plumbing the pits

something is really, manically wrong with the portal, rediff.

of late they have been plugging, sucking up to shah rukh khan, carving out a major space for him and his new KBC stuff...everyday is a new paean to this rather mediocre ham of an actor who is, it must be said, a really shrewd media-savvy box-office player. wonder if hes a stakeholder in their parent company or maybe its just pure PR.

thus, they air *exclusive* interviews with him every blessed day...Part 1, 2, 3....with him spouting classic megalomaniacal bytes...enough to make anyone retch except for staunch psychophants. they are also pretty cannily playing up the so-called clash between Bachchan and this guy. For what its worth, with the body of work that Amitabh has notched up over the years, its a no-brainer as far as the art of acting is concerned.

but if it was true and there was a clash between the veteran and the upstart, it would be wise for the latter to atleast take on someone in his league, say Aamir or Ajay...but he can't..he can't brandish anything to support his case, except the old formulaic romantic syrup hes wallowed in, thanks to the Chopras and his bosom pal (?)... and in his early and sadly, better years, the negative roles.

Its pathetic that in the Hindi film industry, the box office is still bloody everything, actors are ranked ala local cattle fair and some of the *superstars* actually start believing their hype.

The real craft of acting, the passion for cinema is lost and trampled over in this stampede for manna and fame. the definition of cinema is slowly getting horribly mutilated.

true actors like naseer, om puri, pankaj kapur, kay kay, bachchan etc and in the commercial lot - ajay devgan, aamir khan, akshaye khanna seem to be happy doing their stuff on the sidelines.

for that matter, the young turks, abhishek and hrithik too seem to be grounded and not given to ego exercises.

the way I see it, srk knows his shelf-life and his limited skill-sets and is doing what he does best - stoke up the media which in turn plays to the gallery of morons who digest all the gas they read/see/hear....eyeballs, TRPs, hits, traffic = money. not cinema. definitely not.
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And the portal's comment space...thats just another bizarre place altogether...some are just plain vicious and uneducated, crammed full of prejudices and ignorance.

sordid and pathetic. i used to visit this site often, now its just lost its credibility.