Sunday, November 11, 2001		Movie Magic

TRUST me, I’m so sick of hearing paeans of praise for Aftaab Shivdasani that the guy is virtually starting to pour out of my ever-ready ears now! What on earth is so damn special about him, huh? Just because he made his debut in a Ramgopal Varma movie, Mast, opposite the sexy Urmila Matondkar, doesn’t make him a demi-god.

But the fellow is certainly going around behaving that way, you know. And it’s positively pathetic, let me assure you. His loud talk, loud(er) laughter which, by the way, is usually badly mis-timed, his swaggering walk and, most unimportantly, his grandiose opinion of himself as the most handsome and talented actor going... is awesome and equally incredible!

What’s worse, it seems to have rubbed off on a whole lot of filmmakers who are practically chasing him to coax ‘n’ cajole him into signing on the dotted line. Good God, in Tinseltown, nothing succeeds like non-success, I daresay.

The one most important lesson every actor and leading man (esp the top ones) must never forget is that over-confidence usually results in over-kill. Our tricep Jat, Sunny, is realising (and ruing) the fact today with his Indian having kicked up dust by falling flat at the box office. Fresh ‘n’ flushed from the unprecedented commercial clout of Gadar, he was so full of beans that he refused to heed trade advice not to release his film on the same day as Shah Rukh Khan’s (too) much-hyped Asoka. Well, the result, of either movie, is there to "see", see? But had Sunny held back his ambitious, long-in-the-making picture, Deol wouldn’t have been going around with such a dour face today.

I just can’t believe what’s happening to Hrishitaa Bhatt. This chit of a cutie is going so bloody far out that she’s soon gonna be ‘out of sight’, literally! Imagine, after her bit role in Asoka, she thinks no end of herself and has, reportedly, even gone to the extent in an interview with a TV channel as to announce that "the masses have liked my performance" (where? what? when?) and that "I, not Kareena Kapoor, am the real heroine of the film!"

Honestly, if li’l Hrishitaa doesn’t watch her big mouth, she may find herself back doing doggie ads with non-entities. Right? And that, too, with weepy Spaniel eyes, hey!