Joined: Thu Jun 20, 2002 8:47 pm
Posts: 117
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This is really the limit! What this says is that AB is not allowed to try any role that he fancies coz if its not to the liking of certain people he has to apologise....... oh grow up please! Boom was pathetic, fair enuf..... but AB gave an amazing performance....... the fault is not at what AB performed but the fault lies in the audience not accepting AB playing such a role! It seems people were feeling uncomfortable at AB playing such a role........ hence they've termed ab's acting as 'bad'. I am an AB fan but i've ripped many a movie and performance of his apart but to see at what length the media is going after AB, its getting pathetic!
Apologise, Mr Bachchan
By: Mayank Shekhar
September 24, 2003
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I think Boom is one of the few landmark movies of this year. The unfortunates who’ve stumbled upon this juvenile junkie fantasy would know, of course, that the glorious adjective doesn’t refer to the film per se. Movies (good or bad) come and go. As they will.
But I can’t remember the last time anything evoked such a collective response among viewers, to open a can of quick questions.
The first is a whiplash on why the media relentlessly hyped the film when better dozens go unnoticed. “For half a year, millions have been fed pics of three semi-nudes in a movie by a relatively novice filmmaker.â€
(That the film’s makers now turn around to claim that in fact they have become “media’s unfair targets†is an interesting anomaly.)
The second revelation is a motley crew of liberals, conservatives, not-sures… who chorus the same chant: “Was the Censor Board dozing when they passed this perversion?†(Only the censor board can answer this one).
But the final point, according to me, is the most pertinent. “What is Amitabh Bachchan doing in a semi porn movie? Exploding in disgust against women with facial hair. ‘In muchhadon ko mat bhejna’ (Don’t send these mustachioed prostitutes again).
Getting seduced by Padma Lakshmi’s stripper act and watching jaded Zeenat Aman do a Dum Maro Dum for a sleaze show. A pansy don mindlessly twisting someone’s neck because the victim served someone bottled beer, instead of draught beer– ‘Devil is in the detail’…†I could just go on…
The first and final concerns are related however. The only thing that separates Boom from an A-grade to a B-grade flick is AB. Hence the media attention. And hence the magnified disgust. Replace Bachchan with Shakti Kapoor and nobody would care. The film would be safely left alone along with dozens of intended salacious stuff for late night cable television.
But the worrying part is Bachchan does not realise that. Or admits he doesn’t: “I do character roles that takes less time.†“I did what Kaizad Gustad (director) asked me to do, have nothing else to do with the film.†“If rejected by audiences, I’d just say ‘namaskar’ (bid goodbye) and stay at home.â€
True that. It doesn’t matter if both Bachchan’s films this year have garnered abysmally low openings. (Armaan: 56 per cent first weekend draw in Mumbai territory!) But obviously now he’s above those numbers.
How many actors in history could claim to be their country’s busiest stars at age 60? How many Indians stand tall along with the father of the nation on Madama Tussaud’s wax pedestal? (Not even Nehru!).
And closer home, come what may, a chapter in cinema’s annals is indelibly reserved for Salim-Javed’s neatly crafted, deified ‘angry young man’ — the last Indian superstar.
It doesn’t matter too, the money he makes as India’s Brand Number One. That’s his personal financial matter.
But the point remains, Mr Bachchan, if you’re paid Rs 10 crore to hawk a bank, Rs 8 crore to market Chayawanprash, surely the moneybags have backed their cheques with enough research to prove, that what you sell, people buy, or at least, notice.
And then it begins to matter; when you callously partake in a film that sells certified smut — flick-full of cuss words, tits, a**l and oral sex. One that offends sensibilities, denigrates women as brainless bras and humans otherwise as mind-numbed trigger-happy mutants. You apparently read a bound script. And the only problem you had by the end of the movie was a payment problem?
‘Mouth lines, pocket moolah ‘n’ party on… It’s just a film. And I’m just an actor.’ Sounds straight and simple. But for an impressionable nation of four ‘n’ half icons (of which you’re one), highly irresponsible.
If your goatee was worth an editorial piece on The Times Of India, then to extend that logic, your peddling porn in a picture is a national disaster.
Your yes-men will never tell you that. But that’s the word on the streets.
Just say sorry, Mr Bachchan. Say you’ll feel accountable next time. You owe it to a billion people, especially the youngest generation. God forbid if they actually remember you as one of the leading men in a certain 2003 film called Boom.
mayank@mid-day.com
http://web.mid-day.com/columns/mayank_s ... /64614.htm
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The ’ were driving me crazy and made reading difficult so I edited you post by removing them for you :;): 
Edited By urbanlegend on 1064439765
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It goes to show how much they (don't) know! Boom is NOT a 'bollywood' film and was made for an International audience, not just people in India. Boom comes under the category of a new genre of films which has been tagged 'filmi fundas'. Other films in this category include Split Wide Open, Bombay Boys, Snip, Everybody Says I'm Fine, Hyderabad Blues, etc. In these films there is expected English diologue, swearing, odd-ball characters, sometimes nudity and the story is never the usual run-of-the-mill bollywood-type.