3 put together.Type 2 would be a distant 2nd & type 3 an even more distant 3rd.
But all said & done I’ve always believed that to each his/her own.If someone wants to watch Dasvidaniya – great he/she must do it.If he/she liked it they must even go ahead & advocate others to watch it (like I’ll do it hopefully tomorrow
) but then he/she should’nt write/talk badly about a Dostana just because its not his/her your cup of tea & doesnt stimulate him/her.I think this is something that a lot of people @ PFC must take notice, its a humble request from my side !!!
@Sethumadhavan: I can see through your generalisation very clearly. But, the fact of the matter is no one has ‘preconceived’ notions before seeing a movie. Or, to put it ideally ’should not have’. Also, movie seeing is a very personal experience, it is not(and can’t be) an agenda of an entire website nor it can be an agenda of a whole group. Difference of opinion will be there. You can’t hide your face from that. As long as the piece objectively and constructrively exposes the flaws in any movie, it should be fine. Be it from any production house.
Now, sometimes people get frustrated(it can be argued whether it is right or wrong) because when they see so much money, so much power behind a subject which was useless to begin with, on the other hand, many powerful ideas are lying in the hands of powerless sources(read moneyless). It is natural to feel frustrated in that case. And so is the expression of the frustration(however done in an appropriate manner, needless to say!). It almost looks as if movie sans the glitter don’t even have the power to be. That is downright wrong. The question has never been about ‘this individual/that individual , ‘big/small production house(s)’. Questions, frustration, rants have always been about good cinema or bad cinema.(you can give me the link if you might have come across something which according to you was personal attack or something!).
P.S: I have not watched either Dasvidaniya or Dostana.
I don’t care much about popular/masses flavor. What does it mean anyways. Some reason to withstand one shitload of crap after another. I
I don’t care much about popular/masses flavor. What does it mean anyways. Some reason to withstand one shitload of crap after another. I would reject them downright. I wouldn’t even talk about them. They need to be trashed. It’s about time we accept it. Show them the fucking door, someone.
@rocky – agreed
@sethu – yes, the distinctions are clearly visible
@tanul – yes, but then why carp at all about people tastes
@tushar – to you and me, but to them???
I know man. Just got a little judgmental. Happens sometimes.
A famous person (so famous, that their name escapes me
) once said that films are like food.
It’s true.
I don’t want roti everyday.
I want pizza. And daal. And sabzi. And chinese!
I enjoy films which ‘get it right’ according to my sensibilities and mood.
That could be ‘Rock On’ or ‘Welcome’, ‘Rang De Basanti’ or ‘Raja Babu’.
Equally, if i love ‘Black’, it doesn’t mean i’ll love ‘Saawariya’!!
Good directors can make bad films and vice versa.
I always make a point to be fair.
Acknowlege the positives
I find it baffling when I hear people trash a banner, e.g Yash Raj, Dharma etc.
I’ve always admitted that Karan has made a great film in ‘Kuch Kuch’ and an awful one in ‘Alvida’!
Yash gave me my fave ‘Lamhe’.
But that hasn’t stopped me from raving about ‘No Smoking’, ‘Chandni Bar’ or ‘Satya’.
I even loved ‘Daud’!
I don’t think I could restrict myself to a certain genre.
A good film is a good film.
Govinda is as great as Al Pacino!
Different context ofcourse.
It’s all good.
Atleast for me anyway :-)
@steve..nice to think that way..even nicer to just react to art from the heart, rather than the mind..I mean, I don’t judge films by a poster, do you..then, who do you think did see Phoonk..the crow on the poster..but people evidently did!!
Yet, we have people here getting all hecked up with the Dev D poster..conversely, I remember the Jaan e Mann posters and publicity, yet it bombed!
@ Steve
Bang on.Refer my post no.2 in the same discussion.I think you & I fall under the same category
@ Tanul
I agree with what you’ve written.Yes tomorrow when I want to make a movie & if there’s a struggle to get funding for it, I’ll obviously have a lot of frustration especially if I see big money going to the “wrong” kind of movie @ the same time.But all said & done its quite judgemental.No I do not want to post specific links out here.But what I was refering to has been echoed by Steve also- why single out a Yash Raj or a Dharma Productions or something similar?
Indraneel I was actually planning to put up a post on this topic called “Mithunomics” about how Mithun’s 90’s B movies made money and did not run into a loss, and how those tactics could be applied to make the non mainstream movies more succesful. Will put it up soon.
I’m not undermining the ‘power of the poster’ Indraneel :-)
Advertising is very important.
But we all know ”never to judge a book….”
See, I love film.
That’s in all form. Big budget, small budget, realistic, unrealistic.
It’s more of a conviction issue with me.
Be it whatever genre, it’s the directors job to convince.
Chahe woh Mani Ratnam ho ya David Dhawan. Na?
@Ratnakar..looking forward to your post
@steve..exactly what I harp on..the director and the story..nothing else matters first!!
Sethu, it’s just a trend to slate certain banners.
Even Ramu didn’t escape it.
Granted, ‘Aag’ was bad, but he’s the man behind ‘Satya’ and ‘Rangeela’.
It’ll take more than an ‘Aag’, ‘Darling’ and ‘Shiva’ to make me doubt him.
I’ll never lose faith in his capabilities as a director.
Yes, he needs to not take his audience for granted.
But I detest this ‘New Replacement On The Throne Every Friday’ mentality!
What the hell is that?
Are we really that fickle?
I sure hope not!
RGV is a brand and shall not fade out that fast.
Steve bhai, aapki baat sar aankhon par.Yes Ramu is another
example of the same trend.Even I haven’t lost hope on Ramu.I found Sarkar Raj to be a decent outing, but certainly did not like Phoonk- contrary to all the claims made by Ramu- it wasnt the least scary.For that matter I thought 1920 was a lot better than Phoonk- (well thats another story altogether ).
But the very announcement of Rann has made me feel optimistic about Ramu once again.
I hope too that we aren’t as fickle as it sounds.
@ Ratnakar
Mithunomics is an interesting topic & I’ll look forward to it cos I have a lot to say on it also!!!
@ratnakar – Rann shall certainly be watched in the first week on the strength of the subject, thereafter it shall be his delivery of good content that shall be looked at..but yes, RGV is a maker who will have audience no matter what!
@ratnakar – shall. Also look forward to your post on mithunomics because he sold his movies only in some pockets and not all the territories because of the pull his brand dictated. But who now has that kind of brand pull among small film makers. Can a Sorry Bhai be sold differently?
@Golmaal Returs was cacophonic.. but to my surprise it was a housefull show in a single theatre in Panvel…
Indraneel: I am pathologically suspicious of the masses. Main bachpan se hi elite hoon.
@subrat – so who was the guy who spotted the swans above the headlights of Raja Jaichand’s car years ago..your imposter..lol..thinking how your imposter shall be feeling among fervent Dostana fans!!
Sethu?! Yenna? Have u taken part in a Mind Reading course or summat??
I was going to mention ‘1920′ and Vikram Bhatt!
I was going to add that Vikram always dissapoints me.
Right from his earlier stuff, right through ‘Raaz’ to ‘Speed’ etc.
Yet, I STILL watch his movies, in the hope that he may just surprise me.
He ‘almost’ did with ‘1920′. That was until I realised that he had taken ‘inspiration’ from ‘The Exorcism of Emily Rose’!
I don’t know.
I really don’t :-/
Indraneel: What are you saying? That movie was Anil Sharma’s Farishtay. Sadashiv playing Raja Jaichand with swans perched on the bonnet is decidedly elitist.
@ Steve
Well I guess its good to know we were thinking of the same thing.Anyways catch u soon.Off to watch VA & will come back with a lot of positive thoughts ( hopefully)
@subrat – beware Anil Sharma may take offence and create another epic just for the masses with the Deol clan, Dara Singh, Dan Dhanoa and Harish Patel to boot!
I think to some extend it depends on director/producer what type of films audience should watch.People like Karan Johar,Manmohan Desai,Subhash Ghai they take shortcuts by adding masala in their films and later justify that this is what audience wants.In 80s in Malayalam cinema there were a bunch of directors/producers who made great middle of road cinema many of which were appreciated by aam junta.Since a film like Dostana is released along with Dasvidaniya,obviously most of aam junta will go for Dostana.But if only Dasvidaniya was released more people will watch it and appreciate it.
@sharath – you may be right but truly speaking, a good product tends to find its audience.
@ Sharath
Well most of the so called middle of the road cinema in malayalam in the 1980’s were done by Mammooty & Mohanlal
( they still do it) & so obviously the audience loved it.
And overall the audience in Kerala has always been far far mature than audiences of say hindi & tamil movies
Yaar Sethu? Tu sota wota nahin hai kya?!
Which country’s time u running on?
Englands?! Lol
So u saw it. Aur hum? Abhi bhi ‘khaao khaao’ kar rahe hain!
Insha allah it’ll be 2moro now.
I think most people are looking for a movie that satisfies their ego. The whole movie viewer is everything has gotten too much into us. We don’t want to be educated by a movie. For that I’ll watch some informational channel. Neither preached. Who wants to pay and be preached (unless it’s some of those holy gurus). And noone wants ties intelligence questioned. I get paid every month for that. The whole power to the movie goer has gotten into our heads. And we are looking for the most basic form of entertainment – the basic emotions. triumph, hilarity, and sometime (or in between rather) loss. No arc to understand. No hidden meanings to watch out for. and no here-is-something-you-haven’t-seen-before stuff.
forgive me for the lack of capitalisation. i am typing this in the numeric keypad of my phone.
oh, also. i look for intent in a movie. you can feel a pulse in a true-to-heart movie. then you really stop caring if the cash register is ringing. you start holding the movie close to you.
Gopi, i’m glad to know i’m not the only one who leaves comments here by typing through their phone!
My poor thumb is about to have a breakdown after all the messages i’ve been leaving here since last week!
:-)
@ Steve
Well I guess earlier I had asked you ” ki tu sota wota nahin hai kya” & now you have returned me the favour.I guess in the last few days I’ve been watching movies, writing on PFC & in between also pretend to work
Uff! its a tough life yaar.As I write this I realise I have 2 hours left before I go on to watch Dasvidaniya.I’m loving it
I had seen “Aaj ki Taaza Khabar” a while ago on TV and saw “Golmaal Returns” recently. Golmaal is not a patch on Aaj ki Taaza Khabar which has a tighter script and better performances. Especially the “Champak Bhoomia” character is such a cult classic, to replace it with Anthony Gonsalves was just lame.
Well, if directors like Rohit Shetty have started lifting scripts from well-made low budget films of the 1970s and 1980s, may I put in a request to remake Rang Birangi as well? Dhurandhar Bhatwadekar needs a second innings as well