30 Days of Film: Days 11, 12 & 13.

11. A movie that changed your opinion about something

I think there are three ways in which my liking of an actor can go. The first one is that I like them right off the bat, which usually happens with favourites - the first impression is so good they've made a fan out of me. The second one is that I give stars another bite at that apple, I keep watching them in films, hoping something will click and I'll begin to really enjoy their work. The third option is that the first impression is so negative I'm unlikely to give them another fair chance, unless by complete accident.

With Akshay Kumar, it was the second option. I never disliked the guy, I just never got what made him so popular - he seemed to do shlocky films and contribute mediocre performances to them. Then I watched Hera Pheri, the popular 2000 comedy that's not amazing, but is on the right side of silly, and can be incredibly funny. And I suddenly understood Akshay. His coming timing was great here, and his looks suddenly became appealing, and from thereon I understood his acting appeal and charm. From Hera Pheri onwards I was also more willing to watch films with him.

12. A movie that you hate

Hate is such a strong word, but okay. There are films that bug me because the plots have really questionable morals praised as the height of morality, or stupid people being stupid, or self-congratulatory directors doing pretentious crap and then saying whoever dislikes it just doesn't get it. There are a ton of annoying films like that, and briefly I considered saying Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna, because it combines a bit of all of the aforementioned characteristics, but to be honest, I don't hate KANK that much, and it probably doesn't deserve half the vitriol it gets.

Then there are films that are just colossal waste of an opportunity, and then there are really, really bad films. Tu Chor Main Sipahi is both at once. It's a painfully terrible film that could have been redeemed by the chemistry between its two leads (Saif Ali Khan & Akshay Kumar) but it chooses to have them act out the most painful dialogues, play the most insipid characters. Did I mention the film has Tabu in it? What a waste. It's also boring, so doesn't even tickle that "so bad it's good" bone. 

It's almost just sad, really.

13. A movie that is a guilty pleasure

I tend to be pretty open and unashamed of what I like. I mean, when one of my legitimate favourites is Main Khiladi Tu Anari, I can hardly call other favourites, no matter how crappy, a guilty pleasure. Besides, there are as many tastes as there are people - a uniformly condemned movie still has its passionate fans, and a loved film its share of haters.

But perhaps what makes Namastey London a guilty pleasure is not that it's not good, just that it's not as good as it probably should be to be such a favourite. I never expected this spry little romcom to be such an infinitely rewatchable film as it turned out to be. For one, I still don't think this is Katrina Kaif's best performance, even though her chemistry with Akshay is very good here. Secondly, I think logically I should have tons of tiny feminist niggles about the plot, yet somehow I don't. Third, the film has the sheer void of talent that is Upen Patel, and the soundtrack is horrific Himesh Reshmiyya and his nasal vocals. And all that before I've even mentioned the annoying "white people are all horrible evil racists" scenes.. And yet, I still really like this film, and I've rewatched it a ton of times and it never fails to cheer me up.

Go figure.

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.

Namastey London - phir bhi dil hai NRI

There are a lot of reasons why Indians take their stories abroad, though as I understand it the biggest one nowadays is budget – it's just easier for a big megastar to shoot in London or Sydney, where you don't need the crowd control you'd need in basically anywhere in India. They can wrap up projects faster, release them faster, and I guess the audiences also like to see the handsome foreign locales. You don't see many complaining, and NRI films are like any Indian films – hit or miss, there are good examples and bad examples. (This I took away from an interview with the certified Dude of Indian film, Akshay Kumar, about a year ago on IBN-live.)

Namastey London, a story about a completely British born, British thinking desi girl (Katrina Kaif) and a true-and-blue Punjabi boy (Akshay Kumar), is half-and-half – an annoying example of those Indian films who start out lovely but change tone slightly after interval. However, NL is far from being the worst example of this phenomenon, and for that, it deserves to be remembered as a good example of NRI films. Katrina's Jazz, or Jasmeet, is quite a refreshing NRI girl - she's openly Westernized, but this is not exceedingly frowned upon. Even her Indian bridegroom accepts this, and falls in love with her for exactly as she is. The whole NRI phenomenon is portrayed in a way I'd even dare call realistic. One stand-out scene for me was near the beginning, where Jasmeet's parents have an argument that reveal their own past; how the mother was brought to London from India, and how she was so Indian that her husband was embarrassed of her behaviour in public - hence she brought up their daughter to be more British, so she could go out more than her mother did.

That change of tone, though? Well, in typical Indian film fashion there has to be a villain and the villain in this case - the angrezi, the gora. Jasmeet's gora boyfriend is implied a bad, bad person from the get-go, and the rest of the gora cast is not much different (apart from Upen Patel's girlfriend who doesn't have any ridiculous demands or doesn't make any racist remarks, gladly). Of course, the Indians set the silly white people straight left and right, and the posh Brits look quite foolish in their castles and whatnots, which serves this bunch right, but naturally as a non-Indian I can't help but get annoyed at this portrayal. Yes, the West does have ridiculous prejudice regarding Indians, their culture and their religion (you know, Muslim=terrorist, that whole meme) but we're not all like that and the way the whole thing is presented, well, it grates me.

Thankfully not enough to distract me from the fantastic romantic developments of the second half, but there was another painful distraction to the movie - Himesh Reshmiyya soundtrack. Where he sings, naturally, in nearly every bloody song. I nearly tore my hair out. A couple of cutesy song picturizations, but good god I never want to hear this man's voice again.

But all in all - lovely film which I don't regret watching at all. And by the way, to prove Akki really is what I said he is, The Dude of Bollywood, check out this news article. Khan kaun, this is the guy who brings Indians to theaters. I'm more than happy for him for that achievement (and I'll be seeing Bhool Bhulaiyaa eventually, but Dude or no Dude, Heyy Baby is a miss for me).