Kai Po Che.

I liked Kai Po Che. I watched it months ago, alongside the two other films I recently reviewed, and while it wasn't my favourite of the batch, it was probably the most well made of the bunch. It was in that considerate UTV style I think we've all gotten used to; interesting characters, quality production, attention paid to the story and much faith given to the director. The picture above namedrops Rock On and Rang De Basanti, two hallmarks of the quality we've come to expect from UTV, and two films I personally love.

So it was inevitable that I would begin to wonder why I didn't love Kai Po Che. It wasn't like there was anything considerable missing in the film - it was just a really good effort, packed with young talent, and a good story told at a decent pace, reflecting all the various events that shaped the lives of these young men in Gujarat. Carla's review mentions she's tired of stories about young men, and in all honesty, maybe I am, too, and maybe that's okay, given how many of my favourite films are about young men and their friendships.

On the other hand, this film makes me so pensive, because it makes me think about how I've changed as a viewer. I still get giddy about the same things - I love films with great music, fantastic colours, goofy action and red-hot chemistry between the leads. These things are what drew me into watching Indian films ten years ago. I still adore the masala and the quirk, but nowadays I also love older cinema, more sombre films, films that weave in politics and history and all the not-so-happy parts of Indian society as well as the bright colours of the festivals and lavish sarees. Films like Kai Po Che certainly provide a balance between the two, which is why it's a good film - it's just not a film that I happened to love.

Indian Film Advent Calendar #2: The Accidental Marathon.

This is a story of a marathon gone either incredibly right, or incredibly wrong. I had a friend over once. The friend is female, around my age, and Finnish, but for the sake of maximum confusion, I shall call them Steve. Steve's seen quite a lot of Bollywood, all sorts, and even if she doesn't actively look up new films, she definitely likes them. It'd been a while since I'd shown her anything new, so I was eager to make her watch something. We had trouble deciding what to watch when I suddenly got an idea.

"I should show you Khiladi," I said. "It's so 90's and it's got Akshay fighting and all that good stuff."

Steve was game for it.

"We'll stop half-way through, though," I added. "The second half is simply really boring."

We began the movie and Steve was enthralled. The cheese! The action! The brilliance of keyboard-composed sound effects! When we got to the part where the plot takes a twist for the worse, she refused to let me stop the film. "Let's just keep watching." And so I suffered through the mediocre suspense plot of the second half, but at least Steve was happy. "I kind of love this film now," she said.

Then I thought I'd again show a bit of Saawariya, to introduce two of Bollywood's newest faces to Steve, who hadn't really seen the really new batch of films. The film may be pretty, but it's also quite a borefest, which even the Khiladi-loving Steve noticed. We remarked on Ranbir's face and acting, and a bit on Sonam, and then I told her that the Region 2 DVD release has an English audio track for the visually impaired - an English narration track of sorts. For laughs, we began watching it.

And then we kind of never stopped, skipping only a few scenes and then finishing the movie. The narration track was just so amusing, getting some things wrong (like saying Salman's character has his hands up "as if he is praying" when he clearly is praying), getting lyrics wrong, and amusing voice overs for Bollywood actors (like Salman's one made him sound like a really perverted older British man). Quite a joy, that audio track, but also bizarre - especially considering how much the visuals are the sole appeal for this film.



Ishq was a film I actually intended to show Steve, after spamming her with links to the songs on Facebook. This is really the quintessential 90's Bollywood film, after all. Not to say it's the best, or even remotely good. But Ishq is what it is; the most over-the-top, outrageously great bad movie you could think of. A story of evil rich people and prejudice against poor people, a story of absolute crazy love, filled with slapstick and silly fashion and a painfully simplistic Anu Malik soundtrack, Ishq is a kind of questionable masterpiece. And it's amazing that a cast so famous, so well-known and acclaimed in terms of acting could come together in a film this bad, where all of them act bad. (Yes, even Aamir. Yes, even Kajol.)

Needless to say, I loved rewatching it, and Steve enjoyed watching it. Tears and monkeys and setting-oneself-on-fire included.

By this point the fact that we were overlooking some really good movies in my collection for some mediocre and lame ones had become an inside joke. There was no chance of this becoming a classy film marathon, I wasn't going to pop in a classic and hope for a sudden turnaround. So utterly randomly, I mentioned Katrina Kaif and then realized Steve hadn't actually seen a film with her in it. Time for Namastey London!

As far as not-great films go, NL is top class, though. The story of Katrina's bratty Brit with Punjabi roots and Akshay's handsome farm bumpkin is brought down a bit by the film's rampant anti-British sentiments. There is only one mildly likable white character, the rest are awful racists and assholes. However, in the love story department, the movie excels. It's just a really lovely, fun watch, the kind of nice film for a rainy day.

And it will never stop being funny that Katrina's assy British boyfriend character is called "Charlie Brown".

But I think I made a mistake in trying to turn our "Crap To Mediocre To So Bad It's Good" marathon into something quite different by popping in an actual very beloved favourite of mine and many others, Jab We Met. My thinking was again one of introduction - Steve hadn't seen a single Shahid Kapoor film, and surely that should be a sin in these post-Kaminey days! Retrospectively I think I should've gone for 36 Chinatown, another Shahid-Kareena film, much more fitting to our silly marathon in terms of quality.

Why do I say this? Because to Steve, this film was very fitting - she absolutely loathed it. She hated both main characters, she didn't like the storyline, she didn't find anything appealling about it, and for me to tell her the film was actually quite popular further confirmed her dislike of it. I can't really remember why she didn't like it; something about the characters simply didn't click with her.

But the tragedy of how bad JWM had gone down, there was nothing that a little high-spirited rock'n'roll couldn't fix, so I put in Rock On!! (presence of Farhan Akhtar helped cure yours truly of all blues as well). While this may not have become the huge, unbelievable favourite that Khiladi was to Steve, she enjoyed this one a lot more than JWM. I think as long-time rock fans it's nice to see enthusiasm for this genre in its rawest form, a simple celebration of music. You can see rock is still somewhat underground in India, but there is buzz around it, and there's enthusiasm among makers and fans, and that's what matters.

It doesn't hurt that the film's solid in terms of acting, direction and just about everything.

We ended the marathon by reading the karaoke lyrics on the DVD's bonus disc for Sinbad the Sailor.

Rock on, Accidental Marathon. Rock on.

Ajeev lagta hai, or: more NIF experiences.

I haven't really been watching Indian movies in the past two weeks or so. Correction: I haven't really been watching new Indian films as of late, even with my awesome pile of Southie flicks and my existing pile of unwatched Hindi DVD's. Instead, I've been keeping my NIF friends on a steady diet. Here's what we've watched.

Rock On!! was sadly overshadowed by the presence of the brand new puppy my friend had gotten. The little thing was running around, biting and being chaotic as puppies usually are, and so the brilliant story-telling of the film was constantly taking a back seat to what was happening in the room. But nevertheless, they did see the film, and did enjoy the soundtrack.. Though again, with mixed success; one friend noted during Socha hai, "That dude can't sing", but the other one liked it enough.

There were no comments on the hotness of Farhan, but there was praise on Purab Kohli's comedic skills. Go Purab!


I brought over three DVD's with nothing in common except they're all favourites of mine that I wouldn't mind re-watching: Jab We Met, Dhool and Dharam-Veer. I introduced them to the audience. "This is romantic & awesome, this one has Anniyan Man in it, this one's got everything from samurai's to midgets to gypsies to pirates." One friend said romantic fluff, the other wanted brainmelting midgets and samurais. We rock-paper-scissors it, and Dharam-Veer won. The JWM-supporter friend started whining - she was tired, it'd been a long day, all she wanted was something relaxing and fun to watch. I tried arguing the merits of D-V; it was perfect "turn your brains off" fun! It was masala from the 1970's, for crying out loud,

D-V went into the DVD player, but you've probably already guessed the outcome; after non-stop whinging from Friend #1, Friend #2 succumbed and we turned back to JWM.

Shahid got the honor of being compared to a successful literary character: "He looks like Harry Potter." We giggled over the Harry Potter analogy throughout the first half, and Friend #2 groaned when Shahid begins singing on the bus. "Like you didn't know this was coming!" I old her.

Views on Kareena differed. Friend #2 thought she was "one annoying lady" while Friend #1 said, after the film, "I usually dislike the girls in Bollywood films, but I really liked this one!". Don't worry, Geet, at least you made one new fan!

Emotional appeal was established, probably for the first time since our viewing of Rang De Basanti - Friend #1 admited to getting teary-eyed during one of the heart-string tugging scenes. I consider this one an overall success.

Another evening, another film, and while I love Dhool to pieces, even after this umpteenth rewatch of it, it didn't reach the glorious levels of WTF that Anniyan did, and therefore left my friends a little cold. The songs were appreciated (though perhaps "Kundu kundu" a bit too brainmelting for Friend #2), but the typical "hero-against-corruption" didn't really engage my friends enough for them to truly appreciate the film.

Nevertheless, Friend #1 admitted she was warming up to Vikram's looks and that's good enough for me.

The pseudohistorical crackfest known as Dharam-Veer I watched together with Friend #1, Friend #2 being out of town (god, I really have to come up with better nicknames for them if I continue to write about our filmi sessions on this blog!). This time, the moment just wasn't right. The first half of the movie went swimmingly, my friend fearing constantly a Dharmendra up-skirt shot, which seemed to come around the corner but never (thankfully) did and us snarking the brilliant costuming in the film, and of course, the Wonder Bird Sheroo.

But as the movie continued, the complex, convoluted - maybe slightly stretched-out - plot began to bore me and my friend. The first two times I'd seen the film, I'd loved it to bits. Perhaps it was just the hour of the evening, the stress of the upcoming week creeping up to both of us.. Don't know. I still love the movie as ever, but I suppose it just isn't as tight in terms of direction as I'd want it to be. Then again, maybe Manmohan Desai films never are.


So, that's NIF Story Hour for this time.. I think my friends have had an overload of Hindi/Tamil films for now, but next time I'm considering showing them Nuvvostanante Nenoddantana, Jhoom Barabar Jhoom or Duplicate. Best keep it light.

The filmi year 2008.

I already said in the review for Rock On!! that it felt like 2008 was less of a year for Indian films than 2007. Each year I miss out on films that came out during that year, and weirdly enough, the films I missed out on in 2007 (such as Chak De India, Aaja Naachle and Bhool Bhulaiyaa) were some of the ones I enjoyed the most this year. So perhaps 2008 will also reveal some interesting flicks during 2009, but so far, having seen most of the big films of 2008, I feel rather unexcited.

Filmi Girl detailed her disappointments and favourites for the past year, but I'll lay out how the year was for me in a different format.

The Film That Should've But Wasn't: Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na

I understand I am completely in the minority for this one. I guess it was hype overkill; all the praise showered onto the movie, its plot, "freshness" and its stars, you forget it's still a debutante film director and first films are rarely if ever flawless. I liked Imraan and the kind of youthful romance/friendship themes should be exactly just my thing but something fell short in Jaane Tu. I thought about it a lot and came to the conclusion that despite loving Genelia in Bommarillu, I wasn't into her character in this film at all. While I love the song "Kabhi Kabhi Aditi", the picturization of it pinpoints what turns me off about her character; she feels things so extremely and doesn't even try to get over the devastation of losing a pet, and so comes off as this generally high maitenance little lady. I just raised my eye brow like, "Geez, cheer up emo kid!".

The romance doesn't quite work, I suppose because we see them being friends and essentially already in love. When you fail to see the process of the relationship, sometimes you buy it, sometimes it makes you feel like you're missing out on something that would've made you more into the movie.

But I don't want to argue these points - if you liked the movie, I'm happy for you. Just trying to detail the reasons - more to myself than anybody else - of why I didn't like it, even though I was so sure I would!

Ladies And Gentlemen, We Have a Clear Loser: Race

In my initial review, I was almost happy to have seen Race, because it's sometimes nice to mock something so completely. But in retrospect, god, what a wasted opportunity. You have perfectly capable actors like Saif, Anil and Akshaye, and some okay-to-whatever actresses like Bipasha and Katrina and the only real offering of the movie are awkward songs with skintastic picturizations. Yawn. And yet, this one was a box office success! India, sometimes I just don't understand you...

Veracious Goes Against The Grain: Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic & Tashan

So I hated Race but the other two Saif films this year, yes, the ones that absolutely tanked in the box office, I quite liked! Thoda Pyaar was a saccharine sweet Disney film in Hindi but it worked, thanks to the sincerity of the director and the brilliance of Rani Mukherjee. Tashan on the other hand, flawed movie that could've been so much better, but also a fun action masala that proves why Akshay Kumar is one of the top stars in India and why Kareena Kapoor excels if you give her a good role.

Close But No Cigar: Dostana

I really enjoyed Dostana but it doesn't quite end up on the "oh em gee favouritest ever in the universe" list of films. It had flaws, but even more annoying, it had flaws that bugged me. The first half was a pretty damn good comedy, though, and I'll be getting it on DVD. The soundtrack is also my most-listened-to of the year.

Call Me a Groupie: Rock On!!

I don't have quite as clear a favourite this year as last year with Aata, a Telugu film I loved to pieces despite it's cheesiness. But if I had to pick one, it'd probably have to be Rock On!!, a fun film that I'll probably be rewatching a lot.

Missing Out on the Biggies: Bachna Ae Haseeno, Rab Ne Jodi.., Ghajini, Yuvraaj, U Me aur Hum..

It seems like the best films this year were the not-so-big, not-so-mainstream ones, but I definitely do want to see some of these big name movies. Maybe next year.

Film Experience of the Year: Jodhaa-Akbar

I saw this in the theaters thanks to being able to visit the UK in March and wow, what an experience. The most epic film of all time, surely, and the epicness was certainly over-whelming. It gets boring every now and again, but to make up for it, there's hot chemistry, intense romance and elephants. There are few things I love more than elephants. Did I mention .. elephants!

And a final plug to everybody and anybody visiting London:

Ayngaran Video
30 High Street Colliers Wood
London, SW19 2AB

Take the Jubilee Line (if I recall correctly) to Colliers Wood, follow the street you get on when you get out of the tube station, and find this shop. Ayngaran is the best releaser of Tamil DVD's and their London shop is full of offers, and a very nice helpful staff, brimming with movie recommendations. Highly recommended!

PS.

Navel-gazing ahead: Yeah, my blog was featured in the press a smidgeon this year. It was awkward, but also pretty cool. Here's the latest, on Filmfare October or November or whatever:


Thanks to Reema for the scan!

I might post before 2009, I might not. If not, have a great new year, guys!

Why is the sky blue, why is Farhan Akhtar perfect? Rock On!! review, now with bonus fangirlism.

Dear Mrs. Farhan Akhtar,

It's not in my right to speculate how your marriage came into being nor does it feel right to try and hunt down that piece of information via Google or otherwise. Regardless, I'd just want to congratulate you and wish you a lasting and wonderful marriage and life.

Yours sincerely,

veracious

PS. You do know that there are about a billion women on this earth who are incredibly jealous of your position?

PS. He named your second kid Akira?! Ohmygod. I bet you'd hate him if he wasn't so completely awesome.


So yeah. I watched Rock On!! and despite all the hype surrounding it, I wasn't the least bit disappointed. Of course it deals with a number of rock film clichés, and you have a pretty good idea of what's going to happen, but regardless of that, while watching, I was just sucked in by the story-telling and the clever-not-too-clever narrative and the solid performances all around.

It says something about 2008 as a filmi year, I suppose, that I honestly think this could be my favourite film of the year so far. Fine, there's a ton of films I've missed but even the ones I've liked and bought on DVD, or considered buying on DVD, have been "just okay" as film experiences. I've liked a film, really liked a film, but only Rock On!! has been a film I've *loved*.

Part of what makes the story work so well is the relative realism and lack of over-dramatization of situations and people. You know, there's a few nasty people in the film but they're not portrayed as complete villains. At the core, the emotions are real and present, however, and I especially liked Prachi Desai as Shakhi, wife of Aditya (Farhan Akhtar), who begins to unravel the mystery of the man she married and sets things in motion. The scenes of confrontation between her and him were also the key moments when I realized that Farhan is as capable an actor as he is a director.

At the same time, the film is keen on some filminess, and so certain improbable moments don't make you groan at their impossibility, but rather cherish them.

The soundtrack is of course made by the true rockstars of India, Shankar-Ehsan-Loy, and it's a solid rock record, though I did find myself wishing they'd break Bollywood pattern and showcase some genuine desirock bands on the record as well. Farhan's voice fits the songs and while the lyrics aren't made of deep world-altering thoughts, they're lovely. It backs up the film's central idea of rock ; as a fun way of self-expression, free of rules and regulations of more classical music. In the West, progress has lead to unpleasant phenomenons like rock elitism and categorization of music into every sub-genre imaginable. Rock On!! portrays a pure, simple view of rock that some fans of the music genre would snort at but I personally embrace. It's what rock should be - picking up an instrument and learning how to play it just for the fun of it, playing in a band because it adds something to your life.

Besides liking Arjun Rampal (who's been great in everything I've seen him recently - even if most of what I've seen have been small side roles in films like OSO, KANK, Don..), I couldn't put my finger on where I'd seen Purab Kohli (who played KD) before. Then it hit me. He was Nigel in the wonderful Onir film My Brother Nikhil. He was just ace here.

It seems sort of silly to say "a movie you don't want to miss out on", but I know how we Bollywood fans are - sometimes only keeping our eye on the big budget entertainers with truckloads of stars and glamour in them. So give this film a chance, you guys. Farhan is great (and easy on the eyes), the rest of the cast is great, the music is catchy and the story wonderful. Out on DVD now!