BW: Fanaa, Chalte Chalte, Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna

Fanaa: pretty fantastic. The whole second half, which was a complete turn around from the first, was unexpected but pretty great. Of course Kajol was fabulous. I marvel at that woman's ability to play anywhere from 19 to 30 something. She's just gorgeous! This was my first exposure to Aamir Kahn. He's not attractive, but is charismatic, only he doesn't use this to his advantage as much as our beloved goofy-faced SRK. Rishi Kapoor and Kirron Kher as the parents were great, esp Rishi. I haven't seen anything from his hay-day (Dewaana doesn't count) but I like him in older paternal roles. I was a HUGE fan of their mountain cottage and the tongue twister song. I liked the Muslim Kashmiri Indian angle. It ended well.

Chalte Chalte: I've decided to see the movies that Rab Ne's Phir Milenge is based off of, one of them being Chalte Chalte. This was produced by SRK's first production company he started w/ his buds Juhi Chawla and Aziz Mirza and apparently was their first film that didn't flop, but it flopped with me. I'm not a huge fan of Rani Muhkerjee. Of course she left a bad taste in my mouth as Tina, I don't care how instrumental she was in getting Anjali and Rahul back together, and in K3G through no fault of her own she got in their way again, even for so small a moment. It's a little inexplicable, but I just don't like her much. Basically her character Priya runs into SRK's and he's instantly in love, but she's heading back to Greece to get engaged to her childhood friend. He follows her and she chooses him. But that's only the first half! Then the marital problems and pig-headedness come into play. Raj and Priya are both heavily flawed but refuse to correct themselves for the long-term. I wasn't convinced by the "happy ending". SRK's performance reminded me of many others, mostly Devdas. Johny Lever played the town drunk that sang DDLJ the whole time. I didn't realize that Raj's song he sings for the gma is the title to the movie! Now I can pronounce it! but only if I sing it...

Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna: are you joking me?! Good gravy, if I thought Chalte Chalte was a downer w/ an unlikable SRK this was 100 times worse. Two marriages, neither entirely blissful, but ok until one husband (SRK) and one wife (Rani) decide to be "friends" and help each other's marriages, only they end up being completely selfish and only helping themselves. There was not enough punishment and too much moral indiscretion w/o remorse. I refuse to believe this had a happy ending. I really hated Rani, but hey, I always have, and REALLY hated SRK. Imagine Devdas (the character's name is Dev, ha) and Raj from Chalte Chalte times a million and that was how unlikable and self destructive and pig-headed this character was. Mad props to KJo for making such an unlikable character out of SRK, and for playing emotions like a violin yet again.
Good things about KANK:
-Amitabh Bachchan plays the PIMP father that wears exquisite furs
-Abhishek Bachchan plays Rani's husband and Sexy Sam's son. He's a dear and has impeccable suit jackets that he flips the collars of, revealing fantastically colored under collars. At first I was like WAH? and then I was converted. Props Manish Malhotra, mad props.
-Preity Zinta was SRK's wife. She's my second fave after Kajol.
-Kajol had a cameo and shook her groove thang like no body's bizz-nezz.
-John Abraham was the D.J.
-Kirron Kher played SRK's mom, she's great.
-The costumes were fantastic.
-I bought this so I have the case and all. When you open it you pull down on this dealy and the discs are revealed by this crazy pop-up book mechanism, like you pull the bottom of the case and another disc holder pops out of the top too! It's straight up redick.
Question: How much is My Name Is Khan going to cost if KANK beat out K3G? Gosh Karan, you got some mad dough.

That's it really, I could rant more, and I'm sure the only people who care at all have seen these, but I don't want to spoil too much. My Hindi's going well. I practiced my dependent vowels today. Sometime I'll actually start the dialogues after I'm done w/ the miserable alphabet!