Repetitive shmetitive

"You cannot deny the fact that you are getting repetitive."

This is a 'statement' hurled at SRK in an interview four years into his film career. ONLY FOUR YEARS! And of course he fielded it with his "I agree with you but see.." method he uses for anal questions but whenever I read something like this I alwiz wonder, "What exactly do you mean by that statement, Mr. Interviewer?"

If I were a director and I have a specific story that I want to tell, upon reading it I would immediately know who I would want to cast. There'd be certain visuals that move about in my head every time I 'meet' a character in a story, certain mannerisms that I'd immediately attach to it based on my memory database of certain types of actors I'd like to work with. It's like trying out clothes in a store, you pick one.. fit it on.. then discard if it's not suitable. If all of the clothes in that favourite store don't fit, you'd go to a new store and scour that place for a fresh look.

Dustin Hoffman, Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Antonio Banderas, etc.. they all have a set of standard expressions for typical situations. You go to watch Rainman becoz you want to watch Tom Cruise play the brash irresponsible younger brother to Dustin Hoffman who's playing an autistic savant. If you want to watch the reality of autism, I advise you to go to an Autism Center near you, not the cinema. There's no such thing as being repetitive in acting. If the roles an actor choses are similar from one film to the next, then the standard expressions become familiar.. that's all.

I have not seen an original expression from Brad Pitt since 'Seven' but I'm not complaining. I'm stuck in front of my TV monitor for close to 3 hours to watch him being Brad Pitt playing a character. Angelina Jolie is always pouting and staring intensely at everyone but you won't hear me bashing her. I watch Angie's movies to ogle at her sexy pout, so why the hell should I turn around and write, "Why does she always push her lower lip out every time her character faces an obstacle?" Even Robert De Niro has his own style that he never seems to be able to get rid off in his films. Keanu Reeves only has 1/2 expression (he alwiz looks like he's gonna complete it and then some film sequences get in the way) and he's still paid higher than all the Bollywood stars put together (I'm just speculating on the basis of the difference in currency here. Sorry if I'm wrong.. ^^;)

The only ones I can't pin down are Ewan McGregor and Johnny Depp. In fact, with Johnny.. there's still something in his eyes that stays the same from one film to the next, even in Pirate. Jude Law is fantastic too.. where IS he nowadays??

If you approach an SRK movie with the intention of enjoying it, I can guarantee that you'll enjoy it. There may be quite a few moments in his films that jar your logical brain (I'm an engineering student, it's a curse).. but if you've set your mind from early on that you're here to watch a movie about friendship and not a documentary on village barbers in India, you'll enjoy Billu. You know nothing about the underworld and the reason you're sitting in a dark cinema hall for more than 2 hours is to learn the nitty gritty truth of a mafia Don who has major deals in international drug traficking centered in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia? Whaaa... Get real, will you?

I get a headache everytime I read reviews that dissect a Bollywood movie like it's some kind of NASA world space program educational film. Look at Krrish, or Koi Mil Gaya even. In what way can they be explained intelligently? Pls enlighten me. I might have missed something because I was focusing too much on Hrithik's sexy body (the glasses and the geeky look only succeeded in making him cuter).

I enjoy Shah Rukh because every second he's on screen he's doing something. His face shows a flicker of differing emotions that requires me to rewind several times in order to catch them all. In K3G, he says he's the underdog of the film and from the POV of the story, I think he's right. The antagonist is played by Amitji and the protagonist is played by Hrithik. SRK plays the guy whose problem everyone else is trying to solve. And yet, even though he's somewhere at the back being shadowed by the powerful presence of stars, like Amitji and Jayaji, with their equally powerful dialogues or by the vibrant and cool Hrithik-Kareena duo with their equally chilled out exchanges, he still manages to catch our attention (well, mine anyway.. I dunno about anyone else's). Because he's alwiz doing something.. whenever he has screen time, we're alwiz curious as to what he'd do even when he's told by the director not to do anything.

I realised this in Veer-Zara during the Lodi song, actually. That song is between Amitji and Hema Malini, while he interjected with the chorus. But while these two heavyweights are at the front doing their thing, he's at the back flirting with Preity XDD. And the scene where he threw the notebook at Amitji was so short (the frame cut him off from the shoulder up) that at first I missed it. I had to rewind it several times to catch on ..or maybe I'm just slow at detecting his supersonic movements XD". His reactions to a situation always seem unrehearsed, except in romantic setup. I actually don't prefer him when he's romancing his heroines. I like it better when he's roughing them up or vice versa (lol) ..you know, like what Lalit does to Maya on their way back from the discotheque in 'Maya Memsaab' or Reshmaji does to Rup when he's about to leave her. I thought those scenes are awesome.

I definitely disagree with any talk of SRK's retirement plan. Actually, I want to write that in capital in a blinkering 5-metre tall neon sign and put it up on top of The Imperial so that everyone in Mumbai can see it. Every time I read or watch him being asked that, I want to kick the interviewer's head in, bludgeon his/her unconscious body to a pulp and drown him/her in the Ganga river.