Netflix tales

I am a huge Aamir Khan fan (I even enjoyed 'Mela'). I have liked 99% of his movies (excluding two of his biggest blockbusters 'Raja Hindustani' & Fanaa')....For me..He rarely does something wrong.

I have watched almost all his movies. One of them was 'Ghulam'. Ya right...I loved 'Aati kya Khandala' and Rani Mukherjee and definitely not in that order. But I loved the movie too. I thought Aamir Khan had done a tremendous job and was highly impressed with the director Vikram Bhatt. I believed it to be the dawn of a fresh new talent in the Hindi movie industry. I waited for him to shine. But he disappointed. Time & time again. I formulated a theory that you don't have to be a genius to make one really good movie. But I kept track of Vikram Bhatt's career waiting for that spark to shine through. 'Come on', I said to myself...You could not make such a 'hatke movie' and just fade away....

I have registered for netflix here and have been watching the English movies and some Hindi ones that I have always heard of but have never had the opportunity to see. I have gone through 'To Kill a Mockingbird', 'Silsila', 'Kabhi Kabhi' and 'Citizen Kane'. Yesterday I watched 'On the waterfront'.

Its a movie made in 1954 and stars Marlon Brando. In the year of its release, it got 8 oscars and was a box -office success. These were the things I knew before I saw it. What I did not know until I saw the first two scenes of the movie was that Ghulam is a very faithful rip-off of this classic. Of course, there is no 'Aati Kya Khandala' here (and that's where Ghulam still scores) but there is absolutely nothing original in the Hindi remake. There are some classic scenes and immortal lines (or so the special features on the DVD tell me) in this movie.

you don't understand..I could have had class..I could have been a contender..i could have been somebody'
Its a line that Marlon Brando says to his brother who is the accountant of the big boss, towards the end of the movie. It is brilliantly done. I enjoyed the movie and am realizing that it doesnt really matter how old a movie is, whether its in colour or B&W (and I am actually liking B&W a lot)....if it is a good movie, it will always remain enjoyable...

But I felt betrayed too. With Vikram Bhatt for having made me feel that he was making something new. Its one thing to be Ram Gopal Verma and say very openly that Sarkar is a Godfather remake....I think in some ways its even alright to be inspired from other movies and stories.

But its quite another thing to copy so blatantly the plot, the scenes, sprinkle some masala and claim a unique dish. Now I know where Ghulam came from and I know why Vikram Bhatt makes the movies he does......

Makes me a little bit scared to watch more movies from Netflix. There are some movies and scenes which inhabit a very private sanctuary of my mind...a scene like the one Aamir Khan enacts in 'Rang De Basanti' after Madhavan's character dies....the one in which he is sitting with Sue and he is eating & crying at the same time.....performances which i still believe are extraordinarily moving and original.

I am scared that I might find a 'Dil Chahta Hai' in one of these movies one day. That is when my heart will really break!!!