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 Post subject: Re: AAG
PostPosted: Wed Sep 05, 2007 6:11 am 
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Zoran009 wrote:
Ramu ki 30 crore to lagaii AAG :lol:

Ram Gopal Verma Ki (Lagaai) AAG


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 Post subject: Re: AAG
PostPosted: Wed Sep 05, 2007 9:57 am 
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i started watching this and thought it was crap.. so switched it off and stuck sholay on in stead..


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 Post subject: Re: AAG
PostPosted: Wed Sep 05, 2007 1:01 pm 
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Saw this film last night at Cineworld, all the violent scenes were cut which was a shame. However the film was not bad as everyone is making it out to be. Maybe coz I heard all the bad reviews and comments before going to watch it therefore I did not expect anything. The film cud have done without the songs which were rubbish. Sholay is the greatest film ever made...no doubt about it...AAG is ramu's tribute to it (like Sarkar was for godfather), as the director has not tried to better the old sholay (e.g. New SRK Don claims to better than the old one, which is not right). I like the little references to coin toss and amitabh with mouth organ, very nostalgic references to SHOLAY. I know the dialogues could have better but at least the dialogues were not a completely lifted from SHOLAY (like DON).
AAG is nowhere as close to being a masterpiece but it does not claim to be one either. Ram gopal varma is a director who has awful box office record, however he has made hits like SATYA, COMPANY, BHOOT, SARKAR and others. However he does make different types of movies. Lets see how SARKAR RAAJ does? I am looking forward to it, as SARKAR was very good.
I know all you guys hate this movie and ur probably going to object to what I have written, but everyone is entitled to their opinion :)


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 Post subject: Re: AAG
PostPosted: Wed Sep 05, 2007 4:24 pm 
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dr_alinaeem wrote:
Saw this film last night at Cineworld, all the violent scenes were cut which was a shame. However the film was not bad as everyone is making it out to be. Maybe coz I heard all the bad reviews and comments before going to watch it therefore I did not expect anything. The film cud have done without the songs which were rubbish. Sholay is the greatest film ever made...no doubt about it...AAG is ramu's tribute to it (like Sarkar was for godfather), as the director has not tried to better the old sholay (e.g. New SRK Don claims to better than the old one, which is not right). I like the little references to coin toss and amitabh with mouth organ, very nostalgic references to SHOLAY. I know the dialogues could have better but at least the dialogues were not a completely lifted from SHOLAY (like DON).
AAG is nowhere as close to being a masterpiece but it does not claim to be one either. Ram gopal varma is a director who has awful box office record, however he has made hits like SATYA, COMPANY, BHOOT, SARKAR and others. However he does make different types of movies. Lets see how SARKAR RAAJ does? I am looking forward to it, as SARKAR was very good.
I know all you guys hate this movie and ur probably going to object to what I have written, but everyone is entitled to their opinion :)


I salute your optimism Doc!


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 Post subject: Re: AAG
PostPosted: Wed Sep 05, 2007 7:51 pm 
dr_alinaeem wrote:
However the film was not bad as everyone is making it out to be. ...AAG is ramu's tribute to it (like Sarkar was for godfather), as the director has not tried to better the old sholay (e.g. New SRK Don claims to better than the old one, which is not right). I like the little references to coin toss and amitabh with mouth organ, very nostalgic references to SHOLAY. I know the dialogues could have better but at least the dialogues were not a completely lifted from SHOLAY (like DON).
AAG is nowhere as close to being a masterpiece but it does not claim to be one either. :)


(lol)tossing lysol on a pile of dung (AAG) doesn’t make it any better no matter what it stinks.


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 Post subject: Re: AAG
PostPosted: Wed Sep 05, 2007 9:52 pm 
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Khalid Mohamed reviews RGV ki Aag...

http://filmikhabar.com/2007/08/31/khali ... gv-ki-aag/

Quote:
Hindustantimes

Cast: Amitabh Bachchan, Mohanlal, Prashant Raj, Ajay Devgan, Nisha Kothari
Direction: Ram Gopal Varma
Rating: 1/2 *

And so dear ladies and gentlemen, this Lifetime’s Worst Ever Movie Award goes to Ram Gopal Varma ki Aag, widely reported to be a remake of Sholay Jo Bhadke. The jury was unanimous in awarding it all its topis.. trophies.. whatever.

So imagine, it is my privilege to call upon G P, Sasha, Ramesh and Kiran Sippy to hand over the topi to the producer-director who has literally opened up a can of Varmas. The Worst Film topi has been bagged hands and legs down by RGV who has made a mockery of a classic. May we request all the Misters Sippy to refrain from violence please?

Varma receives his topi and states, “In my very original film, the drunken scene, the propose-to-the-mother-in-law comedy business, heroes called Heero and Zeero, a widow and a chatterbox chulbulli are merely coincidental. I pay tributes to Coppolaji also. If Heero and all have irritated you, I promise to irritate you much more next time. Thanks.”


And the Worst Actor as well as the Worst Actor in a Negative Role Awards goes out to Amitabh Bachchan for the hammiest, over-the-top, yucky delineation of Babban Gabban SinghWait, do say something about your Worst Director Award. Varma reads from a dialogue chit, “Direction – what, where, when? I was just making ten other movies at the same time. Thanks.”

Huh? And the Worst Actor as well as the Worst Actor in a Negative Role Awards (so much confusion nowadays) goes out to Amitabh Bachchan for the hammiest, over-the-top, yucky delineation of Babban Gabban Singh. May I request my ENT specialist to hand over the topi? Doctor could you please inspect Mr Bachchan’s nose before you hand over the award?

ENT specialist does. The Worst Actor and Negative Role winner laughs, “Ha ha! That was just a Himesh Reshammiya touch. If I dug into my nostrils, it’s because I’m a director’s actor. He also told me to flick my tongue around when a rape scene was in progress. He told me to yell, sit as if all my limbs were in a kathak pose and behave like Jack Nicholson meets Johnny Lever. He also made me wear a potato gunny sack.. very hot it was.. prevented me from a haircut for 100 days.. and painted this little worm on my nose. I dedicate both these topis to him and Kaizaad Gustaad who got me going downhill with Boom.. or was it Jhoom Jhoom?”

Clap clap. The Worst Actress Award have been jointly grabbed by Sushmita Sen who wore hundred kilos of make-up for a suffering, widow’s look.. and to Nasha Kothari for wearing denim fig leaves for skirts. May they please hand over the Worst Awards to each other? Oh, only Miss Sen is here. Wonderful!


Ali


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 Post subject: Re: AAG
PostPosted: Thu Sep 06, 2007 1:22 am 
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Adlabs...
http://www.moneycontrol.com/india/messa ... 17/2187767
Quote:
Mr Sheety Should Give Resignation (3) 03-Sep-07 15:28 Tracked by (0)


Posted by: SOUMYASAHOO on ( 03-Sep-07 15:28 )
Price : BSE: Rs 476.25 ( 1.08 % ), NSE: Rs. 475.25 ( 0.60 % )
Mr Sheety Should Give Resignation;

According to the Adlab performances,during last 1 year ,it\'s constantly going down & down,Mr sheety choosing very bad film for his production company;

His current Flop film are
1) AAG
2) Cash

He should regin from his post,and in comprasion with Prime fucus,Prime fucus, is giving constant performance.

Views ON Adlabs \"AAG\"

Aadhe idhar jao, aadhe udhar jao, baki Ram Gopal ki Aag ke saath jao. Call it deja vu minus all the good parts. That\'s the risk one takes while updating a legend like Sholay. Ram Gopal Varma took that risk and it\'s official now: Aag is a flop with expected losses to the tune of a whopping Rs 40 crore. With everybody and their Thakur measuring up Aag with Ramesh Sippy ke Sholay, it was always going to be an armless battle at the box-office.

Working the phone for an RGV reaction was useless. The director went incommunicado after the scorching reviews that followed Friday\'s release. But the news is that one call did go through, with Ramu answering the question, \"How do you feel?\" with a monosyllabic \"Dead\" before hanging up.

Varma first talked about trying his hand at remaking the 1975 epic in the last quarter of 2005. Soon after the announcement, Amitabh Bachchan, who was roped in to play Babban (read: Gabbar) Singh had a surgery, which stalled the film for almost three months. When Varma did pick up the project in mid-2006, Sascha Sippy, the grandson of GP Sippy, who produced the original, legally restrained the director from using \'Sholay\' in the title of the \'remake\', claiming that it would be an infringement of trademark and copyright. But even after the film was renamed Ram Gopal Varma ki Aag, you didn\'t have to be a genius to realise what the film was about.

A total of 101 prints have been distributed across Delhi, the NCR region and UP. But with not one of the single-screen theatres buying the print, it will be the multiplexes - apart from RGV, that is - who will get badly hit. \"It\'s a huge disappointment,\" said Deepak Saluja, VP-Operations, Delhi and NCR, Fun Cinemas. \"To begin with, there was no advance booking. On the first two days of its release, it could only register an occupancy of less than 20 per cent.\"
That\'s a fate as bad as Kaliya.

PVR and Satyam Cinemas confirm the bad news. \"The film had an average opening,\" says Ashish Saxena, chief operation officer, film cell, PVR Cinemas. According to Munish Sharma, Satyam Cinemas marketing head, the coming week will be crucial for the film. \"With Chak De and #8230; India [tax-free] and Heyy Babyy still going strong, Aag will have a major fall.\" Saluja also hopes for a mid-week turnaround. \"Going by the current response, chances are that Monday onwards, Aag will be shown on even fewer screens.\"

Manmohan Shetty, Adlabs Managing Director and the presenter of Aag is more dire in his predictions. \"Audiences have declined the film. As a viewer, even I am with them. The verdict is clear and there\'s nothing to look forward to.\" He added that he has learnt a lesson; \"Don\'t copy a classic. Period.\" Ab tera kya hoga, Ramu?

Mr Sheety please Kindly Leave \"Adlabs\"

Another hope On Sanjay Dutt \"Dhamal\" it\'s release date On 07.09.2007

Let\'s Hope For The best.


http://www.ourbollywood.com/2007/09/rgv ... ter_o.html
Quote:
“Since we pre-sold the movie, Adlabs will not suffer a loss,” said Adlabs Films CMD Manmohan Shetty. The company sold the domestic distribution rights to Bharat Bhai Shah, one of the country’s biggest distributors, for Rs 15 crore, which excluded the southern territory. The southern territory was sold for Rs 2.5 crore.

“Distributors will lose about 70% of their investment. This is one of the biggest disasters of recent times, and collections of the film have been the lowest this year,” said trade analyst Komal Nahta.

“It is a debacle... The other reason for the failure of the movie is the publicity campaign, which was not in tune with modern times, but looked like posters and promos of a Bhojpuri or a regional film,” film expert Taran Adarsh said.


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PostPosted: Thu Sep 06, 2007 4:58 am 
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(Spoilers possibly lie ahead; if you haven't seen Sholay, I'll probably end up spoiling it for you, also.)

The name says it all: "Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag" is a working title that Varma ended up using as his final, and Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag is a work-in-progress that Ramu should have spent much more time conceiving and executing, but rushed to release just as it is. Normally, I'd preach never to read a review before watching a movie, because reviews warp your mind and you perception, and you end up looking for things to like and things to dislike based on what some random reviewer happened to share with you his like and dislike for. In the case of Aag — as I'll henceforth refer to it, because I can't even bring myself to copy-and-paste Varma's loaded choice of title throughout the remainder of my review — however, skimming all those terrible things that everyone has eagerly spewed might actually lower your expectations just enough for you to not demand a refund from the manager as you depart from his theater.

Re-makes have it tough: First, people bitch if a good movie is re-made because they somehow find the thought of anyone touching something they've come to love sacrilegious, or they whine if a shitty picture is being re-done, because they can't wrap their brains around why anyone would want to re-do something that was atrocious to begin with. Second, Sholay is arguably India's greatest "modern" (not B&W) classic — indubitably iconic and influential, you have to admit it is, even if (for some inexcusable reason) it's not your cup o' tea. So, "maverick" filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma already set up a hell of a hurdle for himself by publicizing so heavily as he did his plans to re-make not just a good movie, but a movie that many still consider India's greatest masterpiece. I even suggested (to no one in particular) that, Sholay's general "story" (not necessarily plot) being so universal and accessible as it is, Varma ought to just keep his mouth shut about the source material, and go ahead with his own vision. Well, perhaps the reason Varma had to disclose the origin of his idea was that, indeed, Ramu was re-making Sholay — not "re-imagining" it, not taking an idea and making it his own: scene-for-scene, moment-for-moment, re-doing Ramesh Sippy's work. Aag is not to Sippy's film what Sarkar was to Coppola's The Godfather. The situation isn't even comparable to Farhan Akhtar's 2006 re-make of Chandra Barot's 1978 cult-classic, Don, because Akhtar, at least, tried to make his project his own. Aag is the sort of re-make you can't — no matter how desperately you want to — watch "on its own"; it's the kind of re-make that beats you with every passing second with the demand, "you've seen this before; how are you liking it this time?" Even if you're morally opposed to making comparisons to the original as you sit through a re-make, you'll have no choice but to think of Sholay as you endure Aag; it goes to great lengths to assure that you do so: The dialogues, the music, the sequence of events — it's all straight from the original. To a certain, admittedly vague, extent, you can forgive this as an attempt to note the value of the source. Beyond, that extent, you realize it's just lazy writing and slothful direction. Aag rather than be the sort of re-imagining of a classic that actually uses some dash of imagination, hasn't a clever thought its own in its head, and so you get the distinct feeling that its creators basically sat before a DVD of Sholay with a pen and some paper in-hand. The fact is, if you've seen Sholay (and it's the most-watched movie on the planet, so, odds are, you have), you've seen Aag. If you need to realize this through analogy, think back to Gus Van Sant's atrocious re-shoot of Psycho. Varma is only a few inches behind in the race toward banality.

Where the film does take on life its own, a few moments of Aag do feel very good: I love Gabb... sorry, Babban's newly-violent encounter with Inspector Narsimha. Ahmed's death (the lips say "Rehmad," but the subtitles insist the name's still Ahmed) is horribly handled in comparison with the original, but the exchange it causes is done deftly and with passion. The good stops soon, though. Among the "new" things you'll have to sit through are a painfully inappropriate "love song" between Heero and Ghungroo, an obscenely bad rendition of Veeru by Devgan, and numerous incomprehensible lines about the Iraq War (I'm "American," so I get that I'll hear these dialogues differently from how a Bumbaiya film-goer will, but the lines are still awkward and dumb — if they were meant to make the film more "contemporary," it should have been kept in mind that topical references only age a film faster in the long run).

On the "technical" side of things, Aag is good, but, following in the footsteps of one of the most argutely-handled action films of the century, I wonder why Aag didn't try harder. Sholay's action is as exhillarating now as it was in 1975, maybe moreso, when you remember that there's not a C.G.I. to be found anywhere in those ravines. Aag looks and moves well, but it doesn't bother to even try to live up to the legacy of technical perfection left by Sippy's work.

The songs, in large part, suck. "Mehbooba Mehbooba" is OK, but, I admit, the rap/hip-hop hurts. If you're one of those chicks who scream every time media-made "hottie" Abhishek Bachchan comes on screen, you'll get to shriek a few times here. The Holi song keeps reminding me of something by Ricky Martin, but it's not terrible. Aag's version of "Koi Haseena Jab" is all right the first time around, but its strict "all-rightness" serves to remind how little effort was put forth in the re-make of a film that features some of Hindi cinema's most memorable numbers. The "sensual" song between Heero and Ghungroo might be decent on an album, but its picturization is painful (not to mention very out-dated) to sit through.

As for the performances, things aren't so bad at all. I've been hearing a lot about Mohan Lal ever since he agreed to be involved in this picture, and, I tell you, I went into the theater braced to be blown away. I wasn't. Now, before the Mohanites jump down my throat, accusing me of having no taste, of having never seen the work that makes him great, I openly disclose that I haven't seen the man in anything but Aag and Company, and I don't really remember him in Company. He wasn't bad, but he was hardly impressive. Let's blame it partly on the script, partly on a bad movie, partly on the fact that he's following up the amazing Sanjeev Jumar, and partly — come on — on his just being wrong for the part. If you love the actor, keep on loving, but don't watch Aag just to see his face: it ain't worth it.

I've never cared much for Nisha Kothari, but, truthfully, I quite liked her. She's cute and spunky and tough-as-nails, and she balances it all just right. Thankfully, Varma's spared us having to sit though Hema Malini's verbosity as Basanti coming through the lips of little Nisha Kothari's Ghungroo; the result is a younger (too young for Devgan, by the way), more energetic, somehow still-endearing character.

Sushmita Sen (whom I openly love) is very good, but she has little to do but stand in the background and be attracted to the guy who looks like he could be her son (which is fine, except the age thing is never addressed in the movie). Ram Gopal Varma promised, pre-release, that, while Jaya Bhaduri (as Radha) was quiet, reserved, and left to be wounded in the background in Sholay, Aag's Durga would be a sort of active volcano, bent on vengeance and justive. Well, kudos to Varma for getting it so wrong: Radha was essential to Sholay, and, in Aag, you barely even notice Durga. Sen is fine, but she's got nothing on the Thakur's bahu.

If you're worried about how the "new guy" will fare before a cast of competent veterans, allay your concerns: Prashant Raj is simply terrific as Raj. Do you remember how, in Superman Returns, everyone felt that Brandon Routh was perfect because he was just the right bit reminiscent of Christopher Reeve without turning into an affected clone? Well, Prashant Raj — especially early in the film — feels exactly like 1975's Amitabh Bachchan (which, if you have any sense at all, you know is a very good thing); fortunately, too, Raj never "acts" like, mimics, Bachchan: His body language, his dialogue delivery, his style — everything about him flows as it should to appropriately remind us of Jai without making us feel that he's being a horrendous copycat.

Ajay Devgan, on the other hand, is one of the worst aspects of Varma's movie. Until about Deewangee, Ajay Devgan could barely pull a performance out of his ass. Thereafter, he morphed into an ultimately competent "somber protagonist"; but, he still had no clue as to how to pull off comedy. Sadly for Ajay, Heero is still written like Veeru, and Veeru's a role Ajay Devgan will probably never be able to work.

Amitabh Bachchan (of course he gets saved for last) actually is fucking brilliant in Aag. Unfortunately, the last time he was fucking great as a villain, was in 2006's Family, which was just a hackneyed, horribly pieced-together piece of shit. Aag, where again Bachchan gets to shine as a sinister sort of screature, also fails to give him a fantastic backdrop against which to function. Comparisons with his work in Aks, barring a few seconds of raspy laughter, fall flat: Babban is an evil, contemptible sociopath, and he has nothing to do with Manu Verma. Claiming that Bachchan "hams," too, is baseless; it's like saying Pacino should have toned it down as Tony Montana. Babban is a loud, arrogant, over-the-top character, and he's played exactly as he should have been by Amitabh. Yes, I'd like to know why Singh has two different-colored irises, and why he has a limp, and why he consistently bothers to chisel a decent goatee out of his facial hair, but these questions fall on Ram Gopal Varma, not on Amitabh Bachchan. Who was better, Amjad Khan or Amitabh Bachchan? Amjad Khan, but so what? Gabbar Singh was a magnificent role in a superfluous film, and it was written and directed by the best. As "Babban Singh" — a fun, but half-baked part — no one could have done half as well as Amitabh Bachchan.

Aag hit the marquee with all sorts of anticipation, hope, and naysaying. It was sure to either blow us all away, or sent us out of the theater laughing: "Maina kaha na ki sala paagal ho gaya hai; sala kucch dhanka na karne ka hai." I feel it hits neither extreme: Aag is, overall, a mediocre effort, which wouldn't have done well no matter what, but wouldn't have been susceptible to a tenth the pre-criticism it was if it hadn't been an attempt at Sholay. Ironically, where it falls flat on its face is in its decision to be so very exactly like Sholay in content, yet to very "Ram Gopal Varma" in execution. Sholay was an out-and-out entertainer, but it had a mighty brain, too. Say what you will about whence it derived its ideas, Sholay was, altogether, original, well-crafted, and a delight to watch; it had also never before been done in India (not on that scale). Salim-Javen penned a hell of a script for it, and Ramesh Sippy made certain that everything went on just right. Ram Gopal Varma, on the other hand, didn't care that Babban kept a goatee or that Heero waxed his chest hair, or that the songs were abrupt and ill-conceived, or that the writing wasn't quite up to the mark. Attention to detail was never paid because too much attention was given to re-creating a classic, all the while claiming that that very source was just a tool to frame the basic idea of the offspring. Sholay made itself from the ground-up, accepting style and plot ideas from here and from there. Aag just Xeroxes Sholay — skeleton, muscles, skin, and all — and hopes to hell that things will go all right. The result is that, Sholay is still a classic, and perhaps will always be one, and Aag is a C- "B movie" that everyone feels proud of having predicting the failure of.


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 Post subject: Re: AAG
PostPosted: Thu Sep 06, 2007 5:35 am 
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I just read shit-head Taran Adarsh's review of the film, and came across his comment about Babban's execution of Narsimha's family as being "terrifying." Now, color me confused, because, to the best of my recollection, unlike in Sholay, the murders were never shown: Babban gets out --> Narsimha comes home to find everyone dead. ... :?:


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 Post subject: Re: AAG
PostPosted: Thu Sep 06, 2007 7:07 am 
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Commando303 wrote:
I just read shit-head Taran Adarsh's review of the film, and came across his comment about Babban's execution of Narsimha's family as being "terrifying." Now, color me confused, because, to the best of my recollection, unlike in Sholay, the murders were never shown: Babban gets out --> Narsimha comes home to find everyone dead. ... :?:

True!
Unless Taran saw a separate version or dreamed up the sequence ;-)


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 Post subject: Re: AAG
PostPosted: Thu Sep 06, 2007 9:18 am 
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I downloaded this. I started watching it. It was crap. I turned it off. I burned the DVD.

I haven't got the patience to write something as detailed as Commando's review of the film, but from the half of the film I watched, it was pretty much unbearable. I did actually consider watching this in the cinema, cos I have liked most of RGV's films so far (even the ones that were panned, like Daud). I'm extremely glad I didn't. This was just embarrassing though. Amitabh Bachchan, in my opinion, was pathetically OTT. I used to be a huge AB fan, and love most of his older films, but some of his recent films have been complete utter crap. Nisha Kothari wears the same expression throughout the film, and is about as irritating as you can get. Prashant Raj is ok - maybe I'll think he's a decent actor with a better film. Ajay Devgan needs to go back to films like Zakhm if he wants to regain his reputation as an actor.

I didn't think you could get worse than Heyy Babyy, I was clearly very wrong.


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 Post subject: Re: AAG
PostPosted: Thu Sep 06, 2007 1:32 pm 
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I was nuts to attempt Sholay

Quote:
‘Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag se bhaag,’ is the latest SMS doing the rounds. For those who’ve seen the film, kind words of encouragement or praise are hard to find. Many think his tribute to Sholay is nothing short of an insult to the classic film. Surprisingly, after all those spirited interviews where Ramu said he was making a film that had ‘something for everyone’, the intense audience backlash has forced him to do a rethink. Here, he tells us what went wrong with his Aag.

Do you feel you went wrong somewhere with Aag?
I did go wrong. The one person I must have made supremely happy is Ramesh Sippy! I’m very happy to make him happy, because he made my life. I watched Sholay again last night. It’s fantastic. I must’ve been nuts to attempt it. All my impressions of Sholay over the years went into making Aag. Now, I ask myself, ‘If someone else had made Aag, how would I as a Sholay fan react?’ I’d probably hate it as much as most people. The original is too deeply embedded in the public’s psyche.

Were you prepared for this sort of backlash?
I can’t say it was entirely unexpected. When you attempt to remake the most revered film in Indian film history, you’re going into the realm of sacrilege. Everyone, from friends to well wishers to people who didn’t care a damn either way, warned me I was headed for trouble. I expected extreme criticism, but I didn’t expect such a low box office opening. I don’t know if it was because of the title or because of the film’s look. People felt the film looked like it was made in the 1970s, but I wanted to make a 1970s film! One way of looking at it is homage to the decade. The other way is to see it as outdated. It’s a question of perception.

Aag is your career’s most vilified films.
I’d think so. The baggage of expectations was too much. Brickbats were rained because people saw this attempt as an upstart trying to tamper with a classic. The backlash isn’t personal. Sometimes, criticism against a film rises in a wave, all in one voice. I don’t think people sat down and conspired to trash Aag.

What do you think is the reason for the backlash?
They hate my guts for having the audacity to remake Sholay, but I’m used to being hated for what I do. Only this time, the volume of protests
is higher.

What do you mean?
I am constantly ridiculed for everything I do. Everyone has a mind and a tongue and the right to use it. I think humans get pleasure from attacking others. No one has time to get personal.

What about an SMS that said you should learn filmmaking from former assistants like Madhur Bhandarkar and Shimit Amin?
All of us have an opinion on everything under the sun. If someone feels I should learn filmmaking, they’re right in their own way. When Kisna failed, critics said Subhash Ghai should enroll in his own film institute. Ridiculing people is a form of entertainment. At least I’m entertaining people more with their comments on Aag than I did with the film! Critics should thank me for that and give me a 5-star rating for providing post-release entertainment.

Maybe the volume of work goes against you.
I don’t agree with that. I don’t do anything apart from make films, so I can’t take a break just because people want me to make lesser films. In any case, I don’t think people care if I make two films or 20 a year, as long as they like what they see. But who knows what will click? When I made Satya,


Continued from page B01

it was meant to be a no-show film with newcomers. Then I made Daud with Sanjay Dutt and Urmila Matondkar, which was supposed to be a sure-shot winner. It bombed. I put the same kind of effort in every film. If I knew a film wouldn’t work, I be a madman to make it!

But people feel Aag was careless work.
That’s again a viewpoint. My intention was to re-do the original without tampering with the spirit of Sholay. Take Mohanlal, for example. I gave him a beard because my logic was, ‘How can a man without fingers shave?’ But then people said Mohanlal looked like a bear with the beard! Now what do I do? As for Mr Bachchan as Babban Singh, I wanted him to be low profile but people found him inert and unenergetic. Let me clear this. Every actor has done exactly what he or she was told to. If Mr Bachchan’s performance was found inconsistent, it’s because I tried to pay homage to all the villains I know of through his character. From Mad Max to Gabbar Singh to Anthony Hopkins in The Silence Of The Lambs to Jack Nicholson in Batman, I was too busy enjoying Mr Bachchan’s performance on the set. I lost track of the character’s consistency in the film.

So you take full responsibility?
Yes. I take blame for every actor, cameraman, dialogue writer, and technician in Aag. They did what I asked them to. I kept insisting Aag was a formula film. I never said I was making a classic, but I guess no one was listening. Right from the word go, Aag was jinxed — the court cases, the title change, etc. Once I got caught in the process of separating legal matters from the film, I was jacked. See, I’m a genre filmmaker. Sholay is not a genre. I was trying to artificially capture what didn’t come naturally to me. I got confused. Obviously, it didn’t work.


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 Post subject: Re: AAG
PostPosted: Thu Sep 06, 2007 4:38 pm 
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in ramu ki aag ka gola!! :lol: to my :shock: each and every actor looked so wrongfully crap that it is beyond comprehension, that he was playing toy games with 30 crores on his disposal.


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PostPosted: Thu Sep 06, 2007 4:46 pm 
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Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag' under fire in NepalAdd to hotlist
By Our Correspondent ©2007 Bollyvista.com


Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag
Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag
Socialists in Nepal have slammed Ram Gopal Varma's 'Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag' for portraying obscene scenes in the film. The unofficial remake of 'Sholay' was released this week in four cinemas in Kathmandu and has come under fire for the sizzling Mehbooba number done by Urmila Matondkar.

The socialists in Kathmandu want the vulgar dance number to be chopped off or the film be given 'A' certificate to keep viewers under 18 away. 'Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag' may be the first film to come under fire for obscenity in Nepal.


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 Post subject: Re: AAG
PostPosted: Thu Sep 06, 2007 5:58 pm 
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All right, come on, now: it's not that bad. The thing is, you can't watch Aag "apart" from Sholay, and, as soon as you make the comparison, Aag falls flat. Still, I guess I just don't despise the film the way many seem to be despising it; it's sub-mediocre, but it's hardly unwatchable.


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