Notes on Ghajini & Slumdog Millionaire

Notes on a couple of movies I happened to watch recently:

Ghajini

• The first thoughts that came to my mind was - What an effort? And what a waste? No, I was not expecting 'Memento', but something saner at least.
  
• My biggest grouse is that there was absolutely no effort to show the emotional turmoil of the hero, after losing his memory. The only thing was that the hero shouting, huffing and puffing whenever he sees his muscules and tattoos.
  
• Who made the movie Ghajini? Director ne audience ko kya banaya? The same answer - "Murga Banaya"!
• What do Aamir Khan and Minnisha Lamba have in common? So much effort to sculpt the body for such an abysmal movie!
• I am surprised that nobody made this observation. Aamir has a short term memory loss (courtesy Memento) to make the proceedings interesting. But, but he also has a retrograde amnesia (a la old hindi movies - "woh apni puraani yaad dash kho chuka hai") So basically he has no memory - not the immediate past, not the past past. Interesting!
• In the climax, when Aamir exceeds his 15 minute window while chasing the villain, he shows absolutely no sense of recognition, which to me is the single most brilliant moment in the movie. Ironically, the same scene made me sad about what Aamir could have achieved if he was asked to show the inner conflict more than the tattooed muscles.
  
• Asin does the 'look-here-look-I-am-so-bubbly-cheerful' annoying Tamil heroine act to perfection. She should just settle for being on the gorgeous Tanishq posters instead!
• Jiah Khan perfectly complements a badly written role. She should just stick to doing item songs shot from a distance.
• Ghajini was perhaps the only popular hindi movie named after a villain, in which the villain is so lame.
  

Slumdog Millionaire

• Who came up with this name? No, I am not talking about 'Slumdog'. Its about 'Millionaire'. Its a game show that is being played in India - for a prize money of 2 crore. Then why oh why is it called 'millionaire'? The current hindi version has a more meaningful name - 'Slumdog Crorepati'.
• The best performance in the movie is from the kids - by a long long distance. All it needed was a Darsheel Safary and then a bunch of slum kids to show that there is nothing inherently wrong with Indian kids. Its the directors who make them annoying, irritating, unbearable while trying so hard to convince us that they are cute.
• The movie is brilliant in parts, but definitely not Oscar material.
  
• The slums are shot superbly, in a way they have never been done before, though I felt Danny Boyle missed no little opportunity to showcase the slums. Remember the first scene, where the policeman does not just scare the kids away by shooing them - he chases them in what seems like a mini tour of slums, when apparently he had no real intention of catching the kids.
• Dont you think the accent that the slum kids develop in their adult life is a wee bit sophisticated even by an urban kid's standards?
  
• Did anyone notice the 3 actors who played Jamal's brother and how similar they look? Really appreciated that attention to detail.
• Though the stories within the story are more touching, the bigger story of a guy coming to television show to reach his love is so so far fetched, that it puts any Bollywood movie to shame. Karan Johar, Aditya Chopra beware - you have some serious threat here!
• When there was a communal riot happening, what was that kid with the horrendous Ram make-up doing in a Muslim locality? The scene is so over-the-top, it could have been done so subtly, like showing a huge banner having Ram's photo or something like that.
• Anil Kapoor simply hams it up, in what is one of the worst written roles in the movie. I was expecting every moment that Anil will jump out of his seat, don a hat and break into "Aye jee Oh jee Loji suno jee"! What a tragedy, that the Indian stars who are getting the international exposure now are Anil Kapoor and Aishwarya Rai.
• Dev Patel is so wooden, he can give Bobby Deol a run for his money.
• The background music was brilliant, though the unnecessary song towards the end credits (Jai Ho) was again Danny Boyle's obsession to do something 'Bollywoodish'.
• This was by no means anywhere close to Rahman's other brilliant works (compare this with 'Dil Se'), but this is the best opportunity to hand him an award which his entire body of work thoroughly deserves. In that aspect, its more like a lifetime achievement award for him.