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Tag: A.R. Rahman

  • Rockstar is not likely to rock

    Rockstar is not likely to rock








    Producer: Shree Ashtavinayak, Eros International.
    Director: Imtiaz Ali.
    Cast: Ranbir Kapoor, Nargis Fakhri, Aditi Rao, Kumud Mishra, Piyush Mishra, Shernaz Patel, Shammi Kapoor.


    MUMBAI: With a title like Rockstar, popular young actor Ranbir Kapoor in the lead, and A R Rahman scoring music, one would think the makers had landed a dream project. Also, the director Imtiaz Ali has a hit, Jab We Met, behind him. But it would be a challenge for him to make the film work in a country where the rock and pop culture exists only in name; not to mention that few such themes have worked earlier.


    Ranbir Kapoor, Janardan turned Jordan, is a Jat from Delhi, armed with a guitar; his family is as dehati as it can be with trucking as the family business. His aim is to become a rock star someday but he gets rejected in audition after audition. He may dress like any college-going youth and carry a guitar but is otherwise supposed to be so na?ve that just about everybody around him becomes an advisor.


    The chief advisor is the eating-joint owner, Khatana Bhai, Kumud Mishra, who tells him that to be a successful artist one has to be heartbroken. Towards this end, Ranbir Kapoor picks the most impossible of girls on the campus, Nargis Fakhri, to woo with a certainty of rejection. She obliges, having broken many hearts before. The sequence is funny but does not qualify in Kumud Mishra‘s opinion as a proper heartbreak.


    Soon enough Ranbir Kapoor and Nargis Fakhri become friends and he discovers the other side of her, the one that wants to explore everything like watching a semi-porn film, drinking tharra and so on since she is soon to marry and move on to Prague. Why Prague? Maybe they offer a better package for film shootings and give people, already much exposed to other countries in Europe, a new location, however strange it may sound that a Hindi pop singer is touring Prague for a concert where the number of Indian expats is less than 100! So far so good, but once the girl is married off, both realise they loved each other (the theme of numerous films recently).


    Once she is married and gone, so has any semblance of story and logic in the film. On paper, the love between Ranbir Kapoor and Nargis Fakhri is supposed to be like Laila-Majnu or Shirin-Farhad but in execution it fails to touch you at all and you don‘t know if the priority here is love or sex. From the mostly white audience at the concert in Prague to the local press going gaga over Ranbir Kapoor, this part is not acceptable even with a fistful of salt. Soon one does not know why things are happening as they are and what location the story is now in.



    The story and script look like the film is going on the one-liner story idea it started with. But repeated flashbacks and now-on now-off romance gets tiring. Direction is messy.


    Considering its title, the film fails in the music department: there is nothing one can carry along after watching the film. In usual Rahman fashion, the music is noisy and eats up the lyrics of songs. The shehnai vs guitar is a novel idea but does not work. Photography is good. Editing is slack. Though Ranbir Kapoor gives one of his better performances, one wishes he had better songs to perform on; how long can you go on watching a guitar-strumming man perform the same kind of noisy numbers? Nargis Fakhri is passable in her debut film but lacks sex appeal. Of the rest, Aditi Rao and Kumud Mishra do well; a special appearance by Shammi Kapoor is appreciated.


    Rockstar has opened to average opening response and unfavourable reports. This one is not likely to rock. 

  • A R Rahman to feature on CNN-IBN

    A R Rahman to feature on CNN-IBN

    “The last I want to do is put my voice in a song”- A R Rahman
    Watch the media shy celebrity on Sunday, May 7th at 9:30 p.m. and repeat telecast on Monday at 11 am only on CNN-IBN

    New Delhi, May 3, 2006: He needs no special introduction…He entered the film industry with Roza and created a history. From thereon, A R Rahman has elevated himself from a prodigy to a legend now.

    With his latest blockbuster Rang De Basanti, Rahman is back with a bang on Hindi film scenario. This week CNN-IBN’s Entertainment Editor Rajiv Masand catches up with music whiz kid who turned 40 years this year.

    Following are the excerpt from the interview:

    Rajeev Masand (RM): Rang de Basanti, your most recent work, is a film which really marked a milestone, isn’t it? Apart from the fact it has great music and it’s a great album, it is one of those rare soundtracks where the theme is blended perfectly with the music. Your earlier work Bombay and Taal were also examples of that. Do you agree?

    AR Rahman (ARR): Yes, I think so. The process with Rang De Basanti started when Rakeysh (Rakeysh Om Prakash Mehra, the film’s director) told me the story, which had freedom fighters in it. I was working on Legend of Bhagat Singh with Santoshji at that time. So I said that I would not do another film like this. Of course Rang De Basanti happened four years later. When I started with this film last year, what we decided to do was not to have anything which is preachy and going to bring people down. We wanted to go abstract and go counter point, like people and children are dying there and we have a happy soundtrack, which is Ru ba ru and going to the light and there is more positivity rather than going along with the film.

    RM: You have just signed up as World Ambassador for World Space; tell me this is not the first time that you have endorsed a brand. How long does it take or how do you decide as to what is it that you want to get attached to and don’t?

    ARR: I probably was the first one to get the radio of World Space. I just wanted to check it out first. I was really impressed with the variety and the manner World Space had put up their advertisements. I did not know that here was a policy of not having any hassle in it, which is brilliant. I remember 20 years back, I used to go all the way to Bangalore to pickup my favourite music, and here we have every thing on the touch move button – jazz, classical, pop. So when they ask me I said “Yes, let’s do it!”

    RM: Have you ever been embarrassed by the way a song has been filmed?

    ARR: Yes, a lot of times. But, I guess, the people are intelligent enough now to know all that, what is personal and what is not, and what is done for the movie.

    RM: Do you think Roja is your best work?

    ARR: It’s probably my first good work. Like I said about Mani Ratnam who gave me my first good work. It brings back all those memories. It gave me the urge to go further and maintain quality work, crossing over to the North Indian audience with the film, lyrics which were never imagined before.

    RM: Gulzar saheb once said, “A R Rahman’s greatest achievement is that he didn’t mess around with my lyrics.” Is that something you like to elaborate on?

    ARR: Yes, I do. And where is the need to mess around with the lyrics when somebody writes them so perfectly?

    RM: You have often confessed that you are not so familiar with Hindi.

    ARR: (Laughs) Yes, I can’t talk but my vocabulary is better than what it used to be. I have been learning Urdu. I can’t talk but I can read now and I can understand most of the vocabulary. The thing about words, certain words give you a sound and meaning, if you get the right kind of balance, the song becomes a hit and everybody takes pride in it.

    RM: Let me put you in a tough situation. What do you think of Aamir, Shah Rukh or Amitabh who’ve been singing their own songs? What do you think of them as singers?

    ARR: I think they are intelligent enough to choose songs which go along their own voice. You can’t expect classical songs being sung by kind of actors like Shah Rukh. They don’t want to torture people like that.

    RM: Over the years you’ve sung many songs yourself. Like, Ye jo des hai mera, in Swades, Chale chalo from Lagaan, or Ru ba ru from Rang De Basanti. How do you know when a song requires your own voice?

    ARR: Sometimes I’ve worked from the scratch using my own voice. Like in Dil Se, Mani said why don’t you sing it in your own voice. Or when I did Ye jo des…Ashutosh Gowarikar suggested that I should be singing this song. Initially I was supposed to sing Ek taara but it didn’t match Shah Rukh’s voice.

    RM: Please tell us what do you like when you are not working? What kind of a husband are you? What kind of a father are you?

    ARR: Good question (laughs). I think you should be asking this to my wife and children. My mother, my kids are very supportive of me. They always know what I’m going through. I also try to play my role as best as I can within the limitations of my schedule.

    Complete text of the interview will be available on www.ibnlive.com post the telecast of the episode.

    GBN, a TV18 Group Company, is a 74:26 joint venture between the TV18 Group and professionals – Rajdeep Sardesai, Sameer Manchanda and Haresh Chawla. GBN’s charter is to launch channels in the general news space under the editorial leadership of Sardesai, one of India’s most reputed TV journalists. The TV18 Group is India’s leading and most successful business news broadcaster, in both English and Hindi.

    For more information contact:
    Prachi Deshpande
    Hanmer & Partners
    New Delhi
    Tel: 011 2921 4793/ 4