Year's looking at the movies!

Jitesh Pillai / Dec 26, 2004, 03:44 IST

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Chiffons, karva chauths, heavy-duty petting and candy floss confections will be the hot buzz of the season, even as sequels continue to fire the imagination of India's fantasy factory.

<div class="section1"><div class="Normal">Swades got bushwhacked. So did realism. We won''t take into account the biting pictures of Shahid and Kareena Kapoor with tongues firmly out of cheek. As the year melds into the merry march of 2005, hope still floats despite the dismal show of 2004. An estimated Rs 500 crores are being pumped into several small and biggie multi-starrers.Since Murder was the high point of 2004, one can safely surmise that dollops of skin and estrogen will be pumped into the movies. Sex or no sex, with films like Sanjay Leela Bhansaliâ€™s Black, Karan Joharâ€™s Kaal, Ketan Mehtaâ€™s The Rising and Rakesh Roshanâ€™s sequel to Koi Mil Gaya, the box office may finally get its much delayed arousal. There will be the Godfather homages in the form of Ram Gopal Varmaâ€™s Sarkar, and a film each by Raj Kumar Santoshi (Family) and Mahesh Manjrekar. Needless to natter, chiffons, karva chauths, heavy-duty petting and candy floss confections will the hot buzz of the season. Karan Joharâ€™s Kaal may be an action lick but the master of gush will drape his heroines in the most comely threads. The house of Yash Raj films and directors like Dharmesh Darshan (Bewafaa) too will ensure that a staedy flow of schmaltz is just what the movies ordered. Sequels continue to fire the imagination of Mumbai''s fantasy factory. After making the audiences chuckle with the amiable Munnabhai MBBS, director Raju Hirani will kickstart Munnabhai meets Mahatma Gandhi. Not to be outdone in the hustings, Rakesh Roshan will bankroll, Koi Mil Gaya 2 with supremely gifted beta Hrithik. Firoz Nadiadwala''s spin-off on Hera Pheri, titled Phir Hera Pheri will have Neeraj Vohra, instead of Priyadarshan helming the show. Patriotism came under fire. Swades paid the price. And itâ€™s too early to predict the fate of Ab Tumhare Hawale Watan Saathiyo. Ergo, all eyes now on Subhash Ghaiâ€™s Kisna. New kids on the matinee block Zoya Akhtar (Luck by Chance), Soham Shah (Kaal), film editor Shirish Kunder, designers Manish Malhotra and Vikram Phadnis and veteran ad film-maker Pradeep Sircar (Parineeta) too will be on test to display their merit as directors. </div> </div><div class="section2"><div class="Normal">Sex and SRK will probably be the shibboleths of 2005 as well. The maven of the marquee, will greenlight Karan Joharâ€™s next with Preity Zinta. Then thereâ€™s his home production Ghost Ka Dost, to be directed by Amol Palekar. Farah Khanâ€™s tentatively titled Happy New Year with SRK will roll somewhere in June. Aamir Khanâ€™s stocks will hopefully rise further with The Rising in June. After which there are projects with Rakesh Mehra and Kunal Kohli. Abhishek Bachchan too has loads to prove. His line-up looks impressive though. Shaad Aliâ€™s Bunty aur Babli, Karan Joharâ€™s next, projects with Ram Gopal Varma and Aditya Chopra. As for the power puff girls, Aishwarya Rai tanked in 2004, but her Hollywood forays stills continue to make news. Thereâ€™s Windfall, based on the Bhopal gas tragedy, plus Chaos with Meryl Streep. Market sources allege that her prohibitive price and the fact that she has antagonized the Khan triumvirate will definitely work against her. Preity Zinta and Rani Mukerjee are walking on velvet, after hits like Veer Zara and Hum Tum. Rani has nabbed the clutch of towline films in 2005, including The Rising, Karan Johar and Amol Palekarâ€™s next opposite Shah Rukh Khan. January unfurls a rip off of BR Chopra''s Gumraah in the form of Dharmesh Darshan''s Bewafaa, which will hopefully do for Kareena Kapoor what Raja Hindustani did for sister Karisma Kapoor. Priyanka Chopra too kayoed the competition after her two hits (Mujhse Shaadi Karogi and the middling Aitraaz). Showbiz corridors are abuzz that she has upped the ante to Rs 1 crore. Her signing films with Rakesh Roshan and Suneil Darshan too have consolidated her niche. Initial reactions to the A R Rahman-Ismail Darbar tandem indicate that they have not exactly ignited the barcodes with their score in Kisna. Getting international artistes to perform was a sales pitch that worked. Cases in point: Tata Young in Dhoom. There is further talk of similar collaborations from the reign men Rahman, Anu Malik and Jatin Lalit. Here''s a fervent hope that the new year will see less malady, more melody from the tunesmiths. </div> </div><div class="section3"><div class="Normal">There may be a paucity of good scripts, but locales and producer''s budgets keep getting adventurous. While South Africa will soon be the more favoured destination after Switzerland in films like No Entry, the earthy Kolkata will provide the perfect milieu for Vinod Chopra''s period piece Parineeta. Vikram Bhatt''s Elaan features Vienna, Subhash Ghai''s Kisna includes the far-out Ranikhet and Mukteshwar in Uttaranchal. That audiences were not willing to pay spiralling multiplex rates for so-called crossover films was evidenced by the dismal performances of the art films like Phir Milenge, Khamosh Pani and Stop! Will Madhur Bhandkarkar''s Page Three and Anurag Kashyap''s Black Friday find their niche audiences is the moot question. 2004 was the annus horibilis as far as movie economics go. Despite over 125 releases, the dream merchants could not tote up a decent clutch of successes. As the year draws to a swishing close, the film industry will reportedly lose more than Rs 300 crores. So trade analysts crunch numbers desperately willing that 2005 will be the beleaguered film industry''s annus mirabilis. The slight Mallika Sherawat fellated the box office with her acre long tongue and Murder. Will yet another derring-do nymphet pump up the fortunes of the flaccid box office in 2005 too? Or will the green bucks hinge yet again on Shah Rukh Khan. That''s perhaps closest to putting your money where your mouth is.</div> </div>

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