After the Mumbai trauma, the only thing to cheer up the gloomy 2008 was the two major box office releases lined up for their December release, Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi and Ghajini. And surely, both the movies did live up to the expectations.

Rab Ne Bana Di Jod, as expected, was another typical SRK movie, banking on colossal expectations of a man and conservative thinking of a woman. RNBDJ was another emotional drama, an extra sweet love story with a tinge of new flavor - a dancing reality show. As the cliché goes, old wine in a new bottle! But is it justified to show everything with so much of perfectionalism, show a false picture and give false expectations? The over dosage of romance and love, unrealistic expectations and the hypothetical parameters being set makes it difficult for the active audience to digest the story.

The latter, Ghanjini, too verified that Bollywood still does not have the potential in it to recreate the magic of Hollywood or for that matter even redo a Tamil version. Amir Khan starrer Ghajini, though praised by most, failed to do justice to the storyline it copied..errr..was ‘inspired’ from, kiling the beautiful love story with an over dose of violence. Every now and then when the audience gets a ‘Short Term Memory Loss’ of the previous violent act, a newer one would crop up!

What’s more, though Amir Khan seems to be the hero of the movie, was he any less from the villain? Was it justified to show a man going so crazy that he revenges by killing people in broad daylight? He committed minimum three murders after all! So why was he spared from the criminal court case? Bollywood’s tradition has been biased movies, portraying hero as the man always fighting for a just cause, a man who can never be wrong, so what if he has lost all his senses after the tragic death of his girlfriend?

Does the mere ‘A’ certification ensure that the right audience is watching the movie? Viewing from a different angle, isn’t cinema expected to play a constructive role in the development and reinforcement of our culture and beliefs? The connotation is that cinema in India is taken by most as the reference group. And hence the portrayal of such unrealistic and biased stories could force them to think wild and believe what’s illegally wrong as just.

Remember the super hits like Dilwale Dulahania Le Jayaenge, Dil To Pagal Hai, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai? Apart from being the Shahrukh Khan films, what else do these, together with the latest flick Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi, remind you of?

Bull’s eye! Before you go through the first thirty minutes, you feel proficient enough to script the remainder of the story yourself. The story would progress from a happy beginning, then the happy duo goes through a lean patch but in the end the heroine would always run into the wide open arms of her ‘true hero’. The audience weeps during the entire duration and leaves with the happy ending! 

The over dosage of romance and love has been the chief ingredient of all. How perfect a formula was that. Not anymore! As clearly evident from the mixed audience responses to Rab ne…, these movies are no longer being appreciated. While the hardcore SRK and Aditiya Chopra fans have liked it, the responsive audience has shown it the door, bashing it as impracticable and predictable. 

Talking in a larger perspective the unrealistic expectations that have been set by these stories have made it difficult to sit through them. The impact has been particularly greater in terms amongst the youth. The adolescence is such a vulnerable stage of life that the storyline which portrays everything with so much of perfectionalism could easily frustrate anybody of his love life. The hypothetical parameters are set when you watch any of the typical Bollywood style ‘love stories’ and start fantasizing about your ‘to be spouse’. But the reality hits you damn hard when you start realizing the harsh realities of life. It gets too late to realize that the evaluation parameters employed were built on virtual foundations.

Dil Chahta Hai, Rang de Basanti, Life in a Metro, Delhi Heights, Taare Zameen Par and many like these have been critically acclaimed to be unbiased stories, much relevant in the contemporary world. The hard-hitting stories have shown the audience the true mirror of the outside world. The writers have made the audience relate to the story and portray the factual image. This has gained them ample admiration not only from the audience but also from their rivals and English counterparts. It’s high time to change the content of the cinema and make it more appealing to the youth rather than giving them false anticipations.

Beverly Garland, the B-movie actor who starred in 1950s cult hits like Swamp Women and Not of This Earth and who went on to play Fred Mac- Murray’s TV wife on My Three Sons, has died. She was 82. Garland died on Friday at her Hollywood Hills home after a lengthy illness, her son-in-law Packy Smith said. Garland made her film debut in the 1950 noir classic D O A launching a 50-year career that included 40 movies and dozens of television shows.

An interesting name for a movie, this one starts on a sour note. There’s that terrible conceit, completely set up and given away in the trailer. While Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon never spend Christmas with their families, instead they both manage to get stuck at the airport while their families see them on the news (something that’s rather commonplace for a movie).

Some of the jokes viewed in the promo are very hilarious and original but the trouble is that because it is so funny that you would rater avoid seeing it in a movie. There are scenes where Reese who used to be fat is the butt of Vince’s jokes. There are also places when she gets trapped in the bounce house with a bunch of rowdy kids. And another one where a baby projectile-vomits on Reese’s cute black dress; so much for comedy!