Love Failure – FWIW

The fact that Love Failure is based on a short film strikes you right in the face, the very first scene where our leading couple is talking to the camera. The director takes no time to immerse the viewer into the story without wasting any time to introduce characters or the background and establishes that the film is true to its title. “Love Failure” and that’s strictly what we are talking about. However the film hardly gets over its short film feel during the first 30 mins when Arun(Siddharth) keeps talking to the camera and only when you get into the love story between Arun & Parvathi(Amala) that the audience settle into the characters. As everyone else is saying, yes the movie feels like a breath of fresh air in terms or cinematography and the color. However I’m not sure same can be said about the story or the screenplay. Both of them work off and on all through the movie. The story seems a bit stretched and the being based on love and failures it comes off very predictable. The main love story is run of the mill explored from the reality angle very much like Pyaar ka Punchnama. The film takes off in the second half again to lose grip during the yanam episode. At the same time the love story between Suresh and Surekha Vani is very endearing. Its good to see actors like Suresh playing senior roles rather than usual actors like prakash raj, prakash raj or prakash raj etc. The screenplay is often preachy and it was best put by the lady in the crowd while walking out of the theatre, “entha sepu katha cheptunattu undi, chustunattu ledu”. Again going back to the love failure aspect, i think the premise offers a great chance to the director to capture a huge diaspora of audience like kolaveri di has shown, only if they had a bigger vision and thats where i thought the film was lacking. Else it has all an uberchic urbane film needs. The lead actors, music and support cast etc all do justice to the film. Special mention to Amala Paul who looks nowhere like a newcomer. This love story is a decent attempt by a debutant director/producer and is good entertainment for a weekend watch.

Experience at “Effective PR for startups” organized by TiE Hyderabad

Couple of days ago i attended an event organized by TiE Hyderabad titled, “Panel Discussion – Effective PR for Startups”. I was excited when i saw the event on facebook and immediately registered for it. My expectations from the event were as per the title. All i was expecting was a insight into cost effective promotion for startups by experts in PR who deal with startups and entreprenuers.

The event was attended by around 40-50 people, of which later i found that quite a few were registered TiE members. The event’s facebook page had the names of speakers as Mr. Ramakanth Mylavarapu, Mr G Vishwanand and Mr Sandeep More. We were told that Mr. Sandeep More could not make it to the event. However, for the second speaker i dont have any idea if it was the said speaker Vishwanand as he kept referring to himself as Rishi. Whatever their names, i was more bothered about the content of their talk. I also went through their website’s hyderabad chapter but didnt find anything specificly related to this event or the speakers bio. Only reason i bring up these points is because these things should be handled better for an event thats supposed to be on PR.

The session was started by Mr. Ramakant telling us how important a few things are while doing a start up . Such as the logo, the business plan and then going on to speak about the PR assignments they worked on like Nilkamal & Welspun etc. How they got a few of these companies to spend on PR and how it improved their bottomline blah blah. But the worrying thing was the tone of the discussion. Instead of being a discussion on ways to effectively promote a startup, the talk was more of an evangelizing for PR industry. Saying clearly that if you are doing a startup, do not handle these things but let the PR agencies(Read ‘us’) handle them for you. I am sorry Mr. Speaker, but some innovative and cost effective PR campaigns have been possible only due to technology and new media. Instead of advising budding companies which cant spend much out of their pockets of new free ways of doing these, you batted for your industry which might end up ripping off a new company. Out of your 1 hr talk there was only one fleeting reference to social media.

The second speaker was a person who looked to be his late 20s or early 30s talking on, err i didnt exactly get what he was talking about. He began by saying “everything is marketing” or something to that effect. Then as you can guess from the earlier speaker he too went on about his so called achievements which atleast me had no idea of. He talked about how he has started up so many companies and his eureka moments. He kept on talking about supposedly inspiring stories  he encountered during his career. Some guy sold a model of ‘shit’ as a paperweight which he calls innovative. How they named a company called ‘InFocus Rx’ and how creative that name is. Im sorry dude, you might have done some great things which im not aware of but your talk was all over the place. For a point he was making about how you should not waste an effort or something, he explained how his mom made idly upma out of the leftover idly from morning’s breakfast. The guy just took off for every point sometimes relying on rhetoric and if that does not work, narrating a story completely disconnected to the topic on hand. When i was here, i did this, when i was in boston addressing a bunch of doctors i said this to them. blah blah.  I wanted to ask him if he could summarize his hour long talk, but realized its not point since hes going to take off again in some direction.

When someone from audience, i believe exasperated from the talk asked them of 5 best possible ways you can promote a start up, he was given a rhetorical answer which was on the lines of “you know, it depends. well we need to know your product, understand market, focus on customer” blah blah. Also adding “you do not worry about it, let the professionals handle it. “ In my logical opinion anybody connected to the reality of PR these days would have said, Promote it on FB & twitter, talk to experts of your business domain on twitter, organize a contest or something etc but atleast not rhetoric.

All in all, it was boring. My 2 hours and 200rs registration fee wasted. The only value addition was to my pot belly: one samosa, 2 biscuits and tea they offered. everything else was,,well….

Yuckk…My Name is Not KHHan

Everybody got their share. Didn’t they? Media got its TRPs, Sena its cheap publicity, Maharashtra govt proved it could handle security and finally SRK, well I surely think he didn’t do it intentionally but nevertheless in the end was great publicity. Yeah, people all over India watching a movie to make a statement, standing up for a cause, and showing strength against evil forces yada yada yada. I thought melodrama existed only in KJo’s movies. Alas, it drips on to the real world as well.

Okay, I won’t comment anything more on the controversy. Coz after all this, the least public would expect is to get a fair deal. The movie better be GOOD.  Is it good?

Wrong question. Does it work? This is the question we ought to be asking about KJO movies isn’t it?

So, will it work? Like a charm. Imagine, SRK- KAJOL-KJO-USA.

Magic awaits.

But is it good? Does it make any sense? Is it worth so many controversies?

NO. A BIG NO.

Firstly I need an explanation, why in a SRK – KJo movie, the protagonist should be characterized weak to be sympathized. Rewind to the dying cancer patient in kal ho na ho. Jobless limping SRK in KANK and now to autism in KHHan. Yeah, KHH from the epiglottis mind youWe are more and more seeing disabilities being exploited in movies, being passed off as great acting pieces. I agree it takes a lot to do those roles. That doesn’t mean we should have a new syndrome, disability in every new flick. Whatever happened to characters those used to be developed on the screen and get loved by the viewers?  So, the autistic Rizwan KHHan is a smart dude with a CHO CHWEET sense of humor. Forrest Gump? Anybody? Hello?

Also, the second stereotype. I want to ask Mr. Karan Johar if there is any other country that might come into his mind while thinking about making a movie. I thought he lived in India. Or maybe he has an orgasm seeing or hearing anything related to America or any Phoren land for that matter. The new fad seems to be Terrorism. Racism. CRAP

Even if we get charmed by Rizwan, my problem with the movie is the pretense the movie puts about humanity, peace, hope etc etc.  These things are equally relevant in India. In fact more so in India I believe. There is no point stirring up the FEW racial atrocities which happened in the USA post 9/11. Yeah that is a very big statement. FEW RACIAL ATROCITIES and I mean it. Look around in India. We are a hot bed of racism. We have got no business pointing mistakes on another country when we have got a million problems ourselves concerned about humanity and hope. Go back to the top if I need to remind you of any troubles. That too, we are pointing a finger towards a great country in terms of the way it takes care of its people. Either they be citizens, immigrants, tourists or whatever. I agree, lots of people were arrested and put in detention without charge on the basis of the PATRIOT Act. But every country needs to protect its sovereignty and as I said its people and there are huge mistakes done. But again every issue proves that freedom and fundamental RIGHT is a reality in the USA unlike us. Barack Obama is always seen as a symbol of hope, as a historic first African American president of the USA. I think Obama became the president BECAUSE of the kind of FREE country it is. Unlike India, where oppressed people come up in spite of the system or because of the loop holes of the system. I don’t want to keep rambling about how Fu**ed up our entire law and order system is. You might turn around and say, “Because you haven’t experienced anything like that, you have the liberty to talk” May be you are right. The government of America has failed in some cases where people have been racially profiled. But who believes it’s a perfect country?

Then, what about the people? I was not in the US during 9/11. But depending on what I have seen and experienced in 2 years, people are very warm and good natured. There are assholes everywhere in every country and community, but that doesn’t mean we can generalize them as a whole.

Okay, enough of politics. Now onto the melodrama. We’ve got tons of it. A black family singing hum honge kamyab in English is just a piece of it. I almost drowned in my seat with embarrassment. Only there was no kajol in that scene. I can’t imagine she running in slow motion as she did for Jana Gana Mana in K3G. But the most of the melodrama in the movie is provided by the constant repetitive robotic mumbling of the KHHan.

This is not a review, it’s my time waste, coz I know even after reading and hearing all this we will still go and watch and say My name is KHAN coz we love SRK, autistic or not… don’t we?

Oh no. We need to make a statement for hope and strength. WHATEVER

One advice for Rizwan, the next time your wife asks you to go and meet the president, don’t trouble all of us by going round and round the country. Just go and gatecrash on to the president’s dinner party instead. It’s easier for all of us. And KJO, you got better things here to look for, than copycat forrest gump. DUMBO.

Lastly I wanted to tell you all to notice a poor ubiquitous bench i saw in the movie. There was a similar bench in other KJO movies too. But there is a bench scene in every movie. K3G, KHNH, and KANK had quite a few of those grand central ones. and now this one…wonder what affection he shares with benches.