I Saw Saawariya!

I saw Saawariya.

Not on YouTube.

Not in blurry ten-minute chunks.

In a for-real movie theater.

In the heart of the rural midwest.

The sign had been up on the marquee for three days by the time my friends and I were able to go. We bought our tickets, went into the theater, and found... no one else was there. Not even the projectionist. Not even those stupid trivia questions they show before the previews.

So we went back and asked the guy behind the popcorn counter why they weren't preparing to start the movie.

"Because no one has bought any tickets for Saawariya this entire week," he said. "Not until you all showed up."

I copped a winking-miffed attitude and said "but how could anyone miss seeing Bollywood's first collaboration with Sony Pictures, featuring Ranbir Kapoor in a towel?"

So my friends and I had the theater to ourselves. This turned out to be beneficial, because we were able to talk back to the movie screen and sing along to the songs (botching all the words, of course).

Best line of the evening? When a friend who had not seen Bollywood before got her first glimpse of Mr. Kapoor and his transluscent towel.

She turned to me and asked what seemed like an obvious question, based on the visual evidence.

"Wait. Do Indian men not have any body hair?"

Bollywood Comes to Cornfield County

A while back, Manish at Ultrabrown compared the gross of the three worldwide releases Lions for Lambs, Om Shanti Om, and Saawariya, and asked why the latter two films, both backed by big-budget advertising, only earned a little more (combined) than the Hollywood indie flick.

I left a comment arguing that it could be because Lions for Lambs played on every theater in Small Town USA, while Bollywood was limited to only a handful of major US cities. Multiply that by the (falling) US dollar, and... well, that might account for the divergent US gross.

But what did I see today, as I drove in to the office on a freezing Monday morning? A giant advertisement announcing Saawariya at my local theater! I was busy texting away in a flurry of "OMG!"s, and have arranged a party to go see it later this week.

Then -- lo and behold -- I did a little research, and found out that Om Shanti Om had also played in my hometown, during Thanksgiving week.

We' have a very large desi population, where I live (we're the town with its own Bollywood cover band, after all), but this has to be symptomatic of a larger trend.

Hooray for Bollywood!

A Perfect Send-Off

How did I spend my last day in India?

At a huge, flashy celebration filled with everyone who was anyone in Bollywood (except Hrithik??? or did I blink and miss him????).

Yes, I loved the film. I loved-loved-loved it. Took a friend along, tucked ourselves into a theatre... it was a perfect way to spend an afternoon.

I'm not going to bother reviewing because the general consensus is "it's a little stupid but a lot of meta fun-fun." With which I concur, and would like to add "shiny!"

Two thoughts which I haven't yet seen anywhere else:

1. The creepiest part of SRK's abs isn't the fact that he has them. It's the fact that he doesn't have them during the 1970s half of the film. His shirt raises up a few times and there is definite flesh there. Which makes the body transformation all the more terrifying. (For the record, I prefer my Shahrukh creamy, not crunchy.)

2. Was I the only person who looked at the press shot of our four boys dancing on top of that bar and thought "what if they were Bolly Marauders!" Wormtail, Moony, Padfoot, and Prongs, L-R. ^__^

(Pic comes from Movietonic.)

I'll be on a plane soon. Catch you on the flip side.

Jab Me With A Spoon

So. Jab We Met.

Well, let's put it this way. There was one thing I really liked about the film. (I try to be a positive person, whenever I can.)

I liked that the Bollyworld they created for Jab We Met actually resembled the India in which I've been traveling for the past three-odd months. When I've seen other Bollywood films on this trip, I've always had to crack a smile at their idealizations of this pretty, pretty country. I would look at the images on the screen (the opening song in Laaga Chunnari Mein Daag, for example) and think "where's that place? I'd like to visit that part of India."

But when I was watching the first hour of Jab We Met, I could finally say "Yeah -- definitely been there."

As for the rest of the film? Oh... let's say it was so boring that I sat during the second half mentally planning syllabi for next semester. And then caught myself doing it.

Oh, and that last dance number is just creepy.

Laaga Chunnari Mein Daag -- Everybody Gets Exploited!

So I saw Laaga Chunari Mein Daag this afternoon, since I was too tired from my train adventure to do much else.

We all know that it's the film where Rani Mukherjee becomes a prostitute.

(Mild spoiler alert.)

But what pissed me off was the way they handled the parallel character, Rani's sister "Chutki," played by Konkona Sen Sharma.

Chutki is "the smart sibling." While Rani's character bumbles around Bombay trying to get a job with no applicable skills (thus making prostitution her inevitable conclusion), we see Chutki slaving away at her books and eventually getting a scholarship to a Bombay MBA program.

Suddenly she's working for an advertisement company, and we see her given the assignment to create an ad proposal for Lux soap.

Montage of Chutki working night and day. On the morning of her scheduled presentation, she's slumped in front of her computer. Enter hottie colleague. He asks what's wrong, and she says that it's almost time for the presentation and she's got nothing to show that's any good. Hottie says "go freshen up, I'll take care of it."

When Chutki arrives at the presentation (which Hottie delivers instead of her) she finds out that Hottie has been secretly taking pictures of her for the past week or so and is using them to propose to the agency that she, Chutki, become the new face of Lux soap.

And thus Chutki becomes a fashion model. Well, technically a soap advertisement model, but we can tell that her career is just beginning.

And, of course, she marries Hottie.

Now -- forgive me for being irrational -- but isn't Chutki selling her body as much as her older sister is? Sure, she's not selling sex literally, but she's selling her sexual power.

What this movie said to me was "Look. The only currency women have are their bodies. Even if you get a MBA and a good job, you're still at the mercy of men who want to exploit your body for money."

Oh, Yash Raj. You deserve your collaboration with Disney.

Roadside Romeo: You Saw It Here First!

So remember a few months ago, when I blogged about Mouseraj?

(Mouseraj is my cute nickname for the recent collaboration between Yash Raj and Disney. I'm hoping it catches on.)

I saw a preview today for Roadside Romeo and boy, did I call it.

Dogs dancing Bollywood-style on their hind legs.

Humanthromorphized dogs in hats... but no pants. Mouseraj has conveniently left the genitalia out, which looks kind of odd, considering the dogs are fairly realistically rendered otherwise.

Poor Saif. He'll have to live this one down for years to come.

Bhool Bhulaiyaa: See It For The Ending. Maybe For The Samosas, If Your Theater Makes Good Samosas.

I saw Bhool Bhulaiyaa at a tiny single-screen theater in Mysore.

I'm not sure I would recommend this film to anyone. I would, definitely, recommend sneaking in to the last thirty-odd minutes of the film. But as to the first two hours...

Let's put it this way. Bhool Bhulaiyaa is lovely to look at (delightful to know). It's set in a mansion populated nearly entirely by women with flowing saris and cascading hair, and the three men (the hot guy, the nerdy guy, and Akshay Kumar) who love them. Throw in a few uncles and aunties for comic relief, plus a poltergeist, for... well, because there are so few Bollywood movies about poltergeists, and we should have a winning combination, right?

Except that the film doesn't make a lick of sense. There are too many heroines, too many heros, no character development, and a "surprise" ending that (unlike the ending of Loins of Punjab) has no grounding in the previous two hours of the film and is thus less of a "twist" and more of a "ha! bet you didn't guess that was coming, because we totally didn't prepare you for it in any way!"

But that ending. Worth the price of admission. Make sure to see it in a theater with exceptionally good surround sound. Don't wait to steal it from the internet and watch it on your laptop.

And do stay for the credits, which feature a music video with the words "Hare Ram, Hare Ram, Hare Krishna, Hare Ram" to the tune of "There's a place in France/Where the naked ladies dance."

Just... spend the first two hours of the film doing something else, 'kay?

But While We're On The Subject of The Simpsons...

It's pretty obvious that someone on the Times of India staff just ran SRK and his family through that Simpsons Character Generator. Matt Groening did not draw these, even though the article implies that he did.

What's interesting is that the Times went with the "white" character color. Yes, we know SRK wants to be fair and lovely, but in Simpsons-land yellow = Caucasian.

Meh. Looks like no one does their research, on either side. Apu speaks with an American interpretation of a Brit's faux-desi accent, and the Times peeps assume that everyone on the Simpsons is yellow. ^__^ (Which they sort of are, if one considers that Apu speaks with an American interpretation of a... oh, let's not make a recursive causality loop, my brain will get too muddled.)

LOLSRK

Sorry... it's just what I think of whenever I see those awful, awful abs.

If Mike Judge Were Desi...

BEAVIS: Yaar! Check it out! That guy was totally about to do it, but now he's on fire!

BUTTHEAD: Yeah. Bollywood rules.

BEAVIS: Heh-heh, Superman got totally fat, yaar. He's, like, so fat, that he should have an item number just for his fat.

BUTTHEAD: And, um, John Abraham should have one for his... um... wind tunnel. His hair's, like, always blowing or something.

BEAVIS: His hair blows. Get it? Blows!

BUTTHEAD: If that chick lost her memory, does that make her a virgin again? And does that mean she'd let me do her?

BEAVIS: I don't know, yaar. You'd have to fly to, like, Delhi or something.

BUTTHEAD: Heh. Heh. They said Salaam-e-Ishq.

Chak De India: The Universal Language of Sports Cliches

For those following the story, I did make it to see Chak De India yesterday afternoon. I did end up hiring a car, which only cost me $15 for the day, so... not that big of a deal. I also learned that Hyderabad has a much more efficient and inexpensive light rail system which I will be using in the future. ^__^

People kept asking me "how are you going to see this film when you don't understand Hindi?"

I said I thought I would be able to follow the story well enough.

After all, we know at this point that a film like Chak De India will hit all of the following tropes:

1. The Hero/Athlete suffers a fall from grace.
2. The Hero/Athlete is given the opportunity (or forced) to take on The Team No One Wants, which is usually made up of adolescents.
3. The Team No One Wants is filled with young people who represent every stereotype of "what's wrong with young people today," as well as a handful of "topical issues." They're also generally from an assortment of social classes/ethnicities/gangs/states/etc. that hate each other.
4. The Hero/Athlete breaks down the individual problems within The Team No One Wants and makes them into, simply, The Team.
5. The Team begins to show promise.
6. The Team discovers some flaw in The Hero/Athlete which causes them to push The Hero/Athlete away, call for his resignation, boycott, mutiny, etc.
7. As soon as The Hero/Athlete is out of the picture, The Team realizes how much they had learned from The Hero/Athlete and go to beg for him to return.
8. Which he does.
9. At some point in the film there is an important game which The Team mangles and Loses Very Badly. Is all hope lost?
10. But The Hero/Athlete rallies his Team, and they become even better. Then we are treated to a few climactic games, possibly a championship, which is only won at The Very Last Minute. Hooray!

If one thinks about it, this is the basic schematic for every film from The Mighty Ducks to Sister Act to, impossibly, The Sound of Music. Sound of Music of course contains the optional Plot B: The Love Story (and a rarely used Plot C: Running From The Nazis), and as far as I could tell Chak De India stayed away from the love story, except possibly near the very end. I got that the Queen Bee character made a pass at Kabir Khan which he refused. Then they had that conversation outdoors by the field which I couldn't follow. But since there was no kissing and no embracing I'm gathering that the coach was not going to take her up on her offer.

But, because I knew how the plot was going to play out, I was able to understand the film perfectly well. Being able to recognize a few words like "Punjabi" and "shaadi" helped a bit. And, truth be told, when SRK was on-screen it didn't matter what anyone was saying or doing. ^__^

The real trick will be the next time I go. I saw a lot of tantalizing trailers before started, including the one for Saawariya. Which, although it looks a bit like a combination of Moulin Rouge and Dangerous Beauty, may turn out to be something completely different.

So I've either got to learn Hindi fast, or single-handedly patent an application in which a person holds a small PDA-like device in his/her lap during a film upon which he/she can see subtitles (without disturbing the rest of the audience). But learning how to program one of those things will probably be just as difficult as learning Hindi. Hmmm...

Chak De "Chak De!"

All right. After a good hour of typing in various search words like "Hyderabad cinema showtimes" I have finally discovered a movie theater in the city playing Chak De India.

Don't bother telling me that there must be many theaters in the area playing the movie; I'm sure there are, but I only need the one. ^__^

It's at the same Hyderabad Central where I bought the salwars. Which is good, because I've been there before. I'd like to hit the afternoon show so I get back before dark.

Which brings me back to transport. I've been told that no auto-rickshaw driver will take me all the way into the city; I'll need to change drivers at Gachi Bowli.

Or I call for a car tomorrow morning. Indulgent, natch; but at least I'll get there and back.

I'll ask the team at dinner tonight; but what do you all think?

The Bus is Having a Cup of Chai Somewhere

I just thought a story about waiting for buses wouldn't be very interesting to read.

-- Barbara Ehrenreich

Those of you familiar with the U-Hyd campus will know that it's... pretty far from anything anyone would want to go to.

Thus, I need to find myself an effective method of transport. Mostly because I really, really, really want to see Chak De India before it closes.

When I went into the city last week to purchase my salwars, we took a car. Easy enough, though probably too expensive for everyday use. The day-long trip ended up costing Rs. 700 (I only paid part, thankfully enough).

When I went into Chandra Nagar yesterday to get my shower shoes, I took an auto-rickshaw. It ended up costing Rs. 5 to go out and Rs. 100 to come back, because (first of all) I couldn't find a driver who wanted to take me back for less than Rs. 35, and (second of all) when I arrived back on campus the driver was suddenly incapable of changing a bill. This, of course, I expected.

But I want to go into the city tomorrow (before my schedule gets too full with my classes) and see Chak De India. It has become my single and only goal.

Which means I need to try and learn how to ride a bus.

But there are a few problems. Okay, several problems. The first is that the bus schedule is (how shall we say...) unpredictable. Today I had wanted to testdrive the bus system by making a short trip to a nearby bookstore. So I asked about ten people how to ride the bus, how much I should pay the driver, which buses would get me back to the university, etc., averaged the answers, and headed out to the bus stop.

The bus stop had a sign which clearly indicated that a bus heading towards my featured destination would stop at 2:30 and at 3:15. It also noted several other buses coming in the interim.

I sat at that bus stop for an hour and saw nary a bus go by.

So that's the first problem. (It's not that I hadn't seen the city buses drive through campus before; I had, so they do exist. It's just that none of them seem to adhere to the printed bus schedules.)

The second problem is that I have no idea where any of these theatres are, or which ones are closest to my destination, or what time Chak De even plays. IMDB might be helpful in this situation but it seems to only give information for U.S. theatres. I have found an online list of Hyderabad cinemas, but have no idea, really, where any of them are located in the city.

So, Team Readers (esp. people like Neha or Space Bar or Sashi who have lived in Hyd), how shall I solve this???

My other option is to sit somewhere and ask everyone who walks by, since I have already tried asking the people in the guest house, but... they don't know, since they are guests and thus unfamiliar with the city. ^__^

Or I could just suck it up and send for the car.

Editor's Note: One might ask "why doesn't she find a friend to take her?" Truth be told, she has been fairly vocal about her goal to see SRK on the GIANT FREAKING SCREEN since her arrival. ^__^ The lack of general response from the other people at the guest house, most of whom are very busy with science and physics-related projects, would imply that no one else is interested.

Shakespeare's Version Didn't Have Enough Dance Numbers

Tonight I saw an outdoor performance of Love's Labours Lost.

This play, of course, is much better known worldwide as "the inspiration for the hit Bollywood film Mohabbatein."

The actors were great, of course, but they had none of Amitabh's intensity or Shahrukh's... um... okay, SRK is really, really bad in this film.

*remembering Shahrukh's performance*

"Parampara!"

Thundercrack.

"Pyar!"

Thundercrack.

"Sangeet!"

No thundercrack. SRK gazes over his glasses at the camera. Then he tosses his preppy sweater over his shoulder. Cue dance number.

Just in case you've forgotten how bad it was, here's a clip.

Bollywood Fugly, care to comment? ^__^

Totally Rad!

"How many of you," I thought, "will actually click on the last hyperlink in my 8 Bits of Brown post and watch the introduction to Totally Rad?"

Probably not all of you. Perhaps very few of you.

So I've saved y'all the legwork and brought the link to you, YouTube-style.

Do watch. It is the most hilarious.

"He thinks I have gnarly potential!"

So do we, Totally Rad Intro. So do we.

(Psst... Beth and Miss Bolly -- he does look like 8-bit Hrithik, yes? ^__^)

Blogging MouseRaj Continues!

So now we've learned that MouseRaj's first project will be an animated feature titled Roadside Romeo, starring the voice talent of Kareena Kapoor and Saif Ali Khan.

(I could make some kind of crack right now along the lines of "Kareena has a voice???" but I won't.)

Right now they're planning to market primarily in India, but Disney would like to take the film to a world audience. Um... yeah. Because children everywhere love reading subtitles. Are Kareena and Saif planning to do an English-language track? Or is MouseRaj going to recast with Lindsay Lohan and Justin Timberlake?

(And BTW -- be careful when distributing in Canada; in parts of Toronto, "roadside" is urban slang for "promiscuous.")

The film is about a lost dog. It's also been reported to include "Bollywood-style dance numbers."

So it'll be one dog in the front, with two blonde dogs on either side, backed by about five rows of dogs, all dancing. The real question is whether they will dance on four legs, or whether MouseRaj will anthropomorphize them and have them dance on two legs, doing the patented BollywoodBhangra arm movements with their front paws.

And if they are anthropomorphized and dancing on two legs, will these dogs be wearing clothing? And if not, will their genitalia just kind of be glossed over? Will the blonde dogs have feminine curves? Will they be the kind of anthromorphized animals with long, human hair (and the two ears poking out)? And in that case, will there be dogs with moustaches?

Will the sexual metaphors be canine-related? That is, instead of two flowers blooming, will we see... um... rain falling on a fire hydrant? Or better yet -- someone unscrewing the fire hydrant and water shooting out?

Will the dogs pee on the tree after they dance around it?

MouseRaj's second project is an animated version of Dhoom 3 featuring SRK. Before I get all "Dhoom is now for children???" I want to ask this: if we're capitalizing on Bollywood stars' voices, why is no one tapping Mr. Bachchan, the only Bollywood star actually known for his voice? Or... did they ask and he refused?

The article notes that Disney has already made an animated Ramayana. (Yeah, I went WTF and where can I get a copy???!!!, just like y'all did.) However, I did the research and found out that they're actually referring to a film made by Nippon Animation (the distribution rights are handled by Disney).

This film's title? Ramayana: The Legend of Prince Rama.

It is now on my list of goals to make an animated film titled New Testament: The Legend of Prince Jesus.

Anyone know how to draw?

More Musings on MouseRaj

(I hope I am the first person to call it MouseRaj. ^__^)

The first Indian Disney Princess will be named Maya. I'd lay money on this. Possibly Lila, but more likely Maya.

Someone will have to explain to the Disney execs why creating a cartoon Ganesh to serve as Princess Maya's sidekick... is a really bad idea. ("But think of the marketing possibilities! He's cute and cuddly, and we can sell his mouse separately!")

And continuing the Disneyfied conversation between Arjuna and Karna:

Karna: Oh, no! I can't remember my mantra!

Arjuna: It's okay, Karna. Everyone makes mistakes. In fact, I made a mistake when I refused to fight you that day in the palace. I should have known that a prince isn't defined by where he is born or raised, but by what's in his heart.

Cue Alan Menken song: Our Hearts Make Us Brothers or some crap like that. With tabla.

Have I crossed the line? ^__^

One makes films where no one ever dies (except Bambi's mom), and the other makes films where no one ever has sex...

So Disney's teamed up with Yash Raj, eh?

And they're going to make Bollywood-inspired animated Disney-style films?

Get ready for a version of the Mahabharata where Arjuna and Karna become friends at the end. ^__^

Why can't it be Bollywood cover band concert EVERY weekend?

A. R. Rahman is playing in Chicago tomorrow night. (Given SepiaMutiny's propensity for noting... well, just about every desi-related thing that happens anywhere ^__^, I'm surprised they haven't posted about it. But on the other hand, none of that crowd seems to like the Bollywood very much. Though they do like the cricket.)

I would pass bricks to see this concert, but I did the math and figured out that it would cost about as much money to go as I earn in an entire week of temping. And I'm not quite that profligate.

(I feel rather like I did in undergrad, when Mandy Patinkin was giving a concert only an hour's drive away and I begged and begged everyone I knew who had a car to take me... I told them I would pay for their tickets and gas... and all they said was "Mandy who?")

However, if I'll miss Mr. Rahman I have seen what is perhaps the next best thing. Last weekend I went to a concert by a local Bollywood cover band made up entirely of members of the IT department at one of my city's major businesses.

If I gave the name of the band, you would know where I lived and how to get there, as their title coincidentally covers both pieces of information. So... I won't.

The concert took place at our local symphony hall. It was packed to the brim -- over 800 tickets sold. Lots and lots of saris, and lots and lots and lots of children.

The band was very talented, which didn't surprise me (particularly when I read the bios in the program, which all went along the lines of "such-and-such studied music for 17+ years until he moved to America and started working in the IT department of Big Company"). Their "costumes" left a little bit to be desired; the women all glittered in saris and salwar, but the men all wore the same rumpled polos and chinos that they must have worn earlier that day in the office. Come on, boys. Step up.

The funniest moment, though, happened at the beginning of the program, during the first number (a "original" rock version of Vande Mataram which sounded nothing like this rock version of Vande Mataram -- does it have an official tune, or are there a few variations?).

Imagine...

The band begins to play. The curtain rises. The entire stage space is filled with fog. We're talking up to the flyspace. Possibly 10,000 cubic feet of fog.

Everyone (including the audience) is singing Vande Mataram. The fog begins to spill out of the stage over the audience. In unison, all the fire alarms in the building go off.

Nobody moves. Everybody keeps singing. The entire hall is filled with the fire alarms and the icky-sweet smell of stage fog and the subwoofers.

I asked S., later, why in this crowd of 800, nobody seemed concerned about the fire alarms? This was his explanation:

The first thing desis do when they get to America is disconnect the fire alarms in their kitchen, because otherwise the alarm would go off every time they cook. They're used to American fire alarms not meaning actual fires.

Makes sense to me. ^__^

Pretty Fictitious Film!

After S. and I discussed who our "favorite" (read: "people we think are hot") actors are in Holly- and Bollywood, I began to wonder what might transpire if they all ended up in a film together.

So, with the magic of image editing, I created the promo poster.

However, it looks much less "Hollywood" (or Bollywood, for that matter), and much more like a Hallmark Hall of Fame presentation.

Ah, well.

And here it is:


The tagline (if it would fit onto the image without making it incredibly busy) would read:

Three travelers.
Three sexy accents.
Three different prices to get in.
One love story.

Shripriya, wanna direct? ^__^