In the 2006 Don: The Countdown Begins, Farhan Akhtar pretty much copied what director Chandra Barot had done 28 years ago.

Aapko life mein many things ki kami feel hoti hogi, jaise ki nalke mein pani, bulb mein batti, bus mein seat, glass mein daru... But I am sure there is one thing you never found missing — another television channel that churns out the same stories about the same syappas. And yet, of all the things that life could have given us, it had to give us exactly that. Aur irony yeh hai, that it’s called Life OK.

By Meenal Baghel

Rs 299

Yesterday, after finishing Meenal Baghel’s Death In Mumbai, I had to rush to Ambience, the biggest mall in Gurgaon and, perhaps, as advertisements claim, in Asia, for a 10.30 am film show. I was early and had 20 minutes to kill. So I stood outside the multiplex, sipping coffee, my eyes trained on sleepy, lovey-dovey couples walking around, their bodies stuck together as if pulled by the force of their passion.

In 1998, writer, journalist, lawyer Elizabeth Lee Wurtzel wrote Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women and posed on its cover, naked and showing the middle finger. Inside she wrote, “I intend to do what I want to do and be whom I want to be and answer only to myself: that is, quite simply, the bitch philosophy.”

Usually, Yash Raj films are not upsetting. Barring the odd Fanaa and the noxious fumes that Uday Chopra sends up every time he decides to prance about with a pretty young thing, films from the House of The Chopras may be same-old, soppy, even dull, but hardly ever infuriating.

The Dirty Picture is Adults Only, so is this review. Having sorted that out, let’s go. Ms Vidya Balan, and I say this with respect and not a hint of misogyny, has balls of steel. Not any ordinary steel balls. No. Hers are lipstick-red, clanging, solid, shiny balls, hard to dent and impossible to ignore.

ROCKSTAR HAS lots of things going for it: Ranbir Kapoor puts his best foot forward for the title role that obviously had great physical and emotional demands; A.R. Rahman’s music is sensational; director Imtiaz Ali has an impressive line-up of supporting cast, especially the two Mishras; and the film is beauteous – locations are stunning and Nargis Fakhri, despite and because of her moulded pout, is breathtaking. But all these things, even singly, are greater than the film.

In Love Breakups Zindagi, nubile Naina (Dia Mirza), a Mumbai girl, is en route to Chandigarh by bus, to attend her BFF Gayatri’s wedding. Riding along with her in the shaadi bus are two Delhi boys, the groom’s friends — Jai (Zayed Khan) and Govind (Cyrus Sahukar). Naina needs to go pee, but since there is no loo with a flush and bushes are not safe for peeing women, she asks the boys to stand guard at a safe distance, facing the other way. Yada yada yada, and Naina is going about her business, when she suddenly calls out from the bushes, requesting the boys to sing. They are gobsmacked, but oblige.

What’s more pathetic than two old, desperate, tharki men swinging their shriveled up stuff and selves around taut, half-naked bodies in the hope that at least one of them will oblige? Nothing, except an A-cup lady thrusting her ballooned assets in the hope that they’ll tickle someone’s fancy.
Rascals has both these exhibits, and little else.

In Hum Tum Shabana, Shabana has a chacha, Manju don, who slaps himself repeatedly. He does this whenever he is angry or upset. And when he is happy, he slaps the one who has given him reason to smile. Both varieties of slaps come fast and loud.