The Official Movie Discussion Thread

[Teja.]

SRK in his Baazigar days was a bloody good actor, tbf.

[sirdj]

Originally Posted by Teja.

SRK in his Baazigar days was a bloody good actor, tbf.

[sirdj]

Originally Posted by Anil

sure...did i say shahrukh was a great actor? however naseeruddin shah is, om puri is, sanjeev kumar was, shabana azmi is, smita patil was, mohanlal used to be, so did kamal haasan....etc etc...

Kamal Hasan IMO has done more crap movies than good. Point in case being Chachi 420.

i liked both movies and i thought carrey was good in both of them...did i say at any point that he was great? you need to stop looking for the non-existent hyperbole...

I did not assert that you said that he was great. I merely said that he is not special in either of those movies.

in my opinion the acting was not very natural in those days and compared to some of the modern greats

What constitutes very good acting is not exactly measurable and keeps shifting from generation to generation. As is with music. So you can't compare actors from those days to modern actors for the same reason that you cant compare a Waltz with a crap rap song.

i would consider gary cooper's efforts as pretty average, two academy awards notwithstanding

Well we have your opinion and then we have the academy's opinion who chose him instead of Orson Welles(in Citizen Kane no less), Cary Grant, Marlon Brando, Kirk Douglas and Alec Guiness. He won in two separate decades, before and after WW2. If beating those guys is just "pretty average" by you, then I wonder how Jim Carey who IMO is not even fit to lick their boots is considered good by you??

but i still maintain comparing him to raaj kumar is ridiculous

Why?? When Naseer employs method acting, would it be ridiculous to compare him with Brando? Then why should it be ridiculous to compare another instance of an Indian actor employing a style from Hollywood?

far from conveying intensity or masculinity, all he did was convey a sad lack of histrionic abilities

Histrionics is not considered a masculine attribute, therefore a lack of it is masculine.

dilip kumar(who i would also consider one step below some of the later greats of indian cinema) and sanjeev kumar proved that good actors can show their range and versatility even in those times...

I disagree with your positioning of Dilip Kumar in your list of great actors and wish to state that you are comparing two different styles of acting.

precisely...not sure where you got the idea that i was talking up shahrukh khan...

i was not asserting that you were talking up Shahrukh Khan, I was saying that Bollywood allows an idiot like him to ham his way to wealth, Raaj Kumar's Jaani dialogues by comparison IMO are much more tolerable so why should he object to being typecast so.

[Marcuss]

Kick Ass, thought it was v.good

[Top_Cat]

Robocop. This is the movie God would make about himself.... if he existed.... and was a cop. Smite the unbelievers, Murphy.

The black dude in the camo's was just hilarious too.

[Anil]

Originally Posted by sirdj

Kamal Hasan IMO has done more crap movies than good. Point in case being Chachi 420.

probably...although nayakan, sipikkul muthu, kuruthi punal, chanakyan, sagara sangamam, pushpak, mundram pirai and to a certain extent pathinaru vayathinile make up for a lot of that...

Originally Posted by sirdj

I did not assert that you said that he was great. I merely said that he is not special in either of those movies.

i didn't say special either, i said he was good....especially compared to his over-the-top performances in a lot of other movies...

Originally Posted by sirdj

What constitutes very good acting is not exactly measurable and keeps shifting from generation to generation. As is with music. So you can't compare actors from those days to modern actors for the same reason that you cant compare a Waltz with a crap rap song.

well i have to judge for myself based on what i feel is good or bad and that's what i am doing...

Originally Posted by sirdj

Well we have your opinion and then we have the academy's opinion who chose him instead of Orson Welles(in Citizen Kane no less), Cary Grant, Marlon Brando, Kirk Douglas and Alec Guiness. He won in two separate decades, before and after WW2. If beating those guys is just "pretty average" by you, then I wonder how Jim Carey who IMO is not even fit to lick their boots is considered good by you??

first of all i said i considered him pretty average compared to some of the modern greats of acting which does not necessarily make him a bad actor...and i am pretty clear i don't include carrey in any list of modern greats...you are making another non-existent connection with this and i have no wish to drag it forward any further...

Originally Posted by sirdj

Why?? When Naseer employs method acting, would it be ridiculous to compare him with Brando? Then why should it be ridiculous to compare another instance of an Indian actor employing a style from Hollywood?

not really...you will probably vehemently disagree but i consider brando good but hugely overrated, for me screen presence and charisma are star qualities more than actor qualities...and naseer is a great actor and i don't see much issue with comparing him to international actors...doesn't mean the same yardstick should apply to raaj kumar and gary cooper...

Originally Posted by sirdj

Histrionics is not considered a masculine attribute, therefore a lack of it is masculine.

i used that word in its literal sense...simply put it pertains to acting, period...you seem to be implying it means overly emotional or melodramatic acting if i am right? well that's clearly not what i meant here...

Originally Posted by sirdj

I disagree with your positioning of Dilip Kumar in your list of great actors and wish to state that you are comparing two different styles of acting.

sure...we can agree to disagree...

Originally Posted by sirdj

i was not asserting that you were talking up Shahrukh Khan, I was saying that Bollywood allows an idiot like him to ham his way to wealth, Raaj Kumar's Jaani dialogues by comparison IMO are much more tolerable so why should he object to being typecast so.

i was not disputing anyone's right to be typecast or not to act, i am saying it doesn't make him anything close to great, in fact just the opposite...

[Anil]

Originally Posted by Teja.

SRK in his Baazigar days was a bloody good actor, tbf.

not really...

[pasag]

Saw Akira, quality.

[Teja.]

SRK did not 'ham' himself to wealth, The audience liked his star presence,acting, ability to emote and everything about him. When I say 'people' , I mean the average Indian, not a highly educated one with exposure to hollywood. He may not have as much acting skill per se as a Dilip Kumar or an Azmi, but acting ability in itself does not makes one a successful entertainer. If he could really earn his money without great acting ability, it is because people were entertained by him. It is perfectly alright to hold an opinion that he is a terrible actor, but not to say he does not deserve the fame and adulation he gets due to his movies.(I personally loved Dil se, Baazigar, Chak De India, all that said OSO was the worst movie I have seen in my life.)

[Teja.]

Saw North by Northwest, The Farmer's Wife, The Trouble With Harry and the Man Who Knew Too Much in one go yesterday! I'm in love with Hitchcock now. I loved the first and last, NbN being one of the best I've seen, the second and third were pretty good too but had their flaws.

[sirdj]

IMO SRK hams it........but there is no harm in that as long as it brings home the bacon

I don't deny that he is successful but I guess when we live in times where we have a cult of celebrity and idiots like Paris Hilton and Co. are successful too. If the mango people like a ham actor then so be it. Who am I to deny their fun. If they want to give him tons of fake awards, then by all means do so. If they wish to worship at his alter, pls do so by all means.

But the trouble begins when they start taking umbrage at crappy bollywood movies with ham actors flunking at international awards.

[sirdj]

Originally Posted by Anil

not really...you will probably vehemently disagree but i consider brando good but hugely overrated

I disagree absolutely. Brando is widely considered as one of the finest actors of all time
and not by me, by other great actors like Al Pacino, Robert DeNiro, Dustin Hoffman, Jack Nicholson, Sean Penn, Edward Norton.
He holds 2 academy awards 3 decades apart. In fact Brando was so good that he cast a huge shadow over his contemporaries. Paul Newman, James Dean, Steve McQueen & Jack Nicholson publicly acknowledged that they modeled their acting on him. I am surprised that you find him overrated when he is widely considered the best actor along with Laurence Olivier.

for me screen presence and charisma are star qualities more than actor qualities

But they aren't mutually exclusive qualities.

naseer is a great actor and i don't see much issue with comparing him to international actors...doesn't mean the same yardstick should apply to raaj kumar and gary cooper

why not?

i used that word in its literal sense...simply put it pertains to acting, period...you seem to be implying it means overly emotional or melodramatic acting if i am right? well that's clearly not what i meant here

Your usage of histrionics was as an adjective and not as a noun or a verb. When the word is used to mean acting, it implies that it is through the use of displaying emotions. A display of emotions as such is considered to be feminine and therefore a lack of display masculine.

i was not disputing anyone's right to be typecast or not to act, i am saying it doesn't make him anything close to great, in fact just the opposite...

how does being typecast which is related to the way audience prefer to see him depicted and a response to his economic needs related to his ability to act? Pacino is typecast, Samuel L.Jackson is typecast, even Morgan Freeman is typecast.

[Sir Alex]

Originally Posted by Teja.

SRK in his Baazigar days was a bloody good actor, tbf.

[pasag]

Originally Posted by Teja.

NbN being one of the best I've seen.

Yeah, great flick.

[Mister Wright]

Saw Robin Hood. Thought it was fantastic.