WHETHER it has been top talents making a mark, path-breaking moments, superb songs, fabulous films, brilliant books, or audience-delighting entertainment, there has been a lot to celebrate in the past 12 months.
Next week, there will be a roundup of these magnificent moments in Eastern Eye’s annual review of the year. There have also been plenty of epic fails that resulted in disasters, embarrassment, and unintentional comedy.
Eastern Eye selected 13 of these unlucky, cringeworthy failures from 2023 to make us appreciate the true gems.
Dono
Bollywood nepotism: Dono, the Bollywood debut of Rajveer Deol and Paloma Dhillon (pictured above), turned out to be a spectacular failure. Both star kids showed quite comprehensively that they didn’t possess the talent of their parents, Sunny Deol and Poonam Dhillon, respectively. They added to the already proven theory of nepotism hurting Hindi cinema. They were two of the many star kids who turned out to be disappointments.
Box-office bomb: A lot of high-profile films failed at the box office, but in terms of budget versus return, Ganapath turned out to be catastrophic. The futuristic film starring Tiger Shroff was panned by critics and rejected by audiences so badly that the planned sequel won’t happen.
Ganpath
Cancelled show: Eastern Eye predicted the Stars On Fire shows would be cancelled months ahead of time because the UK appetite to see Bollywood stars dancing on stage disappeared years ago. That is why it was no surprise the big-budget UK tour headlined by Hrithik Roshan and backed by mostly forgettable stars was cancelled. Although promotors cited Hrithik’s injury as a reason for “postponing” it, the truth is that many similar shows have been abandoned in the past 10-15 years due to a lack of interest.
Concert calamity: Popular musician AR Rahman was heavily criticised for headlining a badly organised show in Chennai, plagued with poor sound, stampedes, inadequate seating, overbooked tickets, injuries and bad organisation. Rahman apologised and offered refunds, but that did little to appease disgruntled fans.
Trevor trouble: Superstar comedian Trevor Noah got his India tour off to a nightmarish start in Bengaluru, where everything went wrong. The venue wasn’t very accessible, and the speakers didn’t work properly, so audiences couldn’t hear him and walked out. Further technical issues meant both shows had to be cancelled. The apologetic comedian offered refunds.
Trevor Noah
Pathetic plot: The romantic drama Bawaal had a terrible Bollywood plotline. The hero doesn’t care much for his wife because she has epilepsy, and it takes him learning about the Holocaust to realise the error of his ways. The trivialisation of the Holocaust led to prominent antisemitism campaign group, The Simon Wiesenthal Centre, demanding that the streaming site Amazon Prime remove the Bollywood film.
Fake award: Filmmaker Karan Johar proudly shared news of him being honoured at the House of Lords. Unfortunately, the award had nothing to do with the official UK government and was just a freshly printed, framed certificate, which has no value or prestige of any kind.
Count Abdulla
Crummy cover: The producers of the film Satyaprem Ki Katha took an incredibly stupid decision to do a terrible cover version of the smashhit Pakistani track Pasoori. The movie was much ridiculed and trolled across social media days before its cinema release because the adaptation was rubbish.
Cinema stinker: Arguably the biggest epic fail of 2023 was Adipurush. From the terrible special effects to massive historical inaccuracies, hurting religious sentiments, and pretty much everything else, the flop film failed in every way imaginable. It was such a cataclysm that the producers, who were planning similar projects, were scared away. Instead of being boundarybreaking, Adipurush became an extremely costly warning.
Bawaal
Kangana crashes: Controversial actress Kangana Ranaut had another year of stupid statements and film failures. Her home production, Tiku Weds Sheru, was savaged by critics and audiences alike. Similarly, her spectacularly bad movie, Tejas, clocked up shockingly low figures.
Funny Obsession: British Asian actor Rish Shah had his first big failure with the Netflix show Obsession. The erotic drama, based on a best-selling book, was ridiculed by audiences and critics alike, with one reviewer describing it as the most unintentionally funniest show of the year.
Bad Brum: Birmingham council was declared bankrupt and only able to spend money on absolute essentials. But, months later, it decided to waste money on actress Preity Zinta being flown into the city for Diwali events. Her visit generated very little interest and kind of illustrated that Birmingham may not have learned any lessons about financial management.
Kangana Ranaut in Tejas
UK melas: Most UK melas that were held seemed to be stuck in a time-warp, with has-been British music stars miming to tired-sounding songs released many years ago. A lack of effort from councils turned the events into lacklustre tick-box exercises. Sadly, there will be more of the same in 2024.
Stupid sitcom: A young Muslim being turned into a vampire must have seemed like a great idea on paper. But the six-part ITV sitcom, Count Abdulla, failed spectacularly to capitalise on a path-breaking opportunity by delivering an absolute mess. Everything – from the writing to the acting – was awful.
