by Subhash K Jha

Last weekend was chockfull of remarkable TV premieres. There was Sanjay Leela Bhansali's "Black" of course, but there was more. I also happened to watch Anant Mahadevan's ready-for-release Hindi film "Staying Alive".

And I was completely bowled over by its lucid yet sparse emotionalism as two incompatible men, played brilliantly by director Mahadevan and Sourabh Shukla, struggled for life and 'breadth' in the ICU.

"Staying Alive" is a film that makes you thankful for the gift of life... and cinema.

In comparison, the other films this weekend were so fake! Especially Tanuja Chandra's "Film Star" which got a first-time premiere on Sahara on Friday night.

I must admit I'm very angry with Tanuja. How could the maker of "Dushman", "Sangharsh" and "Sur" (flawed but commendable for their originality of vision) make such ersatz tripe?!

Supposedly an insider's look at the sham and shindig of showbiz (and barring "Kagaz Ke Phool" we all know how these films-on-film function!), "Film Star" had Mahima Chowdhary hamming away dangerously as a hysterical fast-fading 'superstar' (wishful shrinking) who cannibalises a battered wife's (Vasundhara Das) life to resurrect her career.

Mahima turned the role of a lifetime into a role of a laugh time. She was 'supported' by an earnest but deadpan Priyanshu Chatterjee and a plump and far-from-persecuted-looking Vasundhara Das (singers, whether Sonu, Lucky Ali or Vasundhara, should just stick to doing what they know best).

"Film Star" was about marital rape. It was also about the rape of sensible woman-centric cinema.

No wonder Sahara didn't waste time and money giving "Film Star" a theatrical release and put it straight on television. "Film Star" belongs in the archives under the section Director Gone To The Dogs.

It made me wonder... what happened to all those promising female directors who showed up at the movies in the past two decades? Aruna Raje went from "Rihaee" in the 1970s to "Tum" in 2004, Soni Razdan, gifted in her own right, made the appalling "Nazar" a film about the female gaze which put you in a complete daze.

More recently Sudhir Mishra's protégée Ruchi Narain came up with an interesting but scrambled look-see at the hip generation called "Kal".

And 'aaj'???

Kalpana Lajmi, who made the stunning "Ek Pal" and "Rudaali", plummeted to incredible depths of mediocrity in her last film "Kyon". Now she spends more time announcing and de-constructing projects than actually making films.

There's nothing sadder than the disintegration of exceptional talent. It hurts more in the case of the female gender because... well it just does! I could bear with my teen-idol Rajesh Khanna falling apart in front of my horrified eyes. I could even digest director Shakti Samanta's journey into the abyss, from "Amar Prem" and "Anurag" to "Alag Alag" and "Geetanjali".

But seeing Tabu go from "Maachis" to "Maa Tujhe Salaam" was more than I could bear. There should be laws against the desecration of national treasures like Tabu and Kareena Kapoor, who according to me, are the two best actresses in the post-Shabana generation.

Strangely, my extremely high and vocal regard for Tabu's talent beauty and amazing grace has never convinced her. She has constantly been guarded against me even when, after seeing her give extraordinarily layered performances in "Astitva", "Chandni Bar", "Meenaxi", "Maqbool" and even "Silsilay", I've raved about her as I've about only one other actress, Tabu's aunt Shabana.

Tabu has a strange habit of isolating herself from the people who genuinely care for her professionally or personally. She has been a daughter to my surrogate-father Gulzar Saab. So that makes Tabu my sibling. That doesn't make us sing "Rakhi mera rakhi mera naam" in tandem. I don't think she sees much of her 'father' any more either.

I remember once I had spotted her outside Gulzar Saab's bungalow with M.F. Husain. A very sharp-tongued actress who saw them remarked, "Is Tabu working with Husain Saab? Must be! She's constantly seen with whoever she works with. Then she moves on."

And what about Kareena? She's hard to define. She hardly ever does anything that can be categorised as final. The impact she made in her debut film "Refugee" remains unparalleled. I thought Kareena was going to be another Nutan. She instead chose to be another Babita. Which is fine. Because Kareena's spunky mom at one time gave a series of jubilee hits with every hero of her time before she got swept away by love.

Not Kareena. Though she's deeply in love, she has no intentions of throwing in the towel...not for love. Not right now. She truly believes she's special. But she doesn't value her 'special-ness'. Recently, when she grew a year older, I objected to the way she was projected on the cover of a film glossy.

"You never have a good thing to say about anything I do," she took off petulantly. This is the same actress whom I compared with Madhubala and Nutan.

Oh, didn't I tell you? Very special people have very short memory-retention. Hopefully by the time Kareena does that one film that will tap her uniqueness, she'll forget she did films like "Jeena Sirrf Terre Liye" and "Bewafaa".

If all had gone well, Kareena would've done J.P. Dutta's "Umrao Jaan". He wanted to cast his 'boss' Randhir Kapoor's daughter again.

But Kareena did what she's best at. She disappeared on JP.

I wish some of our recent films would disappear from my memory so I can hold on to Anant Mahdevan's "Staying Alive".