Welcome to the Taran Adarsh club… Mr. Masand
It’s lonely up there. The higher one climbs the lonelier it gets. Mr. Taran Adarsh out there up in the Idiotic Reviewers club sits all alone. Member, conveyor, head or whatever positions may exist in the club. After all it takes years and years of being an idiot, screaming hoarse over roof tops that ‘I AM A TRADE PUNDIT NOT A REVIEWER’ and yet publish a ‘Movie Review’ week after week… Adarsh saab must have been feeling all alone.
Well, worry not Adarsh saab, you have company.
Sir Rajeev Masand, aka the head of the entertainment news division at CNN IBN is walking right next to you. Masand jee, that chair next to Adarshjee is yours to keep from now on.
Atleast Adarshjee stays clear of Hollywood movie reviewing cause he inspite of what he is, fully understands, that even an idiot has limitations. Boundaries.
But Masand jee, has none. When he visits Cannes, he interviews Bollywood stars there while the coverage of world cinema is kept to minimal. You wondered why? Now you know.
As per Masand jee’s latest review (please let us know Masand jee if you, unlike Idiot jee, would prefer to label your review as a ‘Trade analysis’)…
Michael Clayton is no Oscar Material
Very courageous of you to declare this Masand-jee. But pray will you tell us if “Guru”, “Namastey London”, “Laga Chunari Mein Daag” are Filmfare material?
Sorry I forgot that you perhaps follow the age old Bollywood saying “Jis Thaali mein khate hain, usme ched nahi karte” (Hinglish: The meals for Masand-jee are paid by Bollywood)
Sure we want intelligent films, and sure we’re tired of those stupid, blockbuster action films where cars are blown up and suspicious aliens threaten to take over the world.
Question? Who’s we Masand jee? You mean are you including us or yourself in the intelligentsia? I mean, if you want intelligent films and did not understand a simple film like Michael Clayton, may we know your IQ Masand-jee and if the award of “intelligent” is conferred by you on any human being who’s IQ is equal or above than 0.01?
But Michael Clayton, nominated for seven Academy Awards this year, isn’t my idea of a remarkable film. It’s too long, too laborious and – let me stick my neck out really far now – it doesn’t deserve to win Best Picture.
To have an idea, one needs to think. To think one needs brains. For Masand jee writing Michael Clayton review isn’t my idea of some using one’s brains to view a movie and thereafter review it.
It’s too long? Masand jee, I assure you, it’s entire length is half an inch shorter than the length of your hair cut by your favorite hajam. Too laborious? umm… I would like to arrange a quick meeting with Sir Aamir Khan. Masand jee it will help to identify if you are suffering from any kind of dyslexia. Please advise a time and date and we could have Aamir come in with big boards, comics, fruits, vegetables and a joker costume to help you understand and bypass the “labor” to understand Michael Clayton.
George Clooney plays the title character, a “fixer” at a high-power law firm who can make everyone’s problems disappear – except of course his own. His life’s a mess – he’s broke, he’s divorced and he’s clearly burnt out.
Aaj ke Taare : Namashkar. Film critics jinka naam “R” (Rajeev), “A” (Adarsh), ya “D” (all other Dhakkans) say shuru hota hain, aapka shaani bahut kharaab aane wala hain. You will be broke and burnt out.
Masand-jee are you sure you were not reading your kundli results rather than writing about the movie? It seems you are going Michael Clayton-jee’s way
Michael Clayton is a film about greed, about responsibilities and about one’s own conscience. It’s an honourable film if you have the patience for it, it makes some interesting points if you care to listen.
By now, the only thing I care is when will your unhonourable, impatient, uninteresting review end.
But it goes about its business in a long-drawn-out, boring fashion that in the end it fails to connect. A film like Michael Clayton probably deserves a second viewing in order to fully appreciate its intention, but I’m sorry to say I don’t have either the time or the energy or the desire to watch it all over again.
Masand-jee could you please make up your mind if Teja is this guy or that guy? Mark kahan hain? Is it good or is it bad? And please don’t be sorry if you are unable to watch it again. We pretty much understand dyslexic critics pay kya guzartee hain.
Because it’s slow and takes its own sweet time to make its point, ‘m going with two out of five and an average rating for director Tony Gilroy’s Michael Clayton, it’s fine, just fine, but feel free to decide for yourself.
So it is not Oscar Material. It is honourable. It is slow. It has interesting points. But it is not Oscar material.
Masandjee are you writing a review or preparing your next election speech?
No mention of the first ten imploding minutes. No mention of Tom Wilkinson and his opening VO? No mention of the horses and the almost trance like scene capture? Or probably, you didn’t understand the concept about the horse? Eh Masand jee? No mention of the flow, the twist, the fog, the repeat sequences, the raw capture of Clayton’s family life in just one family scene, Wilkinson’s revelation or eccentricity… ???
The next 6 month boot camp of movie reviewing starts at USC in three weeks. We at PFC would like to fund, sponsor and invite you for the course all at our expense.
Intelligent films or not, but can we get some intelligent reviewers from the office of CNN-IBN? Now that Adarsh-jee above is smiling with some company….
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
you can’t blame him. the movie in many ways is similar to 4 months, 3 weeks and 2 days with hollywood conspiracy. thatz all.
Who cares about Masand anyways?
He probably got this job as accident anyways.
SHIVA
what the fuck are you talking about?
You thought Michael Clayton was similar to 4 Months?
I saw that Romanian movie yesterday. Can you explain what i missed?
OZ Dude, Rajeev Masand just has his opinion on the movie. Writing an article full of personal attacks just because he doesn’t agree with you is childish or do you feel the need to spice up PFC these days :-)
“Very courageous of you to declare this Masand-jee. But pray will you tell us if
mainak, no need to be a maniac. structure wise they are quite similar. i’ve seen both the movies and i know what i’m saying.
On a more relevant note,Rajeev Masand’s review of Saawariya is more than enough to convince anyone of how much he deserves to be placed among the ‘intellgentsia’
In his No Smoking review he said “Why is the director hell bent on staying five steps ahead of the audience?”…If anything I would like to beleive that a director has the right to stay a few steps ahead of the audience and it is the critics job of keeping pace with him,something Masand is incapable of.
And he isnt alone,Naomi Datta(Times Now),Joginder Tuteja,Nikhat Kazmi,Mayank Shekhar and Namarata Joshi(Outlook) follow close on his heels.
It isn’t only Masand, I’ve heard a lot of people speak in the same tone, trivializing Michael Clayton.
I might never understand, but Michael Clayton is the kind of film why we go to the movies in the first place. I’m so pleased, so very pleased that we’ve two great genre exrecises vying for the Best Picture.
Gilroy has penned such a killer script for Clayton. But much more than that, look at the dialogues. And look at the actors delivering them. In my humble opinion, Clooney gave probably the second best performance of all the nominees.
Is there anyone else to whom Tilda Swinton reminded of Faye Dunaway in Network. Not that they are similar, but the way they’ve been shown puts them in the same gallery.
Such a beautiful film, that can be watched so many times.
Please find my review of the film at.
http://movie-place.blogspot.com/2008/02/michael-clayton-movie-review.html
Micheal Clayton is one of the finest films that I have seen in a long long time. The dialogues and the back ground score were do damn effective. No doubt, the plot to similar to many other movies, but the treatment is very refreshing.
But there was no need to criticize Masand for his reviews. It was just his take on the movie.But I do believe that his opinion should not be considered while going for a movie. IMO, while reviewing Hollywood movies, he goes through the reviews on IMDB rather than building an independent opinion. That’s why he gave very high rating to American Gangster(IMDB rating 8.1), which I found to be an average movie, and low rating to Micheal Clayton(IMDB rating 7.7)
Disgusting! For someone who gives another film ‘critic’ the middle name of “Vengence” because that critic gets personal, this post reeks of hypocrisy. Ok, you could say that ‘professional reviewers’ can’t get personal, but others can. It’s very possible to diasgree with and debunk other people’s opinion of a movie, without resorting to such cheap gimmicks.
why did u drag aamir khan into this?
the article was suppose to be ur disgust at rajeev masand not approving ur favorite film rite?
Shiva, Clayton and 4 months have a similar structure…???!!!! What the fuck…do you live in an alternate universe buddy? Do you have any inkling of ’structure’? If so, please explain….
is fuck the common term you guys use here? i donno what to say to people who can’t take opinions in a right way. it’s a opinion. here’s a short story for you guys.
i may be completely wrong on this, but i though the scenes played in a similar manner, in how the movie starts off, and personal problems, so on. i found it to be boring for the same reason. i really liked the performances though. but as a movie, i definitely wouldn’t call it oscar material.
mainak, t-rex.. calm down guys. freedom of speech et al, but a little more civility here please?
shiva, just checked out your site.. that is some damn fine animation. why don’t you write a post on your experiences in animation?
shiva
that was a fantastic opinion. a lot of people out here dont have the capacity to understand such profound statements. thats y all the questions.
please do oblige us with a detailed anlysis/critique of the comparison. it owuld be well worth our while
“Aaj ke Taare : Namashkar. Film critics jinka naam
the only thing i could say is i felt like i was watching a hollywood version of that movie. thatz all i can think of. and sorry for wasting your time with posting my opinion on it.
striker,
i’m still learning.
Michael Clayton, as I saw it, was entirely a story that started with that piece of telephonic dialogue that Wilkinson spewed at the start of the movie, continued because of the ensuing train of events, and ended where it did because of the results of those events.
The real story was a claim lawsuit that had dragged for years, a man’s obsession with it, and Clayton an unwilling man amidst all the tribulations.
This had to be viewed with care and quiet, understanding eaach scene, build up and aftermath. Very disquieting and disturbing!
This would need a particular state of mind, unfettered but emotional. This is not there in everyone. I myself sat beside two very “Hey Babyy” type viewers who kept cursing the movie through out.
Whereas I am swooning over the execution of a masterful screenplay!
i know only minute quantity of wat u guyz know bout cinema…so i wud not talk bout his comments cinematically though one is supposed to do that…why i read(actually watch) his review is dat he isn’t bias towards neone…
so ur statement OZ that “The meals for Masand-jee are paid by Bollywood” surprises me..
please will u let me know to whom Masand is bias to…
Baradwaj Rangan and Raja Sen are the only two Indian film critics who I perhaps take a little seriously, though I don’t always agree with them, which is fine. Never cared much about Masand really- he’s what I call a popcorn reviewer. “Jodhaa Akbar is a cinematic masterstroke.” Me still laughing.
I found Michael Clayton brilliant. It is THE original screenplay of the year and yes, counting Juno. The horse part, man, that blew me away. But does anybody feel that the ending was a little bit, just slightly loud? Keeping in mind the subtleness of the rest of the film, does the climax conversation between clooney and swinton goes over the top? a little melodramatic perhaps? What do you people say?
“Please advise a time and date and we could have Aamir come in with big boards, comics, fruits, vegetables and a joker costume to help you understand and bypass the
forgot to include, lets keep Masand out of this man, please. Oz, i understand your frustration but lets discuss MC and not Masand. He is way too insignificant to get all these attention.
rudro..
the ending u r talking about is when clooney plays ‘the swave fixer’ act..
it is just an act inside the film..
“gimme 50 dollars worth”
and the 3 minutes after that is the ending maaaan…
and what an ending!!
Jahan,
Dont get me wrong here.. And I hope I am just helping.. And I dont really care if I sound like a dog..
But, your reviews have huge Masand hangover themselves. And since I read almost every article thats published over here and I do watch Masand’s reviews pretty regularly, I find some of the connection preddy evident..
1)I mean that fact about “Cheeni Kum” being over-written because it had one one-liner following another..
2)The fact that “Lunch Plate” from “Dus Kahaaniyan” was “SHAMELESSLY PLAGIARIZED” from Lunch Plate( Its not Lunch Plate, but lunch Date.. I donno but thats what Masand said)
3)The fact that “Awarapan” is a remake of a Danish Film called “A bittersweet Life”..
To be very honest these are instances.. The same things..These are things that Masand told me first..And they appeared with an alarming sense of recurrence in your articles as well..
If you dont take Masand seriously.. I would really like to know how your sense of reverence directed at Raja Sen and Rangan takes a shape of its own.
@DPac,
thats the part I am referring too. Keeping a phone recorder in the pocket to record the conversation was way too simplistic and somewhat cliche. And really, phone recordings are not considered much of a strong evidence these days.With a sure case like that, Clayton could easily screw them some other way round, without even confronting the them. Dont get me wrong, I really think the ending was awesome and the movie almost flawless.
@Sreehari:
Two points-
1)Referring to Rice Plate and Awarapan- what I have stated are simple plain facts- these could be mentioned in a million review apart from Masand’s and mine- I don’t see how you directly connect the two.
2)As for Cheeni Kum, I haven’t seen or read Masand’s review of the film- I am surprised he also shares my view. I would be half expecting him to be giggling petulantly, unable to curb his enthusiasm, praising the ’smart’ one-liners in the film.
When i watch Rajeev Masand on TV, the only thought go through my mind is that, why cant he eat that popcorn he has next to him in the set…….so that at-least he will not speak during that time..
i think TV has been named Idiot Box after Rajeev Masand,
He is not an idiot he is smart too….he called JA a modern masterpiece….i wonder how much he got from UTV for that?
@rudro u r missing the point.
clayton was already on the way back to his gambling janitor days. he had already sold out on his friend. and was going on that worthless path when they try to kill him.
tape recorder + law enforcement officers as witness makes a strong case anywhere. we r also lead to believe he was ‘wired’ by the police himself. i winced when the scene started, anticipating a ‘hollywood moment’.
but i was sooo wrong!!
@Sreehari- Wait a minute- I am surprised this didn’t click me earlier. You say that my “reviews have huge Masand hangover themselves.” I hardly have any reviews published here on PFC in the first place- I can’t do so because it violates website policy- my reviews are published on another website. So I wonder how you have noticed a ‘Masand hangover’ in my reviews.
Besides, I never reviewed Awarapan- I haven’t even seen it. If I remember correctly, it was someone who had asked about the original film and I merely replied in a comment after looking up wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Awarapan
I haven’t ‘reviewed’ Cheeni Kum either- the only place I mentioned it was the “Truly Trivial Awards’ article, and even the piece on Dus Kahaaniyan was barely a review, the film hardly merits one anyway.
What troubles me is that whatever your intention, but these kinds of comments amount to accusations of plagiarism, and should be avoided unless they have some solid, substantive basis.
And BTW, didn’t really get what you meant when you say this-”would really like to know how your sense of reverence directed at Raja Sen and Rangan takes a shape of its own.”:-?
And people, have you noticed how Masand freely uses the ‘Two thumbs Up!’ phrase freely in his reviews despite it being a Roger Ebert copyright, so as to speak. Hope he doesn’t consider himself the ‘Ebert of Indian film critics.’ (Okay, I’m jumping the gun a little here, but there is that hint of pompousness when he announces that ‘Book My Show” Rs.100/- off offer if you see a film that’s on ‘his list of top 5 films’ in the week.)
Rajeev Masand is hardly worth analysis anyways,but it surprises me how can anyone who makes remarks like this any more seriously than you take Taran Adarsh or Rajeev Masand
“Mithya is a stern warning against the dangers of method acting. Not just are such performers liable to overdo the histrionics in their overreaching attempts at reality, but often
By the way,Michael Clayton isnt going to win the Oscar.No Country for old men IS;)
OMG we are all now bashing RAJIV MASAND here on pfc rite???
just, even just a few weeks ago we were full of praise for him….
come one guys just because the fellow didnt like clayton and you guys did doesnt state the fact that he is an idiot and we all here are movie experts.
everyone is entitled to his opinion come one, and most of all he clearly stated at the end of the review that this was his opinion the viewer should watch the film for themselves and decide.
just tommorrow when he would probably call the latest art house film awesome you guys are going to call him the greatest reviewer again.
jahan i remember a particular review of dus kahaniyan here pn pfc ..and how the reviewer reviewd the shaban azmi segment , using exact words as masand ..EXACT…and the short film , hardly known from which that segment was taken frm ..also bringing up how a bad director can screw a good concept , just like masand did in his review ..
i dont know if that review was by u .
also i dont think masand in his review ever mentioned awarapan beinga aremake of ‘ a bittersweet life’ …and thats something which was very commonly known otherws sreehari .
but ya a short film – almost unknwon…well dont get me wrong jahan:)
sorry i thot the first time it didnt get posted.
sorry for making u look like a fool ..but it doesnt make a pretty picture when u say u dont care for somebody but seem to copy his work ..
http://passionforcinema.com/no-sting-in-the-tales/
http://www.ibnlive.com/news/review-dus-kahaniyaan-is-dull-and-boring/53822-8.html
“I would like to arrange a quick meeting with Sir Aamir Khan. Masand jee it will help to identify if you are suffering from any kind of dyslexia.”
I will tell you that this line which u have written in your above article criticizing Rajeev Masand is in quite bad taste. First Aamir Khan doesnt have the expertise to diagnose Dyslexia and secondly you shud have some sensibility before writing about some health problem, becuase it seems from u r article that u urself doesnt know anything about Dyslexia or any other developmental problem related to children. So please next time before writing an article give a thought wat u r writing.
“Very courageous of you to declare this Masand-jee. But pray will you tell us if
kuch jal raha hain……oz is obvously jealous of masand’s stature…..so this posy directed to him…….aadmi jitna aage badhta hain..kutte itne bhaukte hain….why for god’s sake write a whole column on one person’s review on a one damn average film……..any answers?
@Sags, Sreehari: Thanks for posting the link Sags- in fact let me go a step further and quote my post and Masand’s review. I don’t see how a somewhat shared opinion on 1 film out of 10 tepid shorts makes up as evidence for plagiarism or copying- sorry for the name error though- it should indeed have been ‘Lunch Date’. Also the way Sreehari says it, he seems to suggest that this is a long and continuous pattern of similarity between reviews.
“Rice Plate, though shamelessly plagiarized from the celebrated short film Lunch Plate and poorly directed by Rohit Roy, is made watchable by a good, even if somewhat affected performance by Shabana Azmi and a nice turn by Naseeruddin Shah. ” – No Sting in the Tales, Jahan Bakshi on PFC
“And then there’s Rice Plate which is an easy watch purely on the strength of its performances. Shamelessly plagiarized from the celebrated short film Lunch Date, Rice Plate stars Shabana Azmi as a bigoted Tamilian Brahmin woman in a story about prejudices and fear.
Shabana delivers an incredible performance, and is complemented perfectly by Naseeruddin Shah who only appears in two scenes, but it’s the film’s director Rohit Roy who proves that even the finest material in the hands of an incompetent filmmaker can be reduced to nothing much. He rips off the entire premise of that thought-provoking short film, replacing that film’s classic element — silence — with unnecessary spoon-feeding. The subtlety, the little nuances, the easy charm of the original film is lost under Rohit Roy’s third-class direction where everything must be spelled out.”
-Rajeev Masand’s review of Dus Kahaaniyan on CNN-IBN
Is this enough to level a charge of plagiarism? Is this what is supposed to make me feel like a ‘fool’? That’s like saying all the critics in India copied my ‘RGV Ki Aag’ review because they had similar bad things to say about it.
However, having read both the articles again, I realize that what CAN, in fact fairly be perceived as copied is THIS similarity (quoted below) which I have no qualms in accepting and to which I completely plead guilty- it does so happen in rare instances that words you have heard unconsciously creep into what you write- I know I sound terribly like Kaavya Vishwanathan- but it is true.
I have always felt masand to be a very honest guy.. though extreme at times but his mopinions are completely his own, not biased even to his own company.. and that is refreshing.. we can completely disagree with him at times but can not compare him to any other influenced tradewala.. he has his audience, he connects to them emotionally and he speaks to them directly.. he does not try to be politically correct.. i respect and like the guy ..
” he has his audience, he connects to them emotionally and he speaks to them directly.. ”
cheers to that Anurag.
I am one of those audience. Yes, I disagree with him at times, but love his spirit.
his best was review of “Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna”… he praised the movie, and you know his whole office stopped talking after they saw the movie… you should’ve seen his face those days… :d
@ Jahan Bakshi – I have been reading your reviews as well and don’t find anything crook about them. A lot of us get influenced and say things but that is not tantamount to ‘copying’ or ‘plagiarising’. Jahan’s article’s on PfC were more like a commentary and should be viewed as one. And the couple of similarities that he himself has pointed out can hardly be called an ‘opinion’. These are fact’s and therefore outside the scope of plagiarising.
It is ironic that the accussations of plagiarism revolve around a sentence that has “shamelessly plagiarised” in it. Jahan, be careful to not let things ‘unconsciously creep’ into your head. It’s not a good trait to have for a writer.
Nevertheless, keep up the good work. And hopefully we would have people thinking twice before publicly trying to shame someone. I can’t see how that can be constructive!
Anyway,
Michael Clayton was a great movie irrespective of what Masand thought. But is it better than No Country for Old Men? And am I the only one who thought Gone Baby Gone deserved more recognition? Hmm.
I respect and like Masand too; he, along with Baradwaj Rangan, represents the best of critics in India.
Jahan,
Peace.. I am sure “subconcious imitation” happens…
But wrt Masand, he is a critic, who can get the cast of a movie together just before its release, make them talk about their movie.. and then thrash the movie the very next day in case he feels any praise is undeserving
I guess that speaks volumes about his “professional ethics” which I have always thought was commendable..
And to bracket him in the same space as “Taran Adarsh” is an utter mistake.
You can be right or wrong whilst reviewing movies, but all u need to do as a reviewer is back up your stance of praising or thrashing or movie with adequate reasons.
And those reasons should not personal vendetta or self-ignorance but something more substantial…
One problem that I have with Mr. Masand thou is that his knowledge of regional Indian Cinema to me seems rather limited… And any good reviewer needs to go thru the gems of regional Indian cinema to truly understand how difficult it is to sell a movie here to an audience that is conditioned to watching dross…
The Apu Trilogy, a Bhavni Bhavai, a Meghe Dhaka tara, an Iruvar….
Raja Sen, I have always felt is the best critic in India today.. Right from the first time I read one of his chat sessions on Rediff, he to me looks like a guy who oozes confidence about his own judgements, is not at all self-conscious, his reviews make for a very good read and he is rarely biased..
He gave “Halla Bol” 3 stars and that was an abberation..
But its people like Komal Nahata who scare the daylights outta me.. The other day he was on some channel and was reviewing “Jodhaa Akbar” and his own words… “The movie is bad because the romance between Jodhaa and Akbar is too SUBDUED and not very direct”.
Knock Knock.. the finest moments in Sholay to me were those sequences of quiet romantic interludes between Jaya Bhaduri and Amitabh Bachchan.. Subdued romance is tuff to get.. My foot..
If these r the kind of critics who r gonna dictate what the quality of our movies is gonna be like , then its a shame.. and like I said…its scary.. its too scary a thought for budding film-makers here who wish to arrive with their own brand of personal cinema…
I’m truly sorry if I hurt Rajeev in the process. I too, like Rajeev, can get very emotional during my writing process (just like him on Aag or No Smoking Reviews). I got very irritated when Rajeev started his review with a heavy weight declaration that the movie is not Oscar material, but really he didn’t lay bare any reasons for it other than (1) it is slow (2) laborious… and (3) nothing else… which irked me no end.
Sorry Rajeev. You are a one of the better critics here and of course one at times is way off than what readers may think or opine. My bad.
Like all the critics, he is also inconsistent, but gets it right, most of the times.
@Sreehari
Raja Sen is the best critic in India?
That Raja Sen who said this
“Mithya is a stern warning against the dangers of method acting. Not just are such performers liable to overdo the histrionics in their overreaching attempts at reality, but often
Now that AK has declared that he likes Masand, you guys should fall in line.
- Sevian, actually AK came to LA last night put a gun to my forehead and asked me to write the above apology. I told him “But sevian will not like it”… I did… I assure you I did. With a gun to my head I couldn’t do much dear Sevian. Darn… could you help me out here to retract my apology… please.
@claustrophobic idiom: I think you got Raja Sen’s Mithya review wrong. He was not commenting on Mithya or any of its actors. He was trying to draw a parallel between the premise of Mithya (who am I, what’s my identity, etc. etc) and method acting in general where the actor tries to get into the shoes of the characters and live the character’s life. From what I read, he was trying to say that what happens to VK in Mithya is a ’stern warning” for method actors.
@Aditya Pant
Even if he meant it that way,it still doesnt make his reviews any better.He beats around the bush mostly without offering any concrete critique of the film.
And his patented line
“The scenes felt like a bunch of cutaways glued together” comes every second review regardless of it being true in context of the film or not.
@claustrophobic idiom: Oh no, I wasn’t trying to prove that Raja Sen is a good reviewer. I personally don’t think much of him, although I find his writing style interesting. I just wanted to make a point that the lines you used to comment on the quality of his reviews had to be interpreted in the right context.
In my opinion, Baradwaj Rangan is the only *good* reviewer in India. Period. I don’t always agree with his views but the lengths he goes to explain his point of view is something I’ve found in no oher reviewer.
Dear Oz Bhai:
I think all this critic bashing should stop. A review is ultimately a personal opinion and should be taken as such. Granted that many critics (read Raja Sen) can bring a lot of knowledge of world cinema to bear on an evaluative process, and then there are trade analysts (good ol’ Taran)who have no knowledge of anything except what they think can sell in the Indian market. Many of us like certain reviewers because we share similar views, world paradigms etc with them. Glaringly unfair reviews should be criticized but lets all keep an open mind. I found myself agreeing with many of the points Khalid M made in his review of JA. The movie was a laughable interpretation of a romance which if ever it was, was carried out against a background that was a lot less polite and luminous than what was shown in the movie. I mean, where did the other 200 wives/ concubines in Akbar’s harem go when the two lovers were gazing at each other? But then I did take exception to his glowing review of OSO.
Michael Clayton was not an average film. It was a great film in how it built the tension to an almost unbearable level. It also laid bare the greed of the corporate lawyers and the agro-industrial complex in the US.
@Sevian(54)
AK also liked OSO!
@Oz(55)
LOL!
This is must be about the dumbest article I have ever read in PFC. Whatever one may say about Masand he is at least honest about his opinions and doesn’t bow down to the powers that be. He mostly gives us his honest feedback without trying to sound too intellectual or dumb. You may consider Michael Clayton to be a good movie but that’s just your opinion and by tring to stupidly criticize another person who doesn’t agree with you speaks more about you and your so called “intellectual reviewer” status than the other person’s.
- Sania, so true. I have been stupid. Your comment has opened my eyes and I would like to thank you about this over a cup of coffee. You, Me and (D)Hum(b)? What say?
good people… keep it coming… lol
wats the point in writing the article….i mean why do u need to analyze masand’s review….why review a reviewers review…..
its highly unproffesional….as an outsider….for me ur just trying to settle some score with masand…n have written the article with malacious intent..Yellow journalism..:P
by the ways….he neither recommended namesty london nor laaga chunri mein daag…
dude…get back to ur own business n put up a blog with intresting quotient (IQ) next time!
@oz
:-&
Power corrupts. And absolute power corrupts absolutely.
As true for Masand, as it is for Oz, I guess.
Oz,
I do not know if you know this but Rajeev Masand gave 4 Stars, I REPEAT 4 STARS FOR KANK. So why the hell are we talking about him? He can be bought and in essence makes him a useless hack of a reviewer like the countless others in this country.
I saw Michael Clayton and loved it for what it is. I know reviewers and know that many of them are too busy doing wining dining that they do not even see the complete movie and create reviews based on what they only saw.
Claustrophobic idiom,
Well regarding that “Mithya Review” of Raja sen or any of his reviews for that matter, he is making an effort to atleast interpret what he sees on screen and in a way that wud logically support his judgement ofthe film..
And in a space filled to the brim with juvenile reviewers who either just give out the story-line of the film or hinge on anything except an analytical sense in their reviews, he is a welcome relief..
I simply hate people who dont understand the importance of being analytical while reviewing something..
Humour, ignorance or style can never compensate for insight and analysis.. They can only append to it..
Reviews can be agreeable or not.. But whether they are good or not is not decided on whether or not u agree to a reviewer’s POV .. Its decided on how well a reviewer is able to support his own judgement..
i read reviews by baradwaj rangan, sonia chopra on sify, raja sen on rediff (for some reason he does not review all the films on rediff) and rajev masand on cnn-ibn. taran adarsh and subhashk jha should quit writing reviews!! khalid mohamed’s reviews were my favourite but his recent reviews are very confusing though they are still quite entertaining!