Badnaam Baadshah?

Ah,a quiz show on Bollywood! That should be interesting! That's what I thought when the promos of Bollywood Ka Boss started on TV many months back. Being an ardent fan of Bollywood, I obviously sent an sms to the required number immediately, as were the instructions for participating in the show. I was very excited.
The procedure for participating in the show was simple. After sending the sms, we would be called for a written round and the winners of that would qualify for the TV round.

Months passed by. It was late December and the trailers of BKB were back on; this time saying that the TV rounds would start on Jan 9th or something. I was shocked. How could they possibly finish the written round and subsequent activities in less than a week? I visited their website and was in for a shock. The written rounds were over a long time back and a fixed number of candidates were selected for the TV round.

Now on what basis was I not called for the first round, I wondered. I checked up the rules and it only said that any Indian above the age of 18 is eligible. I'm Indian and I'm 21. So surely there was no reason for not calling me. And not only me, it happened with a friend of mine too.
This means that there is no sort of fair means of choosing contestants. I'm sure this show is all fake, with contestants chosen by the TV crew itself. Come on, otherwise why would they not call any regular guy then?

Despite my hatred for the show even before it started, I watched it. It has a good format and a good host. But it lacks the most essential thing in a quiz show - GOOD QUESTIONS!!! Oh man, the questions are so simple! Extremely silly questions, 99% of them cover the 90s and 2000s only (the two decades with the least number of path-breaking films after the 80s). Any good Hindi film-buff can answer them when asked in deep sleep as well. It's so sad to see a show completely on Bollywood, on television for millions of viewers, neglect the golden decades of the 50s,60s and the 70s. Well, they do ask questions from the 70s and 80s sometimes, but even they are so simple, most of them coming from films like Deewar, Qurbani which everyone must have seen over a dozen times.

And those foolish contestants end up getting more than 3 or 4 questions worng every episode (most of them from the remaining 1% comprising questions from old movies)!

You know, it's times like these that make me want to sue Sahara Filmy for not allowing me to lay hands of lakhs and lakhs of rupees even before the auditions for the show began!

Damn cheats!!!

The inspiration to start this blog

About a month back, I was keenly watching the Star Screen Awards on TV. Everything seemed to be going fine - the awards were fair (until that turning point in the show which has inspired me to express my film views openly to the whole world), Sajid Khan,the anchor, was as usual doing a great job. Then came the Award for Best Screenplay. I was frustrated when this particular movie was even nominated, and I assumed it was only because of the lack of any other better one to fill up the five slots of the nominees (now to always have a fixed number of nominees can be an entirely separate topic itself). But when it won, I was furious! I started pulling my hair, banging the dining table, shouting and what not. I infact, stopped seeing the awards ceremony after that point. The movie in question was Life In A Metro. This movie is a complete rip-off of one of the most popular and acclaimed movies of all-time, The Apartment. There are many storylines in Metro, but the fact is the essence and the real charm (if I can use this word) of the movie was the love triangle between Sharmaan, Kangana and Kay Kay (all other stories were based on this storyline), which is blatantly derived from the extremely wonderful, and a 'perfect' movie,which has mulitiple Oscars to it's credit.

Now, shouldn't the jury have known that? I always thought the jury would be well-versed with the classics, movies which every person who loves movies should have seen before they can have the odacity to go judge the works of others. That decision was probably, one of the most terrible decisions I have ever seen, and I'm not talking of just film award decisions. Giving awards for acting or music is fine when the movie is a remake, but writers, producers and directors should never be encouraged. And of all the awards the film won, it had to win for screenplay!

And the director Anurag Basu, who became famous with a superhit which was also a remake of a Hollywood movie (Murder -> Unfaithful), has the nerves to say this after winning, "Thank you for the award. It only means I have to write a better screenplay next time".

Now what does he mean by that? Is he thinking of remaking Casablanca next? And he's judging young film-makers in Gateway To Hollywood. God bless Hollywood now!

Well, Anurag Basu has definitely shown that he may be wonderful in copying others' painfully thought of, extremely well-written, straight-from-the-heart scripts, but he has also shown that he is a man with no shame and respect. This man (if I can call him that) is one hack and deserves no recognition from anybody. He just does not have any conscience at all!

Mr. Rajeev Masand (shouldn't he know of the existence of this AFI Top 100 movie?) praises Metro even on a New Year's Special on TV, and you know it's time to change the way you choose film critics and jury members!