Julie M: I saw Company last night. I found it boring until maybe the last 45 minutes–I passed the time by staring at Viveik. Viveik and Ajay acted well (and as usual Ajay seemed to bring out Viveik’s acting abilities), but I didn’t find the story all that compelling. I don’t watch gangster movies in English, so I don’t know why I thought watching them in Hindi would make them more interesting. So please, no more gangster films unless they are funny (like Lago Rahe Munnabhai, and I will probably also borrow Munnabhai MBBS soon). But not goofy/slapstick funny, because I hate that too. I hate the goofy noises in farce-y Indian movies.
Jenny K: Not much to worry about with me sending lots of silly slapstick because I tend not to buy them. I only got the Munnabhai movies because I have a little crush on Arshad Warsi…he plays the sidekick Circuit in the film. He is a really good dancer and he used to choreograph, too, but since he became “comedy gold” they don’t tend to let him waste time tapping his toes.
I keep trying to buy one really bad movie, Mujhe Mere Biwi Se Bachaao, because Arshad is in it and his dance numbers in it are HIL-AR-EEE-OUS, and still fantastic dancing.
Here’s the first one from Youtube. Rekha put on about thirty pounds for the role of a bored rich housewife who hires a nightclub singer/dancer to get her “in shape” for a part in the movies. She’s making fun of every dance movie she’s ever done, including Umrao Jaan (and still dancing rings around girls half her age!), and he’s trying to pull out every SRK “sexy” dance move he can rip off. Very funny (somehow I think of Kirstie Alley and Maks from DWTS) Watch it again after you’ve seen UJ and it will be even funnier.
And not quite as funny, (unless like me, he reminds you of Matt Drudge in that hat) this introduces Arshad’s character as an entertainer, and I like his moves.
But still, every time I buy a copy it seems to dissolve into a mass of pixels at about Track 15. Never seen the end of it. Seems to be a problem with the master back at Eros Entertainment. Really a bad film so I won’t waste more than ten dollars on it, if that…Or maybe, Naseeruddin Shah, who plays Rekha’s philanderin’ hubby, got a look at the final product, realized, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t save it, and couldn’t convince them to cut him out of it, so he snuck in and mucked up the master copy! Yesss! Now, if only they had a plot that good!
Sorry, back to what you said earlier…Dhoom is a film that I haven’t seen because a) Hrithik isn’t in it and b) Hrithik isn’t in it and c) Esha Deol is a whiny annoying heroine (except in Yuva) and d) there’s way too much Uday Chopra (LittleB’s sidekick) for my taste without Hrithikness to deflect my attention from it. Or is that Hrithikosity?…Whatever. Dhoom 3 may be another matter. Rumor is that Aamir is going to be the new villain that LittleB is chasing. Mmmmm….
And you may like Munnabhai MBBS better, because the movies are two years apart but Sanjay Dutt looks five or six years younger, and I find him much sexier in this one. You believe the love story more. He also has a nostalgia thing going because his father in this film is played by his real father Sunil Dutt who was a star in the seventies, I think. He died soon after they filmed this together. I wish I had known that you were up for a girl’s weekend when I put together your next package…ah well. You must make due. Only one fluffy one. Two more issue films for you.
Julie M: Thanks for the links. He’s a great dancer and the first one was funny. So I gather that Rekha is known as being a bit of a looney tune? Explain!
Jenny K: Rekha is very intense. In interviews she often speaks of herself in the third person, sorta like that annoying kid in Fanaa. “Rehan/Rehka doesn’t want to do that…” yeeeesh.. I also think she likes to tempt career suicide, because she takes some roles that just ache to have you compare them with her earlier roles. And although she’s still quite beautiful, she doesn’t look quite the way she did in Umrao Jaan.
Julie M: Rangeela. Eh. I find it amazing that the film was done in 1995 and the hair, fashions and makeup make it look like, oh, 1984 or so. Aamir looked cute and young. But otherwise I found the film very boring. Saw most of it on double-speed. Rahman music good, though.
Jenny K: Well, perhaps that’s why the director, the aforementioned Ram Gopal Varma, went on to direct almost solely crime dramas like Company. He agreed with you. Considering the films that Aamir had been forced to do while starting his career, this one almost was sweet. Very traditional plotline. I liked the songs and the dancing enough to put up with most of the silliness. And I get a kick out of how much Urmila’s bust size jumps around with her padding in the various numbers. She’s never been one of my favorites, but I find she gets proportionately more annoying and silly the longer her hair gets (and therefore the bigger the boobs, for some reason). Her hair controls her interpretations, I think.
Julie M: I liked some of the dancing, but given her outfits I kept feeling like I was watching an aerobics video. (funny about the hair-boob correlation)
Jenny K: As I’ve said before, Indian films tend to be about ten to fifteen years behind the trends, at least fashion-wise, if not in overall style. Not quite so much nowadays, they do seem to be finding the global norm faster. Perhaps due to cultural saturation in film and the internet… everything is available, everywhere, instantly.
I have a theory about Urmila’s fashion in this film, though. I got the general impression of “youthfulness”, colorful, like the title [Rangeela means “Colorful One“], baby-doll length in the skirts, worn with leggings so you don’t see too much leg, lots of caps and ponytails, etc. It was kind of like they didn’t want to lose her audience from her child star days by changing her look to be too sexy, too quickly. Then, toward the end they allowed her to grow up a bit, maybe making the transition both for the actress and the audience. Just a thought.
Also, you just end up getting used to a more decorated sensibility in Indian fashion. Nothing simple, nothing plain. They just don’t groove to it at all. They love to play with their clothes, change them often, add fringe, add zippers, even ones that are totally non-functional. For some this works, for, some, well maybe not even Hrithik can’t make it work…
Julie M: Saw Bluffmaster…very funny. Double- and triple-bluffs, especially when you consider the film itself is kind of a bluff. Very Hollywood-style.
[Jenny K’s Note: Bachchan Senior has the full one on Youtube, too!]
I’ve noticed that Indian fashions tend to be a bit, um, gaudier than we like them here. In film when it gets too out there I just put it down to an overactive costumer imagination, since I’ve seen it being pretty gaudy (lavender and yellow sari? Eeecccchhh) in real life too.
Jenny K: The Bollywood Fashion Extremes: For Men, or Your Costuming Rupees, at Work?!?
Military Fashion Through the Ages a la Conan
and this
Men in floral shirts…too floral
Men in headbands…any
SRK trying to make neckties cool in DON
or, perhaps aiming for a Brandoesque moment
Akshay should just skip the leather jackets (and the beard!) and this, and also refrain from trying to play a “cool rockstar”
And men should not try to play sexy in a chef’s cap or a tiny yachting cap, or a pimp hat…this outfit on the cover of the DVD scared me from Khalnayak for years (I sort of liked it when I fianlly saw it)
Julie M: Hilarious!!! (I just finished HDDCS and Salman had some pretty heinous shirts in that one)
Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam–not so bad, actually. The big dance numbers were awesome, the costuming lovely (albeit unbelievable…in this day and age, who would believe such a wealthy yet super-traditional family?) and except for PAINFULLY drawing out the big reunion moment, the melodrama was fairly easy to handle. Ajay beats Salman hands down acting-wise in this one, although Salman was pretty cute in the first half (which he seemed to spend half of shirtless, you were right), and character-wise as well. Nandini chose the right guy, as I knew she would. And shame on them for trying to pass off some obvious Eastern European country as Italy…they didn’t even bother to disguise the local language or the writing on the taxicabs!
Jenny K: It’s so sad when they develop a shirt allergy… they begin to fling them off, hither and yon, with almost no provocation. “I know you only asked me for directions to the puja, but I can explain better without this heavy t-shirt clouding my thinking.” It got even worse for Salman as he buffed up. Now he’s a tank in a flowered shirt. In HDDCS, he was still a bit youthful and winsome, however he was so manic, so often that I took to calling this mood “Monkey Boy” ooh-ooh-ahh-ahh-Ooh-Ooh-AHH-AHH-EEEK-EEEK-EEEK!!! “Yes I am from Italy, and I can prove it. Hand me that banana and I’ll eat it while hanging from the rafters and singing O Sole Mio!…With my shirt off, of course!”
So I sat on the Mall in DC for July 4th, with my Indian movie buddies, Pat and Kathy, Kathy’s husband, Mark, and one of Kathy’s friends from work, Reena, who hails from Mumbai, and as we waited for the fireworks, Reena and I passed the time by singing the following song sung. “Aati Kya Khandala”, was sung by Aamir (his own voice this time) in the (otherwise dark and moody) film Ghulam. It had been a big hit and BigB, Jaya and Kajol sang it in K3G at his party. Well, Reena sang it much better than I did, I’d forgotten most of the words that I’d tried to memorize.
And for added American Holiday Silliness, this video features Akshaye Khanna and Aish. They have been trying to make it in the Big Apple, almost like brother and sister, and suddenly Aish has decided that if she doesn’t convince him of her devotion to him, he’s going to be seduced by this American born Indian vixen, and she goes to Coney Island to break up their date.
Julie M: You are hilarious.
I liked The Blue Umbrella but it was too self-consciously arty (i.e., slow-moving). Beautifully shot, boring story. We know Stealing Is Wrong and there will be Consequences, just move it along, please. The little girl was totally adorable but she doesn’t seem to have done much since?
Oh, and I prefer “manic happy Salman” to “romantic Salman” where he gets this sappy expression on his face and gazes deeply into someone’s eyes.
Jenny K: I think The Blue Umbrella was done as a break between Maqbool and Omkara. After all that angst and violence, he needed a bit of sweetness and art 🙂 It did very well in the filmfest circuit, I believe.
Jenny Ketcham
julialmoore
Filmi-Goris 
