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‘Julie 2’: A look at the murk behind the glam
Film: ‘Julie 2’;
Director: Deepak Shivdasani;
Starring: Rai Laxmi, Ravi Kishan, Aditya Shrivastava, Pankaj Tripathy;
Rating: *** (3 stars)
Films about the movie industry tend to demonstrate the sleazy side of showbiz – but with a gentle touch.
“Julie 2” goes about it with hammers and tongs. The story of the rise and fall of an ambitious actress has a familiar ring to it. A lot of the experiences that Julie (Rai Laxmi) goes through seem inspired from the events that transpired in the life of actress Nagma. The whole episode where Julie has a roaring affair with South Indian superstar Ravi Kumar (Ravi Kissan, delightfully Telugu in his speech and manner) is borrowed from Nagma’s link-up with Sarath Kumar, as is Julie’s subsequent link-up with a cricketer which ends rather crudely with the cricketer declaring to the shocked actress that he can’t marry her as she has been with too many men before him.
“Not that I expect you to be a virgin. But there has to be a limit,” he drawls.
This is where the audience either hopes for the character to be killed or commits collective suicide.
Then there is veteran actor Anant Jog who smacks his lips as though he has just found a juicy chicken leg when he meets the heroine.Subtlety is not a quality that the characters of this film value. Writer-director Deepak Shivdasani strings together the betrayals of the men in Julie’s life with a sledgehammer impact. There is no ambivalence in the way Julie’s men are presented in the plot.
Apart from her faithful man-Friday endearingly named Ambani, all the men in Julie’s life are jerks, lechers and potential rapists. By the time she sobs: “No one wants to love me, they all want only my body”, Julie’s slump into self-destruction is nearly complete.
The only man who seems to genuinely care for her is her first film director played with an affectionate swagger by Nishikant Kamat. One of the film’s most compelling episodes has Kamat ticking off a sleazy film financier who openly propositions the shocked and tearful Julie, by hinting at a sexual liaison with the financier’s 18-year old sister.
At times like this, the narrative gathers its wits to deliver a telling blow on the grime behind the glitz of show world. At a time when the predatory culture of Harvey Weinstein has come out in the open, “Julie 2”, in its subverted way, tells us why the sexual predators of Bollywood cannot be exposed.
The film deploys an unusual level of melodrama to create an aura of progressive ruination around its protagonist. It finally slumps to a groaning halt. But not before executing an end-game that attempts to take the saga of the casting couch to a suspenseful level. Debutante Rai Laxmi stands impressively tall even as her character crumbles to the ground. She has a fairly firm grip over her character’s messy life and proves herself quite a “chick’ off the old oomphy block”.
It is a little startling to see seasoned actors like Pankaj Tripathy, Rati Agnihotri and Ravi Kissan pitching in with bombastic performances. But then, bombast is the need of the hour. “Julie 2” is an old-fashioned high-pitched melodramatic take on an actress’ journey from zero to wow. It has plenty of unexpected twists and turns in the plot, not all of them convincing. The narrative neatly balances the engaging and the corny.
International online casino Casino Days has published a report sharing their internal data on what types and brands of devices are used to play on the platform by users from the South Asian region.
Such aggregate data analyses allow the operator to optimise their website for the brands and models of devices people are actually using.
The insights gained through the research also help Casino Days tailor their services based on the better understanding of their clients and their needs.
Desktops and Tablets Lose the Battle vs Mobile
The primary data samples analysed by Casino Days reveal that mobile connections dominate the market in South Asia and are responsible for a whopping 96.6% of gaming sessions, while computers and tablets have negligible shares of 2.9% and 0.5% respectively.
The authors of the study point out that historically, playing online casino was exclusively done on computers, and attribute thе major shift to mobile that has unfolded over time to the wide spread of cheaper smartphones and mobile data plans in South Asia.
“Some of the reasons behind this massive difference in device type are affordability, technical advantages, as well as cheaper and more obtainable internet plans for mobiles than those for computers,” the researchers comment.
Xiaomi and Vivo Outperform Samsung, Apple Way Down in Rankings
Chinese brands Xiaomi and Vivo were used by 21.9% and 20.79% of Casino Days players from South Asia respectively, and together with the positioned in third place with a 18.1% share South Korean brand Samsung dominate the market among real money gamers in the region.
Cupertino, California-based Apple is way down in seventh with a user share of just 2.29%, overshadowed by Chinese brands Realme (11.43%), OPPO (11.23%), and OnePlus (4.07%).
Huawei is at the very bottom of the chart with a tiny share just below the single percent mark, trailing behind mobile devices by Motorola, Google, and Infinix.
The data on actual phone usage provided by Casino Days, even though limited to the gaming parts of the population of South Asia, paints a different picture from global statistics on smartphone shipments by vendors.
Apple and Samsung have been sharing the worldwide lead for over a decade, while current regional leader Xiaomi secured their third position globally just a couple of years ago.
Striking Android Dominance among South Asian Real Money Gaming Communities
The shifted market share patterns of the world’s top smartphone brands in South Asia observed by the Casino Days research paper reveal a striking dominance of Android devices at the expense of iOS-powered phones.
On the global level, Android enjoys a comfortable lead with a sizable 68.79% share which grows to nearly 79% when we look at the whole continent of Asia. The data on South Asian real money gaming communities suggests that Android’s dominance grows even higher and is north of the 90% mark.
Among the major factors behind these figures, the authors of the study point to the relative affordability of and greater availability of Android devices in the region, especially when manufactured locally in countries like India and Vietnam.
“And, with influencers and tech reviews putting emphasis on Android devices, the choice of mobile phone brand and OS becomes easy; Android has a much wider range of products and caters to the Asian online casino market in ways that Apple can’t due to technical limitations,” the researchers add.
The far better integration achieved by Google Pay compared to its counterpart Apple Pay has also played a crucial role in shaping the existing smartphone market trends.
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