October 9, 2012: A Midlife Catharsis

Jenny K:  I know I’ve been on a jag recently, touting the charms of the almost-thirty set of heroes, so now I want to put on the brakes and celebrate the possibility of age appropriate (read “Over 40”) romances.  They are out there, one just has to hunt for them a bit…and some of them are worth the extra trouble.

First on my list of Netflix “Meant-2-Watch” films, was Main Aurr Mrs Khanna (2009). I remember hearing about this film in connection with Aamir and Kareena, something about Aamir dropping it for reasons unreported.  Having now watched it…I don’t blame him at all.  Here’s the trailer. 

Now, our hero in this one, Salman Khan, is definitely over 40, deny it as he will, but his heroine, Kareena Kapoor…not exactly an equal match, shall we say.  Salman plays Samir Khanna, who falls in love with an un-surnamed orphan, Raina (Kareena) and in the unexplainable attraction of woman to goofy-man-child, she marries him. Maybe it’s just because he offers her his last name for her missing one. Almost immediately we cut from their “idyllic” married life, to the effects of job-loss on Samir’s ego. He tells her she must go back to live with his parents in India (why?), and leave their home in Melbourne, because the only place he can get a job now is in Singapore, and his ego can’t seem to bear her sticking by him and watching him struggle.

She, of course, resents his settling her fate without a word to her, and she digs in her heels at the airport and just doesn’t get on the plane. She vows to stay in Australia and wait for him, and somewhere, somehow, she’ll get a job and support herself. Brave girl…sniff sniff…With Salman all but out for the middle three-fifths of the film, Raina must find another savior, and turns to a random cafe-wallah, played by Sohail Khan (who also directed this fiasco) who falls instantly in love with her and vows to win her confidence and love. Even though he knows she’s married and in love with her husband. Creep.

Julie M:  Salman and Kareena.  Hmm, an odd couple indeed.  I never thought they went well together, even in the superhit Bodyguard.  Well, probably a good thing that they spend most of the film apart, then.

Jenny K:  The rest of the plot doesn’t really need to be summarized. You’ve seen it all before, yet I must remark on how calm Salman/Samir seems when he gets the news that in order to stay in Australia without him…

Stupidity Alert…..I mean spoiler alert…spoiler alert…yeah right….

Raina agrees with her new friends that she must lie to her host country and all concerned and marry Sohail so she has her valid work visa. Never mind that she’s ALREADY MARRIED?!?!? Not that they “did anything” of course…even though we’ve established that Sohail’s character has very sketchy morals in the first place.

A few good looks for Salman after he gets over being a goofy kid and dons a saintly mystique along with his bad luck…and a nice song…by Rahat Fateh Ali Khan are pretty much all that recommend it. Skip.

Julie M: Sohail Khan…that’s Salman’s brother, right, the one whom you hate and whom I didn’t think was so bad in Hello, an otherwise execrable movie? Maybe he just looked good in comparison to the drivel that was the rest of it.

Jenny K:  No, I definitely don’t recommend Main Aurr Mrs. Khanna. Yes, Sohail is Salman’s brother, but if I have to watch one of them, Arbaaz is always more watchable, though he seems to specialize in psychopaths. The only film that I’ve enjoyed Sohail in was an extended cameo he and Arbaaz did in Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na, which if you haven’t watched, you should. Imraan Khan’s first film. Sweet. Youtube here.

Julie M: Salman with a ponytail…LIKE. Like a LOT.

[a few days later]

Julie M: I’m back! Because I could not get out to see either Rowdy Rathore or Joker, I decided to get a silly Akshay Kumar comedy fix with Singh Is Kinng (2008). It actually was pretty good–escapist, and at times laugh-out-loud hilarious. As a taste…here’s the fantastic number in the beginning of the film that reaffirms how wonderful Akshay’s movies can be.

Punjabi villager Happy Singh (Akshay Kumar) is a sweet, helpful, well-meaning man around whom things tend to go horribly wrong, to everyone’s dismay and Happy’s obliviousness. Here’s the opening scene that establishes Happy’s character as a disaster in a kurta. 

After a number of years of Happy’s causing (comic) mayhem and destruction the villagers decide to move him along, and concoct a ruse to send him to Australia (what is it about Australia?) to retrieve the long-absent son of the village headman. Trouble is, this son is Lucky “The King” Singh, a notorious and brutal don (played by Sonu Sood, whom we see far too little of past the first third of the film), and Happy would be lucky to get away with his life. Problem solved, the villagers think.

So Happy departs with his friend Rangeela (Om Puri), whose only value to the endeavor is that he knows English, only there’s a mixup at the airport and they end up in Egypt, not Australia. While they are waiting for their correct flight Happy wanders off to sightsee and ends up saving a young woman Sonia (Katrina Kaif) from a robbery, and spends the day with her. Of course he falls in love with her, but since they are off to Australia he will never meet her again. Or will he?

Jenny K:  Same gender/age scenario, again!   I know it is almost a given in today’s Bollywood (and the rest of filmdom), that our forty-something hero is immediately irresistible to any and all twenty-something females, but can’t there be (somewhere!) a similarly-aged female object of their desire?  It’s getting more and more frustrating from my point of view.  Sorrry, baaack to the Kinng.

Julie M: May I point you to a little movie you sent to me called Cheeni Kum…anyway…

Jenny K:  [backpedaling] Heck, Jule, the rules don’t apply to Amitabh!  It’s a given that he is still attractive to any and all female age groups, as is Naseerji…sigh…okay, okay, go on with the synopsis.

Julie M: Upon arrival in Australia they look up Lucky and go to convince him to come back to see his dying (so they think) father. Lucky and his entourage give them the brush-off and that is that…Happy and Rangeela again find themselves in a foreign country with no luggage and waiting for their plane home. They get separated and Happy meets Rosie (Kirron Kher), a down-on-her luck florist originally from a village near his, who takes him in, feeds him and gives him a job to earn his meals. Enjoy this clip of the meeting between Happy and Rosie: Kirron Kher is the best “cool mom” in Bollywood. 

During his first task he runs into Lucky and the gang, and through typical Happy circumstances a skirmish with a rival gang breaks out and Lucky becomes paralyzed. Another mix-up or two later and Happy ends up taking the kingpin’s place as the head of the organization. More mix-ups, and it turns out that Sonia is Rosie’s daughter, Rosie has to pretend she’s wealthy to impress Sonia’s fiance (Ranvir Shorey), and they all move into Lucky’s mansion where the gang members (including Lucky’s nearsighted and half-deaf brother Mika, played by Javed Jaffrey, and hanger-on Udaas, played by Yashpal Sharma) have to pretend to be servants.

Suffice it to say that the pretenses lead to hilarity, character development ensues, there is an attempted coup and Happy spreads his happy sweet magic over everyone. The climactic scene (yes, there is a chase) is actually pretty funny, not too overdone as tends to happen in Indian comedies.

Jenny K:  Ah, well, I knew someone had to like this film.  It was a pretty big hit when it came out.  I saw it in the theater.  And though it didn’t bug me as much as, say Bewaafa or Waqt, SIK left me pretty cold, as per usual.  Glad you got something from it.

Julie M: I think I was just in the right mood.  Akshay Kumar flashes his winning smile all over this one, which of course I loved, and looks great in a turban. Heck, in this he looks great in everything: in both Punjabi village clothes (which on him look like designer duds) and the actual designer clothing he wears when he assumes the King role.

The combination of comedy and action is, if not perfect, at least proportional with no comic-action scene lasting too long, as is often the case with this type of film. Katrina Kaif’s bad Hindi is excused by having her character grow up in Australia, and her two item numbers are pleasant enough if generic–nothing smashing, she looks cute, let’s move on. Beautiful scenery in Egypt and Australia, and for once the requisite love-among-the-ruins song actually makes sense. Best thing about it is that they are dancing in front of Deir El-Bahri, my favorite Egyptian mortuary temple, and in the Karnak temple. Doesn’t make any sense since they were supposed to have landed in Cairo and Luxor/Valley of the Kings is like 300 miles away, but I give them credit for at least not randomly zooming over to Switzerland.

Javed Jaffrey plays a double role as Mika and as Sonia’s fiance’s father; in a clever nod to the dual-role trope, all of the characters recognize the resemblance but it does not become part of the actual plot. A rap duet between Akshay and Snoop Dogg over the closing credits is mediocre at best, but Javed is his own playback singer in one number, which is unfortunately rap-based but not at all annoying for that.

Verdict: an extremely pleasant time-pass if you are in the mood for silliness, with a great cast, and nothing for Akshay to be embarrassed about.

Jenny K:  Finally!  Relief for my complaints is here!  I recently got to the theaters to see the Boman Irani/Farah Khan love story Shirin Farhad Ki Toh Nikal Padi (2012). I went just for pure curiosity to see how Farah Khan would do in her acting debut, and darned if she didn’t surprise me!  She came off pretty well. The trailer is really broad humor, and so is a bit misleading.  It’s not as slapstick as it looks when you view the whole movie.

I went to see SFLTNP with my Hindi film buddies, Pat and Kathy. We’re all over 40 and so we’re really eager to support any film that shows there is life after that “extreme age” hits us. And I thought it was a rather sweet love story, while still having the slightly jaundiced view of the mature couple’s outlook on things. Pretty funny, too.

The story is of a lonely 45 year old Parsi guy, Farhad (Boman Irani) who can’t seem to find the love of his life to settle down with. He lives with his widowed mother (Daisy Irani, who steals every scene she’s in) and his grandmother (Shammi Aunty) who both dote on him. They can’t figure out why he’s still single…unless it has to do with his working as a salesman in a women’s lingerie store “the Tam Tam Bra and Panty Store” as Farhad repeatedly states to all who ask. Ya Think??  He certainly doesn’t seem too happy there. He has dreams of opening his own shop someday, and calling it UNDERWORLD. Funny guy.

Julie M:  I can just imagine Boman surrounded by ladies’ undergarments.  But go on…

Jenny K:  He meets Shirin (Farah) one day at his store when she’s there shopping, and he likes her sarcastic sense of humor and spunkiness. His mother likes her too, until it is revealed that Shirin is a Parsi official who has been targeting the illegal water tank that Farhan’s father built for them before he died. Didn’t get the permit, it seems. But when Shirin’s “cover” is blown, Mama draws the line in the sand, it’s either “THAT WOMAN” or your mother? What to do, what to do? Sneak around Mama, of course, and lots of singing and dancing.

It’s fun to see Farah dance to some of her own choreography…in “Ramba Mein Samba”, she and Boman spoof many of the Shahrukh/Kajol/Madhuri numbers that made her the choreographer to get. Very sweet…especially love the KKHH/DDLJ train scenes. Here’s that number.  and here’s the number with the slingshot that they’re spoofing from Hum Aapke Hain Koun with Madhuri and Salman, if you haven’t seen it.

On the whole, a very favorable experience, and I’m going to pooh pooh the nay-sayers who find Farah’s acting wooden. She’s more laid back than Boman (who wouldn’t be?), but I think that’s just her own personality, and it certainly felt real to me. A few plot issues, but not too bad.

A brave attempt by all concerned, and multiple chins-up, I mean thumbs-up, from this over-40 reviewer.  We ain’t dead yet, so let’s see more examples of it!

Julie M:  Hear, hear.  And as I am about to dip a toe into young love again with Tere Naal Love Ho Gaya, I will remember that not so young love is pretty awesome too.

October 9, 2012
Categories: Indian Film . Tags: , , , , , , , , , , . Author: Jenny Ketcham . Comments: Leave a comment

July 1, 2012: Charming con-men

Well, we’ve let another month go by without a post despite our best intentions.  Life has just gotten in the way. But we have been watching, just not discussing!  Here’s Part I of what we saw in June, which is without too many snarky back-and-forth comments because Jenny is caught in the East Coast power outage situation…both involving charming con-men doing what they do best.

 Julie M:  In my ongoing quest to see more of Abhay Deol, last night I watched Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye! (2008) Here’s the trailer:

There wasn’t much to the plot: Abhay plays Lucky, whom we first meet when he is caught despite being a very successful thief. We then flash back to his youth, where at 15 he started his life of crime, then work our way up to the present through more flashbacks, then we move forward again in “real” time.  A bit confusing but it works.  Here’s a great scene where the young Lucky is trying to convince his father to buy him a motorcycle, who pretends (up to a point) to go along with the idea:

All along we trace Lucky as he works for a crime boss (Paresh Rawal, in one of three roles he plays in this film), meets and romances a girl, and tries to go straight by funding a fledgling restaurant (restaurant owner also played by Paresh Rawal; the third role is as Lucky’s father). He moves around a lot, but his quest for respectability is thwarted at every turn.

A pattern develops: every time he is frustrated or feeling like things have gotten out of his control, he steals stuff. Not to fence or make money from (although he will sell a couple of things when in need), but mostly just to surround himself with. As the movie progresses you see his stash room getting more and more crowded, eventually pressing in on him until all he has is one chair (which he has also stolen) in the middle of towers and layers of STUFF. He gets caught a few times, manages to escape each time, and then the film abruptly ends after one escape with a montage of still images implying that he has married his girl and has gone straight…or has he?

OLLO has an indie feel in its plotting and cinematography, and resisted the impulse to go broad in its comedy, which I appreciated–but to me it never really got off the ground.  I kept thinking that there would be some defining moment for Lucky, some realization of why he steals that would cause him to stop, but although the reason is fairly obvious to us (a kind of crappy childhood with an overbearing father and a handsy stepmother, and a raging case of very low self-esteem, although he is handsome and charming as all get-out), he seems completely unaware. There are a few hilariously funny moments–like when he steals a tiny yappy little dog and then his face indicates that he immediately regrets it–but it’s not rollickingly funny, more of a “smart comedy.” His courting of his reluctant lady (Neetu Chandra) is sweet, though, and Abhay was the perfect choice to play Lucky. The best reason to see this film, though, is Paresh Rawal–three distinct characters, three looks, all fantastic.

There is music throughout as background, and its hip-hop feel works with the plot and action without seeming like a series of music videos, but this is probably the best song as a song:
   (sorry it’s a montage, they didn’t have the cut direct from the film)

So if you’re an Abhay Deol fan, put this on the “to watch” list.

Jenny K:  The things I do for Indian cinema promotion…Earlier this month I was looking for something to watch at the theater with Kathy and as I went through the list of my local Regal cinema, lo and behold, I saw a telltale title. Rowdy  Rathore. Now, it’s not a very promising title, I’ll grant you….I pictured lots of partying Punjabis dancing about to Daler Mendhi, which isn’t really my scene, but, I checked closer into it, and found the surprising fact that my local cinema was trying out Bollywood offerings once every two weeks. Hooray, I thought. I don’t have to go all the way to Falls Church for a fix! So even with Akshay in full-action mode, Kathy and I girded our lions for Punjab, metaphorically, and bought our tickets.

Julie M:  I’m shocked, SHOCKED, that you would voluntarily go for an Akshay action movie, but it’s been a long, hot summer, Indian-film-wise, so I understand the urgency…

Jenny K:  Rowdy Rathore was all I expected and a bit worse. A twin plot…never seen that before…where Akshay plays a conman, Shiva, and his non-related twin, policeman Vikram Singh Rathore. I kept hoping for a teary-eyed maa-ji to pop up with a story about how she lost one of them at a Diwali Mela and hoped against hope that little Shiva had found a home and someone to love him, but no luck.

Shiva’s talent is at conning money out of strangers and occasionally his friends, too. He often uses the hypnotic talent he has for conjuring up a drumming rhythm which gets everyone dancing, whether they will or no. Here’s the first big dance number showing it.

I was really excited that it was Prabhu Deva’s first big Hindi movie offering as a director, and you know how much I love his dancing and choreography. Well all through this number, he kept making little cameo appearances, and I even got a tiny dance duo with Akshay at the end, but sad to say, it just succeeded in showing AK up, dancing next to PD. His choreography just works better on long-leggedy guys like himself and Hrithik, and just makes all-torso guys like our hero look short and a bit clod-hoppy. Not that he wasn’t trying his darndest, but it didn’t really work for me.

Julie M:  PINK PANTS??!! Really? (although after Akshay’s yellow outfit in Bhool Bhulaiyaa I shouldn’t be too surprised, the man does look kinda awesome in bright colors)

Jenny K:  Also, his leading lady Sonakshi Sinha was lovely, but seemed to be too young for our Shiva, especially at the beginning. She grew on me a bit as the long, long, long chop-socky fest went on. The plot had to do with Shiva being mistaken by one and all for the straight arrow lawman Vikram, who is being persecuted by the goondah element in his village for his stringent restrictions on their larceny. Even Vikram’s extremely adorable daughter, whose name I’ve forgotten already, thinks Shiva is her daddy. Shiva is saddled with the pint-sized charmer and must protect her from the onslaughts of the dacoits until the real daddy shows up to thrash the ever-lovin’ heck out of them. Lots of blood, lots of tears, lots of thwarted villainous gnashing of teeth.

Julie M:  Much as I love Akshay, that trailer would have totally turned me off.  Not a fan of endless thwacking of villains.  If I hadn’t heard your plot summary, I would have vowed never to see it.

Jenny K:  He uses that “mental rewind” thing really too often to be funny. Also, what’s with that horrible haircut and moustache?? Makes him look like Hitler on steroids! Well, Kathy and I have done our duty, and since then, the theater doesn’t seem to be making good on their promise of a new Hindi film every two weeks. Sad, but to be expected, when all they offer the general public is crazy, tongue-in-cheek slapstick fighting. I would have hoped they’d start with a popular masala film to get others hooked, but those are getting few and far between, these days, aren’t they? Oh, dear…

Julie M:  Nevertheless, I’m hoping RR comes out on DVD and into my library, because Akshay’s smile just gets me. True, he’s not the “dancing hero” type, but he has other charms that are not lost on me.

So, here are our bad-boy heroes together:  which would you rather have conning YOU?

July 1, 2012
Categories: Indian Film . Tags: , , , , , , . Author: julialmoore . Comments: Leave a comment

February 13, 2012: The Warmth of Midwinter Flames

The bleakest part of winter comes after the joy-filled holidays, and all you want to do is hibernate, curled up with a warm cup of chai, a bowl of popcorn and your favorite cinema guys.  Julie and I did just that recently, in front of our own separate hearths to stoke the fires with some of our favorite Old Flames.

 

Jenny K:  My viewing last night was Aladin (2009).  I decided I had to watch it after finding that delicious BigB rap clip I put in the earlier post after LittleB’s rap in Dum Maaro Dum.  I am glad I decided to rent it from Amazon rather than buy it on DVD (though the price was fine). I didn’t like it enough to own it, but it does continue my desire to see all of the later Amitabh Bachchan performances that I can get my hands on.  I do like his old films, but I think it’s something about the gray hair, and the extra-milage twinkle in his eyes, that has given him bonus appeal for me.

The best thing about Aladin was that it provided a really larger than life part for Amitabh, something he could really sink his teeth and sense of humor into. I love him in his comedies even better than his dramas. This wasn’t quite as good as Bunty Aur Babli  for him, but a real lot of fun. He stars as a “real life” genie named Genius (such a stretch by the screenwriters!) who emerges from the lamp rubbed by our hero, Aladin Chatterjee, played with a shy, wistful appeal by Ritesh Deshmukh.

 

Julie M:  I need to see more of Ritesh.  The only thing I’ve seen him in was Bluffmaster! and I really liked him there.  Too bad he mostly stars in silly comedies like Double Dhamaal, the likes of which I don’t even watch in English.

  

Jenny K:  Aladin is fully aware of the incongruity of his name. He could hardly not be, as he is daily chased and tormented by a group of bullies at school, led by Kasim (Sahil Khan, who resembles a musclebound Rob Lowe in his St. Elmo’s Fire days…which could have soured me on him right there, but it didn’t).  These tormentors insist on Aladin rubbing every lamp they throw at him to find “the magic”. Aladin’s parents died on a hunt for that very lamp, because they believed in the magic, too, and baby Aladin was raised by his grandfather. Now, grown up, he doesn’t want magic, all he wants is to fly under the radar and be allowed to live in peace…until the new, beautiful exchange student comes to his school, Jasmine, played by beauty queen du jour, Jaqueline Fernandes.

She’s lovely, sweet, and not a bad ingenue. And everyone is in love with the new girl from America, including Aladin’s arch enemy, Kasim. Now, Aladin definitely needs help winning her heart, and one of those lamps finally produces it. BigB emerges magically and immediately gets the party started at the school mixer.

Julie M:  Kind of reminds me of the school dance scene in Main Hoon Na; still one of the best Grease rip-off scenes ever.   

 

Jenny K:  Well, the rest of the movie involves various schemes to make this romance come out true. Amitabh hams it up, delightfully, all over the place, changing clothes as much as any good Bollywood Item Boy, trying to get Aladin to use his three wishes so he can retire from his genie occupation, for good. He steals the show. Here’s that rap number again. I love the wig. Long hair looks great on him, though it’s a little too banana-curly in the back in one or two shots.

 

Julie M:  Here’s where we part ways.  I really don’t like him in long hair.  I think it makes him look like a crazy person.  Case in point:  Jhoom Barabar Jhoom…OK, he’s actually pretty cool as a character that keeps popping up to wink at the action, but he LOOKS crazy.

Jenny K:   I must just like his “crazy” then…the only reason I bought JBJ was for that particular look on Amitji.  Too each her own, I suppose.

The main negative for this film is in the completely unnecessary subplot of The Ringmaster, an evil, all-for-himself ex-genie, trying to find the lamp so that he can end his earthly exile and become a genie once again…it’s all tied together with the reappearance of comet that is due to fly right over Aladin’s town (during the annual Student Ball, of course). Sanjay Dutt plays this villain with way-over-the-top gusto and the wardrobe of Johnny Depp’s Mad Hatter on steroids.

The CGI fight to the death of the genii is a snorefest in the extreme…sort of like the way the sword-fighting CGI scene at the end of the Tim Burton/Depp Alice in Wonderland hit me, too…

I really could have done without. Amitabh’s charm alone could have done it for me, and does, so I’d give it three cups of chai out of five, for a warm-up factor, on that alone. Here’s the Cyrano-esque wooing scene to leave us with (Aladin temporarily has no voice because he’s been karate-chopped in the throat, and has to use his best playback synch skills).

Julie M:  Ha!  Freeze that video at 0:49 and he becomes Long-Haired Crazy Person again.  But I like that he’s often cast in non-Dad roles now where he can have some fun.  Maybe he’s making up for all that “angry young man” work earlier in his career, where he didn’t get to smile much, even in fun roles like Amar Akbar Anthony.  And how much are you looking forward to seeing him in The Great Gatsby later this year, even in what is little more than a walk-on?  And I need to see Zanjeer.   They really don’t make them like him anymore. 

[a few days later]

Julie M:  Had to get an Akshay Kumar fix, so I got 8 x 10 Tasveer (8 x 10 Photograph, 2009) from the library. If you haven’t seen it, it’s available free on YouTube   or here. 

Jenny K:  Though he’s not one of my favorites, I give Akshay much more credit when he’s in dramas rather than his action or comedy roles. Except for Waqt. Never going to like that one.

Julie M:  It’s a good-enough (but not superb) psychological thriller in the mainstream European/American film style. Akshay stars as Jai, a mild-mannered park ranger—or environmental monitor, it’s difficult to tell—in Canada with the semi-secret, supernatural ability to stare at a photo, go into a trance and see the scene from the photo subject’s eyes (yeah, I thought that was pretty ridiculous too, but you kind of have to accept this premise or else the whole movie will fall apart). When his estranged father (Benjamin Gilani) dies of an “accident,” Jai is convinced it is murder and uses his abilities to track down the killer.

He finds no dearth of suspects, possibly including his own mother (Sharmila Tagore), and his life is endangered on more than one occasion. There is a huge and highly satisfying twist about 3/4 of the way through, and the final 30-45 minutes are edge-of-your seat action and suspense–which sort of made the first 30 minutes or so worth it. A very bad rap song over the end credits made me think Akshay and Abhishek have some sort of competition going.

If you’ve not seen it I won’t spoil the twist for you.

Sharmila’s talent was pretty much wasted in this film except for one scene, but it was nice to see her acting again. Jaaved Jaffrey has a supporting role as the dead father’s former protege, a disgraced police officer with “Monk”-like OCD qualities, who helps Jai in his quest for the truth. As usual, Jaaved’s voice is marvelous but I found myself continually distracted by a bad redhead dye job and the worst haircut ever. Ayesha Takia plays Jai’s doe-eyed and adoring girlfriend.

And also as usual I was mesmerized by Akshay. Those looks! That smile! The stunts! He deserved a better script than the writer gave him, but he made the best of it, and as I said, the last part of the movie made everything before it worthwhile.

 

Jenny K:  I would be more moved to see this film if it didn’t seem to have Akshay playing Faye Dunaway in The Eyes of Laura Mars. 1978 isn’t so far away that us old folks don’t remember. It was a plot with Faye being a fashion photog who may be seeing the brutal work of a serial killer through his eyes, both at night, in her dreams, and while awake. It even begins to influence her work.  Just changing him to a park ranger doesn’t change the basic premise, does it?  Akshay does have a killer smile, though…I grant him that.

 

Julie M:  I sort-of remember Laura Mars and it’s nothing like it, although I grant you that there is a similar conceit. He sees through the eyes of photo subjects, whoever they are, and whatever they’ve done. Most of the time it’s benign. The fact that he uses a photo snapped right before his father’s accident to view the incident from the perspectives of each of the people in the photo (all of whom he suspects) is just his way of using his gift to figure out what happened. And the twist is the key. (No, it’s not Akshay who is the killer. It’s not Secret Window–oops, I’ve just spoiled that one for those pitiful few who couldn’t figure it out in the first five minutes…)

Coincidentally, B and I had just watched the very bad 1991/2 film Sketch Artist, where a police sketch artist takes a murder witness’s description and realizes he’s just drawn a portrait of his wife. He spends the rest of the film trying to figure out if his wife really is a killer or if he’s just obsessed with their ebbing relationship. Another psychological thriller, but one so cheesy and dumb so we were in the mood for a good one to take the bad taste away.  B watched 8 x 10 with me and thought it was decent. Not stellar (it wasn’t), but it worked.

 

Jenny K:  Now, I must say, you may have warmed up my interest in that one…February chills aren’t over yet, and one can always use new flames to go with those older ones!

February 13, 2012
Categories: Indian Film . Tags: , , , , , . Author: Jenny Ketcham . Comments: 1 Comment

November 28, 2011: Thankful for Guilty Pleasures!

Here we are, still in Thanksgiving Week, and what are we doing?  We’re dodging Black Friday and Cyber Monday by watching our favorite Guilty Pleasures Bollywood films.  Come join us! 

 

Julie M:  Got Jaan-e-Mann (Darling, 2006) from the library.  Preity, Salman and Akshay…how can it miss?

 

Jenny K:  Tell me if it’s worth seeing. It was being filmed in NYC almost simultaneously with Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna and there were lots of reports on Bollywhat.com’s forum on the sightings around the city. Lots of fun reading about it, but I remember seeing references to Salman in drag as Marilyn in the Seven Year Itch white dress looking not very fetching, and I recall references to Anupam Kher playing a Toulouse-Lautrec-ish style dwarf, completely on his knees for the shoot. I just gave up at that point and didn’t go to see it.  Here’s a link to a Rediff article on what Anupam went through doing it.

 

Julie M:  Despite my general aversion to Salman, I really enjoyed Jaan-e-Mann. On a number of levels it is a typical love story, but there were staging devices that made it interesting and the first half was unrelentingly funny.

In the opening we are introduced to Agastya (Akshay Kumar), an astronaut in a space vehicle with a blonde astro-companion, telling her a flashback story of his friend Suhan (Salman Khan). Suhan is an out-of-work actor with a favorite uncle, who happens to be a dwarf (occasioning a run of puns that I’m sure in Hindi are hilarious but I just didn’t get in translation). He gets a letter from his ex-wife Piya (Preity Zinta) stating that since he has not paid alimony for the past many-X months, she will accept a one-time settlement of 50 lakhs and he has no further obligation to her. We learn through a flashback number (it’s a flashback within a flashback, if you are keeping track) that Piya left him after he was forced by his agent to separate from her as a positive career move (heroes can’t be married, doncha know). This is actually a very cool and surreal number and I love how it’s done.  As the flashbacks nest the dance numbers get crazier and crazier.

Suhan and his uncle decide that since he doesn’t have the money, the best way to get out of paying the sum is to find someone to marry her. Enter Agastya, Piya’s formerly nerdy college acquaintance, who is looking to hook back up with her, and not recognizing Suhan as her ex-husband. Brainstorm: put Agastya with Piya and have him marry her!  Here’s the number where Suhan and his uncle convince Agastya that his destiny lies with Piya (warning—this is a moderately offensive, all-dwarf dance number):

The guy in the purple suit is Salman as Agastya’s nerdy self in college. Love the cardboard cutout representing Piya (in college-age getup), and then the dwarf dressing up as Piya.

 

Jenny K:  It still looks a bit scary, especially in the dwarf number, but I’ll take your word for it. All those nods to KHNH and DCH (NY bridge shots, tilted just that way and the surprise red rose in the park) are sort of cute but also odd. And from the clips you have here it looks as if Preity is doing an extended cameo and never actually speaks! Funny!

 

Julie M:  Actually Preity does speak, quite a bit, but it’s true, you do go through the first, oh, hour or more without actually seeing Preity’s character in live action, only in flashback montages, and so when the real person shows up you have to get re-introduced to her through her own actions instead of filtered through everyone else’s years-old perceptions of her. And she’s very different in “person” from how the other two have portrayed her in the montages. I told you that there were some narrative devices that elevate this film above the typical crazy-comedy-romance genre.

 

Jenny K:  With all the numbers condensing through montages, is the movie shorter than normal Bollywood, or do they just pack three times as much in it?

 

Julie M:  It’s a full three hours—but you don’t notice.  It’s kind of strange how the montages tell the back stories very quickly and concisely, since Bollywood movies usually linger lovingly on back stories, but it leaves more time for the main action which consists of the developing friendship between Suhan and Agastya (Salman kind of channels SRK’s typical Raj-Rahul character in this), Suhan’s letting go of his longtime anger against Piya and the Piya/Agastya romance which has some very fun scenes. But all of these are typical rom-com-melodrama fare.

  

Jenny K:  With Salman it’s a Prem-Raj/Suraj type.  Only one Rahul that I can remember…but I get what you mean. 

 
Julie M: The rest of the film is controlled chaos as Suhan and his uncle make over the nerdy Agastya in Suhan’s trendy image and then drag him to New York to throw him in Piya’s path. Complication: Agastya is painfully shy and Suhan must stay within 100 meters of him with a transmitter to feed him lines without Piya recognizing him, occasioning many ridiculous but funny costumes. In the process Suhan learns the real reason(s) Piya left him and has to make a decision: continue with the ruse and let Piya be happy with Agastya, or try to get back together with her himself?

  

Jenny K:  And you found all of that funny?  The chaos sounds like it was not in the least controlled…but maybe that’s just me.  Put Salman and Akshay together and my hulchul-meter just goes spinning out of control.

 

Julie M: Overall the first half was crazy-hilarious, with the second half toned down and more romantic without the melodrama.  The ending comes fast and funny.

This setup had the potential to be really awful, and there are indeed some cringeworthy moments. There is even the obligatory senseless dual role, this time for Anupam Kher as the dwarf uncle in Mumbai and a look-alike but non-dwarf cafe manager in New York. But Akshay makes such a fetching nerd with his tiny glasses, and his smile is so adorable, and he and Salman make such a good buddy team, that I forgave the flaws. It’s much more fun to see them working together than at odds like in Mujse Shaadi Karogi. And Preity and Salman have excellent chemistry even though it’s seen only in flashbacks until the last 30 minutes. Sallu was actually rather engaging and almost like a real person.  He only opened up one small can of dishoom in the whole film, showing admirable restraint there if not for going shirtless, which he did early and often, and in one scene he 97% convinced me that he has some actual acting talent.

One of the best scenes was the introduction of the Suhan character via a dream sequence where he’s accepting a Filmfare Best Lead Actor award…in the 70s! Cool B/W footage of older stars with Salman inserted into the clip.

So…Jaan-e-Mann could have been awful but wasn’t. I might have hated it if I was in a really foul mood, but this is the kind of film that is so goofily good-natured that all its flaws can be forgiven.  It’s easily skip-able story-wise and actor-wise (no new ground for any of the leads) but it really is cool how they tried to do something different with the montages reflecting the layered flashbacks. And for that it’s worth seeing.

 

Jenny K:  The director, Shirish Kunder, is Farah Khan’s husband. He was her editor first and they fell in love working on Main Hoon Na, I think. He seems to have absorbed all her love of color and raucous energy and translated it in his own way. She choreographed for him, of course. Good to keep it all in the family!

 [a few weeks later]

Julie M:  So I was taking it easy this afternoon, and thought I’d watch a funny film from your box, so I selected Marigold (2007), anticipating a gleeful Hollywood/Bollywood fusion and Salman Khan acting entirely in English.

At first glance it was full of possibilities for an American-made film meant to introduce American audiences to the joys of Bollywood films without the offputting length and subtitles. Here’s the trailer.

American C-grade actress Marigold Lexton (played by real-life C-grade actress Ali Larter) with a bad attitude finds herself stuck in India and gets a part in a Bollywood film, where Prem Rajput (Salman Khan) is the choreographer, and love ensues. Complications arise in the form of Prem’s disapproving royal family and longtime-arranged fiancee, and Marigold’s boyfriend who arrives on the scene, but all ends well and the characters grow as people. Add sweet love songs, big dance numbers, music by Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy, lyrics by Javed Akhtar, and location shooting in Goa, and it couldn’t miss, right?

WRONG. I found the film a series of misses, although in some areas they were near misses. Salman Khan, locked into amused-smile “romantic” mode, was curiously low-key, displaying very little of the good-natured manic charm that makes him such a huge star in India. Ali Larter (and she was cast exactly why?) lacked the necessary comic timing to successfully pull off the b*tchy-cum-lovestruck Marigold. The story did not adequately build the case for Prem’s and Marigold’s attraction to each other, and the complications were not intense enough to make the audience feel that they could possibly be insurmountable and hence the stuff of dramatic tension.

I did like this number, which was the last scene in the film and very typical of an Indian-made Bollywood spectacle:

Maybe I’ve been watching REAL Bollywood, but the whole thing seemed rushed and some key scenes seemed to be missing–particularly, scenes where choreographer Prem takes the decidedly non-graceful Marigold in hand and teaches her how to dance, which would have given them a very nice and logical foundation for romance.

 

Jenny K:  Is this the same woman who was defending Bride and Prejudice so staunchly?  Well, I’ll agree that it was more effective than Marigold, but I wonder how you’d review B&P now?

 

Julie M:  I much preferred Bride and Prejudice as a film all in English, with a major Bollywood star, as one to introduce the genre to Western audiences and actually convince them that it’s worth a second look. All in all, if this was supposed to be a “crossover” film it didn’t do either Hollywood or Bollywood any favors.

This number, where Marigold supposedly proves her mettle as an actress and dancer, fell flat with me; it’s as if the entire dance troupe was infected with Ali Larter’s chronic stiffness despite the energetic choreography.

And the movie took itself too seriously: to my mind, romantic comedies (in any language) succeed because the characters know it’s a story and have fun with it. Finally, Salman only displays one bad shirt choice, which I have to admit despite my snarkiness I always look forward to in his films.

  

Jenny K:  I loved the white jacket with the fringe on the arms!  Very cool.  Who would have thought I’d have been approving his sartorial choices?!?

 

Julie M:  The sets and costumes were stunning, and I did enjoy a couple of the dance numbers, above, which were clearly given a lot of thought. In this beachside number, Marigold is introduced to the concept of dance numbers as integral to Bollywood filmmaking, and it’s a pretty awesome song too. 

Jenny K:  I felt much like you the first time I saw it. Ali was much too b*tchy to be at all endearing, and Salman being fully clothed and always charming didn’t seem to be at all believable to me. However, I sent it on because I watched it again recently on Netflix (It had been a two year gap, I think, since I saw it first) and I had really mellowed on it. Thought it did much better on second viewing, and I saw many more funny bits in Ali’s performance and much more sweetness in SK’s.

 [about a week later]

 Jenny K:  Went to see Rockstar with Pat and a friend of hers on the day it opened, after I got off work. Mid-week, how decadent! 

My main comment is: best Rahman Score since Meenaxi….some of the songs were just wonderful! Odd, though. I went through some of the clips of the videos on YouTube, and it must be that the numbers are very integrated into the plot, because the song that moved me the most is very generic looking here.

Admittedly, this is edited to pull out, I think, five minutes of build-up, and so that may have a lot to do with it. This one is the lead couple of Ranbir and Nargis reunited in Prague during an international music festival. In context it’s permeated with a bittersweet quality of remembrance of their time together two years past, of the fun they had before she was married. Their chemistry really built up in the longer version.

Basically, I liked it. Without too many specifics, I’ll say it was a nice performance by Ranbir, if you ignore the first, say, quarter of the film. They needed to just take ten minutes and say, “Jordan is a nice boy but is too bland and has no real drive and focus for his musical inspiration, and so he fixated on a random beauty to try to give him one.” See, there I saved us a good forty-five minutes of tedious exposition in one sentence.

The film only got rolling when things got darker, and this qawwali number marks where the slow first quarter finally picks up.  I’m always a sucker for a good qawwali…nice boy Jordan (Ranbir) is finally getting the more troubled life he wants to make his music more gritty…he tells his dad he won’t ever work in the family business and they kick him to the curb, and he winds up sleeping in the Haji Ali Dargah, a mosque, where he begins to find enlightenment and deepen his music with worship. Nice segment.

Drama, angst, sturm und drang continue as the film progresses…Ranbir’s hair gets even longer, and his facial hair more scruffy, and he gets much more physically attractive…though the look they gave him in this last big number went too far…Ranbir as Yanni in his Sgt. Pepper Phase…shudder. Angst is one thing but fashion masochism is something else again.

Julie M:  You know, that look isn’t so bad.  Maybe it’s just that it’s Ranbir, but I think it’s kind of cute.

 

Jenny K:  You are a hopeless case,  Jules. 

Newcomer Nargis Fakhri does alright, if a bit of an emotional, turn-on-a-dime shuttlecock in the first half, and she looks too much like Katrina Kaif. There’s a lovely cameo by Shammi Kapoor, in his last appearance. And the film looks wonderful with typically great cinematography by Anil Mehta (Lagaan, KHNH, Marigold). Don’t know if you’d consider it worth seeing on a big screen or not.

 

Julie M:  I’m so mad at the theater here, it’ll be a cold day in h*ll when I try to see a movie that isn’t action-based, because it’s impossible to tell when something is going to be subtitled.  But I’ll report back if I go. 

Meanwhile, your report got me into such a Ranbir mood that I actually PAID to see Bachna Ae Haseeno (Lucky Boy—not a literal translation—2008) through YouTube.  Here’s the trailer.

I had a lot of fun with it. Ranbir was absolutely winning as Raj Sharma, the handsome, successful cad (aka “killer”) who, 8 years apart, loves and then leaves two women (Minissha Lamba, Bipasha Basu) when they start to get serious about him, only to himself be dumped after he falls head-over-heels a few years later for a third (Deepika Padukone).

 

Jenny K:  Hah!  I thought you’d like BaH! Just the right mix of heartfelt and cheeky. And I remember the wonderful dancing, too. He’s right up there, though I am much more likely to have Imraan Khan as my menu-topper for guilty pleasure viewing, Ranbir does have his good points.

 

Julie M: I also liked this bhangra number, where Ranbir crashes a wedding so he can approach Minissha and apologize to her:

He realizes that he needs to redeem himself, and the journey he takes to apologize to his former lovers and atone for the impact his caddishness has taken on their lives is alternately funny and sweet.

The music was fun and Ranbir can dance, and dance well. Check out the number that appears over the opening credits: 

I thought the quick costume changes towards the end of the song were particularly interesting.  I was tickled to learn that it was a remake of/homage to this 1977 number, starring Ranbir’s dad Rishi Kapoor.  How much do you love the fluffy white suit and matching hat!!

Jenny K:  Fluffy!?!  Them there are industrial-grade full-on white paillettes!  Huge wonkin’ flat sequins that dangle and flip with each twitch of Rishi’s swivelin’ hips.  Gotta love it, as you say…though I’m not sure that paillettes should ever grace a man’s cap.  Sets a bad precedent.

 

Julie M:  The film had a “friendly appearance” by Kunal Kapoor, which I was not expecting, was a bonus (yum). And the first love story is inspired by DDLJ (not ripping it off–the Minissha character is a fan of the film, leading Raj to woo her using the film as a key to her heart), which made me giggle for the entire first half-hour of the film.  Here’s the entire song:

Granted, it was not a perfect film. It was overrun with anachronisms, which always bug me (example: the first story supposedly took place in 1996, but the cars and fashions were all wrong and there were modern cell phones; later, at a party, they dance to music from films that had not yet been released). The best friend character (“comedically” played by Hiten Paintal) was an *ss but Raj never seems to notice.

I remain bewildered as to why Deepika is given parts where she is expected to act, because clearly she is best suited for eye-candy roles (even Bipasha out-acted her, and that’s saying something, because I’m not a Bipasha fan either).  Ranbir spends too much time alternating between wearing obvious-branded Abercrombie clothing and wandering around inexplicably shirtless, although I’m not really complaining about the latter.

Finally, I liked this number, where, in order to obtain her forgiveness, Bipasha is making Ranbir dance (literally) attendance on her and he parodies the dancing styles of major Bollywood stars.

Ranbir’s acting in BAH redeemed him from the weird and confusing Saawariya and gives a hint as to how amazing he would be in Raajneeti. All in all, it was a nice Friday treat and a “guilty pleasure” to admit that I enjoyed greatly.

 

Jenny K:  I give thanks and hope the rest of the holiday season goes as well!  God Bless Us, Everyone!

November 28, 2011
Categories: Indian Film . Tags: , , , , , , , , . Author: Jenny Ketcham . Comments: Leave a comment

The Inna Cinema & The Outta Cinema of Salman Khan, Part I

Julie M: Mujhse Shaadi Karogi, supposed to be a “zany” comedy, is so far very stupid but I can’t stop watching it…let’s try a liveblog, shall we?

 

Jenny K:  The things you ask me to do… Salman and Akshay together. Yeesh. I may request something in return…Kathy is asking that I go to see a new Salman film, Bodyguard, that’s opening on Wednesday. I owe her one, because she didn’t like Crazy, Stupid, Love when I talked her into it. So, why don’t you go see Bodyguard, too, and we’ll make this a two-parter.  I have to put up with Akshay, and you get to put up with Kareena. You up to the challenge?

 

Julie M: Oh, I didn’t mean you and I should liveblog MSK. I was doing it myself, mainly to distract myself from the mindlessness that was that movie. But I am up for Bodyguard if it’s playing at the cinema. I’ll endure Salman if you’ll endure Akshay.  MSK is available free online on YouTube. This one online is much better quality than the video I got from the library.

 

Jenny K: Okay, it’s a go!  I’ll head off to watch MSK, and leave you with the trailer for Bodyguard that I found.

]

Julie M: Oh, good Lord, that trailer is insane. What did I agree to?

[Later on, Julie’s up first with Mujhse Shaadi Karogi’s play-by-play. Spoilers abound.]

Julie M: Salman Khan is Sameer, a kind, serious and moral young man albeit with a terrible temper that gets him into trouble. He decides he needs a change of luck and scenery, and gets a job as a lifeguard captain in Goa. Since he doesn’t have enough money to rent a whole room, he pays his landlord half rent with the understanding that he will share his room. Upon arrival he meets, and instantly falls in love with, Rani (Priyanka Chopra), his neighbor, who has a very strict father (Amrish Puri) whom Sameer instantly (though accidentally) alienates along with Rani.

 

Jenny K: I know Priyanka’s character, Rani is supposed to be a fashion designer, but isn’t she posing in the mirror and dancing rather provocatively in full view of any passerby, really too often to have it not be on purpose?  Not the behaviour of your average nice Indian damsel.  And I’m very curious to see if Goan lifeguards really look Baywatch perfect down to the red suits and floatation devices they carry…I think I saw Pam Anderson in the background once.

Julie M: The Baywatch thing got to me too.  In fact, the entire Goan scene was too SoCal and not enough India.  I’m sure it’s not like that in real life…clearly aiming at a NRI audience? 

Anyway, back to the action.  While Sameer (who has a very active and elaborate fantasy life, seen in numerous songs) is pondering how to turn the situation around, enter Sunny (Akshay Kumar), a charming and fun-loving drifter who is also a bit of a con artist and is the complete opposite personality type from Sameer. Sunny gets a room at the same boardinghouse as Sameer and of course ends up as Sameer’s roommate. He likewise meets and falls in love with Rani, to somewhat better results since he takes the time early on to suck up to her father, and her father’s little smush-faced dog, which impresses Rani.

 

Jenny K: Ah, this is beginning to come back to me.  I think I saw this in the cinema when it came out…I definitely remember Tommy the Dog.  And those skin tight jeans on Salman…actually, he looks better in them than I remember.  And his voice is always quite caressing, as I now recall… I didn’t remember Akshay’s arrival, “copter-skiing” would  you call it?  Sad, that boy just doesn’t know how to make an entrance. 

 

Julie M:  Clearly the Akshay-bashing has begun early!  I thought it was a fun entrance that defined his character, but his teeth looked very fake in that scene.  Onward… Sameer decides to take the tack of becoming Rani’s “secret admirer,” even to the point of anonymously bailing out her failing business, all of which backfires when Rani thinks Sunny is behind all of the thoughtful acts and Sunny doesn’t correct her. Meanwhile, Sunny takes opportunities to sabotage Sameer whenever he can, and takes credit for what is actually Sameer’s talents in music and painting to impress Rani. Sameer tries very hard to control his temper when he finds out abut Sunny’s shenanigans. Rani and Sunny spend increasing amounts of time together and Rani thinks Sameer is a jerk.

 

Jenny K: Don’t get your dhoti in a twist… I’m not bashing your boy, I was reacting to his character!  And in any case, I actually liked his entrance;  in an over the top Khiladi/Evel Knievel kinda way.

 

Julie M: I’m sure eventually it will all get straightened out, Sameer’s true love and endearing qualities will win out over Sunny’s misdirection and charm, and Rani will realize who really loves her. But not before Sameer gets pushed to the breaking point and dukes it out mano-a-mano with Sunny. (You can’t have action heroes like Salman and Akshay in the same movie without pitting them against each other, right?)

 

Jenny K: Sunny…Wicked Sunny…(got to have the invisible chorus with every mention of him) is really beginning to grate on me, and it’s working in Salman’s favor.  I just found myself thinking that he looked very nice in that gold tie-dyed kurta, and how cute his voice was when he dropped grandma’s jar on the floor and almost cooed “All that money!”  Oh, dear…I cannot be warming to him after all these years…Wicked Sunny!

 

Julie M: I admit that his character is pure evil, but I just can’t get mad at Akshay, he’s so cute.  But the invisible chorus and the boing-boing noises are simply heinous.  There are also numerous silly and farcical subplots and comic characters, including a hapless astrologer with a twin brother who is a motorcycle thug (can’t wait to see how that comes into play:(), a landlord who is blind and mute on alternating days, and an insomniac security guard. Lots of dumb random exclamations and noises and effects meant to underscore the “craziness” of various situations.

Jenny K: Well the twin brother thing may just be there to give Rajpal Yadav something to do.  Maybe the director couldn’t decide whether he should play it sweet or sour, so just split his persona (and his name) in half and came up with Raj and Paul.  Just a theory.  I also like Kader Khan (Duggal the Landlord) popping up drunk from under the table.  Funny visual.

 

Julie M: I never thought of that.  Kind of an inside joke…Wait…here’s the Sameer vs Sunny fistfight but it’s not occurring in the way I thought it might. Sunny has drugged Sameer by telling him Rani brought him some juice, and Sameer is hallucinating that the motorcycle thug gang is a pack of Sunnys that he has to pummel. This boy DEFINITELY has a wild fantasy life. So he beats all of the thugs up, thinking they’re Sunny.

 

Jenny K: Wicked Sunny…I’ll stop now…

 

Julie M: Oh, and Salman wears the most ridiculous clothes in this. that is, when he is called upon to wear clothes–as a lifeguard he’s half-naked while on the job and at every opportunity they have him shirtless. In one scene they have him running down the street in pajama pants and bare chest. Now he has on a blue-green tie-dyed, well, blouse (it’s more than a shirt!) that will cause me nightmares.  Enjoy this musical number, which is one of Sameer’s fantasies early in the movie. Skip ahead to 2:50 where you see Salman and Akshay in perhaps the pinnacle of both of their sartorial careers. And the choreography will make you howl. After 30 seconds you can stop.

 

Jenny K:  I agree, the blue-green shirt isn’t his best look, but it’s not as bad as the primary color-blocked shirt that reads like a Mondrian, at the beginning, complete with headband, if I remember correctly.  And the miniscule grass skirts in the title song.  Though, if that’s a contest, even though Akshay is taller, somehow Salman looks better in them.  Not that those hula-gans should be encouraged.

 

Julie M:  I noticed the Mondrian shirt too, and hated it.  Salman should never wear round-necked shirts, they make his head look like a tiny little piece of fruit up there. 

 OK, it’s all over now. Somehow Rani and Sameer ended up friends despite all of Sunny’s meddling. Sunny and Sameer had a big blowup that resulted in a chase, ending up at a cricket field where Rani and her parents were attending a big match. Sameer (whom Sunny had earlier taunted that he was too much of a chicken to confess his feelings to Rani) saw an open microphone and used the opportunity to tell her how he felt and ask her to marry him. Rani’s dad said that he approved and Rani said yes.

 

Jenny K: I think Rani was just scared away by Sunny’s scary hand painted pinstripe suit.  I was.

  [Really.   Click on the pic to the left and take a good, long look at it.  If you DARE.]

Julie M: Yeah, that one goes down in the annals of bad clothing choices.  Along with the yellow outfit from Bhool Bhulaiyya.  BACK TO THE FILM.  At this point Sunny confesses that he is really Sameer’s childhood friend Arun, who was the only person who understood Sameer’s temper, encouraged him to find a way to express his feelings less violently, and could calm him down. Arun had emigrated to America as a child and as an adult, came back to find Sameer. He found out from Sameer’s grandmother that Sameer had gone to Goa to start a new life and try to control his temper. Arun decided to follow him to Goa, enter his life and help him realize that he could own his feelings without having to fight all the time. Sameer and Arun hug and the movie ends at Sameer and Rani’s beachside wedding with Sunny/Arun as the best man.

 

Jenny K: Actually Sameer and Sunny’s chemistry was better at the end (and in the outtakes over the end credits, too) than either of them with Rani.  But that seems to be true in many Indian films, I find..  However, I did like Sameer and Rani’s vibe in “Aaja Soniye.”

 

Julie M: Final opinion: the main story had possibilities but there was a lot of very stupid extras that ruined it. Salman left me cold (as he often does) but I love Akshay’s smile and the way he moves. So I spent most of the movie just enjoying him.

 

Jenny K: And my last observation is that rewatching Mujhse Shaadi Karogi shows me that if Salman is robbed of his usual expression of complacency due to his character’s well-meaning bumblings, he can be quite endearing in a film.  I enjoyed him more than I’d like to admit.

[Since the Salman Outta The Cinema experience engendered such a lengthy filmi-critical wrangle, we’ll break it into two pieces. Look for Salman’s Inna The Cinema to post later in the week, when Bodyguard comes out.]

August 31, 2011
Categories: Indian Film . Tags: , , , , , , . Author: Jenny Ketcham . Comments: Leave a comment

Part 15: All About Dancing, and Playing it Saif

Julie M:  Thanks for pointing out the actors in Bawandar! I did notice that the lead actress was the same as the birth mom in KM, but the familiarity of the other actors escaped me. I guess that means they’ve disappeared into their roles, which makes them good actors.

Actually one of my friends got back to me this morning and wants to go tonight. I think dangling Hrithik in front of her did the trick.

 

Jenny K:  Yay! A taker! I knew something would pan out! Enjoy, and tell me what you think! As to your next shipment, I’ll try to send you something more soon.

 

Julie M:  OK, saw Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara this evening. Really great: funny, great buddy moments, amazing scenery, perfect pacing. I’m not sure it was necessary to see on the big screen but it definitely made a difference, although we were sitting a little too close. Hrithik’s face should always be 10 ft. tall…and you are right, he needed to dance more. Theater was about 85% full (6pm show), mostly Indians, mostly younger couples apparently on dates, only 1 granny that I saw and a couple of entire families. My friend got kind of excited about Indian movies (ok, she got really excited about Hrithik) so I recommended a couple to her.

Why do people not like Katrina Kaif? I thought she was adorable. Is it because they think she’s taking work away from “real” Indian actresses?

 

Jenny K: I was sitting in the second row, too and to the side. They had us in a smaller theater at the multiplex and it was completely full at the 8:40 show. There were seven of us and so we had to break into twos and threes around the house. You’re right, Hrithik is a sight to see that close. Which ones did you recommend to your friend? After you’re well and truly hooked on Hrithik, you have to see the following two scenes from his first movie Kaho Naa…Pyaar Hai, that sent all the Indian girls over the edge. No one knew anything about him before this, had just been a 2nd AD on a few of his father’s films. He wasn’t his father’s first choice for this role, I believe, but Hrithik sure picked it up and ran with it. On the first clip, just have to watch about 3 1/2 minutes. Sorry there are no subtitles, but they had the best video quality and these are for unabashed ogling, not worrying about the plot.

As to the Katrina thing…I’ll tell you, I’ve seen her in a few films with Akshay Kumar and also a few with her boyfriend Salman Khan and she’s never been as warm and attractive before this film. Usually she’s sort of cold and wooden, like a mannequin. If she keeps up this way, I won’t have any problems with her.

 

Julie M:  Nice clips! I liked the “Club Indiana” in the 2nd one…Indiana Jones…remember how we saw that together the first weekend it came out? You also had a nice clip in your blog, the one that’s a more “arty” dance number, “Main Aisa Kyun Hoon”. I’m going to forward that entire Hrithik blog post to her.

I recommended Dhoom 2 (!!!), Koi…Mil Gaya and Krrish. I know Dhoom 2 isn’t very intellectual but he is all over it, and it’s fun. That’s all I could think of off the top of my head, plus she is in the same library system as I am so I made sure to recommend films I knew she could get easily. She is also a big indie movie fan with the same basic taste as me so I gave her the names of 4 SRK movies I knew she would like, My Name is Khan, Paheli, Swades and Chak De India. I told her that if she wanted to experience full-on Bollywood she could go for Devdas or KKKG but I warned her what she might not like about them, and told her that I couldn’t get through Devdas myself.

If you have KNPH please send it…you know how I love looking at him…

Jenny K:  Funny, when I saw the club name, I thought, “Club India-na?” Chee! Bad pun, with Na? being the Hindi equivalent of saying “right?” I, loving bad puns, jumped to that right away.  It’s all in how you look at it.

Side bit of nostalgia.  Do you know, your dad told me my favorite pun, ever.  History based, it is as follows:  One man’s Mede is another man’s Persian.  Still makes me giggle, funny guy, your dad.

I do have quite a few other HR films, but I had hesitated to send them because most are too melodramatic and/or too cheesy. Do you want them all, and if so, do you want them in a lump or rationed out so they last longer (and so B doesn’t realize how far into HrithikMania you’re going)?

Julie M:  The club in the clip was DEFINITELY decked out like the cave in the beginning of Raiders. Obvious to me.

If the HR films are very cheesy don’t send them because I don’t have time to waste on them, but a little cheese is OK (I have a fast-forward button). I’ll trust your judgment.

Late last night, after getting back from the theater and before B got home from Michigan at 1AM (urk), I watched Love Aaj Kal. Meh. Saif was somewhat watchable in the dual role (yikes, he is overdoing the body building!) but frankly, neither story was very interesting. Story 1: Girl and boy are together for 2 years, break up to lead different professional lives, then find out in the absence that they are soulmates. Big deal. Story 2: 45 years ago boy sees girl, instant love, cannot declare his love so he stalks her until she falls in love with him, he declares himself to her family on the eve of her wedding to someone else, he gets her. Also, big deal. Popular in India but I cannot see why. Hope the other 2 I got are better.

Jenny K:  Love Aaj Kal is an odd thing…when I saw the trailer, I said, I think I saw this. When I read the synopsis on IMDb and later, with your description I said, yeah, I must have seen this in the theaters when it came out. Bad sign when I really don’t remember much about it at all except vague images of Saif in a Sikh turban and Rishi Kapoor in it, I think as the modern day version of that guy Saif was playing in the past. I didn’t even remember it long enough to put it on my list. Maybe I did just read a few reviews and look at a few trailers and then decided not to go…that thing I have about not “getting” Saif as a romantic lead. Though he was okay in Parineeta, as I recall. Sort of an exception to my rule.

Julie M:  But Saif was really cute as the romantic lead in Hum Tum. Better direction, maybe. Also with Rishi Kapoor.

Jenny K:  Ah, we must agree to disagree. I saw that and Salaam Namaste and thought he just tried too hard to do the SRK charming thing and it just didn’t fit comfortably on him. He spoke too fast, then his voice got higher and squeakier, (In other things like KHNH, I’d have said that his voice was his most attractive feature) and he never knew when to pull back from the humor with his heroine and just get serious, and therefore sexy. Yes, it can be formulaic, but SRK has that timing down in his sleep, and I haven’t found Saif able to get it, or, alternatively, to find his own rhythms as a romantic lead, at least not yet. But put him into quirky or dark roles, and something else happens with him…completely convincing. I’m going to send you Being Cyrus.

Julie M:  Saw Aaja Nachle this evening. I could have sworn the plot was lifted from a 1940s Judy Garland movie–“let’s put on a play to save the auditorium from being torn down.” Hated the first half (so formulaic and boring) but it got much better in the 2nd half, and the final play was so beautifully done. [Jenny K’s Note: I’d have put the clip on of the finale play, Laila-Majnu, but there are no good copies of a letterboxed version on YouTube…and it’s over 20 minutes long!]

I finally understand why India loves dramatic love stories. We only have Shakespeare (and in the USA it’s not even ours, and he ripped off a lot too), they have 1000+ years of epic poetry and fable and legend about couples and love and honor and duty and all. Our culture is pretty weak that way. Maybe that’s why the Bible plays so well here–it contains some really great stories that are required to fill the soul-gap that the Puritans created when they banned whatever was magical and beautiful about religion.

Jenny K:  But the “Let’s put on a show” genre is almost completely new for Indian audiences, at least from what I’ve seen… so there is some positive aspects of their stealing from Judy:-)  Seriously, Indian popular cinema has never needed a framework for the musical numbers, like a backyard show, they put it in wherever emotional clarity is needed. 

I also love anything that gives Madhuri the chance to dance until she drops. She can really grab your attention…and I’ll agree that I bought the video just to be able to see the full Laila Majnu show whenever I wanted to. You practically didn’t need the subtitles. I didn’t like the New York scenes as much, felt very dated, except Akshaye giving Madhuri a Starbucks coffee at the end, so you figure he’ll visit her there. A small role for him here, but a lighthearted one, I particularly liked his making pizza and asking the daughter for gum and telling her “I’m the bad guy”.

I agree with your points for the love of drama, but I think I’d add that a good portion of Indian audiences find an outlet for the range of emotions that they often don’t express in real life. They are not encouraged in PDAs or love matches, etc., and like most of us, spend the good portion of their lives doing ordinary, undramatic things.  Why not  indulge in travel, riches, true love and epic tragedy on screen whenever you can?

Julie M: “New York scenes…”?? did I miss something? all I can recall is she’s rehearsing her company in the dance studio, she’s on the phone hearing bad news, then she’s on the plane with her daughter. Maybe a brief visual flashback when she’s telling the story of the failed marriage to the American photographer? I admit that I did not have time to watch the bonus DVD last night, but I will flip through that for deleted scenes tonight before I have to return the library DVDs tomorrow.

OK–last movie review–saw Bhool Bhulaiyaa. Very odd. Starred Shiney Ahuja, the actor I liked from Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi, and Akshay Kumar. Akshay was very likable in this–no martial arts–he played a goofy but ultimately smart psychiatrist. Even though it ended up being somewhat interesting, the plot felt contrived and there were too many irrelevant and farce-like aspects in the first half for me to say I truly liked the whole thing although there were some really good moments. Vidya Balan was great as the female lead although she overacted near the end. There was a lot of opportunity to make this movie something special, that I felt was wasted.

Funny, when looking it up I learned that it was a re-re-re-remake of Chandramukhi–or, rather, it and Chandramukhi had the same original source–with our buddy Rajinikanth as the psychiatrist. Aha!

So, overall, thumbs up for Akshay and Shiney, so-so for the rest, and man, did I love the beauty of the haunted house.

Jenny K:  So that’s an “Okay” for BB or did you actually like it overall? Can’t quite tell. 🙂 As to the “New York scenes” question, the couple of times I’ve seen Aaja Nachle, I thought someone referred to her studio as being in New York, or some subscript said it. Perhaps I just imagined it, but I don’t think so. There was only the scene at the beginning and one over the credits, so two had to be plural. Didn’t mean to imply you’d missed anything.

Julie M:  BB was merely OK.  2.5 stars out of 5.  Don’t go out of your way to find it, because it’s not that good, but if you come across it you would probably enjoy it.

July 30, 2011
Categories: Indian Film . Tags: , , , , , , , , , . Author: Jenny Ketcham . Comments: 3 Comments

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