Entertainment
‘Isn’t It Romantic’: Most awful film of Priyanka Chopra’s career
Film: “Isn’t It Romantic”; Director: Tod-Strauss Schulson; Cast: Rebel Wilson, Liam Hemsworth, Adam Devine and Priyanka Chopra; Rating: * (1 star)
First things first. What is Priyanka Chopra doing playing a frisky floozie in this bird-turd of a film? Second question: why are we expected to invest 90 minutes in what looks like a rejected episode of “Inside Amy Schumer”?
“Isn’t It Romantic” is just plainly and simply awful. A bird-brained plot, it casts the overweight Rebel Wilson as Natalie, who is shown as incurably romantic in her childhood (she watches “Pretty Woman” like a Delhi housewife eyeing the lead singer at a ‘Mata jagran’).
Mom lectures little Natalie on the impossibility of romantic love in this cynical world. And voila! The daughter is transformed into a diehard cynic.
Or, is she just running away from the fact that when you are Size XL, the chances of finding an eligible match are proportionally slim?
So, the film has a solution. It turns all romantic notions on their head when Natalie hits her head on a steel pillar at a metro station during a mugging episode (this is as exciting as the script gets) and waltzes into woozie-land.
Alas, the purportedly wonderful walk into wonderland is more bland than grand.
The flimsy anorexic film ends up celebrating rather than spoofing the conventions of the romantic comedy genre. Natalie’s gay neighbour (Brandon Scott Jones) goes all flabby-wristed and hip-twisted, only to tell us at the end that gay men don’t behave that way in real life.
I would happily relegate this non-descript trivia of a movie to the trash can were it not for our Priyanka Chopra, who plays a femme fatale all set to steal away our heroine Natalie’s bestfriend-and-potential boyfriend Josh (Adam Devine), who doesn’t really seem worth stealing.
In what could be described as the most air-headed role of her career, Priyanka plays Isabelle. Her job profile is self-described as “yoga ambassador” (whatever that means). Although she seems to spend all her time posing, preening, pouting and seducing Josh, who, as mentioned earlier, is no Don Juan.
With a role that is briefer than the clothes she is given to wear (femme fatales must dress skimpily in our films), Priyanka must have a good reason for doing this film. We don’t know what it is. A fat pay cheque, with a leading lady to match? Clueless as we are about her reasons for being in a film where her role is what Aruna Irani played in Hindi films of the 1970s, there is the comfort of company for Priyanka in Liam Hemsworth, whose presence here is even more baffling.
He plays a jerk in a towel who has to pretend he finds the hefty heroine attractive.
Perhaps, both Priyanka and Liam got bitten by the same romantic comedy bug that bites Rebel Wilson. No, no that mark on her neck is not a love byte.
With a plot that could be written on one grain of rice (Basmati), characters who think it’s cool to pretend they love to hate on-screen romance, and performances which may strongly qualify for the Golden Raspberry Awards.
“Isn’t It Romantic” is right up there with Priyanka Chopra’s desi classics Suneel Darshan’s “Andaz”, Dharmesh Darshan’s “Aap Ki Khatir” and of course her Hollywood debut “Baywatch”.
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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