Kabhi Kabhie (1976)

I'm mentally prepared to be trolled, derided and umm... maybe ostracized even. But I need to say what I need to say. Kabhi Kabhie is Yash Chopra's most overrated film ever. Period. 

Brickbats... bring it on...

The other morning I got into an interesting conversation with a

neighbour. After the sundry exchanges about child tantrums, daily chores and the usual agonies of life in Modi's India, I quickly asked her whether she loves romances of the Yash Chopra kind. She started with a gushing take on Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge and how it was her go-to film even a few years back. On correcting that the film was actually not Yash but his son's Aditya's directorial debut and perhaps his only watchable film, she revealed that it might not be as appealing today as it was earlier. Why? Because, as she put it, "Times were different then. We were different. I cannot relate to it anymore." This was my chance, my ticket to launch a tirade against a film over which I wasted three hours the previous night. Now why I did not abandon it midway? You see. I don't give up that easily. I'm a movie freak. 

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Triangle A (Amar Akbar Anthony)

I am not too fond of Manmohan Desai films. Neither do I like Amitabh Bachchan in them. Oh yes! I really don't. The films are loud, hardly have good music, except for a feet-tapping song or two in passing and Amitabh was so in-your-face in them. The other day, I got rebuked by a dear friend for ridiculing the 'Mirror scene' in Amar Akbar Anthony which I'm told that no one else but Amitabh could have pulled off. May be. But I did not find it funny at all! And, I don't like him in these 'dhishoom dhishoom' films. I'd much rather watch him as the egoistic husband in Abhimaan, a scheming jaggery-seller in Saudagar, or the revenging husband in Ajnabi. Those are my kind of films. And I certainly like Amitabh in them.

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Duplicity (Some Like it Hot)

Okay, pop quiz. What do Rishi Kapoor and Tony Curtis have in common? Apart from great looks, rivetting performances and sexy voices. Well, here goes. Kapoor's Dev was a duplication of Curtis' Joe in the 1975 film Rafoo Chakkar. Inspired by the 1959 classic, Some Like it Hot, this film was a typical Bollywood masala flick. Only, where the Hollywood comedy trumped, the Hindi cousin bungled...it lacked a soul.
Both films did well but collections don't always mirror good art, or do they? Here's why I vote for the Curtis-Monroe roller-coaster rather than its Hindi cousin.
First things first.

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