In the autumn years of our life, if we’ve learnt anything at all it’s to ignore all advice – well meaning or otherwise – from these vexing bipeds a.k.a humans.
But schmucks that we are, occasionally we stumble and make the egregious blunder of listening to our SI blog readers and what do we get – abominable recommendations like Happy Days and Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar.
* Happy Days (Telugu): This morning we watched this unwatchable junk.
Ah, the imprecations we hurled at SI blog readers Elnino Aurora and Ganesh Kumar as we sat through this mind-altering, unendurable agony.
Sekhar Kammula (story, screenplay, dialogs and direction) is the (mis)architect of this movie, which follows a bunch of engineering students right from their entry into college through graduation four years later.
Folks, we couldn’t find one interesting moment, one redeeming element in this shit as we sat through the students’ ragging, studies, college fights, romance et al.
Like the students’ antics, the movie itself was sophomoric. All of it.
Oh well, we kinda liked Sonia who played Shravanthi (our Tyson’s ‘senior’ dream-girl) and Nikhil Siddharth (the guy plays the MLA’s son Rajesh).
Far too many songs.
And to think that Sekhar Kammula is hailed as a ‘revolutionary director’ in Tollywood.
And to think that this mediocre shit turned out to be a big hit is a testament to the vibrant market for trash in India.
And to think that we sat through this crap.
By the way, our Netflix DVD came with English subtitles.
* Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar (Hindi) – Among the many crappy Aamir Khan movies we’ve sat through, surely this one has got to be the worst.
Whatever SI blog reader Guruprasad smokes, eats and drinks, we don’t know and we most certainly don’t want to know. But surely it can’t be what sane folk smoke, eat and drink.
A horrendously asinine movie, Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar centers around a stupid bike race and the love lives of a bunch of school students including Sanju (Aamir Khan).
Yes, kids. You read right. The love-lives of school students.
As if all that were not bad enough, our hero studies in the Model School. No less.
What a shame – Aamir Khan used to feature in idiotic movies then (1992)…he features in idiotic movies now (2009).
Folks, not in all the galaxies in the universe can you find an actress as bad as Pooja Bedi.
Ughh.
Ayesha Jhulka, the ‘Model School’ girl in love with Aamir, was alright.
This junk too is available at Netflix.
Junk Movies – Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar, Happy Days added by SearchIndia.com on
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If you think Happy days is ‘Unwatchable Junk’ then what will you tell if you see his ‘Anand’ !!.
All his movies are sophomoric junk but are actually acclaimed as ‘ revolutionary’ .
SearchIndia.com Responds:
You write: If you think Happy days is ‘Unwatchable Junk’ then what will you tell if you see his ‘Anand’
We have this computer thingy called mouse.
We can do wonders with it including removing Anand from our Netflix queue with just a left-click. 😉
Watching Happy Days constituted some of the most Unhappy moments of our life. 🙁
This is what you get for ignoring my recommendations (Matrix and Mary) 😉
That being said, I was smitten by Ayesha in a school dress (guruprasad also probably fell for her)… I haven’t watched the movie, but those songs used to play a lot on TV.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
Ayesha didn’t have luck on her side…lesser talents have made it bigger in Bollywood.
Will watch Matrix and Mary soon. Kadavul Satyam (God-promise). 😉
Si wrote:
In the autumn years of our life, if we’ve learnt anything at all it’s to ignore all advice – well meaning or otherwise – from these vexing bipeds a.k.a humans.
But schmucks that we are, occasionally we stumble and make the egregious blunder of listening to our SI blog readers
Dont worry, you are not the first one and wont be the last one to suffer on account of listening to others’ advice.
At least you recognize that some of your fellow human beings can be well-meaning in their advice ;-), thank god for that.
And I eat vegetarian, drink only non-alcoholic stuff, and certainly dont smoke anything
if that helps 😉
I recently watched a movie called Paths of Glory (Kirk Douglas).
After watching it, I felt Wow. Strongly recommended (with all good intentions).
And no, it has no sophomoric love story. Rather, it is about the battle for AntHill, between France and Germany (World War One). Wikipedia and other sources may have spoilers, so avoid reading up. This movie will restore your faith in fellow human beings in general, and well-intentioned SI blog readers in particular 😉
Off topic: I had posted a comment on “Veer- Box Office…” link, but instead of getting the usual “Your comment is awaiting moderation”, the comment disappeared totally and hasnt appeared yet. Hope this is a a ‘system-level’ malfunctioning, and not a ‘targeted response’ by human beings at SI 😉
SearchIndia.com Responds:
1. You write: And I eat vegetarian, drink only non-alcoholic stuff, and certainly dont smoke anything
if that helps
A futile existence. Oh well, we’ll have a second drink tonight…on your behalf. 😉
2. You write: I recently watched a movie called Paths of Glory (Kirk Douglas)….Strongly recommended
Added Paths of Glory to our Netflix queue.
This will most likely be our first Stanley Kubrick film. Will watch Paths of Glory next week after Matrix.
3. You write: I had posted a comment on “Veer- Box Office…” link, but instead of getting the usual “Your comment is awaiting moderation”, the comment disappeared totally and hasnt appeared yet
No, it never appeared here.
We just checked our e-mail too (we get an e-mail copy of all comments)…was not there too.
No idea at which end there was a glitch. It’s possible that it could be a WordPress bug or it never got processed at your end. In retrospect, we feel that we shouldn’t have upgraded to the latest WP version.
You’re welcome to post the comment again.
4. You write: Hope this is a….not a ‘targeted response’ by human beings at SI
Above line is unworthy of our response. 🙁
Update:
For some inexplicable reason, your ‘lost’ comment went into the spam folder. No idea why…because you are not in our blacklist.
Retrieved and processed now.
guruprasad, did your post have any URLs in it.. some times the system sends it to spam, if it doesn’t like the URLs
SI, I see one message in spam.. I should probably be paid 50c/ hour for doing this work for you.
1. SearchIndia.com Responds:
You are right. Can’t remember seeing it there earlier (but not sure).
No, there were no links in Guruprasad’s comment. Still went to spam. We’ll process his ‘lost’ comment soon lest others jump on the ‘censoring’ bandwagon. 🙁
2. We ought to get a plugin so that you can’t see things you’re not supposed to. 😉
Yo! I knew it. You would lambaste ‘Happy Days’. It’s a documentary movie. It just appears the director took a video cam in his hand and roamed around his college to make a film like that. No art. Nothing. And people of the Gult Land must have felt so nostalgic watching this movie and made it a cult hit.
Now, please stop listening to all others and listen to me, that is an order. 😉
Watch ‘Aithe’ or ‘Anukokunda Oka Roju’, pure original scripts from the first timer Chandrashekhar Yeliti, so you can forgive few mistakes. These half brain Telugus are already in the process of forcing Yeleti to make junk movies.
And also, hows your fav Ms. Kamilinee Mukherjee in Happy days? you happy?
Also, it’s better you understand Telugu well if you plan to watch the above movies. 😉
SearchIndia.com Responds:
1. You write: Watch ‘Aithe’ or ‘Anukokunda Oka Roju’, pure original scripts from the first timer Chandrashekhar Yeliti,
Aithe was first on our Netflix queue until yesterday…but after watching (un)Happy Days, we pushed it down the list. Just restored it to #2, i.e. after Matrix.
Anukokunda Oka Roju must be popular (or they have very few copies) because Netflix has a ‘Short Wait’ for it.
2. You write: And also, hows your fav Ms. Kamilinee Mukherjee in Happy days? you happy?
Very unhappy…as bad as Sushmita Sen in SRK’s Main Hoon Na or Nayantara in the Tamil version Aegan. Remember, both Sushmita and Nayantara also played college teachers in the above movies.
One observation: As the language structure of Dravidian languages is different from English language, I have found that watching any South Indian movie with English subtitles is a pain.
For a simple culturally influenced Telugu sentence, it’s english counter part doesn’t make any sense at all. Also compared to let’s say German movies, subtitles for Tamil, Telugu are very long, and it all depends on the viewer to cope up with the speed of the images and subtitles.
So involvement will be little less.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
You write: For a simple culturally influenced Telugu sentence, it’s english counter part doesn’t make any sense at all.
Not true in all circumstances.
If they hire the English teacher (Kamalinee Mukherjee) from CBIT (the college featured in the movie), then the sub-titles may not do justice to the original. 😉
But we’ve seen tons of movies with subtitles that reflect both the letter and spirit of the movie’s dialogs (sometimes we turn on subtitles when we’re watching Indian films with people unfamiliar with the language…that’s how we know).
BTW, in the U.S. every Bollywood film released in the theatre comes with English subtitles. Every single one.
http://www.idlebrain.com/research/ramblings/ramblings-happydays.html
quite a lengthy article. nevertheless it resonates my opinion.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
Just read the above piece. Sensible.
I was just thinking.. why would you want to skip Miyazaki films.. and thought ..maybe I’ll provide you with a trailer. I didnt like many of the trailers, they gave away the story. so here we go
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6az9wGfeSgM&NR=1
this trailer didnt give away the story or feel like a trailer of a dubbed movie.. give it a chance.. you’ll either love it or hate it..BTW checkout the BGM also.. you maybe tempted to visit itunes.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
1. Watched the above trailer but we were not blown away (hard for us to be blown away by a mere animation trailer).
The Netflix profile of the movie mentions that Spirited Away won the Best Animated Feature Oscar. It’s possible the movie may be interesting.
We’ll probably watch it.
2. Listened to snippets of Spirited Away’s music (One Summer’s Day, Always with Me, Reprise and The Sixth Station) on iTunes. Will listen again before making up our mind.
see ”the legend of bhagat singh” and company if u want to see class movies
SearchIndia.com Responds:
On our list.
Didn’t like JJWS? Might have something to do with the fact that the movie was actually targeted at a teenage crowd and most people recommending the movie to you probably watched it as teenagers.
A lot of things about the movie really stuck and have attained cult status amongst moviegoers – the music is still very popular though some tracks were blatantly plagiarized, the choreography for “Pehla Nasha” was path-breaking at that point as it was apparently the first Hindi song to be shot in slow-mo, and the climax, though predictable really had people’s adrenaline pumping. In fact throughout school and college this movie was the gold-standard for the triumph of the underdog.
This reminds me of a discussion I had with a friend of mine, who was not at all impressed with “Psycho”. He couldn’t see why it was so popular and what was good about the movie. Frankly, if watched today without any context, Psycho is quite underwhelming, particularly since it doesn’t take brains to figure out what is happening. But once you add the context to it, like the fact that it was made in 1960 and that people weren’t used to seeing such things in mainstream cinema, then the movie achieves new significance.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
1. You write: In fact throughout school and college this movie was the gold-standard for the triumph of the underdog.
Underdog or dog?
Because for much of the movie Aamir Khan’s character Sanju behaves like a mongrel.
2. You write: A lot of things about the movie really stuck and have attained cult status amongst moviegoers
Great movies (the ones that have achieved cult status) are timeless and resonate with a cross-section of the audience. Not just with teenagers or old fogies with dentures (like us).
These movies you can watch decades after they debut and still connect with them (Casablanca, On the Waterfront, Godfather, Forrest Gump, Sweeney Todd, Sholay et al).
JJWH is supposed to be a cult movie and yet it never stuck a chord with us. And we’d like to believe we’re normal folk. 😉
How do I make my pretty face show up in my posts like Kreacher’s show up on his.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
Most likely, you have to sign up for a gravatar at http://en.gravatar.com
We look forward to seeing the mug of our favorite commenter. 😉
Ok, I will trust that comment comes from the bottom of your heart.. whatever that means. so, thank you very much 🙂
yeah, I saw gravatar.. seemed too complicated for me. anyway, I won’t be putting up my pic.. too shy, as you know.
I tuned the TV to watch the Aus Open semifinals, instead they are showing the lesbian love story of Rennae Stubbs and Lisa Raymond.. unfortunately they are both at the end of the Rosie end of the beauty spectrum.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
Watching the State of the Union address from our All-Talk-but-No-Results and most likely One-Term President.
Lofty Goals, Big Initiatives and Tall Talk…..Alas, No Results.
And after that, we’ll watch The Prestige.
How was The Prestige? I’ll be getting it on blu-ray tomorrow. BTW, I have moved from Sony blu-ray player to PS3.. the quality of the HD streaming movies seems to be significantly better on PS3. I am not sure if Netflix upgraded their quality.. or if the PS3 delivers better pictures than the cheaper blu-ray players. If you get a keyboard for the PS3 (along with the PS3), you can claim that you are responding via PS3 (like you used to say “via iPhone)
SearchIndia.com Responds:
Never got around to watching it yesterday.
Some friends called us late in the night to discuss the State of the Union. Really.
Went on for a long time and then we got drunk and started worrying about the newly homeless Ishvar and Om (from Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance).
Now 30-minutes into the film. So far, we’re not overly thrilled.
We still haven’t purchased a Blu-ray player.
try and watch tamil movie pasanga if u haven’t already…I liked it
SearchIndia.com Responds:
On our list now.
I had to pay the price for my laziness. 🙁 When you added both Anand and Happy Days to your Netflix list, I thought of warning you then that you might not like those movies too,but somehow forgot to post it then.
And now you curse me for recommending them,even though I didn’t intend to.
And please don’t lose faith on me or Guruprasadji for a couple of bad expeiences. 🙁
I’ve recommended only 2 Telugu movies to you-they’re Aithe and Anukokunda Oka Roju. Since I’ve been following your blog from a long time,I’m quite aware of your tastes and been trying to be quite careful with my recommendtions. 😉
And I hope you watch rather those Clint Eastwood and then Akira’s classics I asked you to review soon.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
Not to worry. Aithe is still in our queue. Not sure about Anukokunda Oka Roju (we like the name though).
Aithe and Anukokunda Oka Roju are fine movies….although must admit I was a bit dissapointed by the latter’s climax…
hmm…by the way, ur fav tabu’s new movie is releasing soon…its called Baat Pakki and co-stars sharman joshi and a few other newcomers. the trailers r out on youtube. 🙂
And also just out of curiosity, have u watched Yash chopra’s 1991 flick Lamhe? Apparently it is a cult classic and a huge blockbuster overseas….do try to catch it and review it if u can. Stars anil kapoor, sridevi, anupam kher and Waheeda Rahaman.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
1. Wonder if Tabu is playing Sharman Joshi’s mother or grandmother.
2. Lamhe looks kinda interesting. We might watch it just to ogle at Ms.Thunder Thighs. 😉
muhhahahaha!!! Tabu, i think is playing is elder sister as in one of the promos he calls her Didi…but yeh…definitely not his romantic interest..coz tht would be WEIRD..
and also, lovers of thunder thighs might be disappointed because sridevi is fully decked in Lamhe..luks absolutely gorgeous though..
SearchIndia.com Responds:
You write: Tabu, i think is playing is elder sister as in one of the promos he calls her Didi.
You may count on us to never ever refer to Tabu as Didi. Never. 😉
JJWS is a rip-off too (surprise, surprise!!). The original is a 1979 movie called Breaking Away
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078902/
SearchIndia.com Responds:
Sad.
Wonder if Breaking Away was as bad.
We’ll watch it if NFLX has it.
I have watched Breaking Away, after hearing that it was the basis for JJWS.
Apart from the fact that there is a cycle race involved, the stories are quite, quite different, particularly in terms of characterization of the protagonists.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
StrYngLad74, man up now and respond to Kreacher if you’ve seen both films – JJWS and Breaking Away.
@kreacher
You have a group of young kids (4 in JJWS, 4 in BA) with the main protagonist (Quaid/Khan) vying for the affections of a hottie (Douglass/Bedi) while pretending to be something he is not. True, there are differences in the story- Unlike BA,
a. Aamir Khan’s character is not enamored by cycling. He’s lazy and easy-going.
b. The final race in JJWS is not a relay-style race like BA where Quaid’s friends participate too
c. There’s no older brother in Mamik who is in direct competition with Deepak Tijori and his cohorts (the Italian team in BA) and it is he who suffers the injury that brings Aamir Khan into the foray,
d. There’s no secondary love-interest in Ayesha Jhulka.
Despite these differences, the premise remains the same because you have the same element of a young kid gaining acceptance from his father, albeit via (not greatly) different premises and events. I still think it’s a rip-off primarily because:
a. The sport of cycling, which absolutely has no place in the hearts and minds of the general Indian population, constituted a major element in the movie, which was directly lifted from BA…no doubt about that one,
b. Mansoor Khan shamelessly declared that it was an original idea before the movie was released.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
Your a) sounds plausible but b) comes with a more ‘interesting’ logic because when an Indian film director swears that a movie is original it usually isn’t. Examples: Ghajini, Saroja et al.
But going by your points JJWS does seem to veer from BA in some respects although the overarching theme could be the same.
Kreacher, what say you?
@ StrYngLad74: Well, to correct a few facts, Dennis Quaid is not the protagonist of the story – Dennis Christopher is, in his character as Dave. And Dave is the person who is both, a fantastic cyclist and a person who masquerades as someone else to woo girls. He is the person vying for the attention of the leading lady. His clash with the Italians is what disillusions him in the middle of the story.
As I mentioned in my previous post, the characterization of the protagonists is significantly different between the two movies. Dave is addicted to cycling, while none of his friends show any interest, right up to the end. Dave is not a slacker by any means, while in JJWS Aamir is a big-time slacker. Dave’s clash with the Italians upsets him, but does little to impact the way the story unfolds, quite unlike Mamik’s run-in in JJWS.
Most films about victories in sports have parallels that exist elsewhere. E.g. SRK’s Chak De India vs. Denzel Washington’s Remember the Titans.
SI, to your point, the differences between the stories are quite significant, to the point that unless you are actually looking to tie the two stories together you wouldn’t be able to. You can take a look at Wikipedia’s entry for Breaking Away: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breaking_Away.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
We’ll watch Breaking Away soon and Solomon-like deliver our judgment on the subject.
@kreacher
It has been a while since I saw BA on Doordarshan on late night TV…maybe close to 1993-94, and all I the only actor I remember seeing was Dennis Quaid (whom I knew from his popular movie “Enemy Mine.”) Honest mistake.
However, those parallels you indicate between “Remember the Titans” and ‘Chak de India” are not right. CDI is pretty much a desi retelling of the “Miracle on Ice”- the story of the U.S. Olympic Hockey team winning it all against USSR in 1980. This victory was depicted in the movie “Miracle” starring Kurt Russell.
Contrarily, RTT has a core theme of anti-racism that extends beyond the football game and into the society the school exists. Both “Miracle” and CDI have the core theme of a written-off, rag-tag bunch finding the ability to play as a team while being pushed by a tough coach. While the story of RTT (like Miracle on Ice) is based on a true story, CDI is fantasy.
@StrYngLad74,
Agreed about RTT and Miracle on Ice – should have recalled the movies correctly.
CDI is not altogether fantasy. It is loosely based on the tribulations of Mir Ranjan Negi: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mir_Ranjan_Negi. Though both parties, Yash Raj Films and Negi deny that the movie was a direct inspiration, the parallels are there.
@SI
“but b) comes with a more ‘interesting’ logic because when an Indian film director swears that a movie is original it usually isn’t.”
Well, we’ve developed our cynical and skeptical sensibilities over time and thanks also to the times we live in. I guess 1991 harks back to more gullible times when we took Mansoor Khan’s statement to be true. I personally never thought too much of the movie then, even though some songs were nice. The movie was too predictable and many scenes were downright comical at times and I don’t mean that in a good way. For example, Aamir Khan looked somewhat passable for a school kid, but Mamik and Tijori looked like they had flunked their 12th grades 10 years in a row (just cos they keep referring to “college” in the movie, doesn’t mean they were ACTUALLY undergoing post-high school education).
However, my brother (who was 12-13 at that time) happened to love it a lot back when it was released, and we even discuss the movie today to mock the crap out of it.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
The entire movie struck as downright amateurish.
But obviously we are/were in a minority here given the movie’s success and popularity (even to this day in some quarters).
its a good movie ….but people say its a rip off ……some English movie ……i dont know ………..Mansoor’s Khan’s other movies like Josh , Akele Hum Akele tum were also rip-off’s ………..he is know for that
SearchIndia.com Responds:
Guess, you are referring to Breaking Away.
But opinions are divided on whether JJWS is a ripoff of Breaking Away. Please see discussion (above, in the comments section) between StrYngLad74 and Kreacher on the subject.
Regarding Mansoor Khan’s other movies, Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak was a Desi retelling of Romeo and Juliet, Josh was copied from West Side Story and Akele Hum Akele Tum was ripped off Kramer vs Kramer
SearchIndia.com Responds:
Romeo and Juliet is fair game but as for the rest we can only say 🙁
We remember reading Kramer vs Kramer a gazillion years back.