2011 – The year of colossal letdowns

Here’s a list of all the disappointing entertainers and entertainment projects of the year.

KARACHI:

Imagine being handed a cold, creamy, rich, three-tier ice-cream with all your favourite flavours. Now think of the ice-cream falling down splat on the floor before you can even have your first slurp. In terms of Pakistani entertainment — that’s exactly how the year 2011 turned out to be. It started with high hopes and great expectations but ended on a pessimistic note with epic disappointments and mega failures.

Worst film — Love Mein Ghum

Our expectations for Reema’s directorial effort sprang up like the Egyptian revolution. Instead of bearing fruit, all our hopes died a horrendous death way too soon. A few tips for the director:

1) It’s about time you embraced some older roles as it is visually impossible for you to play a college girl.

2) The male lead’s blond highlights and fair and lovely rung cannot and will not make him look Caucasian. With the budgets you have, hiring a real gora to play the character of Wilson couldn’t have been too difficult.

3) Not even the picturesque background of Malaysia or HSY prancing in the film’s promotional video could cover up a bad plot and equally horrendous acting. Next time, it would make more sense to spend more money on getting a good writer on board as opposed to spending moolah on the location of the film.

Worst song — “Dane pe Dana” — Komal Rizvi

If it wasn’t embarrassing enough watching Komal Rizvi act like Annie for her big comeback, she decided to torture us more with her “Dane pe Dana” rendition on “Coke Studio”. Her face contortions combined with her awful singing made this classic song gag worthy for us.

Worst Model — Fiza Ali

After having seen model Fiza Ali jump from posing to cooking in traditional Punjabi garb to hosting a morning show, we make a humble request for Ali to give-up on any and all endeavours which may include modelling, acting, hosting, singing, cooking, talking and breathing.

Worst Actor — Ali Zafar                  

A long time ago we thought Ali Zafar was sorta, kinda, maybe a little cute. When he was offered a role in a Bollywood production, we were positively ecstatic for him. But after finding out that Zafar played the second lead in a badly-acted, badly-scripted, too predictable Bollywood production, we felt utterly betrayed. Even the little acting he was allowed to do in the film did not stand out in any positive way. So for 2012, we really do hope Zafar stays in London, Paris, New York and not anywhere near us!

Worst advertisement — Ufone commercials

In 2010,  Ufone advertisements seemed clutter-breaking, interesting and hilarious. However, by 2011, they seemed repetitive, uninteresting and lacking creativity. Somewhere along the line, Ufone executives got too lazy to alter or change up their marketing strategy and started relying primarily on the antics of Faisal Qureshi and his gang of comedians.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 8^th, 2012.

Correction: Due to an editing error, an earlier version of the article stated Love Mein Ghum as Reema's first directional effort. The error has been rectified.