BW: Bhoothnath

Bhoothnath (Amitabh Bachchan) is a ghost that haunts the house Banku and his Mother (Juhi Chawla) occupy in Goa while the father (SRK, special appearance) is away being a cruise liner captain or something. Banku is a mischevious prankster that befriends Bhoothnath.
Family fun for all! This movie was adorable and I laughed out loud multiple times. The music, including a street gang/American football/ rockstar showdown on the playground and Big B and young Aman Siddiqui as Banku in blacksuits with swelt models was upbeat and catchy. Juhi was great and SRK's appearances were delightful. I enjoy him when he plays his real age with kids. Afterall, the guy's 43. Not that he can't play younger, but he's starting to stretch it. Suri single at that age makes sense, but lovable Aman in Kal Ho Naa Ho is a no go. Anyway...
Boat Floaters
-Big B's makup, obviously make up of course, but well done in a way that made him scary, w/o being too scaryor cartoony.
-Juhi's salwars and churidars and kameezes.
-SRK, b/c you know I'm a sucker for him.
-The BEAUTIFUL house with the grey wooden floors.
-Banku was so chubby and cute you just wanted to eat him up.
-Casper only better.
NonBoat Floaters
-Big B's costumes weren't always adjusted for his lopsided-ness (one seersucker blazer sticks out in my mind). You can tell his signature ghost look was made for him, but probably had multiple copies of the same jacket. For some reason it seems that some were altered and others weren't. I can sure tell when Manish Malhotra costumes Big Bachchan (Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna); he alters everything.
-The switch back and forth from western to Indian costumes on Juhi. At first I was like "oh, she's a western girl" then the rest of the movie she was in kameezes, and then BAM, she'd be in her gypsy skirt and low belt again. And it wasn't even an "at home/at school" thing.
-SRK w/ a pony tail, BLECH. I have a feeling this was for another movie he was filming at the time, but there's no excuse. He needs to leave the mullet w/ Koyla.
-Banku lost a front tooth and they didn't bother w/ continuity at all. Marta in The Sound Of Music lost a front tooth during filming, they made her a cap.
-They didn't define what a ghost could and couldn't do v. well. Sometimes Bhoothnath was tactile and solid, other times he had to disappear and reappear to get places, other times he could step through the walls, but had to step over the bottom of the front gate only to walk through the rest. Normally I wouldn't mention it, but make up your mind. And where did he get his wardrobe?
-Why was there the sound of crackling, hot burning coals when the ghost was around? There was nothing demonic or devilish really about him. Even when he was nice and made his presense known to the dad you heard this. Didn't make sense to me, super cool, but didn't make sense.

Made just for him, I'm sure, although those tutus are a disaster.

Altered for his sloping left shoulder and square right shoulder. Minimal wrinkles.

Most likely NOT altered. Note the slack wrinkles under his left arm, and the stress wrinkle from the button to his right shoulder.

Thing of Interest: Amitabh Bachchan has some of the narrowest feet I've ever seen. Check out "Ain't Nobody Does it Better" from this movie, or "Shava Shava" from K3G.

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!

BW: Veer-Zaara

Shout out to Anjali, who now reads my blog for the Bollywood entries, so there!!

Ok, Veer-Zaara, so good! Veer Pratap Singh, played by Shahrukh Khan, is an Indian Airforce squadron leader and rescue pilot. Zaara Hayaat Khan (Preity Zinta) is a very privilaged Pakistani girl that goes to India to scatter her Bebe's (nanny?) ashes b/c Bebe was Indian and left in '47 to take care of Zaara's family. Of course her bus has an accident and Veer has to save her and they fall in love. The story is being told by Veer to his lawyer (Rani Mukherjee) 22 years later as he rots away in a Pakistani prison. Why he's in prison and all that is what you have to watch it to find out. Needless to say you kind of figure out that Veer and Zaara are seperated at some point.

I REALLY liked this one for the Pakistani/Indian relationship and the contrasts, but similarities between the two cultures that are composed of essentially the same people. Of course Shah Rukh Kahn is a Muslim Indian who always plays Hindu Indians which made the Muslim scenes v. cool to think about. Preity Zinta plays a Muslim Pakistani, but is I'd guess in reality a Hindu Indian. As far as I know Indians played all the roles. There is an AMAZING monologue by Veer at the end about how his country and Pakistan are so similar and how Pakistanis and Indians look the same. This is what I told my high school pals all the time!! But the politics were great! Another treat was Amitabh Bachchan playing Veer's bauji.

I really liked trying to pick out the differences between the Pakistanis and the Indians. For one the Pakistani women had very dark, severe eye make-up and I think they were even darker. Of course Preity and Rani are Bollywood heroines because they're fair, but I do think they had them be a little darker in this one, esp in Pakistan. There weren't really saris in Pakistan, but the costuming was similar. The wedding had similar jewelry and costumes, but was not so extravagant. Mad props to Karan Johar, who's usually a screenwriter and director, for costuming SRK (Manish Malhotra did the other costumes, he does a lot of films I watch). I was a little worred when he was in a horrible powder blue suit at the beginning, but SRK was actually really appropriately casual and studly throughout, and he had this wicked outfit w/ jeans and a denim jacket that actually worked! Mad props Karan, mad props.

I wasn't a fan of Lata Mangeshkar doing Zaara's playback. I'm not a fan of the voice, I think she sounds like she always has a frog, but I also only ever think of Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham when I hear her voice. I just think she's better for older women. I was a fan of SRK's singers, I think Udit Narayan works best for him (and Abhijeet too, but he doesn't sing in V-Z).

Anyway, I was very pleased to find out that of course SRK was nominated for the Filmfare for best actor in 2004. He didn't win for Veer-Zaara, which I was peeved about b/c I'm totally biased and think he should win if he's nominated, but all was put at right when I discovered that at least V-Z won best film. And what do you know!! SRK was also nominated for Main Hoon Na and Swades: We, the People (for which he won). Good thing I unwittingly check out those two this week as well! I can't even think of a Western actor that produces three movies a year, let alone gets nominated for three!

So yeah, I probably forgot to mention some stuff, but v. good movie. I liked the past/present acting, it had a Hindu holiday w/ mad dancing, and no Western-ish songs, I liked that. I really like Yash/Raj films. Main Hoon Na at Bollywood night, love Farah Khan!

Shelby out.

funtimes weekend

So yesterday I spent the whole day with Haleh and various and sundry other people. I went in at noon to get my hair and make up done for the 1 o'clock foto shoot. It was so great! I got airbrushed and the costumes were great. I modeled 2 and M'Lisa modeled another one. The second one I modeled was a black suit and we put me in an amazing black 'fro wig and it was so Vogue, like no jokes, the pictures looked really good from what I saw, totally pro.

After, Haleh took us out to a new Mexican resteraunt and it was delicious. Then, after an hour break I went over to Haleh's to watch what I thought would be Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham, but I couldn't resist watching Kuch Kuch Hota Hai again! I brought my uni remote because she had a big TV, but her DVD player didn't have a remote and we needed subtitles. Turns out though that the DVD player didn't have a code in any of our sources. So we did a code search, which programmed the remote, but all the buttons were wrong, like 3 was down and down was stop etc. We figured out most of them, but it turned out there was no enter button, so we couldn't get the subtitles to work. In the end we got cozy and watched it on Haleh's computer. Martha came over near the end of the remote fiasco so she was there too. I just love these girls! Some of my favorite ever.

Since we didn't watch K3G last night we're going to watch it sometime today.
Church was good, we meet in the SWKT, that's fun, fond memories of Om Shanti Om of course. People are nice, hopefully I'll meet and get to know more laters.

freitag macht spass!

First: for all you Bollywood haters, Bollywood's a huge industry that's recognized internationally for its excellence in cinema. At least I don't obsess over and research slasher movies.



That being said, Haleh at school, who's an amazing grad student, and I just got done w/ an hour of henna-ing and Bollywood talk in her office. She burned me a copy of the Om Shanti Om soundtrack and I love her for it, among other things. Man I love college.



Tomorrow I have an opening social for the ward, then at noon I'm doing a foto shoot for Haleh. She has some costumes she needs modeled and a foto student friend that's going to shoot them. I get to wear her lovely creations and she's going to do my hair and make-up and it'll be so artsy and great!!



I actually had class today. It's going to be a lot of fun I think. I also starting catalogueing the first of 1000+ hats into our computer at work. I actually really like this kind of stuff.



After the foto shoot tomorrow Haleh, Martha and maybe others are going to watch Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham...(K3G) which has HRITHIK ROSHAN AND SHAH RUKH KAHN!!! I'm more than a little excited for 3 1/2 hours with these men together.