Saturday 14 February 2009

FastTrack gone offtrack with its advertising?

Radio One was recently airing some advertising for FastTrack’s new Army Collection. They were inviting women to send in jingles that go with a marching tune, and played a sample jingle on air. Here are the lyrics to that sample:
Get up and leave
if he tries to kiss your hand
He’s a one-girl man;
He ain’t a one-night stand
Corollary: if one comes across a girl wearing a Fast Track army watch, can one presume she is looking for a one-night-stand?

Jokes apart, why would FastTrack want to restrict their customer base to an ultra-liberal crowd instead of having mass appeal to the entire 18-25 age group, irrespective of how conservative/liberal they are, irrespective of what their preferences in relationships are? Does their advertising tactic make sense for a consumer products' company?

A thought on Friday, the 13th

Doesn't the 14th of Feb impose an unnecessary, unwarranted, and artificial deadline on a Work-In-Progress situation?

Work update

I've joined Adea Technologies (www.adea.com) more than a month back. Yeah, I used to work here earlier too. Familiar people, familiar work, let's see how this stint goes.


Monday 12 January 2009

Ghajini: lost opportunity

Take a look at the ingredients: a weird case of short term memory loss, a dedicated actor who’s chiseled himself for this role, and pretty good direction – one would have expected so much more from Ghajini.

Of course I am biased by Memento, and I’m glad that Ghajini wasn’t a copy. But the story could’ve been made so much more complex and thrilling. Instead, they chose a fairly simple story line in which no serious complications arise out of Sanjay’s anterograde amnesia. He seems to have a system that works fairly well: except when his enemies ruin it for him. And then it follows the traditional good-guy-gets-rid-of-bad-guy.

Well, here’s the thing about Sanjay’s condition. He could have felt the rage of losing his girlfriend every 15 minutes, or whenever he saw himself in the mirror. But there’s only one scene which shows that, but it’s for the benefit of advancing the story – it doesn’t add much to Sanjay’s character. Why didn’t the director repeat that scene a few times, so that the character’s condition could be more ingrained in the viewer’s head?

Why doesn't the movie explore Sanjay's psyche, and have him narrate the thoughts that are running in his head? The man would be under such tremendous confusion trying to figure out what’s happening around him – why not unleash that confusion on to the audience?

Why does the story, instead of making it bigger with the endless possibilities of anterograde amnesia, choose to talk about the courtship between a millionaire and an aspiring model? Couldn’t all that material have been saved for a different yuppy movie?

I’m glad I watched Ghajini, and I did like the movie. But I guess I had my hopes up way too high.