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TechDesi.com
A Desi Tech's Blog
PREMIUM
- Cover May 2012
- Avex Funding: Home Loans
- Crescent Village: NEW Apartment Homes Community in Silicon Valley
- Ashok Gupta: Realtor - SF Bay Area
- Whar's Your Story: Become a Fiction writer in Siliconeer
- Siliconeer Celebrating 13 Years of Publication
- Tech Desi: A Technology Blog for Desis
- STATE FARM Auto Insurance - Discounts
- STATE FARM Insurance
- Foreclosure, Short Sale, Buying, Sellling Real Estate in Fremont, SF Bay Area, CA - Strategize Inc.
- Bhindi Jewellers - Rolex Dealer: Buy a Rolex for Mom on Mother's Day
- Bhindi Jewellers - Mother's Day Special Sale
- Law Offices of Mathew & George: Los Angeles: Personal Injury Experts
- Matrix Insurance Agency
- Shivas Restaurant, Mountain View - Mother's Day Special Brunch
- Roger Dubuis Watches at CH Premier Jewelers, Santa Clara, Milpitas, Los Angeles
- OMEGA WATCHES at CH Premier Jewelers - Santa Clara, Milpitas
- Wells Fargo Bank: Small Business Banking
- New India Bazar - Mother's Day Special Groceries Sale
- California Temple Schedules
- Sakoon, Mountain View - Mother's Day Specials
- Surati Farsan Mart, Artesia & San Diego, CA
- Taste of India - Fremont
- Siliconeer: Calling all Fiction Writers
- Haldiram's Snacks by Xpressions
- MILAN Indian Cuisine, Milpitas - Mother's Day Specials
- Indian Holiday Options: Low Price Vacation and Business Travel and Hotels Stay in India and the World
- Santa Clara Adult Education: Trianing Courses in IT - May Class Schedule
DISPLAY
- Attorney Mahesh Bajoria: For All Legal Issues: LOAN MODIFICATION
- Aparna Nayadu, DDS: Dentist in Silicon Valley
- Bombay Garden Restaurants - Mother's Day Specials
- Canvas Infotech - Fremont - Union City - IT Training
- Chaat Bhavan, Fremont
- Chaat House, Fremont (NEW) Sunnyvale
- Balaji Temple, San Jose Fundraising
- God's Love
- India Buffet, Fremont (NEW)
- India Sweets & Spices, LA
- Kids Castle, Newark Fremont: NEW COUPONS
- Deedees Restaurant, Santa Clara
- Pani Puri Company, Santa Clara
- Pandit Parashar (Astrologer)
- DesiShaadiCards.com
- Nithyanand Temple, Milpitas
- Punjab Travel
- Raj Palace, San Jose: Six Dollars - 10 Samosas
- Sona Spice Products
CLASSIFIEDS
MULTIMEDIA VIDEO
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FILM REVIEW:
Hip, Affecting Musical: Rock On!!
Rating: **** (Superior)
Rock On!!
Produced by: Ritesh Sidhwani & Farhan Akhtar
Directed by: Abhishek Kapoor
Music: Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy
Starring: Arjun Rampal, Farhan Akhtar, Prachi Desai, Purab Kohli, Koel Purie, Luke Kenny and Shahana Goswami
(Above): A scene from “Rock On!!”
This gem of a film has a very simple lesson for Bollywood. At the end of the day, the task of a filmmaker can be distilled into a simple message. You just have to tell a story effectively and simply, using the tools of cinema skillfully.
Makers of Bollywood potboilers who tend to ignore this under the arrogant impression that all deficiencies in skill and conception can be papered over simply by throwing money at a film and tarting it up with high-value stars and breathtaking locales often live to rue the day when their film flounders at the box office.
Although the credits say the director is Abhishek Kapoor, given his disastrous debut (Aryan Unbreakable) and actor-singer Farhan Akhtar’s superb turn in the refreshingly likeable Dil Chahta Hai, which is, not coincidentally perhaps, is also a buddy film, one gets the sneaky feeling that the invisible hand of Farhan was at work here.
Be that as it may, it’s the result that counts — and what a result it is. This film about a group of friends who form a rock band, and who meet again after a decade could have easily fallen apart if the filmmaker had been content to give it a shallow patina of hip modernity.
Instead, the characters are thoughtfully etched, their conflicts, struggles, joys and sorrows are presented in a compelling faction, and the entire film is backed by superb ensemble acting and excellent production values.
The film is about four friends, Aditya (Farhan Akhtar), Joe (Arjun Rampal), Rob (Luke Kenny), and Kedar (Purab Kohli) aka KD (“Killer Drummer”) who start a rock band and struggle to make it big in the rock world. Two parallel plotlines follow them at different times during their lives. They are both woven together at strategic points.
(Above): Arjun Rampal, Prachi Desai and Farhan Akhtar in “Rock On!!”
The first of the two centers on the four in their early twenties, when they are young, wild and carefree, and their main focuses in life are music and friendship. During this time, they create a band called Magik, and meet to practice regularly in an old basement.
A competition is announced where the winner will be offered a contract for an album and at least one music video. The band need money for new instruments and they earn it by playing old Hindi songs at random Dandiya parties, even though it kills them to do so. They enter the competition and win, but it eventually turns out be their downfall.
Compromises while signing the contract creates tension within the band. Joe feels slighted and his girlfriend, Debbie (Shahana Goswami) is refused the chance of being the band’s stylist. Things get worse when the music video film director rudely intervenes, and Joe lashes out at both him and Aditya, before marching out.
Aditya, unaware about it all, is shocked and decides to leave. Magik disbands and its members become estranged.
Ten years later, Aditya is a high-powered executive, cold, impersonal and shuttered, and his wife Sakshi (Prachi Desai) can’t break through. She plans a surprise birthday party for him and runs into KD, and discovers about Magik. She invites the rest of the band to Aditya’s birthday party.
KD meets Rob, and the two invite Joe, who is largely unemployed. The family is largely supported by his wife Debbie, who runs his family’s fish business. Debbie is still mad, and sends them away.
At the party, Rob and KD plan a reunion but Aditya is not thrilled. He tells Sakshi she should not have invited them.
As a frustrated Sakshi leaves him, Aditya reconsiders and decides to meet his ex-bandmates. Joe is also there. He shakes hands with Aditya, wishes him a belated birthday. They start practicing regularly at Aditya’s house. Sakshi also comes back.
Soon, another music contest is announced, and they enter it, and they have to deal with a new set of hurdles.
The film is helped greatly by Javed Akhtar’s contemporary lyrics and Shankar-Ehsan-Loy’s music, and for a musical, special credit must be given to the care given to filming the musical sequences—like a sporting film, one misstep here and the entire artistic edifice can come crashing down.
It’s those little vignettes that have the stamp of verisimilitude that keeps the audience spellbound — the frantic efforts of the band performing at dandia festivals to lose money, the heartbreak of a talented guitarist like Joe facing the indignity of playing to audiences who do not respect his craft, the music tycoon, an appalling boor without any musical sense, all these little memorable sequences are woven by fresh, realistic dialogue and backed by superb casting and even better acting.
The result is not only a film that transcends the appeal of its theme—how many grown ups really care about rock music, desi or otherwise?—but an excellent omen that from the barren wasteland of the great masala desert, filmmakers with talent are coming up who blend style with substance..
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