Deewani for Bollywood

Lights Camera Masala: Making Movies in Mumbai

2010-01-03T21:45:00.029-06:00

I've been reading Lights Camera Masala: Making Movies in Mumbai, a coffee table book about Bollywood with pictures by Sheena Sippy and text by Naman Ramachandran. Before I take it back to the library I thought I'd write down a few tidbits from the book which amused me:

I'd heard before that Karan Johar liked to use the letter K in his movie titles because he'd been told that it was an auspicious letter for him. But according to this book, the K business goes further than that: apparently when he was born, he was given an entirely different name, but then when he was only six days old, his mother just woke up that morning and decided that his name should start with a K instead, so she changed it to Karan (p. 228*). His original name, would you believe it, was Rahul. (Rahul, of course, was the name of the hero in both of the first two films he directed, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai and Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham.)

On page 115 there's a full-page shot of Abhishek Bachchan wearing a custom-made basketball jersey**.

It looks like it was from the same photo shoot as the current background of Abhi's twitter page!! (I am easily amused.)

And finally, something of an answer to a persistent question of mine: why are films in India so quick to be labeled as hits or flops after what seems like very little time in the theatres? I've gotten the impression that a film which has a poor opening weekend is immediately relegated to "flop" with almost no chance for redemption. What about next week and word of mouth for building an audience? Can't more than one movie at a time do well at the box office? Well, maybe not: "In a country dominated by cavernous single-screen cinemas with a large number of seats, multiplexes were virtually unknown until the late 1990s . . . " (p. 226). I had never thought about the impact that the type of movie theatre (single screen vs. multiplex) would have on the overall movie business. If a single-screen theatre doesn't make enough money on a certain movie in the first few days to justify keeping it going, they have to try something else as soon as possible. A multiplex can afford to show the blockbuster as well give a chance to the smaller movies, and can keep them playing longer by moving them around from bigger to smaller screens or back again as demand requires. While the number of multiplexes is increasing, there are still tons of single-screen theatres throughout the country affecting the economics of how long movies can be kept alive at the box office.

Oh, and one last thing: yes, the photographer of the book, Sheena Sippy, is the sister of director Rohan Sippy, and the daughter of Sholay director Ramesh Sippy. She is also married to Kunal Kapoor (no not this Kunal Kapoor :

but Shashi and Jennifer Kapoor's son Kunal. I couldn't find a picture for him.

*It took me forever to find that page number. I wish there were an index to the book.

**Purple cloth with yellow and white vinyl-looking trim, with the word "Abhishek" sewn across the top of the chest, and the number 69 sewn on the front, also in yellow vinyl, in case you can't see it very well.

Thanks Santa!

2009-12-28T23:32:00.006-06:00

Now that the Filmi Secret Santa Project 2009 has finished, I need to give credit and thanks to my Secret Santa: Daddy's Girl (at In Praise of All Things Dharmendra). The Priyanka Chopra / Who's that Girl video she made for me was just one of her wonderful gifts, but I'm keeping the rest for myself.

Well, okay, here's one other :)

I really had a lot of fun finding and making the gifts for my own recipient as well as finding out what my Santa would come up with (presents in your email inbox! just like . . . well, Christmas!). I thought it would be a fun thing to give and receive filmi videos, pictures, songs, whatever else, but when I signed up for it I didn't really think about what it would involve--I drew the name of someone I didn't know at all, so I had a lot of sleuthing to do to find her some things she might like. And then once my own Santa unveiled herself, it turned out to be a great way to get to know more about not one but two bloggers. I'm looking forward to next year already! And thanks to everyone involved! शुक्रिया! धन्यवाद!

Secret Santa Gift!

2009-12-19T18:54:00.002-06:00

So I signed up for the (first annual?) Filmi Secret Santa project, dreamed up by Beth Loves Bollywood. One of the virtual gifts I’ve gotten from my Secret Santa (it’s handmade! just for me!) made me laugh like a drain*: It’s a video of Priyanka Chopra pics, set to the Madonna song Who’s That Girl?

http://www.esnips.com//doc/580693a1-fe85-4330-b364-8d12852a43b6/Whos-That-Girl.flv

For why this gift is so incredibly funny to me, see here and here. Oh, and here.

And as a bonus, there’s a cameo of the original Spygirl, La Femme Nikita, at the end of the video!

Thank you, Santa!

*Yeah, I don't really know what that means, either.

2009-09-03T23:14:00.001-05:00

Chandni Chowk to China: 1st half too slow, 2nd half much better, more action. Also, what a difference (shaving off) a mustache makes. La.

2009-07-02T22:50:00.001-05:00

The book Bollywood Nights is like Valley of the Dolls without the redeeming qualities. I got bored and didn't finish it.

2009-07-01T21:50:00.001-05:00

Aaja Naachle nutshell review: The second half is much better than the first. Konkona-Kunal and Laila-Majnu are best parts. Plus Irfan.

2009-05-19T22:08:00.001-05:00

Marigold: Ack, they're playing Dhadak Dhadak! A good big chunk of it, too. Easily amused, I am.

2009-05-19T21:48:00.001-05:00

Yes, I'm watching Marigold. The idea of a romance starring Ali Larter and Salman Khan was just too mindboggling NOT to watch.

2009-05-19T21:43:00.001-05:00

Marigold: She lands at Bombay airport, then takes a 10hr taxi to Goa? Are there no flights to Goa? Must brush up on my travel knowledge.

Confession No. 4

2009-05-10T20:35:00.001-05:00

Yes, I loved Fanaa. It blew me away. It was one of the very first Bollywood films I ever saw, and I had never heard of the Hindi film masala format where a light-hearted romp with a naïve(ish) blind girl on vacation with her friends and a scarf-wearing rascal(ish) tour guide could suddenly turn into an action drama of the type it turned into, namely

[SPOILER ALERT - highlight the blank space to see]

a terrorism action drama, with the romantic hero of the first half becoming the villain of the second half; or if not the villain, then at least a conflicted bomber-type person in love.

What? Who knew that was going to happen? Obviously not me.

[END SPOILER ALERT].

I saw the movie in the theatre, so there was a proper fifteen-minute intermission, and I can still remember how boggled I was at the turn it took right before the end of the first half (as well as how the intermission chai and samosas tasted, too, mmm. I can smell the cardamom now). Maybe it's just me and I am an idiot about not paying attention to what's going to happen next; I can usually be easily surprised at plot twists in films because I like to let the movie happen without trying to think too far ahead about how it will come out. And maybe if I had seen other films like it before, I would have had some idea what was coming, but at any rate, I was not prepared.

Oddly enough, though, I was prepared in one tiny area: I had seen the website of the film, which was quite fancy and high-end (lots of Flash) in preparation for seeing the movie, and it drilled the soundtrack into my head. And I also somehow knew that this film was Kajol's big comeback after six years away from films to have children (even though I didn't have any previous knowledge of who Kajol really was)

and that the buzz was that Aamir Khan was thought to be a little too old to be playing that particular hero, or not as good-looking as he would have been several years earlier (I don't know, I didn't see any problem at the time, but now I can kind of see their point, sort of).

My experience with Bollywood/Indian films up to that point consisted of Monsoon Wedding, Bride and Prejudice, and a couple of Aishwarya films, neither of which had the clearly enormous budget that had been lavished on Fanaa. The fancy movie website! The "Des Rangeela" dance number in the outdoor amphitheatre with the packed audience! That huge beautiful cabin in the mountains! I was totally smitten. And boggled.

Yet AGAIN!

2009-05-09T14:14:00.001-05:00

I went over to Anarchivist's house lthe night before last to watch Billu Barber, and when the film was over and the credits rolled, I turned to her and said, "Priyanka Chopra was in this film? Where?" My brain acknowledged all the other big stars in Billu: Lara Dutta as Irfan Khan's wife - check; Om Puri as the cheapskate villager - check; Deepika Padukone with Shah Rukh Khan in the sci-fi film set number and then Kareena Kapoor again with Shah Rukh in the "Maarjani" song - check and check. But, Priyanka, no. Even after I vowed to remember what she looked like, after I watched and liked her performances in Salaam-e-Ishq and Dostana, somehow she managed to totally get past me here again in Billu. This girl needs to get a job as a spy.

Confession No. 3

2009-05-09T08:59:00.001-05:00

Next up in the I-did-not-like-at-all-but-everyone-else-seems-to-love department: Dil Se.

I did not like this from the beginning, nor in the middle (I never really bought into the so-called love story), nor at the end (well, okay, the ending was dramatic, but if you have zero investment in the story . . . ).

I watched Dil Se right after reading two very long discussions (the first one over at Beth Loves Bollywood, about the Chak De! India scene where the girls beat up some boys who harass them at McDonald's, and the related discussion of so called "eve-teasing" [i.e. harassing of women; what a terrible euphemism] over at IndieQuill), and I couldn't help but notice that Amarkanth's (Shah Rukh Khan's) behavior in Dil Se matched some of the descriptions of eve-teasing I had just been reading about in all the blog comments. It was stalking! He mooned over her, just wouldn't leave her alone when she gave him no encouragement whatsoever (that I could see), and was generally a pest. Blehhh. Maybe I wasn't paying enough attention, but I didn't see that Meghna (Manisha Koirala) had any inner opinions one way or the other about how he behaved to her. He pushed, she didn't reciprocate, he pushed some more, she acquiesced. She accepted his behavior toward her but it didn't seem to matter to her what her own feelings were, or what she herself thought of the whole "relationship". That may have been part of what her character was going through and related to the past problems she was already dealing with, but I just couldn't handle it.

And to top it all off, the movie was BORING.

On the other hand, and this is getting ahead of myself to Confession No. 4, but I loved another drama with a similar theme that everyone else seemed to think was garbage! There is no accounting for taste!

Battlestar Galactica

2009-03-15T21:48:00.001-05:00

I've recently finished season three of Battlestar Galactica, and now I want EVERYONE I KNOW to watch it too (not the least so we can discuss!!! OMG, I'm dying to discuss). It's that good.

You might think, "eh, it's sci-fi, I don't like sci-fi. Why should I watch it?" Because Battlestar Galactica is one of the best television shows ever made. In any genre. And it just happens to be sci-fi.

So what's it about? Well, it's a long story, but basically this (from the opening credit sequence for season three): "Cylons were created by man. They rebelled. They evolved. There are many copies. And they have a plan."

What is the plan? Nobody knows. The humans only know that the Cylons attacked, killing all but 50,000 people, and now these humans, the only ones left in the universe are trying to avoid becoming extinct.

What in the world is a Cylon? Questions, questions. Some of the Cylons (the Centurions) look like big scary seven-foot-tall armored robots with guns for hands,

Creeeeeeeepy.

but some other Cylons actually look, act, and feel like humans. Some of them don't know they're Cylons. This is one of the genius ideas of the show. What makes a person a human? Does it matter? It's not like a human-looking Cylon can just cut his or her arm to expose robotic wiring, or circuits, or anything like that, because not only do they resemble humans on the outside, but they look the same on the inside too. If a Cylon and a human can have a baby together, are they really that different?

There are really only three things that distinguish the Cylons and the humans: When Cylons die, their thoughts and memories get downloaded to another copy of themselves on a Resurrection Ship. Second, the Cylons want to kill the humans (well, this is not so different, because the humans want to kill the Cylons too). And finally, the Cylons believe in one god. The humans believe in a pantheon of gods with names like Aphrodite, Zeus, Hera, Athena, and Apollo. (Yes, really.)

While these people may be humans, they are not earthlings. These remaining 50,000 humans in the universe are running for their lives in a convoy of a fleet of starships somewhere in space. Battlestar Galactica is one of the ships in the Colonial fleet. The Colonists, as they are called, are all that is left of the Twelve Colonies (which were named Aquaria, Aerilon, Canceron, Caprica, Gemenon, Leonis, Libran, Picon, Sagittaron, Scorpia, Tauron, and Virgon -- sound familiar?) and which were all destroyed by the Cylon attacks. But the Scriptures mention a Thirteenth Colony, lost to time and memory. No one knows where it is. They only know it is called Earth.

Is it our Earth? Why do the humans believe in a set of gods with the same names as the Greek gods of myth? Are they the same gods? Do the humans ever get to Earth? Do the Cylons ever get to Earth? When is this all taking place?

The look and feel of the show is not particularly futuristic, nor is it trying to be; the clothing that the military personnel wear would be acceptable as uniforms and fatigues in any number of navies or air forces around the world, and the civilian clothing is indistinguishable from contemporary fashion (though certainly not on the dowdy end of the contemporary scale).

Tricia Helfer as Six

The look of the series goes a long way toward making Battlestar Galactica unlike most other shows on television. When Galactica's pilots take off from the flight deck in their Vipers and Raptors, it feels like something you might see in real life, except that these pilots fly off into the deep black of outer space instead of the wild blue yonder.

The series is filmed with a handheld-camera style that gives it a sense of documentary realism. Even for shots that you know in your head will require special effects, such as establishing shots of the fleet in outer space, the camera work is such that you believe in your heart that it is really happening. For example, a shot may start out with a wide angle and a slow pan, taking in a group of several ships in the fleet moving through the vacuum of space, but then all of a sudden the camera jerks over, finding one particular ship, zooming and focusing shakily as if the cameraperson suddenly found the right closeup and is trying to get a bead on it before it moves away. I'm not doing a very good job of explaining it, but trust me, it makes it look real.

Secondly, the cast itself is excellent, and the stories and characters are all great. While this is a large ensemble cast, and even the most secondary characters have their moments, I'm just going to mention a few main characters that stand out right away at the beginning.

Starbuck (aka Lt. Kara Thrace, played by Katee Sackhoff) is loud, brash, rash, and picks fights, and yet is utterly appealing and never a caricature or one-dimensional character. She's the fleet's best and most reckless fighter pilot. (I haven't seen the original 1978 Battlestar Galactica series, but I know that some of the female characters in this series, such as Starbuck, were played by men in the original series, and I believe that some other female characters are new additions to the current series, making it more evenly apportioned. Original-series-purists grumble, but I think this was a great move, and I love how gender roles are not an issue in the new series.)

Starbuck (Katee Sackhoff) with Boomer (Grace Park) and Apollo (Jamie Bamber)

Gaius Baltar (James Callis) is a genius scientist who's verrry interested in saving his own skin. He's not evil, per se, and he doesn't see himself as a bad figure (who does, really?) but his all-absorbing self-interest is focused on maximizing his own lifespan as much as possible (at the expense, if necessary, of whomever and whatever else). But it's not like he actively thinks about how his actions affect other people one way or another -- I would call him bumbling if he weren't so weaselly. His "I'm the victim in all this! I had no choice in my actions!" attitude explains a lot about why he does what he does, but man, what a weasel. Villainous, yet totally realistic. I know people like this.

Tricia Helfer as Caprica Six and James Callis as Gaius Baltar

Laura Roslin (Mary McDonnell), the President of the Twelve Colonies, was previously Secretary of Education before the Cylons attacked. When the attack was over, it was discovered that she, at something like forty-second in the line of succession, had just become President of the Colonies.

Edward James Olmos as Commander (later Admiral) Bill Adama and Mary McDonnell as President Laura Roslin

Commander Adama (Edward James Olmos) and President Roslin share responsibilities for the battle fleet and the civilian fleet. He captained a battlestar which was about to be decommissioned and turned into a museum just before the Cylons attacked. The ship was decrepit, out-of-date, and named Galactica.

The final element that puts Battlestar Galactica in a class of its own is the music (by series composer Bear McCreary). I'm totally not a music person, but I'll do my best to describe it. The opening titles include several different sequences -- the music in the first intro bit which explains about the Cylons ("Cylons were created by man. They rebelled....") is orchestral and has a fast-paced, clock-ticking quality designed to put you on edge for the rest of the hour.

Below are the opening Cylon credits for both season one and season three. Both contain a very slight SPOILER, but it's nothing you don't find out almost right away.

Season one (with SPOILERS)

Season three (with SPOILERS)

Then following this short pre-credits sequence comes the first act of the show; after that, you see the actual main credits. This musical sequence here is also orchestral, but slower, spacier, and melodic, and includes wordless vocals (or rather, vocals in another language; some of it sounds English but I don't think it is). At the end of this slow, dreamy credit sequence, the music and the editing immediately segues into a very fast-paced, heart-pounding teaser sequence showing brief flash-forwards to what will happen in that particular episode, accompanied by a military/tribal drum beat that just keeps getting faster and faster, ending in a swirling crescendo of orchestral strings. It's breathtaking. I've been trying to find a good Youtube video of these so you don't have to rely on my crappy descriptions, but it's hard to find good credit sequences for seasons one through three without accidentally wandering into spoiler territory for season four, which I haven't seen yet (eeeee! I can't wait!).

(Note: all still images from the official Battlestar Galactica website at http://www.scifi.com/battlestar. Click on a picture to go to the site.)

I thought horoscopes were supposed to predict the FUTURE.

2009-01-06T01:48:00.001-06:00

My TVGuide horoscope prediction for this week of Jan. 5, 2009--almost exactly one year too late:

Gemini: A new interest or hobby will seize your imagination and refuse to let go--and may become a central part of your life over the next year. Don't worry about colleagues and loved ones who think you're wasting your time. What do they know? Not much!

(I am not kidding; this is really what it said.)

Ever since I first saw Om Shanti Om on December 9, 2007, it's been all-India, all-Hindi films, all the time*. What more could I possibly be obsessed with?

-----

*Well, except for the latest dvd seasons of Doctor Who, and Battlestar Galactica, and Smallville, and Chuck, and Dexter, and The Big Bang Theory, and Torchwood, and Heroes, and House, and Lost, and Ugly Betty and. . . .

Hindi Word of the Day Archives for December 2008

2009-01-06T01:06:00.000-06:00

kaun? (who? which?)

jo (who, the one who, which [relative, not interrogative form])

jo koii (whoever; whichever, whatever)

jo kuch (whatever; whichever)

koii (some, any; someone)

koii nahiin (nobody, no one, not any)

koii na koii (someone or other)

har koii (everyone)

kuch (something, anything; some, any; a little, a few)

kuch kuch (somewhat, rather)

kuch aur (some more, something further; something different)

bahut kuch (a large amount)

kuch nahiin (nothing)

kuch na kuch (something or other; somewhat, a little)

sab kuch (everything)

kuch bhii (whatever; anything at all); kuch bhii nahiin (nothing at all)

manzil (stage of journey; story, floor; destination)

rasta (way, road)

mushkil (difficult, difficulty)

aaj (today)

aajkal (these days, nowadays)

har (each, every)

havaa (air, breeze)

faislaa (decision, judgement)

ruubaruu (face to face)

rishtaa (relationship, connection)

havaaii jahaaz (airplane)

baar (time, occasion); pahli baar (first time); ek baar (one time, on one occasion)

sadaa (ever, always, constantly)

samay (time)

saal, varsh, baras (year); san (year of calendar)

---------------

Disclaimers:

I am not a native Hindi speaker. The words I list are either ones I have picked up by watching Bollywood movies or from perusing my Hindi reference books, including Teach Yourself Beginner's Hindi Script, Teach Yourself Hindi Dictionary, Teach Yourself Hindi Complete Course, Living Language Hindi Complete Course, and best of all, the enormous Oxford Hindi-English Dictionary. Despite all these reference sources, it is still totally possible that I read something wrong or misunderstood it--so keep in mind that this list is made by someone who's only been watching Hindi movies on a regular basis since November 2007 and has no previous experience with the language.

Kyun? Ho Gaya Na

2009-01-02T02:07:00.001-06:00

I knew this movie was a romance, and that's about it. The Netflix summary describes the two leads, Aishwarya Rai and Vivek Oberoi, as "cinematic lovebirds," which somehow struck me as funny. But there seem to be very few reviews of it out on the internet (admittedly, I didn't look very hard). Because of this, I'm actually going to include a plot synopsis this time.

Arjun (Vivek), wants his parents to arrange his marriage for him because he thinks that love is full of deceit and creates nothing but problems, and that promises are made to be broken, and so on. He thinks if it's arranged, he doesn't have to worry about all that. And besides, an arranged marriage was good enough for his parents and grandparents! He lays this all out in the first song, which takes place at a two-story, log cabin-type sports bar that reminds me of the bar in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

Meanwhile, Aishwarya, during the same song, is hanging out with two friends at home, singing about how she only wants to marry for love. (I've returned the movie already, and am writing most of this review from memory, so I'm not entirely sure, but I think those two friends appear only in this song and then are never seen again. Strange.)

*****Music review interjection: I didn't like this first song at all. I think they tried to make it into some sort of Russian folk song, with a lot of stringed instruments, but it just ended up sounding too . . . Christmassy. And bad. It made me want to hand back my imaginary unofficial Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy fan club badge.

The actual Russian-style dancing was all right (yes, there was that), but the music was not good. Watch at your own risk:

Pyar Mein Sau Uljhanne Hai

Ugh. But this song was a hit, apparently.

Anyways, back to the plot. Arjun is shown to be impetuous, impulsive, and irresponsible:

He has just participated in a car race against his mother's wishes and without her knowledge.
He lost the race by trying to overtake his friend and competitor, but he spun out instead. After the race, his friend told him, "You lost because you were trying too hard to beat me, while I won because I focused on finishing first."
When Arjun first meets Diya (Aishwarya), she is a passenger on the train, and he is serving drinks to the passengers as a "pantry-car boy" to earn his train ticket home (he had his bag stolen after he left it with an "Uncle" he didn't know on a bench at the train station).

Of course those qualities must be balanced out by some positive qualities, but we're getting to that. At this point, Diya shows up on Arjun's family's doorstep. Lo and behold, she has come to stay with them while she studies for an exam for her Master's degree. She and Arjun don't really know each other except from the train, but her father and his parents do, and the parents have arranged all this. (Actually, they have tried to arrange much more; but their children, especially Diya, just haven't gone along with it.)

When Arjun's mother (Rati Agnihotri) finds out (thanks to Diya) that he had not, in fact, stayed home like a good boy while she was gone, but that he was at the car rally instead, he charms his mother back into forgiving both him and his father (Om Puri), who knew all along what his son was doing and didn't tell his wife.

Diya settles in to studying for her exam, but Arjun, who is a bit ADD, thinks she is studying too hard and tries to get her to loosen up and take a day off. Here we have a library song. Yay for library songs! And this is a good one.

Main Hoon

Aishwarya is particularly appealing in this film because we get to see her acting like a regular girl, instead of the reserved, sophisticated princess she usually plays--which is ironic, because her character is meant to be on the reserved, prim, studious side as a counterpoint to Arjun's roguish impetuousness. But she manages to be vulnerable, and relaxed, and sporty. Here she goes bowling! She plays soccer in shorts and kneesocks! And she is the one who falls for Arjun, while he, on the other hand, goes and plays an incredibly insensitive and idiotic practical joke on her. But not until after the end of this song:

(Youtube lists this song as Aao Na Aao Na but the dvd lists it as Gunji Si Hai.)

Wouldn't you be mad if he went and did something really stupid right after that song? And she is justifiably mad about the practical joke, even if the song was all in her head. She confesses her love in a frustrated shriek to a clueless Arjun (stupid boy!), but gets nothing in return, so she decides to leave.

At this point, as Diya is packing to leave Arjun's house, her father's friend, whom she calls Uncle, shows up. (Uncle, hereafter renamed Crazy Uncle, is played by Amitabh Bachchan. I had totally forgotten about Amitabh--despite the fact that he got first billing at the beginning of the movie--because he's not in the first half at all.) With a "Come on Charlie!" and a "Sab thik ho jayegi! [Everything's going to be all right!]" he cheers her up and whisks her off home. (Why Charlie? I don't know; he's Crazy Uncle.)

Crazy Uncle has an orphanage, apparently, with about fifteen kids in it, and Diya has come to help him out with the orphans and to forget about Arjun. Time passes, Crazy Uncle and the kids play several practical jokes on each other (they give him a candy that turns his mouth and teeth bright blue, he puts blue paint in the water while they are washing, etc.) and then Arjun shows up.

Arjun is still a practical joker, like Crazy Uncle, but he has begun to realize his feelings for Diya yet doesn't know what to do about it. He wants an arranged marriage, remember? He's not supposed to fall in love! That's not the plan!

To make matters worse, Diya's much-extolled-yet-previously-unseen (male) friend Ishaan comes to visit the orphanage and to see Diya and Crazy Uncle and all the kids, and Arjun finds out that he has much to be jealous over. I won't spoil the special appearance for those who haven't seen it, but you can click here to find out who plays Ishaan.

A lot of armchair reviewers on the imdb don't seem to like Arjun's character and don't see how Diya could fall for him. I don't fall for him personally, but I can see how Diya does; he's lively and charming and he likes to tease her (in a good way). She's on the serious side and appreciates his spontaneous and impulsive personality.

And chemistry! Whoever said these two don't have chemistry? I didn't realize until after the movie was over and I was looking (in vain, mostly) for reviews or commentary about this film online, that Vivek and Aishwarya used to be a couple around the time of this filming. I wonder if the buzz about their offscreen relationship affected moviegoers' reactions to their onscreen portrayal?

I liked the film when I saw it (although I bored myself when I was writing the plot summary; but really, it's a decent romantic timepass). The romance was good, and as I mentioned before, this is one of Aishwarya's most appealing performances. She's warm, endearing, and natural, not overly mannered (a trait I can tolerate in Shah Rukh Khan much more than I can in her). See the movie for Aishwarya, for the romance, and for all the songs except that first one [shudder].

Confession No. 2

2008-12-18T00:47:00.001-06:00

While I may be a swooning idiot for the romances, there is one Bollywood-induced emotion I am apparently immune to: I have yet to cry during a Bollywood film. I'm not admitting this as any sort of accomplishment; on the contrary, I feel like a bit of a freak. Not even Kal Ho Naa Ho or Veer-Zaara could make me shed a tear and they had totally sad moments.

This is not to say I never cry during movies; I cried during Little Women, and Dances with Wolves, and The Namesake, and Dumbo, to think of four at random, and there are plenty of others I just can't remember right now. But no Bollywood films so far. I don't have a whole big theory why this is*; I just had to get it off my chest. Admittedly, not every Hindi movie I watch is a tearjerker, but I've seen quite a few with sad, sad scenes in them, and yet I remain strangely dry-eyed.

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*Maybe it's because I know that Bollywood films will usually (usually!) end happily despite trauma and heartbreak in the middle bit of the picture? But there has to be more to it than that. What is it? I haven't been able to figure it out yet. Maybe it's because I'm the figuring-out type and not the heart-on-her-sleeve type? I have no idea.

Confession No. 1

2008-12-10T01:43:00.002-06:00

This will most likely be the first in a series. This post was originally going to be a set of one-line bullet point confessions by me of my unpopular opinions about several different movies, but once I got started on one movie, I couldn't stop. Man, this article wrote itself! Stay tuned for more!

Confession: I didn't really like Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (1998) all that much. I really want to have liked it, I do, I do! But my delicate fashion sensibilities* were overwhelmed by the shockingly loud and brightly colored early-nineties style, name-brand type outfits, and subsequently I couldn't pay much attention to the plot. First of all, the clothing was way too reminiscent of the clothing worn by everyone during my own high school years [shudder] (. . . but much, much more garish).

This cover doesn't actually come close to portraying the full extent of it.

Secondly, it wasn't just the clothing that tickled my shallow-bone, but also the sets. It's supposed to take place at a college, not a high school. It didn't look like any college I'd ever seen or been to. I just kept getting the (loud, garish) high school vibe. Again, distracting.

While I was looking for pictures to illustrate my post, I came upon this slide show article from ABC News entitled "The Biggest Movie Star You've Never Heard of" (i.e. Shah Rukh Khan). ABC describes Kuch Kuch Hota Hai as "Archie Comics come to Bollywood," which pretty much sums up the look of it, anyways. I mean, I know why director Karan Johar did it--because he was trying to drag Hindi films into a more modern era with the American designer duds and all, but oh, Karan! Too much!

I don't even know who that girl is. It looks like . . . Preity? She's not in the movie.

Kuch Kuch Hota Hai was one of the first Hindi films I saw after becoming a Bollywood convert. Maybe I would like it better if I saw it again now, a year later. I could ignore the shockingly bad clothing and the sets and just focus on the plot (I will like it! I will like it!). Or at least try my darndest.

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*If you knew me, you'd probably laugh at this.

Hindi Word of the Day Archives for November 2008

2008-12-04T00:44:00.001-06:00

kahaan? (where?)

jahaan (where . . . ; in the place where)

yahaan (here)

vahaan (there)

kahiin (somewhere)

kahiin nahiin (nowhere)

kahiin bhii (anywhere)

sab kahiin (everywhere)

kahiin na kahiin (somewhere or other)

kahiin aur (somewhere else)

jahiin (in the very place where)

yahiin (right here; in this very place)

vahiin (right there; in that very place)

jahaan kahiin (wherever; everywhere)

kab? (when?)

jab (when . . . ; at the time when)

ab (now)

tab (then)

kabhii (sometimes, ever)

kabhii kabhii (from time to time, sometimes)

kabhii nahiin (never)

jab se (since, from the time when)

jab tak (as long as, until)

jab jab, jab bhii (whenever)

ab tab (now and then)

ab se (from now on)

ab tak (up till now)

ab bhii (even now, as yet; even so)

abhii (right now)

tabhii (just then)

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Disclaimers:

What just happened here?

2008-12-03T23:46:00.001-06:00

So, Jewel Thief. What? I'm totally lost.

Apparently I should have read a detailed plot summary first before I watched it. And followed along. And taken notes.

Don't get me wrong; I liked it. I just can't figure out who's who, or what's going on.

Or not.

2008-11-20T23:41:00.001-06:00

I lied when I said I would recognize Priyanka Chopra whenever I saw her from now on. I just finished watching The Inner/Outer World of Shah Rukh Khan and I kept thinking, "Who IS that girl?" I should have known.

What is wrong with me? I think there's a bug in my brain's facial recognition software, and only Priyanka triggers it.

Hindi Word of the Day Archives for October 2008

2008-11-02T12:52:00.001-06:00

sahelii (a girl's female friend)

pahelii (puzzle, riddle, mystery, enigma)

aana (to come, to arrive, to know a language, to have a skill); aao! (come!)

lambaa (tall, long)

baat (matter, thing, something said); kyaa baat hai? (what's the matter?); koii baat nahiin (it doesn't matter, never mind)

rahna (to live, to stay); some verb forms: rahtaa, rahe

himmat (courage, spirit, resolve, nerve)

haan (yes); nahiiiiiin! (noooooo!)

khel (a game); khelnaa (to play); some verb forms: kheltaa, kheltii, khelte

kaagaz (paper, a piece of paper)

khilaarii [also transliterated as khiladi] (n. "one who plays", athlete, sportsman; adj. skilled at games, playful, mischievous)

milnaa (to meet)

jeb (a pocket); duniyaa merii jeb mein (the world in my pocket)

filmii (having to do with movies; melodramatic)

derh (one and a half); dhaaii (two and a half)

dono:m (both)

dhundh (fog, mist, gloom)

honaa (to be)

main huun (I am)

tuu hai (you are); tuu = 2nd person singular, intimate

tum ho (you are); tum = 2nd person plural, familiar; can also be used for 2nd person singular, polite

yah hai (he, she, it, THIS is); vah hai (he, she, it, THAT is); yah = 3rd person singular, nearby; vah = 3rd person singular, farther away

ham hain (we are)

aap hain (you are); aap = 2nd person plural, formal; also used for 2nd person singular, formal

ye hain (they/THESE are; he/she is [formal or respectful]); ve hain (they/THOSE are; he/she is [formal or respectful])

baarish (rain); barsaat (the rains, the rainy season)

thaa, thii (was); the, thiin (were)

thoraa [also transliterated as thoda] (a little, a few)

pal (a moment, an instant); pal pal (at every moment)

phamsnaa (to stick; to be trapped, stuck, caught, ensnared)

chashmaa (eyeglasses)

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Disclaimers:

Salaam-e-Ishq

2008-10-25T01:43:00.001-05:00

Because I have trouble keeping track of who-all is in Salaam-e-Ishq, I'm going to list the main cast in pairs here and get it out of the way: Priyanka Chopra and Salman Khan, John Abraham and Vidya Balan, Juhi Chawla and Anil Kapoor, Akshaye Khanna and Ayesha Takia, Govinda and Shannon Esra [or Esrechowitz], and finally, Sohail Khan and Isha Koppikar as the unlucky newlyweds who just can't find a spot to have their wedding night without setting fire to their room or ending up in the hospital.

You can see a star-studded trailer of the movie here. This particular trailer also includes the title song from the film (by my favorite music directors, Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy), and which is very, very catchy and quite possibly contains bagpipe music.

First off, a mini-review: I knew that Salaam-e-Ishq was based on Love, Actually, so I was prepared for the loosely-intersecting ensemble style, but I thought that the film took a little too long to come together in the first third (it's too long a film to call that section a half). The tone was too varied amongst the different subplot-establishing scenes, but I think the songs went a long way in pulling all of the different stories and styles together. Once it got going, the rest of it was more evenly paced. And other than all that, I loved it.

Salaam-e-Ishq title song, showing off all our aforementioned stars and the v. v. catchy music

I'm just going to mention a few of the performances from the film.

1. This is the fourth Priyanka Chopra movie I've seen, and the first where I've actually remembered what she looks like once the movie was over; the others were Don, Krrish, Bluffmaster! and her special appearance (along with everyone else) in Om Shanti Om. I sort of knew she was going to be in this movie before I watched it, so that helped. It's not like I wasn't trying to keep track of her before this, either. I was familiar with who she was and what her name was, but just not her face or personality. Or what she starred in. If you had asked me yesterday who the girl in Krrish was, I wouldn't have been able to tell you.

To misquote from our movie at hand,

"Yeh [Priyanka] hai kaun?"

"Exactly!"

However, I should be able to remember Priyanka from now on. I think she finally had a role where she could actually show some personality and spark. I wasn't sure about her filmi, overacting-type indignation in the first half, but since she was playing a Bollywood item girl trying to reinvent herself as a leading heroine, I guess I can see where she was coming from. And anyways, she makes up for it in the second half.

2. Strangely enough, and against all odds, I really liked . . . Salman Khan. I can't believe I even just wrote that. He and Priyanka had a really romantic storyline and great chemistry. I can't believe I just wrote that either. How girly.

3. Juhi was beautiful and heartbroken and real.

4. Anil Kapoor. Wow. I don't think he said a word until halfway through the film, yet was thoroughly compelling. On a very shallow note, he looked much better unshaven.

5. Frankly, I saw this film for Govinda. I'm sure there are plenty of 'em out there, but I have yet to see a bad Govinda film (okay, I've only seen three Govinda films: Partner, where he was adorable and he danced; Albela, where he was adorable and he danced; and this, where he was extremely adorable but I wish he had danced more). How can you not love Govinda? I suppose I will have plenty of chances to find out.

Oh, and I liked that Govinda (as Raju) called Stephanie's boyfriend "jackass no. 1".

Hindi Word of the Day Archives for September 2008

2008-10-02T23:24:00.001-05:00

This month's selection of words is a (mostly) totally random collection. For a while there at the beginning of the month, I thought I had come to the end of my Hindi vocabulary limits (I hadn't been watching too many Hindi movies recently), but some good suggestions got me back on track (shukriyaa Anarchivist, for suggesting milaap, tuufaan, insaan, nasiib, and qasam!).

phuul (flower)

dhuup (sunlight, the sun)

baal (hair); zulfein (tresses, locks)

raaz (a secret, a mystery)

lenaa (to take, to receive)

likhnaa (to write); lekh (something written); lekhaanii (writing instrument)

zaruurii, zaruudii (necessary)

agar (if)

denaa (to give, to let)

milaap (meeting; mixing; union, harmony; reconciliation)

tuufaan (a storm of wind and rain)

insaan (a man, human being); insaanii (human); insaaniyat (humanity)

piiche (behind, afterwards, later, back, ago)

uthnaa (to rise up, to get up, to stand up); uthaanaa (to lift, raise, pick up)

nasiib (destiny, fate, fortune)

qasam (an oath)

farz (duty, obligation)

qarz (a debt, loan)

ajnabii (a stranger)

dushman (enemy, adversary)

bhaasa (language)

bhii (even, too, also, as much as, still)

phir (again, then, next); phir bhii (even so)

lagnaa (to seem, to begin to); some verb forms--lagtaa, lagte, lagaa, lagii

pahle (before)

gandaa (dirty)

bajaa, baje (o'clock [singular, plural]); ek bajaa (one o'clock); do baje (two o'clock)

paas (nearby)

lifaafaa (envelope)

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Disclaimers:

Jodhaa Akbar: A Spectacle-and-a-HALF

2008-09-26T23:26:00.001-05:00

I'm not generally a fan of Hrithik Roshan; he's usually oddly over-muscled, and his acting style is just not for me (Main Prem ki Diwani Hoon--wtf?).

And while I have seen a lot of Aishwarya Rai films, I can't say she's one of my favorite-favorite actresses. I think it's the little-girl voice she usually does in her films. I've heard her in interviews and was surprised to find that the voice she used for the interviews was much lower and more serious.

But in Jodhaa Akbar, I was impressed with both of them. I actually forgot they were Hrithik and Aish. That takes some doing, with those two. I was surprised how much I liked Hrithik in this especially. Fellow blogger Anarchivist and I have discussed before how much better he seems to be in the action-type roles than the straight romantic-type roles. This wasn't the same kind of action role as Dhoom 2, but there was enough action so that it worked for him, and the romantic parts were, well, surprisingly romantic. Also plotwise, even the government-type bits were interesting. I didn't think the movie dragged at all despite the three hour and forty-five minute running time, but then, I did watch it in two different sittings.

Other than Hrithik and Aishwarya, there didn't seem to be many big-name actors, or at least, I didn't recognize many. Kulbhushan Kharbanda was one I knew, but mainly by name, rather than by what he looked like. I recognized Rajesh Vivek, who usually has a bit of the Amrish-Puri-evil-eye going on, but I never knew his name till now. Apparently I've seen him in Bunty aur Babli, Lagaan, and Swades, too, but only remembered him from Nanhe Jaisalmer before this (sorry, Rajesh।) Also, I had never heard of Sonu Sood, who played Jodhaa's brother Sujamal, but I was quite taken with him. If anyone knows of a good movie to watch Sonu in, let me know.

Update: I totally forgot to mention the guy who played the mute drummer Bagha in Lagaan, Amin Hajee. In Jodhaa Akbar's qawwali song (I think it's called Kwaja Mere Kwaja) I noticed what looked like two of Amin, one on either side of the main singer. Amin does not have a credit on the imdb for Jodhaa Akbar, but according to the imdb's trivia section, he does have a twin brother named Karim, and I'm pretty sure they are the ones shown in the picturization.

Now, enough about the actors, I should mention the other beautiful parts of the movie: those incredible, jewelry-laden costumes and that incredible, enormous, and lushly designed set. (I don't have any screen caps, sorry, but I'm sure you can find some all over the internet.) I looooved the color scheme of the saris (and of the entire movie): dark ruby red, deep emerald green, and gold. Oh, the clothes porn*! I think this is the best I have ever seen. You must watch this movie on a widescreen hdtv if at all possible. I saw the first half on a 60-million inch widescreen (not mine), and it was extremely beautiful to look at. Sigh.

*credit goes to Anarchivist for this phrase.

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Other notes/footnotes: I have heard the movie is not particularly historically accurate, but I think anything that illuminates a previously dark (for me) corner of history is worth watching. It's just a starting point, really. I had no concept of this time and place at all, but, hey, so it's not a history lesson; at least now I have some idea of it that I can use to pin other informational tidbits onto.

"Worth renting": so indefinable, yet so easily decided

2008-09-07T23:06:00.000-05:00

I went home last weekend (home home--where my mother lives, where I grew up) and when I got there I thought, as I always do, "Ah, nice relaxing weekend with nowhere to go and nothing to do but watch movies and read a couple of books," and then as always, spent the entire three days in endless rounds of gadding about (her doing, not mine).

So my mom and my aunt and uncle and my other uncle and I were at the pizzeria/gas station/coffee hang out/convenience store/machinery parts store/movie rental place, having coffee (well, they were having coffee; I had tea) and I had a look at the movies on the wall while they talked. I idly thought about renting a movie for my mom and me to watch later, but I dismissed almost all of them as being not worth renting. And then I suddenly realized how different my standards are when I want to actually plop down money to pay for a rental dvd versus when I have free access to the same titles at the library. I don't really know what makes a movie worth renting or not, but it was quite clear to me as I looked at them which ones were and which ones weren't.

I don't think the money was the only issue, though. The other hurdles included, but were not limited to, "Is it worth the hassle of bringing the empty case up to the counter and having the clerk find the movie behind the desk, and also having to dig out the money to pay for it?" as well as "Is it worth making an event of it?" (Meaning: "We only have a couple of days to watch it. Do we have enough time to set aside for both of us to watch it together and return it before it's due? Because if we don't, and we have to return it without watching it, then that's wasting money as well as time.") Also, most of the movies I get from the library, I watch by myself. Having another person watch a movie with you ups the stakes--you want to make sure that they will like it too, and that they haven't seen it already.

I saw many, many titles at the convenience store that I would never have paid money to see, but which I had been totally keen to watch when I had had the opportunity to check them out from the library. I can't even remember what most of the titles were at the convenience store, but I know one of them was Stick It, the gymnastics ("It's not gym-nice-tics") version of the cheerleading movie Bring It On. I got Stick It from the library once, and I liked it; especially the first half, which had attitude with a capital A and which got off some pretty funny lines. The second half was more of a conventional sports movie but still not bad. Would I have ever rented this movie? No. Was it worth checking out from the library? Hell, yes.

Hindi Word of the Day Archives for August 2008

2008-09-07T01:01:00.001-05:00

paanii (water)

pyaasa (thirsty)

duudh (milk)

billii (cat); billaa (tomcat)

kuttaa (dog)

makaan (house)

ghar (home)

pakaanaa (to cook); khaana (food); khaana banaanaa (to make food)

roti (bread)

makkhan (butter)

gaay (cow)

makkhii (fly); makkhiyaa maarnaa (to kill flies--i.e. to laze about)

paisaa (money)

saaikil (bicycle)

bhai (brother); bahin (sister)

maa-baap (mum and dad, parents)

betaa, betii (son, daughter)

parivaar (family)

gaarii, kar (car) relgaarii, tren (train)

maamaa, mausaa, taduu, chaachaa, phuuphaa (uncle); maamii, mausii, buaa, chaachii, phuuphii (aunt)

bhaarat, (India); hind, hindustan (India, especially north India)

log (people)

desh (place, region; country, nation; native land); svadesh (one's own country, native land); desh-prem, svadesh-prem (patriotism, love of country)

mausam (weather; season of the year)

saknaa (can, to be able)

jaanna (to know); main jaanti huun! (I know!)

jaanaa (to go); jao! (go!)

mat (don't); e.g. mat jao (don't go)

karnaa (to do)

vaqt (time, period of time)

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Disclaimers:

Guide

2008-09-03T00:58:00.001-05:00

I have no profound statements about this movie, sorry. I just have two things to say about it.

1. The first thing I ever heard about Guide was that Waheeda Rehman had recreated one of her dances from it years later in a different movie (I can't remember which movie; whatever it was, I haven't seen it), so I figured the dance must be good as well as extremely famous. When I finally sought out Guide, it wasn't particularly because of the dancing--I just wanted to see a classic movie starring two actors whom I wanted to learn more about. It should have been because of the dancing, though. I didn't know what I was missing before this movie. So far in my Bollywatching career I haven't seen a lot of movies with classical-type dancing in them like I saw in Guide, but I'm really hoping I can find some more. The songs don't have to have any singing; just dancing will do.

2. Recently Beth Loves Bollywood did a review of Guide, which I didn't read past the first paragraph at the time, because she posted a "vague spoiler warning" that stopped me from reading further. (Why a spoiler warning should suddenly stop me from reading a movie review, when I've been all over the internet reading reviews of movies I haven't seen yet and which give away all sorts of plot points, is beyond me.) While the main part of Beth's review was full of deep and meaningful discussions, the very first thing she said she had to get out of the way about the movie was how much Dev Anand's hair distracted her from watching properly. I mention this because of what happened when I saw the movie this weekend.

My mom watched part of it with me, not because she wanted to, but because it was there and she was there. (The only other Bollywood movies my mother has seen are Kal Ho Naa Ho, which she liked; Om Shanti Om, which she saw under duress [I think she liked it, really. She was just being stubborn because I made her watch it; like, all-day-hounded-her-about-it-made-her-watch-it]; and Chak De! India, which she didn't see from the very beginning but which she was into by the end.) She was mostly napping while I watched Guide but every once in a while she would wake up and try to make sense out of a random scene before going back to sleep.

But her one comment during the few parts of the movie she did see was, "What's with his hair?"

How did I miss this?

2008-08-25T22:21:00.001-05:00

My weekly Google Alert on the search terms "Shahrukh Khan/Shah Rukh Khan" (oy, the things I'll admit in public) has alerted me to the fact that apparently the Israeli rhythmic gymnastics team performed a clubs and hoops routine at the Beijing Olympics to the music of Om Shanti Om, including musical bits of Dhoom Taana.

See articles http://entertainment.oneindia.in/bollywood/news/2008/om-shanti-om-olympics-250808.html and http://sports.in.msn.com/olympics/article.aspx?cp-documentid=1647876.

A while ago I saw the youtube performance of the two dancers on that tv show So You Think You Can Dance, or whatever it's called, who also did a routine to Dhoom Taana, but the Olympics is something I actually watch. Eeeeeeeeeeee!

Update: I've finally found a clip of what must be the same routine from the European Championships. I don't think the first half of the music is from Om Shanti Om (it's hard to hear) but the second half is definitely Dhoom Taana.

And now I've found a better clip (and a better performance) from the World Cup(?). [Random aside: If you want to see really good rhythmic gymnastics routines, however, check out the Russian, Chinese, and Belarus medal-winning 2008 Olympic performances.]

In other news, I'm working on a sort-of-review of the movie itself, Om Shanti Om, but I'm 1. slow and 2. lazy. It's kind of ironic that I haven't watched any Bollywood movies in the past two weeks because I've been too busy watching the Olympics instead, and yet still didn't see the Olympic Dhoom Taana performance.

This is deewani

2008-08-18T23:10:00.000-05:00

I have a stack of knitting magazines sitting on my floor, unread. Not just a few, I'm talking eight or nine, and one more just came in the mail today. You'd think I would have read them right as soon as I got them, but no. (Instead, here I sit, watching the Olympics and writing pointless blogs.)

I can't bring myself to read all those magazines, because then I won't have any more knitting magazines to read. Either that, or I'm really, really, lazy.

Hindi Word of the Day Archives for July 2008

2008-08-01T08:16:00.000-05:00

This month, I focused on names. Four out of every five of the words this month are actually names of either characters from movies, or of actors and actresses. Names are not usually translated in the subtitles of movies, so I had to do a lot of looking up in the dictionary this month. I apologize for any mistranslations.

My other mini-theme for the month is words that are the same or similar in Hindi and English. (Some of them are the same because they are both derived from Arabic or Persian.) And then there are a few random words rounding out the list.

shantii (calmness, quiet, peace)

shakti ( power, strength, energy)

shashii (the moon; see also chandaa, chandra)

rishi (a sage, a seer)

safarii (pertaining to a journey); safar karna (to make a journey)

geet, geeta (a song)

puujaa (worship, adoration of a deity, prayer)

priya (dear, beloved; agreeable, kind person)

preeti (love, affection)

duurdarshan (television [literally=far-sightedness, long-sightedness, foresight])

aishvaryaa, aishwarya (supremacy, dominion; superhuman quality, divine majesty; grandeur)

abhishek (anointing, usually with sacred water; investiture, consecration; religious ablutions, the ceremonial bathing of an idol)

jayaa, jaya (the victorious one: a title of several goddesses, including Parvati and Durga); also "Jaya Hind!" = "Long Live India!"

amitabh (supremely brilliant, magnificent); amit (immeasurable, incalculable)

zameen (earth, ground, soil); zamindar (landowner, landlord)

amaan (1. modest; 2. incalculable, vast)

rohan (rising)

amar (immortal; eternal)

aakash (1. space; 2. the sky, the heavens)

jangal (forest, woods; a wild, uninhabited place)

sharmiilaa, sharmila (bashful, shy; modest);

rakhee (a protective talisman)

rehkha (a line, streak, mark, sign; a line such as on the palm [figuratively=fate])

madhubaalaa, madhubala (bee attracted to honey); maadhurii, madhuri (1. type of jasmine 2. sweetness; 3. charm); madhu-raaj (bee)

paajaamaa (loose cotton trousers)

amir (of rank or distinction; rich, wealthy)

roshan, adj. (light, bright, lighted); roshnii, noun (light; brightness; illumination)

akshay (imperishable; permanent, durable; undecaying)

anupam (incomparable; excellent, best)

sahraa (desert, wilderness)

raaj, raaja (king; prince; ruler); raanii (queen)

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Disclaimers:

How do you say extreme nerdiness in Hindi?

2008-07-25T23:09:00.001-05:00

I made this myself!!

Okay, fine, I give up

2008-07-16T22:34:00.001-05:00

I've been resisting it on principle but I've caved and have started referring to Shah Rukh Khan by his initials (SRK) like everyone else. It's just so much easier to type and it seems to fit.

But I'm still holding out on abbreviating movie titles. KKHH, KANK, KHNH, K3G, KHKN*, I always get confused by the Ks and have to think about it too much. There's DDLJ** too without the Ks, but still no! not even for that. I like seeing the whole title as I type, and I like spelling it out. I don't care if other people abbreviate their titles, but I'm not going to. I'm idiosyncratic (idiotic) that way.

Abbreviation gods: 1, Me: 1

We'll see how long it lasts.

*Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, Kabhi Alivda Naa Kehna, Kal Ho Naa Ho, Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham, Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa

**Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge

Happy Un-Birthday to Abhishek Bachchan

2008-07-05T22:47:00.000-05:00

I realize this blog is heading in the direction of becoming the Abhishek Hour, but I just have to say one quick thing: The imdb has FINALLY changed Abhishek's birth year from 1965 to 1976. About six months ago as I was doing some research, I noticed that they had him listed as what amounted to being ten months older than Shah Rukh Khan, instead of ten years younger. I mean really, yaar, watch Kabhi Alivda Naa Kehna and get back to me on that one. I love them both, but there's no way. No way.

Does this larkaa look 43 to you? No. Because clearly he is not.

So I wrote the imdb a (nice!) note about it and included for their perusal an official link to an official mention of Abhishek's age and birthday in, I think it was the Hindustan Times, or else The Times of India, but I wasn't optimistic they would change it. There are avenues for users to submit corrections to the imdb website, but they had a note in their help section that said that for birthdates, they pretty much need to see a copy of the first page of a person's passport in order for them to do anything about it. (Apparently the first page of a passport has enough information on it to verify birthdate without giving away too much other private information like address.) They also said it takes a while to change anything, so I didn't keep too close a watch on it after I submitted it.

I know I wasn't the only person to have submitted a correction up to that point. There was a whole talk topic on Abhishek's bio page about users who had tried unsuccessfully to get the imdb to change it before, and the thread went back pretty far. So I wonder what finally made them fix it. Maybe a fan alerted Amitabh about it on his blog and he got someone to provide the correct information for his son's birth year to the imdb. It could happen. Or they might have just gotten tired of being bugged about it constantly when it was so clearly the wrong information. But I'd like to think I helped.

Laaga Chunari Mein Daag; Not a Review

2008-07-03T19:20:00.002-05:00

I have seen many, many Bollywood films where the characters either mention other Bollywood stars who are not in the movie, or where the filmmakers include random gratuitous cameos by other stars (usually in a song, but not always) who just seemed to have popped by the set for a minute, or where the film itself references another movie, or where a song from another movie is used in the background or sung by a character. In fact, I would say most Bollywood movies I've seen incorporate at least one of these elements, and sometimes more than one.

Random examples I can think of right now include Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna's "Simran!" moment, Kal Ho Naa Ho (Rani and Kajol's two-second appearances in "Maahi Ve"; Daadii pinches the boy's cheeks and tells him he looks just like Rakesh Roshan and is corrected: "Hrithik Roshan! Stop it Daadii!") and Jhoom Barabar Jhoom (Abhishek says "...our Bachchan!" when he and Preity are talking about Madame Tussaud's; the side-car motorcycle ride; Abhishek's "Hey Handsome!" ringtone; the "she's no Miss World!" line*). In Nanhe Jaisalmer, the entire premise of the movie is that the boy Nanhe is friends with Bobby Deol, as played by himself, Bobby Deol--which is really, really weird. And as a side note, I think it was in Bluffmaster! where someone has a line about Shah Rukh Khan and Bipasha Basu as movie stars, and the subtitles translate their names as Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie (not even close, but whatever).

So I was not surprised when a film crew comes to Rani Mukherjee and Konkona Sen Sharma's family's crumbling mansion in Laaga Chunari Mein Daag and one of the first things that the younger sister Konkona asks the film assistant girl is, "Have you met Shah Rukh?" And it's quite funny a short time later when Rani's about to get on the train to Bombay and Konkona yells to her, "Get me a picture of Mannat!" and then has to explain to their mother (Jaya Bachchan) that Mannat is Shah Rukh Khan's bungalow in Bombay. The Shah Rukh referencing doesn't stop, though. Later, when she reaches Bombay, Rani is confronted with a giant billboard advertising Chak De! India.

You can hardly pick out any of the people on the street in the screencap below but Rani's orange outfit matches the orange of the billboard.

Somehow, the fact that you have the visual of Shah Rukh's face taking up half the screen and half the billboard (as opposed to the previous mentions in the movie, where you just hear his name being spoken by the characters) makes the whole thing even more surreal.

But the part that made me choke on my chai this morning was where Rani opens the door to the downstairs neighbor boy who brings in a case of beer and then starts singing "Where's the Party Tonight?" at her. A song she was in! With Shah Rukh Khan!

Now, I'm not complaining. I thought it was funny. But I still haven't decided if I think the wink-winkness of all these moments is a good or bad thing on the whole. On the one hand, it's kind of fun to think about. On the other hand, It takes you out of the film most of the time. And it's almost too much for me to handle sometimes (brain-exploding-wise), having that extra layer of meta-movie connections and relationships to think about as well what's going on in the movie itself.

***Sidenote(s): That said, and speaking of cameos, Hema Malini has an item number (!), close to the beginning of the movie, and she's great. I hadn't researched this movie beforehand, so I didn't really know who exactly was in it. I did know that Abhishek Bachchan was in the film (properly, not a cameo), but it was quite a while before he finally appeared on screen, and I had kind of forgotten--so when he did, I accidentally let out a squeal.***

But back to the referencing, I suppose in the interest of realism (such as it is), if you are going to include references to a movie star in a film that has at least some reason to refer to a movie star (any movie star), you may as well pick a real one--and a big one. It's like when a tv show tries to make a can of pop look like a can of Coke without actually showing a can of Coke. It's red and it has white lines on it. What else could it be? Everyone knows what you are trying to show without you actually showing it, so why not show the real thing? It would be disingenuous not to. But then there's sort-of realism (picking Shah Rukh Khan as the big movie star that you happen to refer to in your movie because he happens to be a big movie star--and if the film were really real life, there's a good chance that's who a real girl might have mentioned) and there's the surrealism of having the characters refer to Shah Rukh Khan as a movie star when you know very well he and one of the characters in the movie you are watching have starred in at least six other movies together. Bollywood is such a small world. But that's a discussion for another time.

In the meantime, I'll just leave you with this bit of goofiness:

*Or whatever it is. I tried to find it but couldn't, so if anyone wants to correct me, go ahead.

Hindi Word of the Day Archives for June 2008

2008-07-01T20:03:00.000-05:00

rang (color); rangeela (bright, showy, gaudy)

laal (red, ruby-colored; a ruby); rohit (red)

naarangii (orange)

neela (blue)

safed (white, chalky color); saf (clean)

kaalaa (black)

gulaabii (pink); gulaab (a rose)

piilaa (yellow)

khaakii (dust-colored, earth-colored)

kya? (what?); kya hai? (what is it?); kya hua? (what happened?)

kyu[n]? (why?); kyu[n]ki (because)

kaun? (who?); kab? (when?) kahaa[n]? (where?)

samajhe? (understand?)

bollu! (speak!)

kam (few, less)

kaam (work)

mandir (temple)

duniyaa (world, the world)

akele (alone)

mastii (intoxication; delight, passion, unrestrained joy)

jeena (to live, to be alive); jiivan (life, existence, lifetime)

josh (excitement; passion; enthusiasm, ardour)

hai na? (n'est-ce pas?; isn't it?)

duusraa (second, other, next)

[k]huun (blood, a murder); [k]huunii (bloody) --yes, I heard this in a Bollywood movie; it's not all song and dance

dard-e-disco (the pain of disco)

hangaamaa (tumultuous crowd; commotion, din)

chiiz (a thing, an item)

juutaa (a pair of shoes; not to be confused with jhuut, a lie)

---------------

Disclaimers:

I am not a native Hindi speaker. The words I list are either ones I have picked up by watching Bollywood movies or from perusing my Hindi reference books, including Teach Yourself Beginner's Hindi Script, Teach Yourself Hindi Dictionary, Teach Yourself Hindi Complete Course, Living Language Hindi Complete Course, and best of all, the Oxford Hindi-English Dictionary. Despite all these reference sources, it is still totally possible that I read something wrong or misunderstood it--so keep in mind that this list is made by someone who's only been watching Hindi movies on a regular basis since November 2007 and has no previous experience with the language.

Bollywood for Beginners

2008-06-22T17:58:00.003-05:00

It's amazing what comes over you when you become obsessed with Bollywood films. You feel you must keep track of all of the movies you have seen. You say, "I can totally learn Hindi from watching Bollywood movies!" and then go out and get every dictionary and Teach Yourself Hindi book you can get your hands on. You want to share the linguistical wonders of Hindi with as many people as possible (whether they want you to or not), so you start a "Hindi Word of the Day" feature on your Facebook profile. Your mp3 player will only hold so many songs, so you take off all your other music to have enough room for all your Indian film music (well, that and the downloaded podcasts of Learn Hindi from Bollywood Movies). Your friends already think you're crazy. But no! That's not enough! You annoy them even further by trying to get them to join you in the madness! Oddly, some of them actually do.

My friend watched Kal Ho Naa Ho at my recommendation (I accidentally said to her one day, "I think you might like this movie," before I could stop myself), and since she liked it, she wanted to try some more Bollywood movies but didn't know what she should watch next. I mean, where do you start? There are zillions to choose from. I remember feeling the same way, about three or four years ago, when I was trying to figure out which few Bollywood movies to purchase for my library's collection. I wasn't very familiar with any of them, but I ended up picking an actor (Aamir Khan) and an actress (Aishwarya Rai) and going from there. It's always nice to have recommendations though, so here are the suggestions I sent to her by email (I had some input from my friend Anarchivist as well).

Note: there are mild spoilers in some of the movie descriptions so beware.

January 28, 2008

Well.

1. To start you off, Anarchivist suggests Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge [The Brave Heart Takes the Bride]. It stars Shah Rukh Khan (whom you saw in Kal Ho Naa Ho) and Kajol. It's an older movie (1995, same year as Pride and Prejudice!) but something of a classic by now. You'll have to suffer through some truly hideous wardrobe choices in the first half, but it gets better in the second half. Actually, the second half is better all around. I've seen the whole thing 2x.

2. If you want to just jump right in with a movie that includes staggering plot twists, then go with Fanaa (2006), starring Kajol and Aamir Khan. (Tabu, from The Namesake, is also in it for just a bit.) It's a comeback film for Kajol, who apparently hadn't done any films recently up to that point. Fanaa was one of the first Bollywood movies I saw at the Art-House Theatre. It starts out as a boy-meets-blind-girl love story, but then...as I said, staggering plot twists. It doesn't stick with just one genre, let's say.

(Kajol)

(Aamir Khan)

3. I also saw Omkara at the Art-House Theatre a couple of years ago. It's an adaptation of Othello. It's more of an art film, but it still has some songs. It's very well made. As Anarchivist says, the events that take place, the jealousy and misunderstandings--you can see how these events could really happen to them. It makes more sense than some other Othello adaptations. It also has kind of a Wild West/outlaw feel to it. It stars Ajay Devgan as Omkara/Othello, Kareena Kapoor as Dolly/Desdemona, and Saif Ali Khan as Langda/Iago, all of whom did a really good job. (You saw Saif in Kal Ho Naa Ho.)

(Ajay Devgan)

(Kareena Kapoor)

4. Salaam Namaste is a romantic comedy I really liked, starring Saif Ali Khan and Preity Zinta (both from Kal Ho Naa Ho). It takes place in Melbourne. It's amazing to watch Saif as Langda in Omkara and then as Nikhil in Salaam Namaste because he hardly seems like the same person (looks and acting). I know you saw him in Kal Ho Naa Ho, but he gets more screen time in Salaam Namaste, so you notice the contrast more here between this role and his performance in Omkara.

Here's Saif as Langda:

(Saif Ali Khan)

And here he is otherwise:

(Saif Ali Khan)

You might watch both movies and not even realize it was him in both. After I saw Salaam Namaste, I had to go back and watch his performance in Omkara again because I was so amazed at the difference in his characters.

And for good measure, here's a picture of Preity in the same movie:

(Preity Zinta)

5 & 6. If you want to watch more Shah Rukh Khan, try Chak De India! or Main Hoon Na [I'm Here Now].

Main Hoon Na is about an army guy (Shah Rukh Khan) who has to go undercover at a college to protect a girl going to school there. He is also looking for his brother, whom he has never met, while he is there. In the mean time, he falls for his chemistry teacher, and every time he sees her, his arms rise up from his sides of their own accord, and he can't help himself singing.

Chak De India! is made more like a Hollywood sports movie than a Bollywood movie, but it's about the Indian National Women's Hockey Team and how it is always third-string compared to all boys' sport and all the other girls' sports. Shah Rukh coaches the team.

7. Another movie Anarchivist mentioned is Straight from the Heart starring Salman Khan, Aishwarya Rai (Miss World or whatever), and Ajay Devgan. Salman and Aishwarya are okay, but if you liked Ajay Devgan in Omkara (I did), you should watch this one. It's not a great movie, but it has its moments. It's a run-of-the-mill romantic comedy with a twist.

8. Dhoom 2 is an action heist flick starring Aishwarya Rai, Bipasha Basu, Abhishek Bachchan, Uday Chopra, and Hrithik Roshan. It is extremely, wildly, incredibly implausible. Ludicrous, really. But fun. Abhishek and Uday are buddy cops, Bipasha is another cop, and Hrithik and Ash are the baddies trying to steal things. I really liked Abhishek in this one. He played the straight man so well. [update: Turns out, I love Abhishek in everything!]

(Abhishek Bachchan in Jhoom Barabar Jhoom)

But anyways, back to Dhoom 2. For a good picture of the cast, click here. In the picture, left to right: Uday Chopra, Abhishek Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai, Hrithik Roshan, Bipasha Basu.

9. If you want to watch a vintage Bollywood comedy, you can try Chupke Chupke. It stars Dharmendra, along with Amitabh Bachchan (Abhishek's father). I thought it was really funny, although it would have been even funnier if I understood Hindi. [update: I'm working on that]

(Dharmendra)

(Amitabh Bachchan)

(Amitabh Bachchan)

10. If you are not sick of Bollywood movies in a few months time, you have to put Om Shanti Om in your Netflix queue (have to, have to, have to!). Om Shanti Om is the movie that put me over the edge and made me get Netflix so I could watch more Bollywood. I'm definitely going to buy it when it comes out [update: it came out earlier this year and I did indeed buy it] (I also bought Kal Ho Naa Ho because I couldn't resist that one either). Om Shanti Om is about a bit-part actor (Shah Rukh Khan) in the movie industry in the seventies, who is in love with a superstar. He meets her and begins to romance her, but finds out something shocking. Things happen, they both die. In the second half of the movie, he is reincarnated as the superstar son of a superstar and it is now modern time. He meets a starlet who looks exactly like his lost love (but it's not really her) and begins to remember things from his past life. I LOVED the music. It's incredibly, unbelievably catchy. Trust me.

Tidbits about the stars:

Shah Rukh Khan--India's biggest superstar, although he's been overshadowed by Hrithik Roshan somewhat recently. But not after this, apparently (from Om Shanti Om):

(Shah Rukh Khan)

Aamir Khan--considered one of the best actors. Very picky as to roles.

Amitabh Bachchan--a legend.

Abhishek Bachchan--son of Amitabh Bachchan and Jaya Bhaduri (aka Jaya Bachchan--she was Jennifer in Kal Ho Naa Ho)

Preity Zinta--one of my favorite actresses.

Kajol--Fanaa was a comeback for her. Married to Ajay Devgan.

Ajay Devgan-- see http://specials.rediff.com/movies/2008/jan/22slde1.htm This slide show also mentions Irfan (below), among others.

Irfan Khan--played the father in The Namesake and Ajit Khurana in Dhund (Bollywood horror film) . Anarchivist's favorite actor, I think it's safe to say.

Aishwarya Rai--Miss World, married to Abhishek Bachchan, dated Hrithik Roshan [update: I don't even know where I heard this in the first place or if it's actually true. It was news to me when I reread it just now as I was editing this post for publishing.] and Salman Khan, before marrying Abhishek.

Hrithik Roshan--he's better in action films than romance films, I think. He's an incredible dancer and very athletic.

Kareena Kapoor--she comes from a long line of Kapoors in film.

Saif Ali Khan--dating Kareena Kapoor, last I heard.

Rani Mukherjee--starred in Mujhse Dosti Karoge! [Let's Be Friends!] with Kareena Kapoor and Hrithik Roshan. Rani is second[?] cousin to Kajol.

There are more, obviously, but I can't think of any right now.
You had to ask...

[end original email]

One last thing I should add is where to get your Bollywood fix.

Check your local library. They may have more titles than you realize. If they don't carry it, ask and they may be able to purchase it for the collection, or get it for you through interlibrary loan (you don't need to know how it works--just tell the librarian what title you are looking for and they will see what they can do).

Netflix makes it a whole lot easier now to rent movies if you don't have a local rental store with Bollywood titles. They don't carry everything, but they do have a lot.

And if you must own it, Nehaflix is your site--it's both cheap and fast. I ordered three movies and two soundtracks on Tuesday evening and they were in my mailbox on Friday afternoon. Amazing!

Hindi Word of the Day Archives for May 2008

2008-06-01T20:11:00.000-05:00

bas! (enough!)

acchaa, thiik (fine, good, well; acchaa also means okay)

ek, do, teen, char, paanch, chah, saat, aath, nau, das (one, two, three...ten)

bahut (very, many, much)

matlab (meaning); "kya matlab?" ("meaning what?"/ "what do you mean?")

pyaar/prem/ishq/muhabbat (love)

dil (heart)

shaadi (marriage); "hum shaadi n'hi karti!" ("we are NOT getting married!")

sundar (beautiful, handsome, charming)

chandaa, chandra (moon); chaandna (moonlight); chaandni (moonbeam); chaandla (crescent-shaped); chaandi (silver)

khush (happy); khushi (happiness)

khushbo (fragrance, pleasant scent)

yash (glory, honor, fame)

jaaduu (magic)

ankh (eye); ankhen (eyes)

roshnii (light, brightness)

raat (night)

sapnaa (dream)

jaage (wake)

soona (sleep)

dost (friend)

yaar! (dude!)

hameshaa (always)

bilkul (absolutely)

naach (dance)

sab/sabhi (all)

naag (cobra, snake); nageen (female cobra, snake)*

jau! (go!)

bhaloo (bear)*

bagheraa (tiger cub, leopard); bagh (tiger); sher (tiger, lion); khan (lord, prince)*

haara (green)

*Apparently "Mowgli" was made up by Kipling, and I couldn't find "Kaa" in the Hindi dictionary either.

---------------

Disclaimers:

I am not a native Hindi speaker. The words I list are either ones I have picked up by watching Bollywood movies or from perusing my Hindi reference books, including Teach Yourself Beginner's Hindi Script, Teach Yourself Hindi Dictionary, Teach Yourself Hindi Complete Course, Living Language Hindi Complete Course, and best of all, the Oxford Hindi-English Dictionary. Despite all these reference sources, it is still totally possible that I read something wrong or misunderstood it--so keep in mind that this list is made by someone who's only been watching Hindi movies on a regular basis since November 2007 and has no previous experience with the language.

Hindi Word of the Day Archives for April 2008

2008-05-01T20:10:00.000-05:00

Last month I started updating my Facebook status with a Hindi word of the day every morning as a way to make use of all these new Hindi words that have been floating around in my head since I started watching Bollywood movies. I lost my original paper list that I was using to keep track of the words I posted, but I've tried to reconstruct it here as much as possible. Ninety-eight percent of the words listed here are ones that I've picked up by watching movies; they just stuck in my head. I chose words I already knew the meaning of, but I looked most of them up first to check spelling and to pin down more specific meanings. The ones I didn't know beforehand include mangal, which I heard in a song lyric and had to look up, and barf/barfistan, which I saw in the dictionary and had to use on a snowy day at the end of April (had to! How could I not!). I also came across the explanation of parsom/tarsom/narsom in my Living Language Hindi Complete Course book. The other books I've been using for reference include Teach Yourself Beginner's Hindi Script, Teach Yourself Hindi Dictionary, Teach Yourself Hindi Complete Course, and the Oxford Hindi-English Dictionary. Despite all these reference sources, it is still totally possible that I read something wrong or misunderstood it--so keep in mind that this list is made by someone who's only been watching Hindi movies on a regular basis since November and has no previous experience with the language.

kitna? (how many?)

mangal (auspicious, fortunate, well-being, good fortune)

chellu! (let's go!)

zindagii (life)--this is my favorite word. I just love how it sounds and looks: zinnndddaaaggiiiiiii

chup! (shut up!)

saach (true, truth)

jhuut (lie, lying, falsehood)

dekho! (look!)

sunno! (listen!)

kahaanii (story, tale)

paagal (mad, crazy); "tum paagal ho!" ("you're mad!")

deewana/deewani ([m./f.] crazy, obsessed, besotted, insane)

shaayad (perhaps)

jaldi (hurry)

kitaab (book)

kal (yesterday/tomorrow); parsom (day before yesterday/day after tomorrow); tarsom (day before the day before yesterday/day after the day after tomorrow); narsom (day before the day before the day before yesterday/day after the day after the day after tomorrow)

dhanyavaad/shukriyaa (thank you)

lekin (but)

barf (snow); barfistan (snowy expanse, snowy waste)

sirf (only)

chotaa/chotii/chote ([m./f./pl.] small, little)

baraa/barii/bare ([m./f./pl.] big, large, great)

Pay No Attention to the Girl Behind the Curtain

2008-04-10T14:45:00.000-05:00

I just want to start a list of all the Hindi, Bollywood and other Indian-related films I've seen and I need a place to keep track of them so here it is (in rough order of when I saw them).

Key:

* * * * * =ratings system (out of five stars); keep in mind this rating system is for whether or not I liked the movie, not whether I thought it was well-made (well, except for that one There'll Always Be Stars in the Sky: The Indian Film Music Phenomenon--it was so strangely judgmental about its purported subject matter, I couldn't give it good marks)

2x = number of times seen

Own = I own it

OS = I own the soundtrack

Theatre = I saw it in the theatre

The Indian-related movies I've seen in the past eight or so years, pre-obsession:

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) 4x; Amrish Puri!!! and Roshan Seth

A Passage to India (1984) * * * * Victor Banerjee, Judy Davis, Peggy Ashcroft, James Fox, Alec Guinness, Nigel Havers, Art Malik, Saeed Jaffrey, Roshan Seth

The Peacock Spring (1996) * * * * * Naveen Andrews, Hattie Morahan(PBS, please please please put this out on dvd!!!!)

The World of Apu (1959) Theatre; Soumitra Chatterjee, Sharmila Tagore

The Jewel in the Crown (1984) Art Malik; I didn't see all of it--only the first two episodes

Monsoon Wedding (2001) * * * *

East Is East (1999) * * * * Om Puri, Jimi Mistry,

Fanaa (2006) * * * * * Theatre, OS; Aamir Khan, Kajol, Rishi Kapoor, Tabu, Lara Dutta, Kirron Kher, Shiney Ahuja,

Don (2006) * * * * Theatre; Shah Rukh Khan, Priyanka Chopra, Arjun Rampal, Boman Irani, Om Puri, Kareena Kapoor, Chunky Pandey,

Omkara (2006) 2x * * * * * Theatre; Ajay Devgan, Saif Ali Khan, Kareena Kapoor, Konkona Sen Sharma, Vivek Oberoi, Bipasha Basu, Naseeruddin Shah

Hum Dil De Chuke Sanaam [Straight from the Heart] (1999) 2x first half * * *, second half* * * * * Aishwarya Rai, Salman Khan, Ajay Devgan, Helen

Kandukondain Kandukondain [I Have Found It] (2000) 2x * * * * Aishwarya Rai, Tabu, Ajith, Mammootty

Bride and Prejudice (2004) 3x * * * * Own; Aishwarya Rai, Martin Henderson, Naveen Andrews, Indira Varma, Anupam Kher,

Partner (2007) * * * * 2x Salman Khan, Govinda, Lara Dutta, Katrina Kaif

Dhund (2003) * * Irfan Khan, Gulshan Grover, Tom Alter, (sorry, Irfan, but it was really bad)

________________________________

Om Shanti Om (2007; the movie that changed my life) 3x * * * * * * * * * * Own, OS, Own Book; Shah Rukh Khan, Deepika Padukone, Shreyas Talpade, Arjun Rampal, Kirron Kher, and just about everyone else in Bollywood

_________________________________

Everything since Om Shanti Om from November 2007 on:

Kal Ho Naa Ho (2003) 4x * * * * * * * Own, OS; Shah Rukh Khan, Preity Zinta, Saif Ali Khan, Jaya Bhaduri

Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (1998) * * *

The Namesake (2007) * * * * * Kal Penn, Irfan Khan, Tabu

Mujhse Dosti Karoge! * * * Rani Mukherjee, Hrithik Roshan, Kareena Kapoor

Dhoom 2 (2006) * * * * * Abhishek Bachchan, Hrithik Roshan, Aishwarya Rai, Bipasha Basu and Uday Chopra

Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (1995) 2x * * * * OS; Shah Rukh Khan, Kajol, Amrish Puri

Main Hoon Na (2004) 2x * * * * OS; Shah Rukh Khan,

Chupke Chupke (1975) * * * * * Dharmendra, Sharmila Tagore, Amitabh Bachchan, Jaya Bhaduri

The Mistress of Spices (2005) * * * Aishwarya Rai, Dylan McDermott

Lagaan * * * * Aamir Khan,

Koy Mil Gaya (2003) * * * Hrithik Roshan, Preity Zinta,

Sholay * * * * * Dharmendra, Amitabh Bachchan, Hema Malini, Jaya Bhaduri

Rang De Basanti * * * Aamir Khan, Kunal Kapoor

Chak De! India (2007) 2x * * * * * Theatre, Own, OS; Shah Rukh Khan

Salaam Namaste (2005) 3x * * * * * Own, OS; Saif Ali Khan, Preity Zinta, Arshad Warsi

Jhoom Barabar Jhoom (2007) * * * * * 3x, Own, OS; Abhishek Bachchan, Preity Zinta, Amitabh Bachchan

Earth * * * Aamir Khan

Krrish * * * Hrithik Roshan

Kabul Express * * * * Arshad Warsi, John Abraham

Disco Dancer * * * * Mithun

Asoka * * * * Shah Rukh Khan, Kareena Kapoor

Gandhi (1982) * * * * * Ben Kingsley, Roshan Seth,

Karz * * * * Rishi Kapoor

Main Prem Ki Diwani Hoon ( ) * Kareena Kapoor, Hrithik Roshan, Abhishek Bachchan

Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna (2006) 2x * * * * OS; Shah Rukh Khan, Rani Mukherjee, Abhishek Bachchan, Preity Zinta, Amitabh Bachchan, Kirron Kher

Water * * * * * John Abraham, Seema Biswas

Fire * * * Aamir Khan

Mississippi Masala (1991) * * * * Denzel Washington,

Maqbool (2003) * * * *

Don (1978) * * * * Amitabh Bachchan,

Guru ( ) * * * * * OS; Abhishek Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai, Mithun

Kuch Naa Kaho (2003) 2x * * * * * Own, OS; Abhishek Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai,

Bhool Bhulaiyaa * * * * Akshay Kumar, Vidya Balan, Shiney Ahuja, Amisha Patel

Aaja Naachle first half: * * , second half: * * * * ; Madhuri Dixit, Konkona Sen Sharma, Kunal Kapoor, Irfan Khan, Akshaye Khanna

Dil Chata Hai * * * * Akshaye Khanna, Saif Ali Khan, Aamir Khan

Baabul * * * Rani Mukherjee, Amitabh Bachchan, John Abraham, Hema Malini, Salman Khan, Om Puri

Veer-Zaara (2004) * * * * Shah Rukh Khan, Preity Zinta, Amitabh Bachchan, Hema Malini

Devdas (2002) * * * * Shah Rukh Khan, Aishwarya Rai, Madhuri Dixit

Bobby * * * * * Rishi Kapoor, Dimple Kapadia,

Gumnaam (1965) * * * Manoj

Darr (1993) * * * * Shah Rukh Khan, Juhi Chawla, Sunny Deol

Main Pyar Kiya

Life...in a Metro * * * * Konkona Sen Sharma, Irfan Khan

Baadshah * * * * Shah Rukh Khan,

Mangal Pandey: The Rising * * * * Aamir Khan, Toby Stephens,

Kaho Naa...Pyaar Hai

Duplicate * * * Shah Rukh Khan,

Swades (2004) * * * * Shah Rukh Khan,

Deewana * * * Shah Rukh Khan, Rishi Kapoor,

Paheli (2005) * * * * Shah Rukh Khan, Rani Mukherjee,

Cheeni Kum (2007) * * * * Amitabh Bachchan, Tabu,

Chalte Chalte * * * * OS; Shah Rukh Khan, Rani Mukherjee,

Bluffmaster (2005) * * * * * Own, OS; Abhishek Bachchan,

Seeta aur Geeta

The Killer * * * * Emraan Hashmi, Irfan Khan

Provoked * * * * Aishwarya Rai, Miranda Richardson, Naveen Andrews

There'll Always Be Stars in the Sky: The Indian Film Music Phenomenon *

Jab We Met * * * * * Kareena Kapoor, Shahid Kapoor

Discovering the Music of India * * * *

Satyam Shivam Sundaram (1978) * * * * * Shashi Kapoor, Zeenat Aman

Devdas (1955) Dilip Kumar, Vyjayanthimala, Motilal, Suchitra Sen. I actually didn't finish this one. Devdas overload.

I See You (2006) * * * * Arjun Rampal, Vipasha Agarwal, Chunkey Pandey, Boman Irani, Sonali Kulkarni

Ram Jaane (1995) * * * * Shah Rukh Khan, Juhi Chawla, Pankaj Kapoor, Tinnu Anand, Gulshan Grover

Hameshaa (1997) * * * Saif Ali Khan, Kajol, Aditya Pancholi, Aruna Irani

Nanhe Jaisalmer (2007) * * * * Bobby Deol

Chaudhvin ka Chand (1960) * * * Rehman, Waaheeda Rehman, Guru Dutt, Johnny Walker, Mumtaz Begum

Ta Ra Rum Pum (2007) * * * Saif Ali Khan, Rani Mukherjee

Laaga Chunari Mein Daag (2007) * * * * * Rani Mukherjee, Konkona Sen Sharma, Abhishek Bachchan, Kunal Kapoor

Welcome (2007) * * * * Akshay Kumar, Nana Patekar, Anil Kapoor, Mallika Sherawat, Katrina Kaif

Amar Akbar Anthony (1977) * * * * * Amitabh Bachchan, Vinod Khanna, Rishi Kapoor, Neetu Singh, Parveen Babi, Shabana Azmi

Mohabbatein (2000) * * * * Amitabh Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan, Uday Chopra, Jugal Hansraj, Jimmy Shergill, Sharmita Shetty, Kim Sharma, Preeti Jhangiani, Aishwarya Rai, Anupam Kher, Amrish Puri, Helen

Doosra Aadmi (1977) * * * Rishi Kapoor, Neetu Singh, Rakhee

Yuva (2004) * * * * Abhhishek Bachchan, Rani Mukherjee, Ajay Devgan, Esha Deol, Vivek Oberoi, Kareena Kapoor, Om Puri

Sharmeelee (1971) * * * * Rakhee, Shashi Kapoor

Namastey London (2007) * * * * * Akshay Kumar, Katrina Kaif, Rishi Kapoor

Guide (1965) * * * * Waheeda Rehman, Dev Anand

Dil Se (1998) * * * * Shah Rukh Khan, Manisha Koirala, Preity Zinta, Zorha Sehgal

Saaya (2003) * * * John Abraham, Tara Sharma, Mahima Chaudhry, Zorha Sehgal

Dream Girl (1977) * * * * Hema Malini, Dharmendra, Ashok Kumar, Prem Chopra

Jodhaa Akbar (2008) * * * * * Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Hrithik Roshan, Sonu Sood, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Amitabh Bachchan (narrator)

Jewel Thief (1967) Dev Anand, Ashok Kumar, Vyjaanthimala, Tanuja, Helen, Faryal, Anju Mahendru

Blackmail (1973) * * * * * Rakhee, Dharmendra, Shatrughan Sinha

Salaam-e-Ishq (2007) * * * * * Priyanka Chopra, Salman Khan, John Abraham, Vidya Balan, Juhi Chawla, Anil Kapoor, Akshaye Khanna, Ayesha Takia, Govinda, Shannon Esra [or Esrechowitz], Sohail Khan, Isha Koppikar

Hum Apke Hain Koun . . . ! (1994) * * * * * Madhuri Dixit, Salman Khan, Anupam Kher, Reema Lagoo

Tashan (2008) * * * * 1/2 Kareena Kapoor, Akshay Kumar, Saif Ali Khan, Anil Kapoor

Mother India (1957) * * * * Nargis, Sunil Dutt, Rajendra Kumar, Raaj Kumar, Kanhaiyalal

Chori Chori (2003) * * * * Rani Mukherjee, Ajay Devgan, Sonali Bendre, Kulbhushan Kharbanda

Jaan-e-Mann (2006) * * * 1/2 Akshay Kumar, Preity Zinta, Salman Khan, Anupam Kher

Pestonjee (1988) * * * * Naseeruddin Shah, Anupam Kher, Shabana Azmi, Kirron Kher

Saawariya (2007) * * Ranbir Kapoor, Sonam Kapoor, Rani Mukherjee, Zohra Sehgal, Salman Khan, Begum Para

Kyun? Ho Gaya Na (2004) * * * * Aishwarya Rai, Vivek Oberoi, Om Puri, Amitabh Bachchan, Tinnu Annand, Rati Agnihotri

Guddi (1971) * * * * Jaya Bhaduri [Bachchan], Dharmendra,

Thoda Pyaar, Thoda Magic (2008) * * * Saif Ali Khan, Rani Mukherjee, Amisha Patel, Rishi Kapoor [as God]

Outsourced (2006?) * * * Josh Hamilton, Ayesha Dharkar, Asif Basra

First published 4/10/2008 1:45pm

Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna

2008-03-24T17:56:00.022-05:00

Bollywood is like crack cocaine*.

When I first watched Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna, I gave it four stars out of five because I thought it was very well made, very pretty and stylish, and it had all my favorite actors. But I didn’t really like it. I wanted to, but the characters were all unhappily married, the situation was uncomfortable, and the whole movie was full of mean and crabby people. I also thought the music was too similar to the music in Kal Ho Naa Ho, and not as good (both soundtracks were done by the same music directors, Shankar, Ehsaan, & Loy). After the movie was all over, I decided it had been worth watching—once.

*not that I would actually know.

I took it back to the library, and believed I would never need to watch it again. After all, I have only so much time and so many thousands of Bollywood movies to watch, and I had to get cracking on the rest of them. And yet…and yet…somehow I found myself still thinking of Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna.

Despite not liking the movie, I did have a favorite song video scene which kept popping up in my brain, but I didn’t realize it was from that particular movie right away. The scene is this: Shah Rukh Khan is shown standing by himself on the playing field of an empty soccer stadium, singing, with his arms outstretched and the camera swooping and swirling around him in a circle, showing off the green playing field in the background. (It sounds cheesy, yes, I know. It always does. But it was a great shot, really—trust me.) I had to do some research online to try to figure out if it was in fact from Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna, or from Chak De India, which is a movie about the Indian National Women’s Hockey Team and also involves large green sports stadiums and Shah Rukh Khan. Once I figured it all out and found the right scene from the right movie, I realized I also really loved the song Mitwa, which is the song playing during the scene.

One weeklong, nonstop Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna soundtrack binge later, I thought I would just check out the dvd a second time from the library, to watch the one song in its entirety—just the one song, you know. But by this time, all of the other songs from the soundtrack had been burned into my brain, and I had to play the videos of all the rest of the movie’s songs on the dvd too. Had to!

You can see where this is going. I must own this dvd. I must watch it again. The whole movie, not just the songs. Why? Why?? I have no idea. Regular movies don’t have this effect on me. Yes, I do own a great many non-Bollywood films, and I will pull one out every once in a great while to watch it again if I haven’t seen it in a few years. But I am not compelled to watch them over and over again within a month of first seeing them. Why are the Bollywood ones any different? Okay, so I LOVED Kal Ho Naa Ho. I LOVED Jhoom Barabar Jhoom. I've watched them both at least three times each since November, squeezed in among all the other Bollywood films I’ve seen since then. One could say it would be sort of understandable to want to watch them more than once in such a short time period, although I don’t usually do that with movies, no matter how much I loved them the first time. But Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna? Why? I didn’t like it much in the first place. Why do I need to see it again? (And I really, really do.)