The changing costumes of Big B
The girl at Starbucks for the third time this week refused to take money, “It is OK” she said. This Starbucks is the farthest from my office in NYC. I cannot go any further for coffee. I had a similar problem at the other locations (closer to my office) too. I wonder when those days ended when girls used to just smile and flutter their eye lashes. At least then I could just act innocent, blush a little and walk away without feeling obligated. But Hey everything around is changing. Once upon a time I knew what Big B looked like. Today in every movie he is in some over the top weird costume, it is hard to recognize if this is the same Big B who once was such a poor actor that Prakash Mehra, his then friend, decided to make Devdas lite (Muqaddar’s Sikandar) keeping his acting limitations in mind. If you don’t know then let me tell you that the worst kept secret in Bollywood is that Big B’s biggest sore point is Muqaddar’s Sikandar because it records his inability. He wishes that he had not been part of a movie which proves that he was not good enough to do a full blown Devdas (To make matters worse, SRK’s Devdas received standing ovation. SRK won most of the awards that year for Devdas).
We all understand that Big B was in his hay days, at best, the Kesto Mukerjee of Angry Young Men. He was the best in that limited range. When he did upscale comedy like Chupke Chupke he was awkward and a liability, thank God for Dharam Paaji who saved that movie. Big B was good either delivering Salim-Javed’s dialogues or behaving like some Doodhwallah Bhaiya from Allahabad. Big B’s great comedy act was playing the Doodhwala Bhaiya, that was his goto act. Hence in Big B’s hays days, Big B’s jacket changed from regular to leather to signal that now he was really angry. Or the back ground music increased by a few thousand decibels. Given lemons, the directors then resorted to making lemonade. Pick any old Big B movies (the movies which the Bachchanistas swear by) and you will find that even an Emraan Hashmi could have done better. A brooding Emraan Hashmi in “Awaarapan” is far better than Big B is most of his old movies (top three performances of 2007: i) SRK in CDI; ii) Emraan Hashmi in Aawaarapan; and iii) Akshaye in Gandhi).
Having played a mediocre first innings, Big B (and especially the Bachchanistas) wants to rewrite history in his second innings. In keeping with the saying, “when you cannot convince them with substance try to baffle them with bull shit”, Big B is trying very hard to hide his lack of talent behind some weird getups. He is hoping that if his getups is the worst things about his role, i.e. if his getups become the lighting rod and attracts all the negative attention, no one will notice his poor acting. He is hoping that relatively his acting will supeficially appear good. Hence be ready guys, Big B is out to prove that he is a great actor via one god awful costume after another. In one movie he will have mismatched neon eye lenses, in another he will be in a Cowboy/Street-Urchin clothes, in another with a pony tail and yet another he will be bald. A desperate pursuit to cover-up his average talent.
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It wud be very diffcult to critize Big b in Muqadar ka Sikandar i really liked his performance bt SRk n DILip as devdas are way head than BIg b Performance .
Yeah agree with u ,Evyone shud include don n devdas in srk list
Well U shud Create ur own list of Srk movies , We ll dicuss on that on this column Its BIG B rite ?
I love BIG B movies U cant ignore or shy away from his movies,
he was brillaint in black , better we dont compare Any one
I Feel SRK Got Better screen presence , not compared to Big B
I do not think AB and SRK should be pitted each other for the one up race.
Their may be a ‘cold war’ between them, as it apears in the media, but, it is for their own individual reasons.
AB utilized his talent at this age accepting whatever came his way to financially re establish his lost empire( considering he was broke after ABCL’s disasterous projects).
Without making any comparisions,i have to say that ‘Chak De India’ has proved Shah Rukh’s Varsatility all over again and he is among the best as of today.
‘Fence’ and ‘aar ya paar’ are termed during war.. mate.
not in the world of entertainment.