Chak De is the breakout Bollywood movie everyone is talking about. A review/analysis is overdue and will be up soon.Meanwhile, we found this cringe inducing review of the movie on Tehelka:
Assisted by a Mayawati-like lady, Shah Rukh takes the talented, scrappy bunch of girls and moulds them into a killer team. The usual happens — tough training schedules, few players rebel, camps form, Coach resigns, then a killer moment of realisation and team spirit emerges. The crucial hockey sequences are shot beautifully and edited crisply. [link][web archive link]This, from a bunch of folks who drop words like casteist, sexist, racist, capitalist at people who have a different political opinion. This shows the new lows our self-styled intellectual class people are capable of stooping to.
By the way, that Mayawati-like lady (called Krishna in the movie) is a supremely talented actress. In the movie she plays her difficult role as assistant coach with great aplomb. You can read more about Vibha Chibber here.
6 comments:
I found the movie to be just ok.. not bad, but not that good either.
http://www.indiafm.com/features/2007/06/05/2733/index.html
Its claimed that this movie is based on a real life story, then why is the main character's religion changed and the crappy secularism formula forcefully injected into the plot ?? It just distracts from the actual focus of the movie...
And stupid managers in my company (and many other companies in Pune) seem to be influenced by the movie.. I say, it would be more helpful to read the Dilbert strip in Economic Times everyday...
In Shadows,
Great to see you are cartoon fan.
There was a study done few years ago on the stress or health of individuals based on type of news reports people read every morning.
The people who read comics were predicted to have a longest life. Sports type came next. News junkies fared worst. Pity that people like dcubed and Shivam aren't featured in newspaper daily - they could single handedly solved our nation's population problem. And I'd have been writing this from my graveyard as ghost a la Prathiba tai.
Do you know why true mass leaders of the scheduled castes, Jagjivan Ram, Kakkan, and JN Mondal, were all admiration for Gandhi, but disliked Ambedkar? Because Gandhi lived and worked with them and was always learning, honest to a fault. Ambedkar was simply a pedant, who talked down to people, who had stopped learning by around 1935. Ambedkar was certainly a well-read man and without doubt a brilliant mind. But that is not all when dealing with people. Talking down contemptuously won't get you anywhere.
Ambedkar was and still remains a highly popular figure among Dalits. Admittedly his appeal wasn't as universal as Gandhi's. He has a strong fan following in Maharashtra and UP.
It is doubtful he looked down on anyone in particular, but yes, he took a very different trajectory from Gandhi. First of all, there was an intense campaign against him from the Congress camp who were afraid of his political ascent. Also, he had to do many things at once, with almost no one else to relieve him or provide strong logistical support.
Gandhi became a God much earlier. Contrary to popular belief, he never really worked with anyone, at least once he was established as a national leader. He was surrounded by many layers of psycophants, most notably people from the business community (e.g. G.D. Birla) who, being the smart men they were quickly understood the course India's freedom struggle was going to take and accordingly had started lobbying for favors about a decade earlier than when freedom eventually came.
By the way, once Gandhi became God, his Darshan became a paid affair. The common man had no access to him. Forget the common man, even top leaders had to first go through his secretary.
I have also seen the movie and appreciate its nationalist side.. and the lady is of course a very talented actress.
Has anyone read 'Worshipping False Gods' by Arun Shourie?
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