Fashion and a bit about Madhur Bhandarkar in general.

Beware: lots of major spoilers in this review, and very, very, very ranting.


Fashion was just this exercise in annoyance. I really liked the film at first. It wasn't perfect, it was predictable, but it was fun to watch, fashion escapism with a bit of a real edge to it, and a cast of characters I wasn't emotionally attached to but didn't mind watching, either. Then the plot took some turns and I was still watching it keenly, just noticing that I preferred the storylines of Janet (Mugdha Godse) and Shonali (Kangana Raut) to that of Meghna (Priyanka Chopra), our main character with the dream of becoming a super model.

As Meghna makes her dream into reality, the predictable thing happens: her success goes to her head in a massive way, she becomes a relentless bitch, an annoying diva, who snaps at everybody, is mean to everybody, and doesn't even notice how her behavior affects those around her. Eventually she gets on the path of substance abuse, just like her predecessor super-model Shonali, and hits rock bottom.

This is where the film really goes off the rails. If Meghna is an unlikable character for me but the film has more to offer than her storyline, as it at first seemed to, I'm game, but eventually the film becomes all about Meghna and I'm expected to care about her, when she essentially ruined her life with her own choices and poor consideration. Add to that the blatant racism of the scene where she realizes she hit rock bottom after sleeping with a black guy. Because the fact your boss essentially gave you the boot, your friends more or less all deserted you, your alcoholism, and then taking drugs, that's not enough to make you realize you may have deeply messed up your life. No, it's a one night stand with a black guy. Oh the horror! (Not to mention the implication that she wouldn't have had sex with him if it hadn't been for the drugs. Gah, just typing this makes me angry.)

Then the film fuses the storylines of Shonali and Meghna and this is where I tune in again, but of course, Shonali's messed up life is disposed of to make way for Meghna's self-actualization, so that she can shine again or whatever the hell.

Beth had a lot of good points in her Fashion rant, and one of them was regarding that we never find out why Meghna wants to become a super-model. I'd add to that a flaw that makes Fashion a weird one; it can be seen as a shockingly realistic expose on the drugs, the sex, the casting couch, the corruption of the fashion world, but at the same time, Meghna's "salvation" can only come from her getting back on the runway, the one thing that essentially destroyed her. It also annoys me that everybody encourages her to do so - the world that she first desired, then burned herself in, is the one she needs to become complete in some kind of twisted way. Stardom as a model is what we see her accomplish, even though the whole point of the film was to hammer in the message that this world is cruel and Meghna didn't know how to handle it, and neither did Shonali. Except now, at the end of the film, she's fierce and she can handle it? But what did she learn, in the end? Don't do drugs? Don't sleep with black guys? God, the writing is supposedly thought-through but has all these glaring mistakes.

I know this genre Madhur Bhandarkar enjoys delving in - the genre that takes an idealist person who wants to achieve something big in a world most of us find interesting and glamorous and read about, and then shoves that person into that world, as they climb the social ladder that gets them there. The person goes through a transformation, and that transformation alienates them from their friends, family, their old comfortable ordinary life, essentially. But as glamorous and amazing as their new life is, they quickly see how shallow and awful and cruel and corrupt and full of bad people it is. It might also be stressful and all these other things that lead them to having an utter breakdown, and that breakdown makes them go back to their roots; where they began and then they discover that partner that dumped them, and those friends, and that family, and that knitting club and a big mug of tea every morning; the ordinary, comfortable life. Eventually the person goes onto do something else; something that makes them whole but keeps them away from the world they visited and now know to be bad. "Many cakes are pretty on the outside", goes a Finnish proverb, reminding us that appearances are indeed deceiving.

It's an age-old tale. And you know what? It's one I can enjoy. One of my favourite chicklit novels is Everyone Worth Knowing by Lauren Weisberger, which has a plotline essentially what I just described. Predictable, unoriginal? Yes. Satisfying read on a rainy day? Absolutely.

The problem with Fashion is that it doesn't do the twist where the breakdown is followed by self-actualization in the comfortable middle-class life Meghna used to have, with friends and whatnot. Meghna just freezes while time continues around her. She can't live if she's on that catwalk. But geez, that catwalk wasn't very good to her! And I never understood why she needed the catwalk for her self-actualization anyway.

The journey to a glamorous but rotten world can result in a fairly life-affirming story (in the sense that the viewer feels their own ordinary lives may be drab and they don't do Jimmy Choo photoshoots, but at the same time they've got a nice family, their job is less high pressure, they can eat big meals etc) while still being realistic and tackling some real issues, like casting couch, drug abuse etc. But Fashion is predictable without following the trope to its satisfying ending, and it also focuses on its least interesting character (I vastly preferred storylines of Shonali and Janet).

There was some good stuff in there, too; I seriously wasn't very annoyed until the coke-snorting and black-dude-morning-after scenes, but overall, the movie sort of undoes itself by the end. I just couldn't enjoy the ride anymore.

---

But about Madhur Bhandarkar some more. I've only seen Page 3 and now Fashion, and both of those stories had some similarities, in that they're exposés that reveal the underbellies of celebrity and fashion industry. These sort of stories are pretty old in American/European entertainment, I feel. We all grew up watching them, and learning that celebrity is a double-edged sword and all is not as great as it seems and people in places that focus on appearance are superficial up to a fault and all this sort of stuff. So it feels kind of dull to watch these stories in an Indian context. I don't follow gossip much. I don't want to rub elbows with celebrities. I mean, I wouldn't mind meeting a few stars, but I'm not focusing all my energy on such a goal because I know it probably wouldn't be worth it, struggling to get into that world.

It's tough to evaluate these stories, because of how old they feel to me, but how new they might be in an Indian context, to the audiences who might mostly have seen the dream factory stuff. Are these stories worth telling? It's not really up to me to decide, certainly, but I still feel like Bhandarkar could draw something new out of this formula. A lot of the disappointment just comes from the hype surrounding these movies, especially Page 3. I mean, it was okay. It didn't make any favourite lists for me, though.

Something I told Beth in chat, while processing my thoughts on P3 and Fashion, was that essentially I saw an old Hollywood story formula in Rock On, too. And yet, I loved that movie to bits and enjoyed its simplicity and purity. It felt like a new story was being told in the Indian context where rockbands do not reign supreme, and I could appreciate it, and felt it would be good if it were to increase awareness of the country's underground rock scene. Perhaps the difference between this formula and that of the exposé films was that Rock On brought on the positive vibes and celebrated a world while showing its rough edges (the dicky record label guy, the pressure to sell out). These exposés rarely do. So I guess in the end what makes me so unenthusiastic about them is not the "what", it's the "how".

---

I also keep thinking about how I'd written Meghna's ending. I might've kept the fashion world as a terms of self-actualization but changed the setting. Perhaps she writes an exposé on the world, and finds her true calling as an investigative journalist. Perhaps she goes into fashion design herself. Perhaps she begins coaching new models to put her posing skills and her experience into good use to make sure other models don't mess up like she did. One thing the film completely ignored about the world of modelling is the short career models have. You start at sixteen, you retire at 27. What then? You do what Meghna did and spend two of your work years messing up your life and then building it back up, your career's going to be over in a few years. Of course, there were plenty of other realism mess-ups but you know, if this film actually inspired some people to go into modeling, they're gonna learn about some actual realities of that world pretty soon. And that learning's going to be more harsh than Meghna's downfall.

A long long time ago, in a galaxy far far away.

...Uday Chopra tweets about Star Wars.

Goodnight Twitter-chlorians...may the force be with you...

I am blown away by the sheer twit of that pun. (See what I did there?) No, wait --

...for those who didn't get it...Twitter-chlorians was a reference to midi-chlorians...ya I know most of u still may not get it

Dude, we got it. Second of all, midichlorians are microorganisms in all living things. So essentially you compared the almighty Twitterati to cell chemistry. WTF's that all about? I should have your imaginary French mother slap you for that! Non?

But if I was to take this line of thinking further than Uday is even capable of, he's basically suggesting that we're not living things as such, we're just a part of other living organisms, just like a ribosome or something. Ribosomes are important, but they can't, you know, speak, vote, tweet or go see Uday Chopra films in theaters. Or maybe, as midichlorians, what is important is the count of them - so what is important to Uday is not that people are interacting with each other on Twitter, but that they're following him and adding to his follower count.

I guess what I'm saying is follow Yoda, not Uday Chopra on Twitter.

@juniorbachchan "Young Jedi"!!!? I'm a Master Jedi...show some respect!!!

It's "Jedi master", not "master Jedi". Also, if Bollywood was a Jedi academy, you would be one of those foot-tall younglings, not Mace Windu sitting comfortably in the council. Let's be real here.

..I'm going to the planet Hoth in the Hoth System...it's freezing there

Now we know how the Imperial troops find out about the rebels staying in Hoth. I'm not usually a fan of revisionist history but Let's Blame Uday Chopra For Everything is my kind of theorizing.

Landing on the icy planet of Hoth...training young paduans today

PADAWANS. Pa-da-wans. And may the Force be with those poor padawans, to face such trials at a young age.

Morning all...thought for today..."Build your foundations with the stones thrown at you"...have an awesome day y'all

Uday's going to have some house, I can tell you that much. And I'm glad to have helped him out.

Kyyhkyläiset - the lovebirds. Maine Pyaar Kiya.

Voi väärin perustein tuomittu kahdeksankymmentäluku. Olihan sinullakin hetkesi. Kun ensimmäisen kerran kahlasin tämän klassisen melodramaattisen sokerihötön läpi, oli keskiyö ja viittä vaille syntymäpäiväni. Muistaakseni imeskelin piparminttukarkkeja ja kylvin Maine Pyaar Kiya:n (1989, suomeksi "Rakastuin..") juhlaisassa kasarimeiningissä aamukolmeen asti. Joskus hyviin synttäribileisiin tarvitaan vain itse sankari ja paidaton Salman Khan. [Oh the 80's, so mistakenly judged. You too had your moments. When I first waded through this classic, melodramatic sugarfluff, it was midnight and some minutes before my birthday. If I recall correctly, I was sucking on peppermint candy and bathing in the festive 80's happenings of Maine Pyaar Kiya (1989, trans: I fell in love..). Sometimes in order to have a great birthday bash all you need is the celebrant themself and a shirtless Salman Khan.]

Elokuva alkaa epäluontevasti suomennettavalla lauseella, "Jokainen rakastuu johonkuhun ... jotenkin ..." mutta on mietteen epämääräisyydestä huolimatta myönnettävä, että näinhän se on. Porukka rakastuu. Suman (Bhagyashree elämänsä roolissa, koska raukka ei oikein muuta tullut tehneeksi valkokankaalla) pääsee viettämään aikaa köyhän isänsä ystävän luona, ja eikös ystävysty itsekin perheen pojan Premin (nuori Salman Khan!) kanssa. Prem on tietty kaikkien yleisten sääntöjen mukaan siisti, moderni jätkä, ja Suman hieman perinteisemmin kasvatettu tyttö. Ken arvaa mitä tapahtuu seuraavaksi? [The film begins with a sentence very awkwardly translated into Finnish, but despite its vagueness, it's a true enough statement. People fall in love. Suman (Bhagyashree in the role of her life, since the poor thing didn't really get up to much more on the silver screen) gets to spend time with the friend of her poor father, and happens to befriend Prem (young Salman Khan!), the son of the family herself. Prem is of course, according to all conventions, a cool, modern dude, and Suman a little more traditionally raised girl. Who can guess what happens next?]

Ystävyydessä ei legendaarisen lausuman mukaan ole anteeksipyytelyä tai kiittelyä. Näin filosofisista pohdinnoista päästään tietty raiskaajapahiksen (Mohnish Behl) julmaan yleistykseen, etteivät tytöt ja pojat voi ikinä olla vain ystäviä keskenään, vaan jotain makuuhuonemenoa on pakko olla (ja miksi ketään kiinnostaa tän äijän näkemykset maailman asioista? se ampuu kyyhkysiä huvikseen ja raiskaa muijia bileissä! oikeesti, hei!). Premia ja Sumania nolottaa lievästi, koska eroottisin asia mitä he ovat tähän mennessä puuhailleet on jonkun voiteen levittäminen kipeälle nilkalle. Niinpä Prem päättää lähteä pois (tai jotain) ja Suman joutuu halailemaan kyyhkystä noin kuuden minuutin laulun verran. [In friendship, according to the legendary saying, there is no saying sorry or thank you. From these philosophical musings we come to the cruel generalization of the baddie-rapist (Mohnish Behl), that girls and boys can never be friends with one another, there's always something in the bedroom department (and why does anybody care what this guy thinks about matters of the world? he shoots pidgeons for fun and rapes girls at parties! really, now!). Prem and Suman are pretty embarrassed, because the most erotic thing they've done so far is spreading some cream on a hurt ankle. So Prem decides to go away (or something) and Suman has to embrace a pidgeon for one six minute long song.]

No ei nyt sentään. Kyyhkyskaveri tietty lähtee pois, vie kirjeen ja rakastetut löytävät hetkellisen onnen (2-3 laulun ajaksi), kunnes pahikset syyttävät Sumania onnenonkijaksi ja hänen on palattava isänsä luo. Isä tuntee itsensä häväistyksi (jaahas), Prem ilmestyy paikalle todistelemaan rakkauttaan, ja jo tunnin kuluttua elokuva loppuukin mukavasti. [Well, not really. Pidgeonbuddy naturally goes away, delivers the letter and the lovebirds find momentary happiness (for the duration of 2-3 songs), until the baddies accuse Suman of being a gold-digger and she has to return to her father. Father feels dishonored (righto), Prem appears to prove his love, and in an hour's time already the movie ends nicely.]

Voisin tiivistellä juonta enemmänkin mutta on painavampia asioita käsiteltävänä! Kuten... [I could sum up the plot some more but there are things of more imporance to go through. Such as...]

Paidaton Salman! (Aika helmi kollaasi tuolla seinällä. Sisustusprojekti!) [Shirtless Salman! (What a gem of a collage on that wall. Home deco project!]

Hikipannat! [Sweatbands!]

Pidän MPK:sta oikeasti tosi paljon. Se on ainoa Rajshri -elokuva, jossa perinteisiä perhearvoja ei tuomiteta aivoihin sähkövasaran avulla, vaan annetaan nuorten hahmojen rakkaustarinan voittaa puolelleen ja sitten revitään heitä melodramaattisesti erilleen juuri sopivasti. Suman on ehdottomasti perinteinen naishahmo, jolle siveys on kaikki kaikessa, ja vanhempien kunnioitus, uskonnollisuus ja muut tähän hahmotyyppiin kuuluvat piirteet ovat selkärangassa, ja pahikset ja hyvikset tunnistaa juuri näiden arvojen kautta. Pahis on länsimaalaistunut, joka juo ja polttaa ja on tuo itseään ilmiselvästi seksuaalisesti esiin. Hyvis, varsinkin naispuolinen sellainen, on seksuaalisesti pidättyväinen; he ovat äitejä ja siveitä tyttäriä. [I genuinely like MPK a lot. It's the only Rajshri movie where the traditional family values aren't delivered to your brain using an electric hammer, but the love story of the young characters wins you over and then the lovers are torn apart melodramatically, just the right amount. Suman is definitely a traditional type of female character, to whom chastity is everything and respecting elders, piety and other traits of this archetype are in her backbone, and bad guys and the good guys can be recognized clearly through these values. The baddie is westernized, who drinks and smokes and blatantly brings our their sexuality. The goody, especially female such, is sexually demure; they are mothers and chaste daughters.]

Voisi kuvitella, että näin ollen rakkauden lihallinen puoli loistaisi poissaolollaan, mutta tässä kohdin vähemmän hienovarainen symboliikka astuu kuvaan. Koko ajan Prem hiplaa Sumanin kasvoja jollain esineellä kuin Mughal-e-Azamissa ikään, oli esine sitten kukka tai jääpala. Toisella katselukerralla oikein yllätyin tästä elokuvan puolesta. [You would think that because of this, the carnal side of love would be non-existant but in this instance, not-so-subtle symbolism steps into frame. Most of the time Prem is feeling Suman's face up with some object like this is Mughal-e-Azam, whether the object in question is a flower or an ice cube. On the second viewing I was quite surprised by this aspect of the film.]

Hyvin mielenkiintoinen on myös kohta, jossa Suman omaksuu rakastuneen naisen identiteetin pukeutumalla sariin ja päästämällä pitkät kutrinsa avoimeksi hiusmassaksi. Se kuvaa yhtä lailla kasvamista tytöstä naiseksi kuin myös valmistautumista vaimon rooliin, joka on tietysti myös seksuaalinen. [The bit where Suman assumes the identity of a woman in love by wearing a sari and letting her hair loose into a mass of hair against her back, is also very interesting. It depicts growing up from a girl to a woman as well as preparing for the role of the wife, which is of course also sexual.]

Toisaalta saatan vain olla jonkinlaisessa häiriintyneessä hormonitilassa. Puolustukseni on sanottava, että kemia pääosien esittäjien välillä yksinkertaisesti toimii. Sinänsä vain hyvä, että elokuva jäi Bhagyashreen ja Salmanin ainoaksi yhteiseksi; harvinainen yhdistelmä jää ansaitusti legendaariseksi. [Of course this could just be me in some sort of disturbed hormonal state. In my defence I have to say that the chemistry between the leads simply works. It's actually kind of good that the movie was the only one they did together; the rare combination remains a deservedly legendary one.]

En kyllä voi edes teeskennellä, ettei koko elokuvan ajan ajatuksieni kaava mennyt jotenkin näin: nuori Salman! Salman nuorena! nuori! Salman! Salluuuu! nallekarhujen keskellä! tanssimassa suht kehnosti! nuori Salman! Salmaaaan! [I can't, however, pretend that the pattern of my thoughts during the whole movie wasn't something like this: young Salman! Salman as a young man! young! Salman! Salluuuu! among teddy bears! dancing somewhat badly! young Salman! Salmaaan!]

Mutta mitään pahaa ei voi sanoa Bhagyashreestä, päinvastoin. Sievä näyttelijätär, jolla on upea hymy, söpön pieni ääni. Hänellä olisi ollut täydellinen potentiaali tulla Juhi Chawlaksi Juhi Chawlan paikalle; näyttelijätär, joka valaisee valkokankaan pelkällä läsnäolollaan. [But nothing bad can be said about Bhagyashree, quite the opposite. Pretty actress, who has a gorgeous smile and a cutely small voice. She had the perfect potential to become the Juhi Chawla to replace Juhi Chawla; an actress who lights up the screen just by being on it.]

Musiikki on totta kai loistavaa, alkaen ensimmäisestä biisistä, joka mainostaa "ystävyyden vuodenaikaa" ja katolla tanssittavasta Final Countdown-kopiosta, unohtamatta antakshari-kohtausta, sekä "Dil deewana"-biisin kaikkia muotoja. Kaikki liikehdintä on aika kasaria, mutta osittain aivan täydellisellä tavalla. Aivan ikimuistoinen hetki on Salmanin tanssahtelu vakavana temppelin edessä, pyytämässä jumalalta jotain apua rakkauden puolustamiseen. Loistavaa. [The music is of course brilliant, starting from the first song that advertises the "season of friendship" and the roof top dance number that rips off Final Countdown, not to forget the antakshari-scene or all forms of Dil deewana. All the choreography is pretty 80's, but partly in a perfect way. One unforgettable moment is Salman's dancing seriously outside a temple, asking god for some help to defend his love. Brilliant.]

Joku mystinen hienous tässä elokuvassa on. Sinänsä koko teos on vanhasta puusta veistetty mutta samalla tulee selvästi tunne, että jotkut aineksista ovat oikeastaan muodostuneet kliseiksi vasta reilusti tämän elokuvan jälkeen. Kasarinaurettavuuskin on omalla tavallaan täydellistä viihdettä, nuoret näyttelijät toimivat pääosissa, musiikki on hyvää, vaatetuskaan ei oikeastaan ole niin kamalaa, eikä edes kolmen tunnin pituus puuduta niin paljon kuin mitä voisi olettaa. [This film has some mystic greatness to it. In a way the whole work is carved out of old wood but at the same time you get a distinct feeling that some of the ingredients have actually formed as cliches only after this film. The 80s cheese is in its own way perfect entertainment, the young actors work in the leads, the music is good, the fashion's not that bad, and even the 3 hour length isn't as numbing as one might think.]

Tietysti on ihan täysin makuasia, kiinnostaako paidattoman Salmanin uran alku, hattaramainen rakkaustarina melodramaattisilla höysteillä ja uppoaako katolla tuulikoneen kanssa pelehtiminen alkuunkaan. Omalla kohdallani on pakko vastata, että kyllä, kyllä, ja totta helvetissä. Ainakin tietyssä mielentilassa. [Of course it's entirely a matter of taste whether you're interested in the beginnings of shirtless Salman, the fluffy love story with melodramatic trimmings and whether fooling on the roof with a wind machine is your thing in the least. Myself I have to answer, yes yes and hell yes. At least when the mood strikes.]

PS.

Nuori Salman! [Young Salman!]


***

Woot, my first bilingual review. God this is all over the place, I'm glad most of you don't know Finnish. The translations are pretty hastily done because it's getting late and I just wanted to get this friggin' done. It's tough for me to review movies in Finnish, I noticed. My style is a little bit of this and that in Finnish, I can't quite work out whether I should write casual or more formal or tongue-in-cheek or more serious-like, and I can't quite work out my stylistic choices like I can in English. Goddammit. I suck at my own mother language.

Oh well. Hope you enjoyed! Thanks to everybody who voted on the poll. MPK won 50% of the votes, hence the pick.

Fun fact: "kyyhkyläiset" (trans: lovebirds) comes from the word "kyyhky" meaning pidgeon. Kabutar ja ja ja! :)

Another fun fact: I couldn't find an English trans to Finnish "syntymäpäiväsankari" (birthday hero, ie. whose birthday is celebrated). Hence why the end of the first paragraph is kinda awkward.

Like a big serving of kulfi - Oy!

In my last post about Siddharth's Telugu ouvre (KIKK review here), I expressed slight weariness of these family entertainers he's been doing since the success of Nuvvostanante Nenoddantana (from 2005, review here). I suppose similar weariness affected my liking of Oy, the latest Telugu offering from Siddharth, launching another new director (Anand Ranga). Thankfully Oy, despite being an utterly deriative film, is also a good one. And like Aata (reviewed here), the insane mass-entertainer I loved but some people and fans were ambivalent about, it has the benefit of having Siddharth looking really, really good.

Siddharth plays Uday, your standard Siddharth character (young, hip, modern, NRIfied), apart from the distinct lack of family. On New Year's Eve he meets Sandhya (Shamili) at a night club, falls for her hardcore and eventually wedges himself into her life by moving into her house as a paying guest. Sandhya couldn't be less like him - she's stern, conservative, religious, not fun-loving in the least. Yet Uday goes out of his way to make himself ideally suited for her, and to make her love him as fiercely as he loves her. As you can probably guess, he makes her come out of her shell eventually and their love begins to blossom..

There's a plot twist buried there somewhere you can probably see coming miles away if you're quick to these things. I'll say upfront I'm not, but when the twist arrived, I didn't mind.

And when I mean the plot is deriative, I can't leave out a mention of the "disclaimer" that comes before the movie, a list of inspirations (pictures small to avoid spoilers)..


Speaking for myself, I didn't really mind this. The honesty was refreshing! And I haven't really seen these famous movies, so what do I care? Moving on..

It's quite difficult to see what Uday sees in Sandhya at the beginning. Shamili is a fine enough actress but the character doesn't come off as particularly lovable, stopping children from having fun during Holi and all these other things that make her out to be just a grumpy curmudgeon.

The character develops, however, and shows her, more pleasant sides of herself and even though the romance never really builds up to legendary heights, it is definitely sweet enough, with a couple of very adorable scenes here and there. One very interesting perspective on this "fully romantic" movie (Siddharth's words, as he was comparing Oy to say, Konchem Ishtam Konchem Kashtam, which was a family-focused romantic film), is that because the characters don't particularly have a family, the romance between the two of them gets real focus. If they had living family members, I doubt this would have happened; in that case, those characters and their views on the romance would've impacted the storyline. It's an interesting contrast to Hollywood movies (which Oy borrows from), where the family is probably there somewhere but doesn't matter much in the coming together of the two romantic leads.

As with most of these films, I don't really have many complaints. There's just plenty of goodness and fun scenes, and the movie contains that fun spirit throughout it's length. It never stops dead in its track or gets dull, and there's good songs on both halves of the film. Especially the Buddhist temple scene (gorgeous visuals!), Uday making an Andra Pradesh meal for Sandhya, the gift scene and Uday learning pure Telugu were stand-out bits for me.

Oh wait, I just remembered. I do have a complaint. Again.

Sunil. Dude. Sigh. I do genuinely like him a lot in some movies - he was pretty fab in NVNN and Aata, and to some extent Chukkallo Chandrudu. But this film? Ugh, just get off my screen. I had no patience for his storyline in this one. Not funny, not interesting, with very little value. There's usually a certain wit to his sardonic comments but in here he just seemed like a boring idiot. I admit to fast-forwarding. So sue me.

"Fatso" who has no other name, played by Krishnudu, is Uday's partner-in-crime and loyal friend, is not particularly interesting, either. There's also a pretty well-known baddie actor who shows up on the second half, and he's probably the best side character in the whole film. I hate to appear as a shallow person but Fatso and Sunil didn't win my heart in this one.

But then, who the hell cares? It's a romance, and it's all about these two, and if you're a part of the target audience, you are a Siddharth fangirl (or a fanboy) and you're in it for the cute, especially when the cute comes in the shape of Siddharth.

Which it luckily does! And he dances (weird dance moves but nevermind, it's cool!) and has much, much better hair than in KIKK (thank lord) and is just ...Siddharth. If you know what that means, you know exactly how wonderful it is, and if you don't know what it means, get thee to a DVD of Nuvvostanante Nenoddantana!

It's all kinds of pathetic but I can't help it. It's like, "hey brain, remember when we used to be rational Siddharth fangirls? who just liked his acting and dancing and whatnot but weren't reduced to incoherency at the sight of him?"

My brain recalls those days. They were a wonderful time.

A time of intelligence and reflection and ---



Yeah, so, um...

That's my Oy review. Take it or leave it.

Note on the title of the post: Kulfi is a South Asian dessert, much like ice cream. I've had it at a Nepalese restaurant once. Delish.

Delicious Thursday sundry.

1. Siddharth, a gift that keeps on giving in the form of a young man hailing from Tamil Nadu, has awarded us, his international fans, an amazing opportunity. According to his Twitter, Striker, his new Hindi feature film, is going to be available on youtube on the day of its theatrical release. With subtitles.

Apparently Indian netizens and American ones won't have the benefit of this precious treat, thanks to the movie appearing on their screens in actual theaters, but we Euros do and let me tell you on the behalf of this great continent: we are romba santosh (that is, very happy). Oh and Americans have to cough up a few bucks to view it, I hear, so they'll still be able to view it.

I have no idea how the thing will work in practise but February 5th is the date this movie hits screens, online and off, and I am marking my calendar with a big heart-shaped circle.

Hence excited capital letters: HOLY CRAP HOW AWESOME IS THIS I CAN'T HANDLE IT AT ALL.

2. Yahoo! Mail and its Citibank advertising banner thinks I'm an NRI and hence worth appealling to with this:

I like Saif. I'm fine with Bipasha. But you cannot, and WILL NOT entice me to apply for a checking account for a free download of Race. That movie is no-go.

3. The above Siddharth screencap is from Oy, which I'll review shortly now that I have screencaps. You know what I really enjoy about Bhavani DVD's releases? Sure I have to jump through monetary hoops to get to them, but in return I get no annoying anti-piracy ads and this:

See, this is what all those Western DVD makers haven't realized. You can't put anti-piracy ads on a legal DVD. That's a turn-off. Why not instead thank us for supporting the legal product?

This feels like a good time to link to two things:

Memsaab's brilliant Indian DVD rant

Adam Buxton's (British comedian) hilarious song about piracy

4. Has anybody read Pran's biography simplistically titled ..And Pran - A Biography? I kind of want to read but am hesitant to order it as I've never tried to track down Indian books from unknown Indian sites.

And while we're at it, any Hindi/Tamil/Telugu film related recommended reading in book form? I have Fantasies of a Bollywood Love Thief (brilliant overall look at the industry and making of Omkara, essentially) and Maximum City (on all aspects of Bombay/Mumbai, fascinating read) already.

5. Don't forget the poll!

Poll time! Which film should I review bilingually?

I'm going to let this pretty picture of Sonam Kapoor entice you all to vote in this poll (which I hope works - first time I'm using PollDaddy).

For a while now I've been thinking about doing a multilingual review because I sometimes wonder how it affects my Finnish that I'm constantly reviewing movies in English but rarely discuss them at length in Finnish. I could throw in reviews in other languages which I sort of know but am not fluent in (like Swedish, German) but I figured I'd better stick to the languages I really know. The idea is to write in Finnish and then do an accurate, close English translation.

This is more of a personal exercise in vanity but I'd figured I'd test out this poll thingy and also let you affect what you see in this space a bit. So go vote!



Poll ends on Feb 1st. Results are secret 'til then, to maintain the surprise. ;D

Honeymoon Travels Pvt Ltd - fluff and then some.

I love a good film with a big cast, but it's often sad to admit that the bigger the gallery of characters, the tougher it is to keep the film solid in every aspect. I liked Salaam-e-Ishq but there were definitely problems with some of the characters not getting their story properly told, or some characters feeling a bit redundant. With Honeymoon Travels, you can see a lot of care was put into the script and the story, making all of the couples stand out in their own way, their stories told very neatly. Unfortunately, some of the performances are lacking.

Six couples travel to Goa for a group trip honeymoon. The couples are all young, with the exception of Naheed (Shabana Azmi) and Oscar (Boman Irani), who are in the "second inning" (wahey cricket terminology!) of their lives.

Not all couples are happily in love. Hitesh (Ranvir Shorey) and Shilpa (Diya Mirza) were arranged, and especially Shilpa has a tough time adjusting to married life.

Others couldn't be happier, like Partho (Kay Kay Menon) and Milly (Raima Sen), a more traditional couple, or...

..the absolute adorable Aspi (Abhay Deol) and Zara (Minissha Lamba), who are in harmony with one another to the point of the absurd.

It took me a long while to watch this movie. I always meant to, as it looked like a servicable little film, the cast was interesting enough (no huge favourites but people I always enjoy seeing more of), and Carla of FilmiGeek loved it. When I finally watched it, I was glad. It's definitely a lovely film, flaws and all. It has those edges of realism, and of fantasy, and overall it's a fluffy, yet grounded film about love. Sometimes I have a hard time pinning down what a director was attempting to do with a film - here, I think I completely understood director Reema Kagti's vision (yes, female director; not something you see every day).

The soundtrack is nothing too memorable but very nice all the same, and I really warmed toward some of the characters. They all get their story told, and I really appreciated that. In fact, I was disappointed when the film ended. I would've gladly watched about 30, 40 or even 50 minutes of their escapades in love and life.

So now the flaws. I've talked about gay representation in Bollywood before, and I have to say, Honeymoon Travels has a definite "close but not cigar" moment with this. The gay storyline is nothing amazing, but it's pretty believable and not all that badly written. The problem? The actors involved absolutely suck. I mean, goodness gracious. Okay, in a cast with Boman, Kay Kay and Shabana, it's not easy to come out on top, but when Ameesha Patel and even Diya Mirza out-act you, you're not cut out for the job.

Yes, Ameesha is actually good in this. She plays the bubbly, spoiled, oblivious Pinky to perfection, actually making the character very likable.

But watching this movie, and this dreadfully acted gay storyline, I couldn't help but wonder if it was a simple case of stigma being too great to get somebody of actual talent. Like the moment you mention that the role is not 100% heterosexual, the pool of talent slims down to almost nothing, you take your pick, and end up with nothing as good as you might've hoped.

And that? Is a real shame.

My favourite couple is without a doubt Partho and Milly, because their journey is interesting and heart-warming, and because I unabashedly girlcrush Raima Sen. The other stand-outs are Naheed and Oscar (with her teaching him Urdu, and their memorable backstory) and Aspi and Zara (with their cutesyness and secrets).

Would I recommend it? Absolutely. It's fluff, but it's also a bit more, and I'm willing to forgive its flaws for the sheer watchability. Sometimes the films you find yourself wanting to rewatch are far, far from perfect. This is one of those cases.

Thoughts on awards, functions and what any of it means.

Sorry for blog silence. University stress hit me like a ton of bricks and my head hasn't been in the right place for Indian film watching/pondering. Except now. Thanks for the overwhelming response to the celeb Tweet posts, I promise I'll try to do more in the future.

So news hit today of various National Award winners and though I haven't seen that much response coming from people who enjoy Bollywood, there is some, and it is somewhat puzzled. People are used to thinking of Filmfare, Stardust etc as fluffy award ceremonies - watched for the stars, the performances, the red carpet photos and acceptance speeches. Nobody is necessarily under any illusion that the best movie will win, or the best actor, or indeed anybody. And yet the consensus seems to also be that it's nice to see your favourite films get a bit of honor.

National Awards is a different ballgame. This is the respectable, considered stuff. This is the stuff some Malayalam film you've never heard of wins. This is the awards Shyam Benegal has piles of in his cupboards. This is the awards that truly seems to look at Indian cinema at a whole; all industries. Therefore the winners are typically from Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Bengali.. the biggest non-Hindi industries, with the occasional Hindi winner here and there (for example, the category for Best Popular Film Providing Wholesome Entertainment is pretty much always a Hindi film). The winers are typically from alternative, more arthouse cinema.

The reason I lay down these basics is that it seems some people are puzzled and a bit miffed that Priyanka Chopra got the Best Actress Award for Fashion. It does seem a bit odd. If they are looking at all 2008 Indian films, it would seem odd that Priyanka Chopra's, whose skills have frankly never really impressed me, rates above all of them. I haven't seen Fashion, but even so. I'm not against her winning; I just find it somewhat surprising.

With that said, I'm stuck because I keep landing on the question; does it matter?

The pictures in this post are of past National Award winners (none in the films their won for). Vikram won Best Actor for Pithamagan in 2004 and the next year, Saif Ali Khan won the same award for .. wait for it ... Hum Tum. Shabana Azmi has won Best Actress more times than I can count.

Vikram I'll honestly agree with, because I think even if I distanced myself from my insane love for his masala fare, the step he took as an actor in Pithamagan and Bala's direction complementing it is well enough. Saif's an odd choice. Especially for Hum Tum. I mean, I love him and I adore the movie - it's among my most rewatched Bollywood flicks of all time - but ...a National Award? In the same year he had Ek Hasina Thi? Oh, if only they'd known to wait for Omkara..

So there have definitely been quizzical choices in the past. And I'm sure every time somebody you've seen in a movie that didn't blow you away will grab one of these, it'll be a bone of contention. If it's a Southie flick you've never heard of, you're not likely to argue the issue, right?

But as I asked before, does it really matter, what wins and what doesn't? Be it National Awards, Filmfare, Stardust or Na-real? The more the global media is getting psyched about the Oscars and whether Avatar (ugh let's not go there again) will sweep it, the less I realize I genuinely care. I mean, don't get me wrong, I love some Oscar-winning films a ton. And sometimes those awards, be they from European movie festivals, Indian award ceremonies or the Oscars, make me appreciate the films I love even more. But in general, I don't really care. I rarely end up watching the Oscar-winning films. I don't necessarily even bother to keep up with what's winning what on the Bolly side of things.

What makes a film stand the test of time? I mean, we forget about stuff all the time, because there's only so many things you can remember. I suppose the worst thing for a film is not necessarily to bomb in the box office or not win any awards, but to be forgotten in the public consciousness. Not be remembered as a film worth watching, or simply not remembered at all. I remember looking through the list of past Filmfare winners and noticed some films I'd never even heard of. Consider for example, Be-Imaan, which swept the Filmfares in 1972. You seen it? You heard of it? '72 being the year of such films as Seeta aur Geeta and Pakeezah. How come those two are much more well-known and watched than this award-winner (as far as I know anyway)?

I don't know, how do you feel about this? Do awards matter in the long run? Or are they just good for entertainment, a bit of TV programming with stars, glitz and filmi jokes? What truly makes a film classic, one people will remember decades from now?

Snarking star Tweets - the lazy person's blogfiller.

My choice with the picture for this post went something like this, "Oh if Bollywood stars had their own exclusive Twitter site, it should called be Sheroo for the falcon in Dharam-Veer or the pidgeon from Maine Pyaar Kiya. But dammit, I don't have a screencap of either. Oh well. Have a screencap of foxy Zeenat Aman."

Celebrity tweets. We all follow them, we rarely get anything too satisfying out of them. But since my post on Uday Chopra was so successful, I decided to weed through them anyway for some wisdom. Or pseudo-wisdom. Or whatever.

1. Siddharth (@Actor_Siddharth)

I love the heckins out of Siddhu (who on Twitter corrected the world he has no last name, so the whole Narayan meme is false and not to be used) but sometimes his idle tweet-sized thoughts, like those of many celebs, make me think they should learn how to blog before they tweet. Short thoughts are fine, but tend to need expanding on.

Please don't run through life. Stop to smell the flowers. Sometimes they have no scent, but mostly, smelling flowers is fruitful... Jan 2010

I know this is just an old riff on "Carpe diem", the classic, but really now. Smelling flowers is the least fruitful thing you can do. And as for flowers having no scent? Then they're fake and obviously not worth sniffing! Go, run, do whatever you must! No wonder actors are late for shoots..

If something is worth fighting for, I stop analyzing and go for it. I can't play games. I'm tired of being told what to do. Enough nonsense! Jan 2010

This is exactly what I mean. So much to process. We have no idea what "it" is that's worth fighting for and going for it. Why would you analyze if you know something is worth fighting for anyway? What can't of games can't he play? Mind-games? Games of social rules? He's tired of being told what to do. By whom? Being told what to do is your job, yaar. Unless he is talking about something personal, in which case very well, I think I saw a movie like this once. Or is he talking generally, tired of being told what to do, period? What? What is nonsense? The games? Being told what to do? Everything that's not fighting for? If I were to summarize each of my longer posts in 140 characters, they'd come out looking like this. Enough nonsense!

The rest of his tweets are very mundane, promoting his new Hindi release Striker and otherwise sweet. So moving on.

2. Shahrukh Khan (@iamsrk)

I think this guy's been in some movies so I thought I'd take a look at his Twitter.

do u think of the future.not like the future tomorrow and what u will have for breakfast. but the long term view & how the world will change - Jan 2010

Dude starts off light. Just a little bit of future speculation, quoting George Carlin in the mix. I'm a wild child, Shahrukh. I don't even think about what I'll have for breakfast. I don't stop to smell the flowers, I grab them as I run. Anarchy!

then the low fat fad followed. low fat yogurt. ok.low fat cheese..makes sense...but low fat butter and then low fat celery?how low can u go! - Jan 2010

I enjoy a bit of low fat gravel. (But seriously, I chuckled at this entry.)

COME 2 THE EDGE..no v cannot v r afraid COME 2 THE EDGE..no v cannot v will fall COME 2 THE EDGE..they came & he pushed them..and they FLEW! - Jan 2010

An anonymous poem recited by him ...on Twitter. New media, meet old media. Old media, prepare to get absolutely slaughtered. I want to pat this poor poem's head. And it ain't SRK's fault but man, don't recite poetry in 140 characters. C'mon man!

3. Abhishek Bachchan (@juniorbachchan)

Typo AGAIN!! Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes it's the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, I will try again tomorrow.

I have finally found my traffic song..... "Move b?#*@ get out the way" - mystikal and ludacris. MINDBLOWING!

Naughty by nature- hip hop hurray!!! Heyyyy, hoooo, heyyyy, hoooo

Yes! Coffee consumed! Feeling like leo in titanic (before it sank)!! KING OF THE WORLD!..ok just met dad. Back to pauper status! Ahh life.

I have nothing to say, apart from how I wish I had Abhishek's sexcellent taste in hiphop and even just a quarter of his joy d'vivre.

4. Riteish Deshmukh (@Riteishd)

Earlier NEWS was printed in lines, today papers print LINES that eventually become NEWS - Jan 2010

Wow, deep, bro. Except ... wait, what?

Which film are you most excited to watch IRONMAN 2 or SHREK 4 - Jan 2010

'Cause they have so much in common, like ... the ... thing with the .. uhh .. number in the title? And they're .. both in English? Oh man, battle of the century. It's on now!

One thing that strikes me as a go through Riteish's twitter is that I've got nothing against the dude, but as I read his twitter, it's just so magnificently boring. He does actually have some - short - commentary on what he reads in the papers and the films he watches but in general none of it is snark-worthy. Sigh.

5. Lara Dutta (@DuttaLara)

It took 250 million dollars to make AVATAR. Its a HUGE deal if a movie is made for even 25 million in India! We r a long way from an AVATAR! - Dec 2009

I can't really snark this tweet because it just annoyed me when I read it (though I typically enjoy following Lara's tweets, which are never stupid or even incredibly dull) and even more after I actually saw Avatar. Bigger isn't better. Even most Hollywood films can't reach Avatar's insane budget. Or the crappy, clichéd storyline. If a measure of a movie is really how much money is spent on it, it's a sad, sad state of things. Here's an idea; make a movie that's good with less moolah, make your money back easier, and everybody benefits.


Dear Every Celebrity on Twitter,

We get it's cool that people are supporting you. It's wondrous to be a filmstar and get to interact we fans. We get you want to be grateful. But for god's sake, step it up. Everytime you begin typing "thank you", stop, and type something else. Type a song lyric. Type a half-assed quote. Type a piece of wisdom, even if it's "food is for babies". Anything.

Do it for your followers. But most importantly, do it for me. I quite like doing these posts.

With love, affection, and anticipation for all your releases, no, really, I'm not being sarcastic ...or am I?

Veracious (@veraciously), of Sotheydance.blogspot.com

Ten quotes from Uday Chopra.

Oh, Uday Chopra.

I'm going to devote an entry to Uday Chopra, because nobody else will. I can understand why, as can anybody with eyes and ration of a regular human being. Uday Chopra is the epitome of nepotism; he's not particularly talented, attractive or worth our attention, and yet he has a film career. Not a career worth boasting about, I should add. Nobody's writing scripts with him in mind, at least outside YRF offices.

But who knows, maybe times will change. Maybe he'll land himself in an artsy regional film next year and get himself a National Award. Maybe ten years from now we'll remember Aamir Khan as a silly chocolate hero who did some "thoughtful" movies and Uday Chopra as the Guru Dutt of our times.

Maybe once I finish typing this post, Amar, Akbar and Anthony will knock on my door and we'll all sit in my room and discuss modern religion over cups of steaming chai. Maybe unicorns are born from strawberries.

Let's dive in deep to the magnificent mind of Uday Chopra. None of the quotes are altered, in punctuation or spelling or stupidity.

(I understand this is a pretty meanspirited post towards a dude who probably knows he's not exactly popular. It's a bit of kicking a man when he's down. But it also makes a point that there's something wrong with the system, if it benefits the people who don't have the chops to do this thing.)

1. "Your star sign: Capricorn - however I don't like being a Capricorn - I would prefer to be an Scorpio - infact I decided to change my birthday from 5th Jan to 5th Nov to be a Scorpio - I just love the traits of being a Scorpio - they can be mean and have a sting - Qualities that I think are very attractive."

From his website, udaychopra.com under "Trivia". I bet he'd find this post attractive! And honestly, I know astrology is big in India and everything, but isn't the whole idea of it that stars determine YOUR character, not that you determine your stars in order to have a more interesting personality?

2. "For ages Indian youth has been repressing his sexual desires and that's why the crime rates are so high. In Scandinavia, the crime rate is zero per cent because they are free and liberated."

From an interview in The Hindu, December 2005. Probably his most quoted slice of brilliance, one he probably regrets the most, if he is at all aware of its quotedness. Won't even begin to pick this one apart, it's too easy to.

3. "Sleep is for the weak, food is for babies, and happiness for women.. Real men don't need any of it.. I knw..I knw..bt dis is who I am 2 day"

From his twitter, December 2009. Just ...WHAT. I'm pretty sure sleep and food are some of the things everybody needs to survive. Stop crying, emo kid.

4. "Your favourite bedroom line - Leave the light on"

From his website, under "Trivia". Just reading this fills me with discomfort and strange horror.

5. "Yup I spoke French, actually I'm half French from my imaginary mothers side..she's from Lyon..makes killer potatoes :))))"

From his twitter, November 2009. WTF WTF WTF. Overall I'm really resenting the obnoxious use of foreign languages in his tweets. Graituitous and show-offy. If you have such an expertise of languages, why don't you make use of that education in something worthwhile? You horrible child of privilege.

And really, who has imaginary parents? Isn't that kind of insulting? Fake-pretend-boyfriends are one thing but imaginary French mothers .. just .. I can't even process it.

6. Most unbelievable quote ABOUT Uday Chopra: "After three years and three films down the line, he has created a niche for himself in Bollywood."

From BBC Shropshire in 2003 (I know, BBC Shropshire wtf?), regarding release of Supari. No, he has not. Six years later, he *has not*. Six years from now, he'll still be unlikely to have a niche for himself. I'll deep-fry my sock the day Uday Chopra has a niche for himself.

7. "Mondays are so strange! it's like everything resets itself on Monday and then continues again. Like an unending loop that just keeps going"

From his twitter, November 2009. Yeah, it's like there's a unit of time and when that unit of time ends, there's like, another unit of time that's exactly the same length of time. It's so weird!

8. "Thought for today - "There is no spoon"...let me know if anyone gets it :-)"

From his twitter, October 2009. No, nobody is likely to get that, considering what an obscure forgotten indie film The Matrix was. In the words of Keanu Reeves, "Whoa."

9. "Favourite colour - Blue but I like Red better"

From his website, under "Trivia". I'm sure Green's kicking himself right now. Also, I think the very definition of "favourite" demands that you don't like something better than your favourite.

10. "I Confess - I´m weird"

From his website, under "Trivia". I concur.


I suppose you might want to want to know how many Uday Chopra movies I've seen. The answer? Enough. But I suppose, looking at this positively, it's not like he's in such high demand that he'd be taking roles from better actors.

Why did I type this post? More to the point, why did I research it? Back to waiting for unicorns to grow out of my frozen strawberries.

Happy 2010. You too, Uday. Kind of..?