"It's funny because it's racist"

When Ricky Gervais did a bit on SNL where he claimed that while the US version of "The Office" was copied from his original UK version, his version was copied from an unknown Japanese version. We then go on to see a very caricatured version of The Office with excessive bowing and shy giggling. He wraps up this short by saying, "It's funny because it's racist!"

It's true, the clip is very racist, and very funny and in fact you're laughing out loud at the notion that SNL would get that racist to generate a few laughs. But the Gervais comment at the end is supposed to tell us that SNL was in on the joke from the beginning and therefore it is excusable. I just think the writers came up with a very racist sketch and then applied lipstick on that by the Gervais comment.

Anyway, that's just an excuse to borrow his line for the title of this entry. Check out this article about this new movie called "From Chandni Chowk to China" starring two of India's sexiest stars Akshay Kumar and Deepika Padukone. Huge release. But yeah, read this.How to make someone look Chinese? Wow! I'm just praying that one of the big stars pulls off a "slant eyed" caricature, just so I can watch the fallout from that political disaster.

Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na: A pleasant surprise

After accumulating about a 100 movies through the local vendors, I finally watched one from the beginning till the end. JTYJN was surprisingly good. Usually what I hope for in Bollywood movies is the surprise element. If there is something either in the script or performance that surprises me, I consider that an achievement for a Bollywood movie. (And goes without saying that since I usually find neither, I continue to despise Bollywood movies.) With that in mind, you'll understand when I start by mentioning a short but riveting performance by Paresh Rawal, who I think is too good of an actor for the bland Bollywood scripts. He plays a truly menacing and evil villain. I haven't seen him play an evil character in forever and it's a nice shock to realize how good he is.

What I liked about the rest of the movie are the small touches that are sprinkled throughout the movie. Like the character of the heroine's brother who openly loathes the hero, but not out of some random immaturity. Or how not all the main girls pair up with all the guys. Or the subplot about the hero's Rajput family history and the mother's attempts to cover it up. Which brings me to the casting. I loved seeing all these good actors in the movie. The familiar and comforting faces of Naseeruddin Shah and Ratna Pathak Shah, Jayant Kriplani and Kitu Gidwani, who made their marks on TV and theater and can take over a scene by themselves. It's a shame we don't see more of them in movies. I was startled when I realized that shaggy dude was Jayant Kriplani, and man, Kitu Gidwani still looks amazing.

A quirky thing I liked in the movie is Meghna's denial of the real animosity between her parents. "Denial" is a word which I don't think has an equivalent in Indian languages. So for an Indian movie to touch on that concept was unique. Did you know that the "Pappu" in "Pappu can't dance" is a reference to Salman Khan? With that in mind, it's surprising to see the brothers of this terrorist-loving killer appear in this movie at all.

However, before I throw up from all the Bollywood love, I'd like to state for the record that the concept of best friends who are oblivious to their love and try to find someone else for each other was first done in a Malayali movie, later remade into Telugu. So sorry Bollywood, you still suck.

Beauty plus any other skill is a constant, even in Bollywood

In IIT we used to have a not-very-original saying "Beauty plus brains is a constant". I'll admit it's quite sexist and very un-PC, but there is a lot of truth behind that saying. Women who are good looking rarely have to work hard. (I can write a big piece on why that is so, but I don't think anyone will disagree with my observation.)
Another field where that saying comes into play is acting. Especially in India. We have our A-list "actresses" - Kareena, Katrina, Priyanka, Aishwarya. And then we have our serious actresses - Nandita Das, Tabu, Konkana Sen Sharma, Chitrangada Singh. No one will accuse the A-listers of being serious actresses, nor the serious actresses of being very good looking. Sure we have people who swear by the looks of Nandita Das and Tabu but come on, if people thought they were that good looking, we'd be seeing more posters of them. And when people say Priyanka Chopra did a good job of acting in a movie, they mean that she didn't trip and fall or forget her lines. Atleast, in the final edit of the movie.
One of my favorite examples of this phenomenon is the Sen Sisters - Riya and Raima. Riya Sen is a stunningly beautiful woman, but I wouldn't trust her to remember a single line of dialogue without two prompters. Her sister, Raima, on the other hand is a homely lass who appears in a lot of arthouse fare and is generally considered a good actress. And I know from an interview that Riya always used to get attention when the two sisters went out together. So she had to know that she didn't have to work hard to get attention or success in life.
It's pretty obvious that the only reason any of the A-listers or Riya Sen are in movies is because of their looks and not because of their acting abilities. No one ever took any auditions of their performances before picking them for a role. But people in the other group have to be good at acting, otherwise no one would let them in front of a camera. (Again, I want to go off on tirade about the hollow Bollywood machine and its meaningless existance, but I'll hold off on that uplifting piece till later.)

India's Eva Green

Google "Kangana Ranaut" if you don't know who that is. And help me
figure out why she reminds me of Eva so much. I think it's the
extremely exotic look each of them has. Eva with her smoky eyes and
Kangana with her curly hair. And both are preternaturally pale.
Regardless, I think they're both very interesting creatures. Kangana
is probably the only Bollywood celebrity I'd like to meet at this
point. Maybe Gul Panag. The rest seem beyond vacuous.

Even the so called serious male actors who keep cheapening themselves
with the commercial cinema. Only exception is Nandita Das who seems
like she'd rather jump into a volcano than do a typical Bollywood
movie. Sadly the movies that does act in aren't inherently that good.
Otherwise I'd add her to my list.

Cheeni Kum

Preethi had mentioned this movie to me as a good movie to watch and even without watching I predicted it would be lousy and hence not worthy of my attention. It wasn't lousy, I'll give it that.
The movie gripped me with its narrative. It was well paced at first. Didn't fall into any of the cliches I was expecting. The dialogue was crisp for the most part, economical is another word I'd use for the dialogue. Tabu was bewitching. She's a very beautiful woman and it bothers me when she does these overly artsy roles. I suppose it's better than the running around trees that she used to do earlier in her career, but still, this was a perfect role for her.
Sadly the movie couldn't avoid the biggest trap, the third act. Even as I was watching the beginning of the movie, I felt that if this movie managed to navigate the tricky third act, it would be an amazingly entertaining movie. But it didn't and it isn't. The Paresh Rawal character seems woefully underdeveloped in relation to the others and the whole part about him starving himself was silly. It stretched out the movie and didn't add anything to it other than lip service to tackling the age difference issue.
Another aspect I had a problem with is calling the kid "Sexy". That's not just an adjective they use to describe her, it's basically her nickname in the movie. Now the former would have been creepy but the latter is just ridiculous. Especially when there are heavy dialogues that talk about her. It's laughable to think that someone can talk your emotions and feelings about a kid called Sexy with a straight face. Yeah, I get it. Everyone is so cool that they can joke about a relationship between a 64-year-old man and a 8-year-old girl. So cool that he calls her Sexy, and she pretends to be jealous about his girlfriend and he confides in her. But come on, isn't that exactly why we laughed at Joey Tribbiani when he confides in a Dakota Fanning character and then her bear? Enough with the overly mature kids already. And enough with the faux flirting between them and the adults. It's been done to death and I really hope no one does that in real life and thinks it's cute. Although, I will admit, the scrawny, little, child actress who acted in the movie did a good job and is really cute.
Overall it was a movie worth watching. Just don't tell anyone I said so.

Screw you Emran Hashimi! I hope you disappear from my world

(This is in response to my brother's comment.)

I hate Emran Hashimi. I loathe him. I think he's symptomatic of everything that's wrong with this world, and Bollywood in particular. Emran, just go away.

Who is Emran Hashimi? He's a nobody. He's a 5-foot nothing of an ugly man who should by all rights be a name I shouldn't have heard till now. How did he become famous? For making out with Mallika Sherawat for a whole 3 hours in a "Murder", a remake of "Unfaithful". Really? We're rewarding people for being the foil for probably the biggest attention whore in Bollywood? It takes talent to make out with a woman who's such a big whore that she's only got her clothes on screen because of censor laws? After "Murder", I rightly assumed that Mallika's career would take off with plenty of silicony cleavage to satisfy everyone. I did not realize that there were people who thought, "Hey, this is the stud who seduced this whore who's pretending to be a housewife into a life of debauchery, maybe he's got a hidden sex appeal we didn't realize."

And bang! He started getting offers left and right. I can't turn on the TV now without looking at his ugly mug. Emran, you bloody midget, please go away. Take Mallika with you.

Aamir Khan can't sing, saala!

Aamir Khan has clearly transformed into the Kamal Hasan of Bollywood, to quote a friend of mine. He was a great actor, the pride of the industry. But now he's become very aware of his unique position and takes himself too seriously. 

My problem with him is much more personal - I can't stand his ads. He does one for Tata Sky (my satellite dish provider) where he's dressed on the left side a man and on the right side a woman and he argues back and forth as both characters. Then there's one where's advertising a cellphone that has a karaoke feature (which he pronounces just as it looks, car+a+oke). He's singing to himself in this ad and then shows us that he's reading the lyrics from his cellphone. Except, he can't carry a tune. Chiranjeevi sang in a movie too, and it was a little painful, but that was more of an experiment. This is just inexcusable. In the end of the ad he says, "Stop talking. Start singing." How about you stop singing as well Aamir?