baba aur bollywood

Hello-ji

2011-04-05T16:49:00.001+02:00

Yes. I´m still alive. And no, I really haven´t watched Indian films for a while. So posting about it was kind of superfluous. There were mainly two reasons for my return to American and British television as main occupance whenever I have the time:

There are no Indian films in Viennese cinemas anymore. Yes, you get the odd Sholay-KKKG-Water Indian film retrospective but the one cinema who used to show Eros releases turned to Turkish movies apart from the standard western fare, and the tour operator who did those single shows of some films now stays in Germany only. When staying in India in 2008 I went and watched at least 2 films a week at the Satyam. And I found out that watching with a crowd increases the fun tenfold, which makes even mediocre films fun.

And then right when I came back there were not any films I was willing to shell out $20+ on DVD. We not only do not have Indian films in cinemas here, our Indian grocery stores also only sell pirated DVDs. And I really not want those.

So I stopped and spent my time and money on different things. Doctor Who! Torchwood! Castle! Californication!

But recently I found I missed my Hindi, Tamil and Telugu heroes and heroines and I stumbled upon Wake Up, Sid! on the iTunes Music Store. I took it as a sign, rented it and thus my Bollywood dry spell finally ended last Sunday.

So, will I watch more? Probably. I have some films lying around at home that wait to be watched. Let´s see if I return to writing about them as well. In the meantime you can keep up with what´s going on in my life on my Tumblr or on Twitter.

Shashi Week 2009 - Monday

2009-03-16T16:12:00.015+01:00

Ja, ja, ja I know I´m a bad girl. I am sorry. But listen. I have been super busy since I returned from India. Too busy even to write about the only two BW films I watched since. Since you´re going to ask anyway. Those two were Gajini, which I liked (but not as much as the Tamil Version) and Billu Barber (which I liked as well, loved even had not SRK´s worn such überugly clothes. Oh, and yes, the editing sucked. Big time).

But that is past. What brings me out of blog-hibernation is Beth´s wonderful brilliant adorable idea of Shashi Week 2009. Why she came up with it. Read here.

And her wonderful brilliant adorable plan brought me luck already. Apart from the films I will try to (re-)watch this week - Do Aur Do Paanch. Shaan - to celebrate all things Shashi, I found out this morning that the in-flight entertainment program on the Emirates Flight that will transport me to Chennai come Saturday offers Kaala Patthar for my viewing pleasures. Which is fantastic. Because so far I only know the first 30 minutes of it. A few years back I was at a book presentation where they screened it but I could not stay to watch it in full. So. Yay. Finally will get that. Socialist-ish masala drama. With a grubby Shashi (and AB1.0 as crumpety guys bonus)

Kaala Patthar is not the only Shashi film I know only parts of. I have the same problem with Dharmputra. Bought two (legal!) DVDs and both are stuck right at the start of the climax.

A very young Hindu-nationalist Shashi running into the house of (unbeknown to him) his Muslim bearing a flaming torch. And cut. DVD khatm. Not a chance of getting to know what happens next. And NO. Don´t you dare telling me who dies and who lives. I´ll find a DVD that works. One day.

Oye Lucky, Lucky d´oh

2008-12-11T12:01:00.004+01:00

I really wanted to write something witty and clever about OLLO. Problem is, the Hindi/Punjabi in that film was too much for me. I feel I understood way to little to give an even partly significant opinion.

So I will wait for the DVD release, re-watch it with Subs and get the opportunity to drool about Abhay once more. Don´t get me wrong. I got what the movie is about and I really liked what I saw, but from the reaction of the crowd around me, I just know that I missed out on much cool stuff.

So lets concentrate on what I can say. Loved the camera work and the lighting of the film. As I did the way the story unfolded. The music is cool. And the Set Design. Paresh Rawal is so so good. And then there was Abhay.

I´ve been exposed to quite a lot of Deol in the last weeks due to one of them popping up in every second film that plays on TV here. So I feel I can say with authority that Abay is the best out there. Yes, I can hear the screams of "but Dharam in the 70ies!". Yah yah, ok. That is a valid point but as of today the best Deol at this moment in time is by faaaar Abhay. Bas. Khe dia na. Bas.

PS: PassionForCinema.com has tons of cool stuff on Oye Lucky, Lucky Oye. Here.

Dostana. High gloss. Little brain. Bahut mast.

2008-11-23T15:01:00.003+01:00

So there are those two hot Indian ladke in Miami Beach and both are looking for a nice place to stay. The perfect location would be rooms in an apartment owned by this beautiful fashion magazine editor. Only, her auntyji rightfully does not think it to be wise to let two virile guys (one looking like AB2.0 after loosing just the right amount of weight and the other bearing an undeniable resemblance to John - we have a winner in the 6-pack contest - Abraham)

Idea! Since one is a photographer and the other one a nurse, what would be more natural as to pretend to be a gay couple. And by being that posing no danger to the landlady´s honour. So they move in and become the thickest of friends. Until both fall in love with her and the plot somewhat thickens.

Obviously the part with both guys getting more and more entangled in their pretend gayness is very very funny. Yes, of course there are the stereotypes. But hey, those are straight Indian guys pretending to be gay and the film manages to not make a farce of it. The only minus point is guy number 3. Well at least Bobby Deol got rid of his mane a while back but still, it doesn´t gel.

My favorite part? The Kirron Kher bits where a riot.

Oh and btw. Dostana set the bar for the most romantic date. I will only say KKHH. I challenge every guy to top that.

Yuvvraaj - at least it didn´t have a shower scene with Anil

2008-11-23T08:40:00.011+01:00

I am utterly confused. It´s a fact. Yuvraaj is a bad movie. Think creepy 90ies bad. But somehow it works. And I don´t have the faintest idea why it does.

The one and only reason for me to make myself brace the rain and watch Yuvraaj yesterday was that I wanted to see how Subash Ghai framed those parts of the story that played in Austria and Czechia (For those interested, except for one tiny piece which might really have been Czechia they shot most scenes in the Tyrol and Salzburg). Cinetirol can be happy. They got a beautifully shot tourism adfilm.
As for the rest of it. Yuvraaj is old school. In a bad sense. Everything people (outside and inside India) make fun about in Bollywood Films is there. Hell, Ghai even used the freaking "thunder" to accent the gravity of what´s happening on screen.

So it took a while to get into it. Mithun helped a bit. As did Zayed who finally looked good again in a film. But a film starting with Katrina stangling her poor chello was not easy to digest. Salman loosing his shirt exactly 15 min into the film did´t help either. The Extras were really really really bad (Bollywood, seriously, you need to get yourself some better white Extras, or at least make them stop looking straight into the camera or at the AD because they have no idea what to do and what not) The costumes will feed Bollywoodfugly for months. Don´t forget Filmi physics like hurricane-like winds in rooms but not even one moving hair when driving an open convertible at 60mph.

As for the story. Been there. Done that. About 1.23.042 times. Three brothers. Not on speaking term. A reluctant father-in-law to be. An unjust will. Evil greedy uncles, aunties and cousins. And POISON. There has been poison! I think that was the moment when I made my peace with Yuvraaj.

So it is an old school film. With an old school story. And old school sloppy filmmaking.
And in the end I came out and had to confess to myself that I had actually had a good time. One part of the Bollywoodfan in me who acutally got hooked on Indian cinema because of films like that, had a fun retro-flashback. Even while the other part cringed and hated Ghai because he ruined my believe that Bollywood was finally over making films that way.

PS: As for the locations. The ones I can name are Hangar 7 in Salzburg, Kristallwelten in Wattens, Festung Kufstein and quite a few other locations in and around Innsbruck.

Dasvidaniya bitter-sweet goodbye

2008-11-21T06:16:00.004+01:00

Sure Dasvidaniya (Goodbye in Russian) is nothing but another version of a "bucket list" film. But it is an endearing Indian version.

Amar (fantastic Vinay Pathak) finds out that he has 3 months to live. Problem is that you cannot call what he did with his live up to that moment as "living". So after a pep talk from his alter-ego he starts to write and work down a "10 points to do before I die" list. It contains not really spectacular things. No skydiving or dancing on the terasse of Eiffel tower. It is real stuff like buying a car or meeting old friends that give him a chance to finally live before dying.

Dasvidaniya is a small film with an excellent cast. It´s quiet and sweet and funny and it made me tear up add the oddest scenes. I loved it for being unspectacular. And for small but shining moments like Amar explaining to his guitar teacher why he started wearing all those threads and rings. Or the first scene on the brigde. Or the love declaration. Or... There are so many wonderful moments in it.

Yes, it is a niche film. But if you, as I do, have a weak spot for off the beaten track films and are as happy as I am to see Rajat Kapoor, Neha Dupia or Saraubh Shukhla on the big screen then you have to go and watch this.

Vaaranam Aayiram - ahh, lets make that 500

2008-11-14T07:19:00.016+01:00

Back in 2006 when I wrote about Peralagan I titled the post "Surya. Wow". That could be a very fitting title for this post as well.

I managed to watch a charity preview of Vaaranam Aayriam (Thousand Elephants) yesterday (with Gautham, Sameera and Surya attending *squee* )
I had high expectations for the combination of Gautham Menon, Harris Jayaraj and Surya. To make it short. Not all could be satisfied.
Inspired by the relationship with his own father, Gautham tries to tell the story of a father-son relationship told to us by the son (Krishnan and Suriya both are played by Surya) in flashbacks. We are led from the 60ies when the parents met to present times.

My tiny problem with the storytelling is that the focus too often shifts from the father-son relationship. Especially in the second half. There are some episodes in the sons life that are just too long and distracting. And sorry, but the climax military thingy is plainly bad. I really hope that the Indian Special Forces are nowhere near as amateurish.

But. Big but. The first half is great. I luuurved the song picturisation. Especially the 60ies and 80ies songs. In fact the first hours or so I felt I was watching an almost perfect movie. Great storytelling. Perfect tempo. Cinematography is beautiful. SFX are the best I´ve seen in an Indian film so far. And I felt the "historical" bits were so sweet and authentic in acting, design, flair, feel.

And the biggest treat is Surya. He really nails it. The 16 year old as well as the 60 year old. Sometimes I almost forgot that this was one and the same actor just in different getups.
Well what can I say? He has been my favorite southern Indian actor for quite a while now and I think he is fast climbing to the top of my "All-Indian Fave" list. Watch out Sanjay/Nana/Atul!
And [fangirlmode on] he looks smoking hot. I still go by my quote from 2006 "He has that very attractive Umphh-factor of being a cool actor with intense eyes and a killer smile." And since he joined the 6-pack club for this film you can add that too (even if I felt the "Salmanitis" he displayed was a bit much) [/fangirl mode off]

But not only Surya was great. Simran is fantastic as Krishnans wife and Suriyas mother. Sameera Reddy surprised me in a good way and Divya was did wonderful

So. Watch it or not? Even with a few points of criticism. No Question. Watch it. For Surya. The great cinematography. The songs. The first half and parts of the second.

Oops. Almost forgot. Of course we need a disclaimer for this review as well. As I still don´t understand more than two Tamil words and the film obviously was without Subs I could only get the English bits of the dialogue. It was not too hard to follow the story though.

PS: I heard rumors that Gautham edited the second half some more since the first previews. I´ll probably go and watch it once more tomorrow, so I will be able to tell.

PPS: It´s confirmed. 15 minutes of the 2nd half have been cut. Reports tell that this helps quite a bit.

"German Blogger Barbara Skoda"

2008-11-06T06:59:00.007+01:00

Well, that would be me. The TOI Website has an article by Anuradha Varma on the Fans reaction to the Temptation Reloaded disaster in Germany.
Where btw. some of the fans already filed charges for fraud against the promoters and quite a few of the claimants only converse via their lawyers with Sensasian anymore. The SRK youtube apology made it to the evening news on TV. Anyone involved with Bollywood in Germany is fighting for damage control and German Bollywood magazine Ishq is trying to extract at least parts of the truth behind the whole drama.

*of course I am actually "Austrian Blogger Barbara Skoda" since my home base is in Vienna, Austria. And we only speak German there (A fact that might be disputed by anyone living north of Munich). But I stopped minding the mix up. In fact whenever I get asked of my origin here in Chennai I resort to answering "Germany" for quite a while now. It is somehow the better option than to always explain that Austria is not Australia and most of the time giving up because people don´t get it...

Fashion - reality? not really!

2008-11-03T13:01:00.008+01:00

It is a bit of a pity that Madhur Bhandarkar did not dare to go the whole nine yards with Fashion.
Working in the fashion industry is a tough job. Duh! Yes, we know that. And of course there is almost not difference between the Indian industry and Fashion business anywhere else in the world.

Whatever. Here´s the not so surprising story.
Smalltown beauty queen aspires to become model. No, Supermodel. Mom is ok with it. Dad not. Beauty queen travels to Mumbai and meets with gay friend and assistant designer. He makes her meet people and since aspiring model looks like Priyanka Chopra and the big honchos are neither stupid nor blind, she heads to the top at lightning speed. But being a country bumpkin she of course does not read the 500 pages contract nor does she listen to the warning of her coke-abusing fallen successor. So beauty queen now Supermodel looses her friends, lets herself get knocked up by her married boss, has an abortion and starts the coke/alcohol routine. Thank god she has an epiphany and heads home.
Sad little traumatized now Ex-Supermodel need about a year to sort of recover only to go back and show it to the world (now with the blessing of Daddy). She apologises to her best model friend and alibi-wife who is now pregnant from her gay designer husband, best gay now-designer-not-assistant-anymore friend and ditched former model boyfriend who is now engaged to some other girl.
She not only tries a comeback but also tries to help the other totally rundown former supermodel to get back on her feet. One succeeds. One dies. Go figure.

What have I learned from this movie?

-Every male designer in India is gay.
-Breaking up with your boyfriend makes you addicted to cigarettes and vodka.
-Kangana should not speak. Ever. And even less shout. It is unintentional comedy at its best to watch her yell at her boyfriend and then tumble down the stairs. The cinema roared with laughter.
-Indian models do not have eating disorders.
-Everyone who ever watched America´s Next Topmodel knows that walking the ramp is similar to nuclear science.

The only thing I liked about the fim was its cinematography. And Ashwin Mushran. The rest was boring. As movies tend to be that oversimplify the worlds dark areas and are so predictible that you can narrate the story plus all the side twists after watching the first 5 minutes of the film

Aegan - Main nahin hoon na

2008-10-29T03:41:00.008+01:00

Disclaimer: This post will not be a proper review since I don´t understand any Tamil and it was screened without subtitles. But nonetheless I got most of the story, especially since Aegan is sort of a remake of Main Hoon Na.

As you can read, I did eventually manage to get a ticket. And so I had a blast watching this years big Diwali release with a Tamil crowd. I still have to confess that I would have preferred to watch the new Surya release but since Ayngaran, the producer of Aegan, seemed to have blocked most of the screens for the Diwali weekend, the Vaaranam Aayiram makers decided to move its release to November 14th.
From my point of view it seems like a good plan from Ayngaran to overkill with screens on this release, since judging from the reaction of the audience, the film left most of them pretty cold. So I don´t think word-of-mouth is going to be too good. The audience´s enthusiasm cooled down from a huge cheer Ajith got for his first scene to people starting to leave while the climax fight was still on. In the end everybody just wanted to get out as fast as they could. People seemed not to hate it, they just looked unaffected.

However, I still had lots of fun. Btw. Aegan is not a 1:1 clone of MHN. There are some more or less significant changes in the story. Not all are for the best I am afraid.

Aegan tells the story of a CBI Special Ops Super Agent called Shiva who gets called in by his boss (and father) to protect the daughter of a criminal-turned-key witness. Since said former-crook went AWOL after an attempt for his life through his former partner in crime, the CBI hopes to catch him when he contacts his daughter. So Shiva is forced to go undercover as a student in her boarding school in Ooty. It takes a while and some rope-action fights for Shiva to befriend Pooja (Piaa Bajpai) and her boyfriend Narain (Navdeep). Life gets even more complicated for our hero when he falls head over heals for his beautiful, very sparsely clad chemistry teacher Mallika (Nayantara) who not seems to be at the very least interested. Oh and there is the (very far on the) side-story of Shiva´s adoptive mother and brother who happen to be living in Ooty as well.

So you see. Pretty close but not a clone. And since even the filmmakers openly(!) acknowledged a close relation between those to two movies, why not compare MHN and Aegan

Action. Aegan has a lot of more blood and some very cool wire-action fights. But it sadly misses the cycle-riksha chase. Tie. 1:1

Comedy. The comedy track with the school principal and the weird teachers is equally nice in both film. Aegan has a comedy side kick for Shiva and he´s fun. One Point for Aegan 1:2

Romance. Sush and SRK sizzle. And the heartbreak of Sanjana due to Lucky´s insensitiveness. Her makeover. Lucky´s makeover. MHN has it all. In Aegan the romance between Pooja and Narain is already established and Shiva and his chemistry teacher don´t sizzle. They annoy each other and unfortunately us as well. MHN un point 2:2

Emotional highlights. SRK standing in front of his brother and stepmother with the urn of his father is heartbreaking filmi greatness. Aegan completely wastes that opportunity. We get a so-so flashback very late in the movie and no confrontation whatsoever in present time. We only see the happily reunited family right after the climax fight for 2 seconds. Bas. Another point for MHN 3:2

Songs. Farah Khan managed to fit all of the songs in MHN perfectly into the story (even the item-song-wali ones) Raju Sundaram doesn´t. Also I love "Chale Jaise Hawaien" and I don´t love "Yahoo Yahoo" Not even shooting on of the songs in Switzerland saves Aegan loosing that point to MHN. 4:2

Hero. SRK vs. Ajith. Tough one. But then. Not really tough. Sorry Ajith, as much as I like you and as much as I am not a hardcore SRK Fan. Major Ram Prasad Sharma is so taking that point from CID Special Agent Shiva. 5:2

Heroine. No-brainer. Sush and Amrita Rao. Every time. 6:2

MHN also gets one point each for technical execution, script execution and the overall "tribute to filmy history" theme.

Final Result. 9:2

A landslide victory for Main Hoon Na. Aegan is a wasted chance. It would probably not be so obvious if it was an original story but so it is but a MHN minus the heart. Following more closely to the MHN script might have made a terrific Kollywood film. Pity.

All pictures copyright Ayngaran.

Too slow. Bleh.

2008-10-23T07:44:00.006+02:00

I really really really wanted to go and watch Ajith in Aegan this weekend, but since there was some Internet/electricity/server trouble at the office I just couldn't log into the thecinema.in or the inox website yesterday. So I tried this morning and ALL tickets (and we´re talking about 10.000 at Satyam cinemas alone) for this weekend are already gone and only very few tickets for the late shows which I can´t attend on Monday and Tuesday are left.

Bleh.

The Blame Game

2008-10-20T09:16:00.005+02:00

I´m sitting at the airport in Brussels waiting for my flight back to Chennai after veeery busy 5 days in Berlin (hence no update) but now looks like a good time to do a quick follow up on my last blog post.

Ever since I wrote my piece there have been press releases (from both sides), SRK sort of apologised to his German audience through a special video message and the German fans are ripping each other apart on account of who the truer fans are. Those who are pissed at SRK/his management for their share of the messing up but still love him as an actor/posterboy or those who already forgave and forgot everything, deeming SRK and "his people" the victims of the whole drama.

I am still standing by any word I wrote. Just in case you´re wondering. And I of course will go on watching any Indian film I can in cinemas or buy the (original) DVD´s of the ones I can´t and that look promising to me.

oops, they did it again or how to ruin a pretty well-doing market

2008-10-14T11:51:00.015+02:00

SRK´s Temptation 2008 concerts in Germany have been canceled today. Three days before their scheduled dates. Back in August the German stop of the Bachchans Unforgettable Tour met the same fate. They informed their audience 4 days in advance about the adjourment sine die.

The big honchos in Mumbai seem to have got something wrong. Ever since the Johars and YashRaj started to make their profitable deals with REM and RTL2 the German market seemed to look like fat firang tourist in Chor Bazar to the Filmi Industry-walas that could easily be skinned for money.
Except, if you trick somebody and want to keep on milking him, don´t become too greedy. You can only screw us so far. To steal a line from K3G: Tum sirf entertainer ho, parameshwar nahin. For us Non-Desi Europeans you just produce films we like (sometimes very very much) with stars we like (and sometimes honestly love) but you can´t do whatever you like and not pay a price for it.

Take the DVD market for example.
Primary rule: If you want to sell films in Germany you have to dub them. Cinema in Germany has been German-dialogues-only ever since the first talkie in the 1920ies. Same goes for the Video and DVD market. Thankfully there are companies like REM who cater to a niche audience with high quality releases. Due to their cooperation with the RTL2 TV station they were able to produce top standard Bollywood DVD´s that sold fantasticly.

Enter greedy Bollywoodproducers. And swamp the market with C-grade movies, flop-films and bad quality production. That in itself would not be such a problem had they not tried to go the tourist-gouging routine. Even the King Khan has made some really really bad movies over the years. Sell them to the unsuspecting K3G, DDLJ or KHNH fan and you get somebody who will think twice if he will ever again spend 18,- to 24,- Euro on a BW DVD.
Mistake born out of greed #2: Quite a few of those crappy DVD´s had SRK (the only BW actor that really sells in Germany) on their cover. Even without him being in it. Instead customers got such shiny moments of Indian movie history like Hottestm@ail.com or Husn Bewafa.
Is it any wonder that sales of Bollywood DVD dropped like the stock market during the last weeks? Two years ago you had entire sections in DVD stores dedicated to Indian films. Now you can be lucky if you get a tiny part on the "B" shelf.

Then the TV ratings started to drop as well. Films were edited beyond recognition. And the big selling K3G-style extravaganzas were a thing of the past too. You just can´t expect films like D:2 or Krrish to work for an audience that is used to watch Hollywood quality action or SciFi films. Sorry. But, no.

Thank god the Berlinale 08 happened. SRK and OSO came, saw and conquered. The hard-core fans, still loyal and actually pretty active in promoting the thing they love, stroke up a frenzy. SRK made the evening news. And the German fans were led to believe that the slump that hit the Bollywood Trend in Germany was finally over. Especially since some of the Multiplex chains started to screen current films and both the Unforgettable and the Temptation Tours were announcing shows in Germany.

Bollywood Concerts and Germany do have a rather shaky past.
The local promoters like SensAsian are, lets be frank, crooks. Plain and simple. They talk, they announce, they sell tickets and they mess up, go into hiding, take the money with them and piss of the fans. Just look at SA´s track record. Apart from the very first "Dinner with SRK" in Offenbach in 2005 everything else was either canceled or had to be cut short.

And now we have the latest of their disasters and this time it is not simply Shilpa Shetty´s Miss Bollywood or the Bachchans (which both probably got canceled due to bad pre-sales). This time it really hits hard. This time it is SRK. I know of more than a few cases of Fans who literally had to scrimp and save to be able to afford a once-in-a-lifetime journey to one of the concerts. So this time it is personal. And that is bad news.

First they demand outrageous sums for - lets be honest - a tacky playback show and the fans pay it. And now the fans already sitting on their packed suitcases have to hope and pray that they get their 50,- to 250,- Euros back. And I am not even talking about the hundreds of fans that will surely loose money because their plane tickets or hotel reservations can´t be canceled.

(You want numbers? Lets take this very dear friend of mine. She shelled out 150,- for the ticket, 100,- for the airfare, the hotel for two nights would have cost her another 100,- add to that food, public transport and maybe some merchandise and you have at least 400,- . A sum that she was willing to spend on "her" SRK. She earns about 900,- each month. After deducting her fixed costs she has about 300,- for food, petrol etc. Do the maths!)

So, Yo! Greedy Bollywoodproducers and greedy Bollywoodstars!
If you want to ~~save what is left of your~~ start rebuilding some credibility in Germany to maybe have some kind of a future here: Don´t do deals with promoters you know have let you down in the past or distributors that do more damage than good. That can´t be too hard, can it?

There is that (very crass but nonetheless true) saying "don´t crap where you eat". And eating you seemed to do just fine in Germany for the last few years. But by crapping on our heads once too often I feel that you finally crossed the limit of our hospitality.

EDIT 16/10/08: Thanx to the great feedback to my rambling. To answer a few questions I was asked a few times. Yes, please copy the text if you want to (just give me credits for it) and no, I don´t have a German version of it, sorry. And since I am at a business convention for the next 3 days I won´t have the time to translate it either.

Kidnap. Meh.

2008-10-06T13:18:00.010+02:00

I find it so hard to write about movies I feel indifferent to. I really wanted to love this one. I am a Sanjay Fangirl. I really like Minissha Lamba and I was very curious about Imran Khan (No, I haven´t been be able to watch JTYJN yet. I won´t until the DVD comes out).

But what is there to say when a movie just leave you "meh"?
Let´s try it that way:

What I liked.
- Most of the Action (except for Sanjays running. They should not let him run in the bad shape he was in while they were shooting the film)
- The twists in the story. Well, most of them.
- Imran.
- Minissha when she was allowed to do more than just being eyecandy/mannequin for skimpy clothes.
- Sanjay when he didn´t run.

What I didn´t like.
- Vidya Malvade. Autch. Too young. Too single-faced. Too awful.
- Sanjay when he ran.
- Minissha when she tried to be supersexy.
- The songs. Bleh. The opening song? Just wrong. The wedding anniversary song? Bollywood Fugly. The Item song? How very uninteresting. The lets-seduce-my-kidnapper song? Well, that was kinda sexy. But. How stupid can you be?

All characters and their story left me emotionally cold. I just couldn´t have cared less about anyone on screen. But then again. Sanjay Gadhvi is responsible for Dhoom and D:2. So what was I expecting?

All pics copyright to Shree Ashtavinayak Cine Vision Ltd.

Rock On!! - Pleasant Surprise

2008-09-28T17:15:00.007+02:00

I feel a little weary whenever I go to watch a movie that deals with music, musicians or sound engineering. The same way I guess Doctors feel about any movie that has medicine as a topic or Cops with policework on screen.

Way too often you get actors that bearly manage to hold a guitar the right way (KKHH anyone?) Watching a recording session usually makes me cringe the way any medical staff does when encountering the ominous lonesome blood-bottle indicating a serious medical condition on the screen (actually for that matter - again KKHH anyone?).

Hats off to the makers of Rock On. They - almost - got it right. Whats even more. I don´t think anyone who never had any dealings with garage bands and the decisions everyone connected in whatever way to a band faces when its on the verge of success can appreciate that movie the way I did.

I had so many deja vu moments there. I know, met and worked with a lot of Joes, Aditiyas and KDs. Hell, I am married to one for that matter. So please don´t expect me to write an unbiased review. Still I´d like to give you some of my thoughts on it.

Rock On!! tells the story of the band Magik. Ten years ago the band with its members Joseph (Arjun Rampal) the lead guitarist, Aditiya (Farhan Akhtar) the lead singer, Rob (Luke Kenny) the keyboarder and Killer KD Drummer (Purab Kohli) almost made it. They had great songs, a great chemistry, great girlfriends and a record deal. And then everything fell apart.
Now ten years later they lost any contact to each other. Aditya is as far away from music as a successful stockbroker can be. KD works in his dads jewelry business, Rob is a rather unhappy session musician for Anu Malik (poor guy!) and Joe has to live on the money his wife makes with her fish shop because his music makes him none. When one day a chance meeting offers an opportunity to meet again.

I read quite a few interviews with the cast before I watched Rock On!! I had to smirk when I saw that they made Arjun play the Steve Vai Evo Guitar. Thats a tough act to follow. But they were very clever. Arjun copes pretty well when he is playing slow songs on his Acoustic. On stage and during the solos the either shot him from the back or did a wideshot or the hands of the audience blocks the view. That´s what I call clever filmmaking. Same goes for the other bandmembers. And Farhan´s voice rocks. Literally.

What I really liked about the characters where that the screenplay avoided most of the obvious stereotypes and clichés. The decisions they have to take are very real. (At least to me) And pretty grown up.
I love the way they did the concert scenes. The dynamic is infectious.
It´s a pity that I had to watch the film without subtitles. I got most of what was going on but the finer points in the dialogues were lost to me. But hey, I wanted to buy the DVD anyway. It is the kind of movie to watch more than once. So Excel Entertainment, hurry up and don´t you dare going the Aamir Khan way to release it.

[fangirl mode] One more word about the guys. Boy, does Farhan look yummi under the shower. It makes up more than enough for the little insecurities that still can be found in his acting. And Arjuns long rocker mane is very much to my liking. He is one of the few actors who can carry of a moustache and look genuinely sexy with it. [/fangirl mode]

So what´s left to say is a big recommendation for Rock On!! from the filmifan and the sound engineer/drummers-wife in me.

All pictures copyright http://rockon.bigadda.com/

EDIT: since I was asked by mail: The "almost" in "they - almost - got it right" refers to some goofs equipment-wise. The drums KD plays in the 10-years-earlier scenes are Basix drums that were not available back then. Same goes for the Line6 Amp in the rehearsal room. But apart from that I did not stumble upon any obvious errors. And in fact I don´t mind those that I did.

Oh and I can finally live in peace again. For days I wrecked my brain where SEL had earlier used the Guitar-Riff that opens the "Rock On" song. Half an hour it finally clicked. It´s from the Lakshya Background score. Phew!

And one final thing. Watch the crowd at the final concert closely. There might be Cameos.

Back. And for now in Chennai.

2008-09-28T17:08:00.003+02:00

The Filmi world has me back again. It has been very still here the past few months. Mainly due to the lack in films I wanted to watch. There just was not much that made me want to spend about 20USD for a DVD.

But now I finally made it to Chennai and today I finally made it to the cinema. YAY!

I started watching again on the flight to India (Jet Airways has a great selection of films from all over India). That way I finally got to see Taare Zameen Par. Which left me underwelmed. It is a good film but growing up in Austria we has tons of "TV movies of the week" that dealt with the same subject or a similar one. They were not executed so nice, I must admit. I guess I am just not the target audience for it. And maybe I was only feeling less then enthusiastic for it due to the big expectations I had. Well still, count me to the very surprised people if TZP makes the Oscar shortlist.

Anyway. I´m back. For good. Watched Rock On!! today at Satyam Cinemas. Plan to catch Drona and Kidnap on next Thursday and Sunday. (I dont have much time to do anything outside work unless it´s sunday or an office holiday)

PS: for those able to read German. I started a Blog about my adventures in India. It´s mainly for friends and family to stay in touch. But you´re very welcome take a look too (got some cool Auto-Riksha vids there) You´ll find it at http://babaindia.blogspot.com

Interlude: Requesting Fanart

2008-08-08T11:54:00.004+02:00

Shamelessly copying from Beth´s blog (because A. is my friend too..):

My friend Aradhana, a production designer in Indian and American films, is doing a project on Shahrukh Khan fan art and is seeking submissions for her research. She welcomes anything that isn't an actual photograph - drawings, graphic art, paintings, etc. Please email her on here to submit your handiwork and include your name (not just your email address) and where you live.

Something is rotten in ...

2008-08-07T15:55:00.003+02:00

the state of Bollywood at cinemas in Vienna. I don´t know how it happend but from being forced to decide between three different films on one day we just dropped to nothing. Zilch. Nada.

For more than a month now there has not been one single show of any Indian film here. Even in the past when we had fewer Bollywood here the summer was good. There are always a lot of summer cinema specials. Open-Air screenings. Whatever. And they always had a few films on. But this year it just stopped dead. Sarkar Raj was the last film that was on. Ever since that not-so-exciting-thingy there´s nothing. Zilch. Nada. But I repeat myself here.

And there is no explanation for it. Sigh. Well, I guess we just have to wait a little more. And make do with a single screening of Monsoon Wedding, MHN or whatever deadbeaten film they will show late August.

I want to see Sing is Kinng! Bleh! The Germans get it and we don´t. Not fair.

Anyway. As you might (or not) have noticed I am still in Vienna. I should be in Chennai for a month already, but my stay gets delayed and delayed and delayed. But I am still hopefull that the next few weeks will finally see me going. Hah. And then I wont have any trouble with cinemas not playing the kind of films I want to see.

In the meantime I make do with Mamma Mia! (Did I mention before that I was raised on ABBA? Plus, it has Colin Firth and Pierce Brosnan singing. *Squee* And the devine Meryl Streep. Bless her.) And Dr.Horrible. And as you might have noticed from this posts title I am (re-)reading Hamlet. The commentary book I got yesterday is more then thrice the number of pages of the play.. Why am I reading it? Well. I love Shakespeare. I haven´t read it in ages. Its summer. I have a beautiful green shady terrace with very comfy chairs. And what´s more, I can´t go to Stratford-upon-Avon to watch Patrick Steward and David Tennant perform.

So there´s that.

How time flies

2008-05-18T12:23:00.006+02:00

As I am writing this, I sit in the lobby of my hotel in Chennai, waiting for the transport that will take me to the airport to catch my flight home. It is a bit surreal. Outside there are almost 40 degree Celsius. In the lobby it is freezing cold and they play the Best of Kenny G CD. Just now the song is Winter Wonderland. Oh I love it here.

The trip was busy and stressy and fun. I did not manage to see much apart from the taxi rides and offices and hotelrooms. So my filme experiences mainly consisted of in-flight entertainment. That means I got to see Vel (with Surya and Asin) on the flight to India which I liked. And 4 (!) times parts of Welcome on my domestic flights with Kingfisher. Why of all the films in the world did it have to be Welcome? There is one single good scene in it and that is when Anil Kapoor makes his extortion call to Paresh Rawal who thinks it is a prank call. I love the way Nana Patekar cracks up laughing. Then I watched the Kolkata Knight Riders get destroyed by Mumbai on TV. Oh and I managed to buy the Dusavatharam Soundtrack and the Raijnikanth Biography. Had no chance to listen in on the soundtrack though. My Macbook Air does not have a CD drive..

Now for the really cool part. As of today it is confirmed. I get to come back to India. Very soon. In early July. And then I will stay for at least 3 months. So all you people I was not able to visit this time. I´ll be coming to hound you..

I managed to put some pics up on flickr. They are mainly shot from inside of our car. But in Delhi I even had 3 hours time for some sightseeing. Yay.

2 reasons

2008-05-01T10:28:00.006+02:00

I have two reasons for being so quiet here ever since the PEIBBM. One is good, one is even better.
The good one is in fact not my fault. Blame Kaddele, Maria and Ezri. They hooked me on Doctor Who. ´Nuff said. *babyfangirlsqueee*

The better reason is so bilkul first class. I´ll be going to India. Soon. Very soon. I always wanted to. But there never were any concrete plans. And then four weeks ago a chance turned up that was too good to resist and now for starters I´ll be flying to India for 9 days in May and if that trip goes well, I might set up camp in India for a few months from late June. As you might imagine there is some hectic preparation work to be done.

But yes. I still watch movies. Just yesterday we went to the cinema and saw ~~The Dream Team~~ Krazzy4. I liked that it had (a mostly wasted, but I take what I can get) Rajat Kapoor, liked the 4 krazzy guys, Hrithik´s moves, and that so many of my favorite supporting actors made an appearance. But the rest was either a 1:1 copy or ranging from not very good to plainly bad. I don´t think it is a good sign that we thought the post-climax moral-of-story speeches were the funniest part of the movie. And imagine my suprise at hearing my dad´s fave song from the 60ies in Rajesh Roshan´s oh so "genuine" soundtrack. Here (song starts after about 20 sec).

And I watched U Me Aur Hum. And kinda liked it. You know first time director and all. But I liked it.

~~Two~~ Naa three more things before I have to get back to work. We were written about in Tehelka. And Filmiholic did a terrific interview with Mani Ratnam. Read it. And there are of course tons of pics from the fantastic Bloggersmeeting in Munich on flickr. Here my collection and here the flickr group.

Edit: Oh my. In between all the Doctor Who and India job and WTF Krazzy4 moments. I totally forgot to mention our very clever project that was conceived at the Sunday brunch at Munich´s PEIBBM.

Its group blog listing all cinema screenings of Indian or Indian related film in the German speaking part of Europe. Setting it up, editing and updating would be reason number 3 for my unforgiveable silence here.

PEIBBM Liveblogging

2008-03-08T13:43:00.037+01:00

I late, but we´re live.

michael+mike+mirie, maria, beth, kaddele, marco and enia4x a whole lot of others are as well liveblogging.

13:45 kaddele and beth asre singing dhadak and are waiving their wonderfull BaB cutouts..

13:50 I still have to get into the groove. but hell, its been ages since i saw BaB and AB2.0 looks soooo nice :D

13:54 uh-oh Bunty. i know you´re pissed, but you must not talk to your dad like that.. tsktsk

13:56 to 14:04 bleh. blogger.com is acting up. it eats my post. so we missed Babli´s pink room. and Bunty´s first scam.

14:05 I haven´t seen BaB for ages. I didn´t remember how very pink it was..

14:06 *sigh* now they finally met. what a cool pick up line.

14:08 Ohh. I also forgot how very nerve-grating Bablis crying is. Breaks every man :D Note to self: Try on husband..

14:15 I´m lagging behind. But now we have "yeh world" for the 3rd time. Yay!

14:17 weehh. bahut accha. I keep repeating myself. but i forgot how very cool stuff there is in that movie. Like the music during the Q-Q-Qureishi scene.

btw. we here are some of the cutouts

and they will come in very handy soon...

14:26 ok Babli is a bit slow but now we have the titlesong!!!!

14:30 Yey my favorite is the hotel-bying scam during the song. Thats AB2 in AB1 mode from Agnepath, right? And now theres Sholay :D Love it!!!
And the crowd here is singing!

14:35 Mummyyyy!! Oh no she´s crying again.

14:36 Collcetive sigh. The first romatic sparks are flying. Shooo Shweeet..

14:46 Uh_oh blue pleather coming up..

14:48 wow. sycronized clapping in the house.. and quite some amusement over the fugly costumes.

14:56 *sigh* and kiss-kiss sounds from the crowd. all that for a peck on the cheek. i cant wait what will happen in the secound half.

and Papa B draws a huge applause

15:24 INTERVAL over. And we get the first glimpse of the Taj Mahal

and btw. we had to reprimand the "hat-fraction" from Frankfurt/Munich.. they were caught watching SRk stuff on their Laptops during the first half. Tsktsk..

15:26 poor Bunty. What a wasted wedding night..

15:28 war of noses. and cat-calls from the audience..

15:35 oh no. technical problems. but we came prepared. quick change of DVDs. and during the unscheduled break Beth and Kaddele enact what we are missing on screen with the paper cutouts. YAY!!

15:43 and the big Taj Mahal scam is starting. And while we watch it unfolding I need to add two more liveblogs.
willi for umananda
nefret

15:57 oh the Big B is just made for slow motion.

16:01 Ahhh question: Is it possible that the barman at the hotel is the same guy as the receptionist from Jab We Met??

16:02 Oh what a beautiful story. Inspector AB2.0 ka pehla pyaar.

16:07 Yay. Family reunion! Sorry gotta dance pretty soon

16:17 Now that got the crowd rocking. I think I saw even the guys dancing in their seats

16:24 We´re heading fast to the climax. Oh and Amitabh Bachchan runs!!! I love when Amitabh Bachchan runs!!

16:34 And another "Yeh world" and an ultimatium

16:38 Oh noooo. Caught. Oh noooooooo

16:44 I see tears in the crowd. And hear some sniffeling.

16:48 Big Applause. And now for some rapping AB1.0

So we´re off to Maharani Restaurant for an early dinner and then at 20.30 we´ll have the ACEBA presentation and the party afterwards.

Bahut Masti Hai.

Oh btw. I´ve already shot hundreds of pics. I´ll need to sort them still but keep coming back for them. ..

Bollywoodbloggers. The program.

2008-02-26T13:11:00.003+01:00

While other people are busy packing. We were/are busy with preparation work.

And so now we can announce the full and (almost) final program of the 2nd Annual Pan-European/International Bollywood Bloggermeeting (Why oh why was I thinking that it was funny/cool to have an as long as possible title for it last year)

Friday March 7th:

During the course of the afternoon we meet at the Bollywood-Flat, Eversbuschstreet in Munich/Allach. To chat and basically simply hang out the Bollywood way

At 7:30 PM Dinner at Restaurant "Bollywood", Donnersbergerstr. 44 (yes. there is an indian Restaurant in Munich with that name)

Saturday March 8th:

10.00 AM - Brunch, Leo's Lounge, Rosenheimer Str. 98, S-Bahn Rosenheimer Platz. Food is 10€, drinks cost extra.

1.00 PM - Liveblogging at SAE Institute Munich Bayerwaldstr. 43, S6 Perlach. This years film will be Bunty Aur Babli

5.30 PM- Dinner at Restaurant Maharani, Rottmannstr. 24

8.00 PM - ACEBA ceremony & Party, Flaschenbar, Schleißheimer Str. 43

Sunday March 9th:

Since OSO will have its theatrical release on March 6th throughout Germany, we are still negotiating a matinee show for Sunday morning. And it looks good that we will have one.

If we dont manage to lock that down the Plan B is to have Brunch again.

SRK. OSO. Berlinale. A State Of Nation Speech.

2008-02-11T22:45:00.000+01:00

OSO had its German Premiere at the Berlinale Filmfestival in Berlin last Friday. And the Big Khan was attending in person. Plus he even gave a public lecture at the Berlinale Talent Campus on Sunday.

News like that made the German speaking fan-universe go crazy for the last few weeks. For various reasons.

One. That´s a quite simple one. Om Shanti Om will finally get a theatrical release in Germany. Eros and the big Khan himself promised a release with 50 copies nationwide. (That doesn´t sound much. But it is. Its actually the biggest Indian film release ever in Germany) Unlike us fortunate Austrian and Swiss fans who got OSO in cinemas at the same time as the rest of the world, Germany had to wait.

Two. SRK made his last public appearance in Germany back in 2005 at an ill-fated "fan-dinner" that is only remembered by mass-hysteria, tilting boats, shady organisers and fans loosing money. Since then he´s been pretty much a no-show in our part of the world.

Three. Germany is SRK territory as far as it concerns Bollywood cinema. That´s a plain fact. The so-called Bollywood Boom started in 2004 when K3G played on German TV for the first time. And back then it was SRK who captured the hearts of the viewers. Distributed by Rapid Eye Movies, a small German distributor specializing in Eastern cinema, a hype was born. K3G was followed by KKHH, KHNH and MHN. Ever since then the notion for viewers was (and for the main public it still is): If its there is a Bollywood film - it has Shah Rukh Khan in it. As if nobody else existed in Indian cinema.
Much to the chagrin of more broadminded or lets call them more committed Indian movie fans. That and the fact that the Mumbai film industry killed the German DVD market with the release of crap quality releases of almost all (even the stinkers) SRK movies to make a fast buck. Or even films that only show SRK on the cover. Or monkey business like that. Resulting in a steep drop in DVD sales, poor TV ratings and basically a dwindling interest by and a loss in credibility with the public. But I´m digressing here.]

©berlinale.de

So SRK came. He saw. And as far as the media coverage and the fan reactions go. He very much conquered. The tickets for the premiere were sold out in 7 (!) minutes. The ones for the lecture only took 15 minutes until the house full signs went up. Even tickets for the additional screenings (the ones without a personal appearance) where gone in under an hour. Blackmarket ticket prices went as high as 390$ for the 11$ premiere tickets (As seen on Ebay!)
On the night of the premiere itself all those waiting were treated to 40 minutes of an autograph signing, handshaking, hug and waves sending incredibly charming Shah Rukh on the red carpet and a good-humored SRK answering even the most rediculous questions with utmost patience and charm after the premiere. The media and fans loved it and him. From Friday night until this morning he was dominating the media coverage of the Berlinale. In the beginning the journalists were more stunned than impressed but during the course of the weekend SRK´s charm got them all. Here´s a link to the Berlinale website with a 30 min video of the (highly intimidating) photo-call and after that the official press conference on Friday. (The Talent Campus Lecture is also rumored to be put online in March)

©berlinale.de

So what do we, as non-desi Bollywood fans in Central Europe, take home from this weekend?
A) It looks like the "Restart" of Bollywood in Germany had a terrific initiation. In March we will see if the Boxoffice will react accordingly.
B) The German fans were right with their SRK infatuation. I have yet to read a feedback post in Marcos forum that has anything negative to say about his public appearances in Berlin. I don´t see any other (Bollywood) star of today pulling that off.
C) As for the really important stuff. He learned the German words: "Ja, Mann" and "wunderbar". He is said to have incredibly soft hands. And he seems to smell so-oho good. Well informed sources believe it to be Azzarro Silver Black *g*

Have Macbook Air. Will Post.

2008-02-11T17:36:00.000+01:00

Hi, sorry for the lack of updates. But there has been just too much going on in my private (yes I do have one) and work-related live.

So just a short update to tell you all is well.
We already do have quite an impressive line-up for the Bloggermeeting in Munich. So far we´re running at 35 registrations (mainly from Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Beth is so far again the lone "international" party. And she is having nightmares about being forced to speak German. So. You out there. Show some compassion. Join her.)

Then another important thing. If you´re located in Europe and are able to read German. Go and vote for the 5th Annual Central European Bollywood Awards. Just click here. Results will be announced on March 8th at the PEIBBM in Munich.

Oh and concerning the title of this entry. Its only to make Michael go green with envy ;-)

MiniKhan and I had a blast unpacking it yesterday evening.

Tashan Teaser. Ok. Ek aur chance.

2008-01-16T14:50:00.000+01:00

Sanni, high-priestess of the cult of Sakshay, over at ..so they dance! already did a preview. But since the best thing on the Aaja Nachle DVD was the Teaser for Tashan I though that I don´t want to keep from you what might come to a cinema near you in April 2008

There´s this gal..

and that guy..

but the thing that puts my mind into overdrive is the highly explosive combo of this guy..

and that guy..

back together in one movie. Yeehaaaa!
Finally. The reunion I´ve been waiting for soooo long. Please. Please. Please. Please give them 90% of shared screen time. I know the chances are high that YRF blows even a surefire instant classic like that one. But its the debut of Vijay Krishna Acharya (the writer for such elaborate films as Dhoom and D:2) as a director. So there is a ray of hope. Sure, I don´t believe we will be getting anything along the immortal ranks of Keemat..

..but a girl can hope. Hain Naa?
So YRF. Aapke paas ek aur chance hai. Malum hai ki chance kam hai, lekin hai.

And just because they are there and I cant let two nice screenshots like that go to waste, here, two more:

Bollwoodbloggers. Humare paas Logo hai.

2008-01-15T09:12:00.000+01:00

And we thought since with this years location we´re entering Paint it Pink´s realm, we better put in a little of that pink..

Khubsoorat, hai naa?

Aacha Nachle. A tall order.

2008-01-15T01:46:00.000+01:00

If you love the kind of Hindi movies I do, you can´t help but to developing a sort of system/defence mechanism for the handling of logic-defying storylines, movie goofs and continuity errors. Bollywood bettered itself in that area during the last few years, fortunately, which now makes it is all the more annoying when a big honcho studio like YashRaj falls back onto its evil 90ish ways.

(You have no ideas how much I wanted to love Aaja Nachle. Not that I had too high hopes for it knowing the latest films coming out of YRFChak de excepted). But even despite all odds. Even with all the not so flattering reviews. Even though I still hoped for something. I mean c´mon. Madhuri. And Konkona, Kunal, Ranbir, Vinay, Akshaye and Irrfan.

And then the movie opens with Madhuri doing a really bad Michael-Jackson-meets-Flashdance-meets-MiamiSoundMachine tap-dance/aerobics routine (with tap-dance sounds) wearing sneakers (apart from very unflattering spandex). For heaven´s sake. [self-defense mechanism kicks in] Maybe YR wants us to feel as if Mads was never away and DTPH released only a few months back? [ok. that might work. sort of. pretty far fetched but possible] Next she gets the call that her former Guru is dying and that she should come to India as fast a s possible. And the next time we see her she´s on the plane and she´s done a complete hair-makeover. [wft is that??] "Oh my. Guruji is dying. Lets get a plane ticket and since I´m in such a hurry, why don´t I get a haircut first?" [Bas. Goodwill khatm. And dont´get me started on the whole Ajanta set decoration and background dancer thing]

These days YashRaj don´t make it easy for the Bollywoodfan to love their films. Most of their movies come without a proper story. And what really makes me mad is that for the umpteenth time I get the feeling that they think their audience is too stupid to breathe. [Anyone recall the "magnetic" cola-can in D:2?]

So I did not have high hopes for Aaja Nachle. But that they would piss me of within the first 2 seconds of the film was something even I did not expect. Thankfully it got better once the title track comes on (at about 30min into the film) but by that time I already had stopped watching on the first night. I only gave it another chance the next day because I wanted to see Madhuri dancing.

And then Akshaye saved the day. The little verbal dispute that follows right after Madhuri danced my favorite song of the film, Aaja Nachle, made my little heart go pitter-patter "Who are you?""I´m the bad guy" As sunny wrote over at Marco´s forum: "I´d love to have a Raja like that. Sigh. All those problems I could come up with every day, so he could solve them for me..."

So no, not all is bad in Aaja Nachle. Madhuri looks great [even if her hair-length changes from scene to scene... but lets just take that as a nostalgic flashback to the good ol´90ies] her smile still chases away the rainclouds and she is still my favorite dancer. Plus there are some sweet side-characters. My favorite is the adorable Mr. Chojar played by Vinay Pathak.

But he as well as the rest of the supporting cast was painfully underemployed. Especially the big calibers like Irrfan Khan and Ranvir Shorey. What a waste. Only Konkona had some space to work with. And Kunal Kapoor got away with the most romantic sentence in the movie [Which I wont tell because I can´t tell you all the good parts]

So. The story [Dancer elopes with American photographer only to divorce him soon thereafter. Whole town hates her for that - the eloping. not the divorce. they don´t know that yet - 11 sal ke baat she comes back to safe her hometown´s theater that is to be replaced by a shopping mall by putting up a stage-play with a cast of villagers against the more or less hostile reluctance of same villagers] is lame-ish. The execution sloppy in many parts. But I liked the cast. I liked the songs. I liked Laila-Manju.
If you love Madhuri as I do, you have to watch it. Just be sure to "leave logic behind" and bring an extra big helping of "instant-movie-goofs-forgiveness" and once you´re settled you´ll have yourself a nice timepass and you will finally have Madhuri back.

Bollywoodbloggers. Let´s met again. This time in Munich.

2008-01-09T20:10:00.000+01:00

Hah. I´ve just re-read my posts about the 1st PEIBBM last March and it all came back. How super-duper fun it was. Even back then we were talking about a repeat-performance. And that's why today I´m bahut khuchi to announce the 2nd Pan-European/International Bollywood Blogger Meeting.

Get ready to join the fun from March 7th to March 9th 2008 and this time in Munich!

The preliminary rough schedule, conceived by Michael, Kaddele, Beth, Marco, Maini, Maria, me and a whole lot of other helping spirits shows that the program will be pretty similar to last year:

We meet on Friday March 7th, this time already during the afternoon, hang out, blog, chat, do silly stuff, eat, drink. One idea is to catch a Bollywood flick in a Munich cinema (which might be a problem since Munich isn´t as lucky as Vienna and we still have to convince one of the local distributors of playing an Indian film. But no fear, we still have some aces up our kurta sleeves..) in the evening.

The "Big Day" like last year will be Saturday March 8th. Matlab typical Bavarian "Weisswurst" breakfast, the Liveblogging during the afternoon and in the evening we will start with the award ceremony of the 5th Central European Bollywood Awards (voting will start early February) and lead right into an open end paaaaarty.

Sunday will see another joint breakfast and then its already time to leave for home.

We also have a lot (and I mean a whole lot) of surprises in store. So this year is going to be even bigger and better than the last. Just keep watching this space for updates.

We would love to have you all there. And if you make it to Munich we will, like last year, make sure to find you a cheap place to stay. And you will have a filmitastic time! Kasam se!

Happy New Year!

2008-01-01T19:46:00.000+01:00

What a night. What a party.

And since MK was feigning a hangover, I parked him in front of the TV to watch the Neujahrskonzert and did the ~~cleanup~~ ~~decontamination~~ restoration all by myself.

But nonetheless, let me wish all of you a wonderful, happy 2008!

PS: My New Year´s resolution for 2008 is to blog more and especially write more reviews than during the last 6 months. And I´ll see that through. MiniKhan ki kasam.

Happy Holidays

2007-12-25T17:34:00.000+01:00

In between our families extensive Christmas celebrations in Salzburg and Switzerland, here´s wishing you all Happy Holidays from MiniKhan, my family and me.

PS: MK is addicted to Xmas cookies. Say goodbye to his six-pack.

Prapancha Pash - A Throw Of Dice

2007-12-13T18:24:00.000+01:00

Lets stick with the not so usual Bollywood fare for one more moment and go back to the very early years of the Indian film history. And by very I mean 1929. Late silent film era early.

Ever since I saw the trailer of Prapancha Pash - A Throw Of Dice sometime last year on one of my DVDs I was hooked. I like Silent movies and this one is a very important one for Indian cinema history. Directed by Franz Osten, a German director that started to work in India as early 1924.

Osten was working as a head director for Emelka Films in Munich, Germany (which would later become Bavaria Films) when the company was approached by Himansu Rai (who later founded Bombay Talkies Ltd), who was looking for co-operation partners who would invest in Indian films.
The first film that was co-produced was "Prem Sanyas", India´s first international co-production. Four years later Osten once again traveled, along with his crew, to India for "Shiraz" and later that year he started to work on "Prapancha Pash". A monumental film, shot on real locations throughout India, with hundreds of elephants, tigers, horses, real jungle sets and thousands of junior artists.

The story of Prapancha Pash is an adaption of the Mahabharata´s game of dice. Two kings, one good - Sohat, one evil - Ranjit.
The evil one is greedy for Sohat´s kingdom and during a royal tiger hunt Sohat is "accidentally" wounded with a poisoned arrow. Plan saphal? Arre nahin! Luckily the "accident" happens close to beautiful Sunita´s house, the daughter of a healer. So he is nurtured back to health and gets the girl on top. Happies endings? Phir nahin. There is still the greedy Ranjit. And unsurprisingly he also falls for beautiful Sunita and driven by jealousy, greed and some other not so nice traits he tries everything to create a rift between the two young lovers.

His most devious plan is set in motion at the eve of Sohat and Sunita´s wedding. He lures the young king who has a dangerous weakness for gambling into a game of dice where he plays foul and Sohat loses everything. His kingdom, his crown, his freedom. And now being reduced to the status of a slave, he even loses Sunita. How mean! Thank god Sohat´s closest servant has a nosy beta. He finds the loaded dice and now we can head straight to the climax.

Even if with a length of only 72min it is a huge film. The cinematography is great. Osten´s use of real locations creates an authentic even realistic feel. The story is well rounded. It just works. Bas.

Btw. the DVD I got has another interesting feature. The movies score is done by Nitin Sawhney. The BFI (British Filminstitute) restored the filmprints in 2006 and Sawhney got to compose a new score for it, that was recorded by the London Symphony Orchestra. In fact there were a few live performances since 2006 in London (more dates might follow) and now there is a UK DVD and German DVD that also features an interview with Sawhney.

As much as I love Nitin Sawhney, the score is not really a perfect fit for the movie. The power of silent movie scores lies in the parallel storytelling they usually provide. Sawhney claims Ennio Morricone and Bernhard Herrmann (two of the greatest film composers in history) as his musical influences and that is where the problem might be rooted. I feel that his music just accompanies the pictures and that is too little. It did not touch me. Not that the pictures and visual storytelling would not be able to stand on their own. It is just that I would have preferred a little more Max Steiner with his exuberant use of Leitmotif and moodtechnique, Mickeymousing and continuous Underscoring.

But still this is one movie you should not miss. It is a classic. I really do hope that more films of this section of the Indian film heritage will find their way back on the screen.

PS: Satyajit Ray saw Franz Osten as the founder of a Realism School in Indian Film. Osten became a guru to Indian cinema dignitaries like Raj Kapoor, Sasadhar Mukherj or Dilip Kumar until he was incarcerated by the British in 1939 as citizen of an enemy´s country (especially since he had joined the foreign section of the NSDAP in Bombay in 1936) and later was banished from Indian soil.

PPS: Btw. concerning the alleged kissing-on-screen-tabu that should stem from these times. Bakwaas hai. There are two big fat dead-on-the-lips smooches in PP. Hah!
PPPS: Oh, and another thing. Prapancha Pash is perfect for Movie Improv-Karaoke (no distracting dialogues *g*)

Dus Kahaniyaan. Not too good. Not too bad. Not too ugly.

2007-12-12T23:37:00.000+01:00

No one can question my dedication towards Bollywood anymore. I really had my doubts about DK...Sanjay Gupta producing a film with 10 shorts (and directing 4 of them). Not the savest initial position. Still we showed up last Friday at the cinema for our now usual first day/first show date only to find out that the print was not there yet. Bleh. Both shows had to be canceled. By Saturday afternoon my motivation to watch it was close to zero. But thanks to a nagging phone call from fellow BW-fanatic Ezri I pulled myself off the couch and we gave it a last try. Good thing we did. Dus Kahaniyaan is not a key moment in Hindi film history but we had a very good time watching the 10 films.

Over the last year I started to love the format of shorts in film (I honestly didn´t before) So I was curious how the master of rip-offs, color filters and skimpy clad item girls managed to fare with a format like this.

10 films. Each about 10 minutes in length. An impressive cast. 5 directors apart from Gupta.

Usually when you watch that amount of different stories in such short time you tend to forget the forgettable ones right after you come out of the cinema. Well, we rather easily managed to get 9 of the ten films together in the right order.
But let me give you a short overview about all of them..

Matrimony: Arbaaz Khan. Mandira Bedi. Married couple. No kids. Bored wife to busy multinational company vice-president. And an extramarital affair. Nice twist. Director: Sanjay Gupta

High on the Highway: Jimmy Shergill. Mausmeh. A very stoned Jimmy and his girlfriend. The moral of the story: Thou shalt not get high on a highway. Especially at 4 am. One of the tougher stories. I especially liked the (very dark) lighting. I love it when directors/ cinematographers have the guts to work with darkness. Director: Hansal Mehta

Zahir: Dia Mirza. Manoj Bajpai. Manoj moves into an apartment that has a beautiful young woman living next door. He takes a liking to her. She blocks his advances. The group of adolescent punjabi boys sitting behind us where reacting to this the strongest. And even I had to cheer at the final twist. Director: Sanjay Gupta

Pooranmashi: The only story that is set in a rural surrounding. And it is shot in a very straight manner. And thus feels a bit out of joint compared to the rest of the shorts. But it still packs a punch. Daughter (Minissha Lamba) is all set to get married when her loving symbolic gesture to her mother (Amrita Singh) causes a tragedy. Director: Meghna Gulzar

Strangers in the night: Neha Dupia. Mahesh Manjrekar. Wife tells husband her lives most memorable moment. It drags a bit. And the hand licking and kissing is rather yucky. Also the - in itself - powerful twist is a bit too far fetched the way the story builds up before. And the acting is a bit to sterile. Director: Sanjay Gupta

Lovedale: Aftab Shivastani. Neha Uberoi. Anupam Kher. It seems as if no true Bollywoodfilm can stand without a pinch of Masala. And Lovedale covers almost all the necessary points. Naive. Sweet. Plus it made me wanna see more of Aftab. He´s cute. [insert girly giggle] Btw. The earring was fugly. Very. Director: Jasmeet Dhodi

Sex on the beach: Dino Morea relaxes on the beach, when he finds a book in the sand. And a minute later a girl (Tareena Patel) in a very golden Bikini approaches him. The spookiest of the lot and the by far weakest. Because it is so predictable and in fact boring. But Dino looks cool shirtless and wet. Additional note: There were no Jet-skies in 1901 or 1946. Director: Apoorva Lakia

Rise Plate: Shabana Azmi. Naseruddin Shah. Clearly the highlight for me. The Story about a Hindu nani and a Muslim uncle and their fight over a rice plate had some fantastic moments. It also was the one short I wished would not end. Even if the twist was predictable pretty soon. Director: Rohit Roy

Gubbare: Nana Patekar. Rohit Roy. Anita Hassanandani. Newlyweds on a bus quarrel. Wife is miffed and changes seats. Sits down next to man holding a bouquet of red balloons. And he tells her why. Warning: there might be tears. Director: Sanjay Gupta (I did not think he might have it in him to tell something so sensible. But then again.. once you cast Nana you would have to work hard to ruin your film)

Rise and Fall: Suniel Shetty. Sanjay Dutt. And here is the stereotypical Sanjay Gupta I´ve been waiting all evening. At least for the storyline that he directed. There is a second storyline directed by Hansal Mehta that gets interwoven into the Sanjay/Suniel part. A local gangster and his closest aid/friend. And a story of loyalty and betrayal. Unfortunately it is not that good. Neither the story, nor the execution nor the acting by Sanjay and Suniel. A bit anti-climatic. It is understandable that Gupta placed the story with the biggest star at the end but "Rise Plate" and "Gubbare" are so strong that "Rise and Fall" gets overshadowed by them. Directors: Sanjay Gupta and Hansal Metha.

So yes. I had an enjoyable evening. And no. You don´t have to rush to the cinema to watch it. You can easily wait until the DVD comes out. But give it a chance.

Jaan-E-Mann. Quite late. I know.

2007-11-28T18:10:00.000+01:00

I´m cleaning up my drafts list once again, and found a post that I started writing over 6 months ago. I guess that everybody has seen J-e-M by now, but if you resisted so far, maybe this piece can convince you to finally give it a chance.

When I was a little kid, my favorite picture books where books of the kind like the "Where´s Waldo?" series. I could sit for hours and look at one page and still find some new details and invent stories about the drawn characters.

Jaan-E-Mann is the grown up, moving pictures version of a "Where´s Waldo" book. The first time I watched the movie was last year´s Diwali and I liked it somehow but could not quite make up my mind about it. I decided to wait for the DVD release and give it another go. And I was right. Jaan-E-Mann is a movie that needs to be watched at least a second time. Every time I watched it since I found some new totally crazy details.

Sirish Kunder doesn´t offer a very new or exciting story. Sirf woh purani kahani about ek ladki aur do ladke. Here boy no.1 is Suuuperstar Salman Khan, the ex-husband of former college beauty Preity Zinta. Since the Suuuperstar thingy does not quite work the way he planned it, he has trouble coming up with the alimony Preity´s lawyer demand.

Luckly former college geek now astronaut Ahkhay Kumar shows up on the search for his college dream girl Preity and Salman and his chachu Anupam Kher come up with the idea of marrying off Akshay to Preity to get rid of the alimony demands. Kahani khatm? Naah, there´s a bit more. Former geek still has a problem with "tha´ ladies" so Suuuperstar and Chachu decide to send Salman along with Geek to New York to play a little "Cyrano" and make sure the fixing up works out. So far - so hilarious and there are, from a totally girly point of view, I have to confess, pretty convincing moves our man Salman comes up with.

The bad thing about Jaan-E-Mann: You clearly see that this is the director´s debut movie. He goes overboard on style-over-substance at times. He doesn´t manage a narration that is fluid throughout the film. After a totally hyper first half, the more conventional narrational path he takes in the second part feels almost a bit slow.

The good thing about Jaan-E-Mann: It´s the directors debut movie. He goes overboard with some of his ideas, visuals and his editing. He actually caters a devil may care attitude about many of his visual ideas, especially in the first half, that one seldom finds with more experienced directors. And that is what I loved about Jaan-E-Mann.

Oh and after watching OSO I can now clearly state that Farah and Sirish are a match made in heaven. May their combined insanity live long and prosper.

Aata. Can be a timepass.

2007-11-28T01:37:00.000+01:00

Yes. I do watch films besides entertaining MiniKhan. Being host to a celeb like him is time consuming but still when the shipment from anytamil came yesterday, I knew what I had to do.

Have you ever read the liner notes on the back of official South Indian DVD´s? I stopped reading them before watching the film long ago. They usually spoiler the whole film. And the Aata DVD is no exception. On the other hand the verdict the authors of said notes are always passing is very often spot on. And the guy writing the one for Aata, worded some of it better then I could ever do. Please allow me quote:

Sri Krishna (Siddarth) is a film delivery man cum son of a theatre projectionist. He meets a beautiful girl at a jathara. That beautiful woman Satya (Illeana) is actually running away from Vicki (Munna) who forcibly wants to marry her. Vikki is son of a home minsiter and he is a bad guy. [Parts left out due to heavy spoilers. And I mean heavy. Except for the last 2 minutes the text tells every major twist] There is a twist in the tale in the end. M S Raju has tried to capture the chemistry between a beautiful young couple, Siddarth and Illeana. He has succeeded in projecting Illeana as a glamour girl. [The following part about the comedy, I don´t agree with the writer. At all. But then, Telugu and Tamil film comedy is something I have slight difficulties with] Her glamour and Suniel´s comedy (especially the hotel room sequences are the best comedy track) are main highlights of Aata. Comedy is a major plus point and also Illeana´s skin show [!!]. The theatre comes down with laughter at Suniel´s hotel lobby episode. It is situational comedy at its best. Chota K Naidu´s cinematography is another scintillating feature [Oh yes]. He has captured the river Godavari so beautifully and has brought richness to the film [Bilkul]. Director V N Aditya´s direction is neat [Autch!]. Aata can be a timepass.

Still, not all is lost. If we check the all important checklist for the discerning drooling Schnuffel cineast:

Schnuffel wearing pink - check
Schnuffel wet - check, check and check etc. ad infinitum
Schnuffel and puppies in same frame - check
Schnuffel fooling around - check
Schnuffel in full action mode - check

Schnuffel dirty and bleeding - check

What can be better than passing time with that...

I knew he would like it there..

2007-11-28T00:50:00.000+01:00

We have final exams in our Sound Engineering department at the moment so the studios usually are off-limits to visitors but lunch break today provided a perfect moment for MiniKhan to still sneek into the studio to jam with the guys and fiddle with the mixing desk.

He is not the greatest of bass players but he does groove behind the drumset.

On another note. MK is getting a bit restless now. Because in perfect Bollywood-filmshoot-in-Austria tradition we have to postpone the filming schedule we planned for his stay. Postpone. Not cancel. Samajhe?

[PS: Wanna know what happens at such exams? Watch Pixars newest short Lifted replace the victim with a musician and it shows pretty much what is going on during some of them...]

Today is a good Sanjay day

2007-11-27T22:52:00.001+01:00

The writer of this blog is very happy today. Sanjay was granted regular bail by the Supreme Court. He will be released from jail during the next 2 days. He has to hand in his passport, deposit a bond and report to the CBI branch in Mumbai once a month. His next court hearing is 6 months away. That is good. He managed to get through by far worse for the last 14 years. He can manage this too. So I´m happy.

And then I got news that from December 7th Dus Kahaniyaan will play at the UCI in Vienna. Sanjay on the big screen as early as Friday after next. So you bet I´m very happy.

I know, I know, there is a bit of a risk that DK might just not be it. But I like its basic concept and there are some very cool people involved in this film(s) and being the eternal optimist I can´t wait to see it.

Chestnuts, Punch, Thrills and early Christmas fun

2007-11-26T15:06:00.000+01:00

The last weekend in November marks the start of the beginning of the Advent season in Austria and that is when all those beautiful Christmas markets open. Since MiniKhan did not get to celebrate Diwali I thought he should at least get as much of Christmas celebrations as possible.

So after we finally arrived at my sisters´ and he was back to his usual charming self, we took him along to our visit to Salzburg´s picturesque Christkindl-market where we also met with my mum and MiniKhan´s new best friend, my Naani.

Right in the beginning we had a short scary moment, when Sebastian, my 14 months old nephew, got hold of MK. But being the professional "thrills" coordinator he is, he managed to get out of that unharmed (and the big serving of candy cotton afterwards helped to calm his nerves)

After that he really got into an early Christmas feel. Checking out the stands with tree ornaments and sweets, having a glass of Lionsclub Punch and taking in the incredible scenery.

He even got to meet Salzburgs most famous son, W.A. Mozart and he could not resist having his picture taken in front of a "Empress Sissi" display.

He simply loved it in my hometown (and he finally put on some weight munching on chestnuts and cookies)

He can be a bit of a pain in the a**

2007-11-26T13:32:00.000+01:00

What did we learn this weekend?
MiniKhan can be rather impatient (as is said about his alter ego) and that is quite irritating.
Our journey started very ok. He was happy when we let him drive for a bit...

But that lasted only for a few minutes...
We´re not even out of Vienna, when the first "Are we there yet?" came...

30 min later. "And now?"

Another 30min down the way: "But now we´re there, hai naa?"

Thankfully he fell asleep short after Ansfelden..

hanging out with the gang and a costume fitting session

2007-11-23T22:48:00.000+01:00

There was so much going on at the OSO premiere, that MiniKhan had very little opportunity to just hang out, chill and gossip with the cool people of my Viennese BW gang. That´s why he was very keen on accompanying me to our usual hangout spot at Vienna´s Cafe Coffee Day in the 1st district yesterday.

But even there a bit of filmi work was waiting for him. We had a fitting session scheduled with his costume designer, Gabi, for the little film he´s going to shoot here. Thankfully he was very pleased with the way his Don jacket turned out (As if there was any doubt about that. Duh.)

And, tomorrow MK is going on a short weekend trip to Salzburg. I did not tell him yet, but he´s going to meet his new best friend, my grandma, again. As she is too visiting my family. Look for a write-up of his adventures in my beautiful hometown not earlier then Sunday night.

more fun in the snow and a new friend

2007-11-22T15:34:00.001+01:00

So MiniKhan nagged me into driving to the mountains to get some more authentic winter wonderland feel. Last saturday the weather was perfect and I took him to visit my Naani in Semmering.

And boy those two hit it off instantly. Nani loves Bollywood films and has a special sweet spot for SRK (quote Grandma: "that nice young man"), so it came as no surprise that the two were inseparable and up to mischief the whole day. He even did his "Rahul - routine" for her. (Something he so far has refused to do for me. Not fair.)

They were constantly putting their heads together and came up with the funniest stuff. Like when MK said: "Do you think I´ll get myself into trouble with the Pepsi guys if I do this..?"

To which my usually very sophisticated Grandma said. "Oh fish. India is so far away. Who cares?"

Fun in the snow.

2007-11-21T15:58:00.000+01:00

So MiniKhan had a lot of fun meeting all those great people at the OSO premiere and we all were partying pretty hard. But he had no time to recover and relax after it, as he had to accompany me to work and help me teaching my filmmusic classes.

And then one morning last week he woke me up all excited because it had been snowing all night. And even when I warned him that his wardrobe was not too suitable for that kind of weather, he insisted on building a snowman.

..And had a ball doing it. So much, in fact, that he nagged me into taking him to the mountains to get some more. But that is a different story...

MiniKhan at the OSO Premiere

2007-11-20T16:06:00.000+01:00

There was a lot going on in Vienna on November 9th. Not only did Om Shanti Om premiere here, national TV covered the event and everybody was dressing up for the occation. November 9th also marked the date our celebrity traveller MiniKhan arrived from Germany and instantly used the opportunity to meet with fans from Switzerland, Germany and Austria and watched the premiere with a bunch of overexcited girls and gals.

So yes, he´s back from hiding. For all those fearing the worst.. Ab fikar mat karo. He´s alive and very well and I got a little story coming up that might explain if not excuse his absence.

Om Shanti Om - what a night!

2007-11-20T16:02:00.000+01:00

Apart from being a fun ride for the discerning Bollywoodfan, Om Shanti Om also is the first BW film that got a mention on national TV, and that at prime time even.

So unsuspecting cinema-goers found themselves facing a camera on November 9th and asked what brought them there.. :-)

(the first few seconds have some errors but later you can even watch yours truly with her name misspelled..)

I tried to fight it. I swear. OSO.

2007-10-30T11:56:00.000+01:00

The Johnny Gaddaar DVD is still on its way from Nehaflix to me. A No Smoking screening is nowhere in sight. So what remains to be done by the discerning Hindi cinema fan? Yes. Right.

Dive head first into the OSO pre-release hype. Yeehaaw!

The way it looks now Vienna will be the only city in the german-speaking parts of the world that will have a cinema release of Om Shanti Om along with the rest of saari duniya. And this suits me mighty fine, would I be if I did not take up the opportunity to go for a first day first (and second, yes, i already booked tickets for back to back shows) show.

As I mentioned before we here are in the lucky position to have a distribution deal between Eros Entertainment and the local UCI Multiplex. So far we got Partner, Gandhi My Father, Heyy Babyy and Bhool Bhulayia out of it. Not that impressive for you? Well it might become so when I tell you that this is an increase in regular cinemas screenings of Bollywood movies by 400%.

But now back to hysterical filmifan-part. And why of all films am I excited about OSO? Oh c´mon. Masala. Plain good ´ole Masala, baby.

Has anyone seen the dialog promos? 1, 2 and 3 ? How can I not be hyped by the prospect of seeing Rishi Kapoor and Subash Ghai fighting over who will give a filmfare award to a bad actor with a too-good-to-be-true sixpack?
Or Deeptika doing a song a la Dhal Gaya Din. Or SRK doing all his SRK-things. And then there is Deewangi of course. And. And. And. Sigh.

I really loved Main Hoon Na. Perfect popcorn cinema. And I have really really high hopes that Farah will pull this one off too. Storywise, visually, performanceswise.

What do I believe to know about it yet? Well, its a reincarnation love story. Om Prakash (patheticly bad wannabe hero but only junior artist so far) falls in love with Shantipriya (a Hema Malini like superstar) Lekin problem hai. Evil mustached other guy with evil intentions hai. And so the lovely couple dies before their love story can bloom. *insert frantic NAHIIIIIN here* The story cannot end there. So we fast foreward to now, as in right now, as both were reborn under slightly different premises and now have to find each other, solve all the riddles and hopefully live happily ever after.

Pre-sale for the 2 shows on the 9th has already started last weekend. And the tickets sell like hot-cakes. We have some OSO refugees from Germany and Switzerland for the weekend, so I am preparing for a very fun, very colorful, very cool weekend.

PS: Bollywood sucks at merchandising. Why did nobody come up with the idea of producing small OSO snow-globes? Oh you could have made a fortune.

another teaser and short away notice

2007-10-17T08:30:00.000+02:00

I´ll be flying to Berlin in about 2 hours. For a meeting and our annual Alumni Convention (This year no stage action from me there. Do count your blessings)

But to keep this post Bollywood-related.. here a pic that might give you a hint at what MiniKhan will have to do when he finally comes for his scheduled visit...

Dear friend and SRK fanatic Gabi made it. It is perfect. Unbelievably perfect. He will be too cool to be true in it.

Now that is where he got the idea from

2007-10-15T15:17:00.000+02:00

A bit over a week ago at a classified meeting concerning the next IBBM, this little guy showed up for a short impromptu visit.

Now we finally know whom the big Khan got the idea for his six-pack from. It seems he just tried to look more like his doll :-D

I predict a lot of annoyed neighbours in the future

2007-10-03T16:42:00.000+02:00

Birgit has been predicting it for months. And Sony seems to have listened. On October 19th they will release SingStar Bollywood for the PlayStation2 in the U.K. (AmazonUK lists two versions. Once with two microphones and once only the game)

The rumored songlist is:

Aashiqui - Nazar Ke Samne
Aksar - Jhalak Dikhla Ja
Chalte Chalte - Chalte Chalte
Chalte Chalte - Suno Na Suno Na
Chameli - Sajna Ve Sajna
Dil Chahta Hai - Koi Kahe Kehta Rahe
Dil Hai Ki Manta Nahin - Dil Hai Ki Manta Nahin
Don: The Chase Begins Again - Ye Mera Dil
Don: The Chase Begins Again - Khaike Paan Banaraswala
Dus - Dus Bahane Karlke Le Gaya Dil
Guru - Barso Re
Guru - Tere Bina
Ishq Hai Tumse - O Soniya
Kaal - Tauba Tauba
Kaal - Kaal Dhamaal
Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna - Where's The Party Tonite
Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna - Mitwa
Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham - Bole Chudiyan
Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham - Suraj Hua Maddham
Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham - Say Shava Shava
Kal Ho Na Ho - Maahi Ve
Kal Ho Na Ho - It's The Time To Disco
Kal Ho Na Ho - Pretty Woman
Khakee - Dil Dooba
Kuch Kuch Hota Hai - Kuch Kuch Hota Hai
Kuch Kuch Hota Hai - Koi Mil Gaya
Kya Love Story Hai - It's Rocking
Main Hoon Na - Main Hoon Na
Rang De Basanti - Rang De Basanti
Salaam-E-Ishq - Salaam-E-Ishq

Oh, I just got to get it. My poor neighbours. Teehee.

EDIT: One thing that came up when I mentioned it to Ehsaan.. Will Sony be paying royalties? Or are we getting into a sort of eye-for-an-eye situation here? Something like (use deep voice of any well-fed American oil-company CEO to read *ggg*) "Them Indian filmindustry guys use our ideas without asking and even worse paying up. Lets show ´m. Why don´t we do a Karaoke Game and use their songs without askin´. You don´t mess with us, hon´!"

just off to get new material

2007-09-28T21:50:00.000+02:00

I'm trying something here.

Just a short note:
- i am in Zürich for the weekend to visit family.
- i did not bring my macbook (big mistake, i know, but how was i supposed to know, that Akshay Shah of naachgaana.com would link to my Bhool Bhulaiya post, while i'm gone *g*)
- so i'm typing on my shiny new iPod Touch and that is kind of tricky. I have no idea how this turns out.

- on a filmi note... I did manage to get quite a few dvds today
And last but not least... The first thing i saw after leaving the plane today was an ad saying "Oerlikon is Bollywood" ?? I have no idea what that part of zurich has to do with BW. But then a few meters further it read "Oerlikon is Shanghai"... They are a weird but nice people here

Outsourced - Go and watch it.

2007-09-24T13:01:00.000+02:00

Picture this:
A small Seattle based mail-order company is selling patriotic kitsch to Americans. And then one day their whole call center is being outsourced to India. Todd (Jeff Hamilton), the call-center manager, has no real option than going to India to train his replacement if he wants to keep working for his company. So he goes. And he´s forced to jump head-first into a life altering adventure. Having to adapt to cultural differences, wandering cows, endearing call-center employees, love and the pressure from his company at home.

Sounds corny? Not by far! It´s quite the opposite.

John Jeffcoat made a movie that captured the audience at the opening screening in Stuttgart in its first 5 minutes. (Like predicted by the german distributor before the film).
It´s funny. Very funny actually. Endearing. Smart. Schnuffelig. With a great cast (Ayhesha Dharker, Asif Basra and Jeff Hamilton in peticular) And apart from a few scenes, shot entirely in/around Mumbai.

One great thing about Outsourced is,that it is a true "cultural-crossover" film. Some reviews compare it to "My big fat Greek wedding", a statement that only true in parts. As here Jeffcoat took the American guy and put him through the "real" thing. Not only a westernized Immigrant suburb.
And really everbody in Stuttgart seemed to love it. The German Bollywood fan crowd, the Arthouse film buffs who usually frown upon mainstream movies, the Indian filmi-people. Some have been in India before and had a deja-vu experience on some of the scenes and others who only knew life in Mumbai out of movies or the news. You could sense from the timing of their laughter where the various groups sat in the cinema hall. No surprise that it won the Audience Award...

Starting September 26th it is opening on a limited release across the USA. So, anyone who has not seen Outsourced yet and lives in the vicinity of these movie theaters just needs to go and watch it. A post on the movies blog also announced a release in Germany this autumn. And there are plans for a release in India too.

Got curious? Here´s a link the trailer and the movie´s website

Hah. Look what I found.

2007-09-22T16:42:00.000+02:00

This is the downside of having a 4 Gig memory card in your compact camera. Never had to wipe it since Stuttgart until today, so I finally downloaded all the pictures taken during the summer and found these 2 small video-snippets from the Bombay Boogie night in Stuttgart in July on it. Don´t expect too much, they are very dark, but still you´ll be able to make out some slick moves:

Surya, Rita and Pooja burning the dancefloor

and here another 25 sec snippet.

And no, there are none with me in them. Count your blessings :D

Bhool Bhulayiaa. Strangely attracted.

2007-09-21T21:22:00.000+02:00

I had a ball watching Chandramukhi a while back. Rajni Superstar rulez. No discussions about that.

Now the Hindi remake will come out on October 12th. With Akshay Kumar in Rajnikanth´s role as the a tiny bit wacko psychiatrist. Directed by Priyadarshan.
Hmm. If you just read those last two sentences, its nothing to get that much excited. Especially if you know that at first AB 1.0 was in talks to play that role.

But.

1) Due to Akshay´s almost monopolistic presence in Hindi films in the Indian cinema history here in Vienna during the last 3 years, I somehow grew rather fond of him. Sharp tongues might say I got brainwashed. But I really do like Akshay in comedies. Such hai.

2) The story has enough potential to make for an delightfully entertaining evening. Pyaar. Suspense. Masti. Probably crazy stunts and SpecialFX. Spicy enough for a well rounded Masala fair.

3) Vidya Balan. Finally in a more traditional get up again. In Jyotika´s role from Chandramukhi. Maybe that will make me forget her Heyy Babyy performance.

4) The soundtrack rocks. Love the title track. And Akshay´s swami get up.

Still there are some risky points.

Amisha Patel. No comment. Shiney Ahuja. He has yet to repeat his great performance from Hazaron Khwaishein Aisi, hai naa? Don´t have much hope for it here too. Bhool Bhulayia is a Priyadarshan comedy. And it has been a while since he delivered too..

So all in all, you can count me in for a first day show. If only for Akshay and Vidya in the climax dance.

got a problem. solved it. you live with it. bas.

2007-09-21T20:38:00.000+02:00

I started to write a preview of Bhool Bhulayia. And then stopped. Kyu? Bear with me for another short ramble.
Just because I did not blog for the last weeks/month(s) does not mean I did not surf the net and read up on my daily dose of filmi news bits. One of my favorite sites doing that and a daily stop-over is PFC. I love reading their posts and comments, but some of the guys (certain special dear darlings excluded) posting/commenting there are way too intimidating for me. So apart from my not having the guts of posting comments there, it went even so far that I started to question my kind of postings here. But today when I started writing the afore-mentionend Bhool post, I stopped, thought about it and then came to the very healthy conclusion that I don´t care. And that I really shouldn´t.
This is my blog. I like it the way it is. You read it. If you like it, read more. If you think I´m just a white chick who should better zip it, your bad. If you think it´s too mainstreamy, same accounts. My, anyway not too small, self-esteem is back up. I ´ll continue to do my thing. My way. [/end ramble]

Restart. Even I can recognize a sign when I hear it

2007-09-20T18:09:00.000+02:00

What does yesterdays "the Police" concert in Vienna have to do with the end of my blogging hiatus?

Ketan Anand. Stuttgart. And Ehsaan Noorani. An early phone interview this morning.... Kya? What is she talking about?

Ok, let me start at the beginning. I came home from Stuttgart in July and despite being super motivated by meeting all the great people I did there and having the time of my life, I just had to take a break from posting. I had a great summer. Workload at office was ok, Eros started screening their movies (Partner, My Father Gandhi, Heyy Babyy) at release-time in a Multiplex here, Birgit came home from India and there were rumours of a big Bollywood production shooting from September in Austria. But I just did not feel like blogging. So I decided that if things got even more relaxed I would start again..
Well the last 3 weeks have been hell, workwise and with so much happening here in Vienna, so I thought I might take a little more time off.
And then we went to the Police concert yesterday. You know the Sting, Steward Copeland, Synchronicity, Every Breath You Take - kind of Police. A concert I´ve been waiting to attend since 1983 (!) The guys came on stage. And I remembered an anecdote Ketan Anand told us in Stuttgart.
Sometime during the Eighties the Police were in Mumbai and staying at the Anand´s house on the beach in Juhu. The day the guys were supposed to leave, Steward Copeland (the drummer) decided that he just had to take a camel ride on the beach. To make a short story even shorter, an idea that sounded harmless (just like a LOT of ideas do when certain substances are involved in the idea-finding process) turned out to be just the opposite since the camel took off with him for hours and they almost missed their plane...
What ever. All of a sudden a Bollywood connection was even there (Especially since the guy standing in front of me at the concert was smoking weed LOL)
Then this morning I had a phone interview scheduled with Ehsaan of Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy for the German Bollywood magazine I sometimes write for and when I called instead of the usual ringing sound "don´t stand so close to me" by Police was playing. And as it turned out Ehsaan Noorani is a huge Police fan.
If this is no sign then what is, hai naa? I had a perfect reason to start blogging again.

So I´m back. This time for good. Workload is still hell, but maybe that is another perfect reason to write anyway.

why I´m late with the write-up..

2007-07-19T01:38:00.000+02:00

I´m not lazy. Well I am, but thats not the reason why I had no time to write more about Stuttgart yet. Rita Rani, a filmmaker who was in Stuttgart with her shortfilm "Bombay Skies" just came to Vienna for 2 days with her parents and we were roaming the city doing heavy sightseeing and chatting and more chatting. But don´t dispair. The post is coming soon. Kasam se.

Bollywood and Beyond - Stuttgart Last Day

2007-07-16T23:33:00.000+02:00

I´m back home, save and sound. And I already terribly miss all the fantastic people I met and hung out with since Wednesday.

Here now the last bunch of pics. Day 5. I´l do the write-up tomorrow. It´s just too hot (37 C/98 F) today and I´m too lazy and tired. I hope everybody got home well. (Edit: Surya did. Just got his mail)

Thank y´all so much for an unforgetable time.

Bollywood and Beyond - Stuttgart day 3+4

2007-07-15T17:50:00.000+02:00

So. Here before I rush out for the award ceremony and the closing film.

Day 3 and Day 4. As mentioned in my prvious post, foto descriptions and my write up will follow from tomorrow when I´m back in Vienna.

Bollywood and Beyond - Stuttgart Day 1+2

2007-07-13T01:26:00.001+02:00

Way to tired to post. But here for starters some pics. Day 1 (opening night) Day 2 (interviews and all kinds of other fun)

So and since there is a free Jonny Walker bar for the film-related guests and the festival team (to neither group I actually belonged, but that is another story) and it´s 1:30 am and I´ll have to get up at 8 tomorrow, you´ll have to make up your own stories for the time being.

I love it here!

Holidays - sort of..

2007-07-10T21:31:00.000+02:00

Tomorrow morning I´ll be heading to Stuttgart (that would be in Germany) for five days of Bollywood & Beyond i.e. the biggest Indian film festival in Germany. Its my first time there, I hope to meet tons of great people, indulge in heavy partying and overdose on Indian cinema in all its aspects.
Btw. I´ll take my Macbook and camera with me and try to update from there.

See ya´ll later.

King of Bollywood - the interview

2007-07-09T23:50:00.000+02:00

Thanx to Filmiholic I was part of a very exciting virtual online email interview event today. Anupama Chopra was so nice as to answer all our (read: Filmiholic, Michael, Beth, Maja, Darshana, Jo and myself) questions about her new book "King of Bollywood - Shah Rukh Khan and the Seductive World of Indian Cinema" during a day long Email conversation.

Filmholic will put the results of those 36 43 Emails into readable posts on her blog during the next few days. You might to want to head over to have a look then.
Edit 07/10/07: It is online, fun and long..

As for the book which will come out Aug. 2nd in the USA, Aug. 9th in India and Sept. 6th in the UK. I´ve read it and liked it, very much in fact. It is not your average SRK fan book. It is more like a chronicle of Hindi cinema of the 90ies and its industry until today through the life and films of King Khan.

And Anupama, after her books on Sholay and DDLJ, again gave me a highly entertaining book. Interesting background on the industry, the change that it went through during the 90ies and of course a whole lot on the Baadshah himself spiced with fantastic anecdotes like the one about SRK´s phonecall after he got arrested due to... no, you´ve got to read that for yourself.

The regular reader of this blog probably knows that I am not a die-hard SRK fan. What might be new for all is that he was in fact my first Bollywood love. But you know how shilly-shally girls are. Nice Rahul didn´t stand a chance when Sagar/Munna walked in. And since cranky Dev did nothing to get me back, imagine my surprise when after reading Anupama´s book, he fought himself back into the ring. That´s the King Khan for you.
Not sure though if Anupama is to blame or my fickleness ...

Backlog. Eklavya and Guru

2007-07-02T15:21:00.000+02:00

In the draft section of my blogger admin site, there are a few unfinished posts that deal with a number of films I watched during the last weeks but that never came out of the draft stage. Since I don´t feel like finishing them and still I want you to know, here a short résumé.

Eklavya. This one pains me a lot. I really really really was looking forward to seeing it. I mean take in the cast. AB 1.0, Saif and his mom, Jimmy Shergill, Jackie Shroff, Vidya Balan, Raima Sen and mera pyaara Sanjay. It is the first direction of V.V. Chopra after Mission Kashmir. The promos hinted at a "Gone with the wind" like outset.
And then V.V. blows it. My Eklavya draft was subtitled: "It might have been grand" and that precisely how I feel about it. The setting is grand, the acting too, even the basic story. Then why, oh why did he have to cut it down to 107min? It is an epic saga, it demands an epic length. So instead we are left with hints at some backstories and we almost don´t learn anything about what drives the characters. And that assembles to a lackluster feeble movie. There is potential, and you get a glimpse of it in various scenes, like at the the climax. But. But it feels like an abstract of a Shakespearean drama for a 3rd grade english class homework.
Two presumptions:
One: In addition to the mutilated story, the very last, bahut kharab scene hints at some "higher power" that forced Chopra to a) give it a masala standard fare ending and b) to edit the length to some "western cinema" timeframe. Big mistake.
And two: It is still rather difficult to get the official DVD. None of the leading online stores have it yet. The only place I found it is amazon.co.uk . I so hope that this hints to a directors cut version in the hopefully not to far future.
So if you can get your hands on a copy. Go and watch it. If only for the acting and treat it like a preview of what might come one day.

Film two is Guru.
I love Mani Ratnam. He is my favorite director. Bas.
But, and here comes another but, Guru is his weakest film so far. I just can´t empathise with the characters here. And that is such a pity. I feel it is the death of any movie if you just don´t care what happens. And that is exactly the problem I have with Guru. Unreflected greed as main statement just does nothing for me. Corruption is good as long as I can turn it into wealth? Journalism should use all means to get the story across even if you have to stage the stories? Don´t get me wrong, but where´s the message? And I don´t mean a profound life altering message. Anything would do, leave it open or tell me you don´t have a message for all I care, but give me something.
So is it a bad film? No. It is still a Mani Ratnam movie. It´s a AB 2.0 one-man show. I love the songs. And technically (in any way) its a great film. I just don´t care about it.

Dil To Pagal Hai. I had nothing better to do

2007-07-02T13:53:00.000+02:00

Just like any healthy human I sometimes get cravings for various stuff. Sprüngli Truffes for example. Or Sushi. Or sitting beside the ocean watching the sunset. Yesterday after again stumbling over the Aaja Nachle stills on the Yash Raj site my life would have ended on the spot if I had to live one more moment without watching a Madhuri Dixit film.

Thankfully I have some of them at home. And since this pic of SRK of last week made me loose my cool too, I thought why not combine the two. And to make it three I decided to give one DVD a try that has been lying unwanted and unwatched around for at least two years. Dil to Pagal Hai.

Why didn´t I watch it before? Well, I´m not too fond of Karisma Kapoor. And the only time I tried DTPH before was short after I watched Raja Hindustani where I really hated her (sorry Alan).

And that´s when the DVD went to the bottom of the "to be watched" stack and lingered there until yesterday. So for all those who haven´t seen it either:
Rahul (SRK - who else) is a singer/director who has a dancecompany that does fairly successful naachgaana shows. His female star dancer is Nisha, who in addition to being his best friend also happens to be madly (and of course secretly) in love with Rahul. Who in spite of producing one tearjerking love story show after the other is completely alien to the concept of love. So far so nothing-new.

Now Nisha has a small accident while rehearsing for the show that is in production and leaves the play without a female star. Enter Pooja (Madhuri) an orphan who grew up with her aunty, uncle and cousin Ajay (Akshay Kumar). Guess what, his best friend love turned into the real thing a while ago (quel surprise!). Oh and did I tell you that Pooja is convinced that for every human there is a perfect match made in heaven. (And Ajay is not it)

Oh and of course she dances like a godess.

The rest is as sweet and harmless to watch as it is predictable. Pooja fills in for Nisha. Ajay asks Pooja to marry him. Pooja despite not loving him and thus betraying her believes says yes. Nisha gets drunk and confesses her love to Rahul. Rahul falls in love with Pooja. Pooja falls in love with Rahul. They both sacrifice their love on the altar of obligations/friendship/inanity. And all live un-happily ever after? Oh, c´mon its a Yash Chopra movie. No points for guessing.

There are a lot of songs in DTPH and a lot of late 1990ies gym-clothes. And the steroptypical Rahul, a pleasantly nice Karisma, way to little of Akshay Kumar and my fix of Madhuri.
Dancing, smiling and being the devine loveable Madhuri I so missed. There is way better fare out there but for a hot summer afternoon this was one perfect, harmless timepass.

For Your Consideration

2007-06-29T13:06:00.000+02:00

Some of you might have noticed that in the link section on the right hand side of my blog a few weeks ago a new link showed up in the "sites with babasko input" section.
Sometime ago Ramesh from AOL India contacted me and offered me to write in a team with two more fun and great people, Biju and Aditja, to write for AOL India´s brand spanking new Bollywoodblog. Not that I have been as hard-working as those two guys yet (I promise to improve). But its been a fun ride so far. You should listen in to our weekly conference call..

So without much further ado. If you have the time pay us a visit. And no fear I´m vow to increase the post frequency here (and there) considerably now that my sisters wedding is over and I have the time to actually watch movies again.

main bhi Tagged hoon

2007-06-27T22:44:00.000+02:00

t-hype thought she could lure me back into blogging by imposing the following tag on me. *sigh* in the light of #4 of the rules. I thought I give it a try. And apologize in advance to the 8 poor souls that I will have to tag in return.

The rules are as follows:
1. Each player starts with 8 random facts/habits about themselves.
2. People who are tagged, write a blog post about their own 8 random things, and post these rules.
3. At the end of your post you need to tag 8 people and include their names. Don’t forget to leave them a comment and tell them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.
4. If you fail to do this within eight hours, you will not reach Third Series or attain your most precious goals for at least two more lifetimes.

ek- one of my most favorite family stories: my grandmothers brother disappeared in Russia in WW2 the same minute his son was born thousands of miles away in Austria (there´s proof, the birth certificate and the telegram that came 3 days after my great-grand uncle was decleared MIA)

do- my nickname babasko often confuses people (waves at surya) I´m sorry it wasn´t conceived to mislead people about my gender. Its only a mingled version of my first and family name that first was used when there was not enough space for writing "Barbara Skoda" on my personal drawer at work about 10 years ago.

tin- I´m addicted to Wasabi Coated Green Peas. Love it that you never know if you´ll get a loaded or mild one.

char- I never knew Vienna had such fantastic sunsets until we moved into our current flat that is on the 8th floor. John Ford movies have nothing on us.

paanch- driving. I love driving. Best all alone and fast as in 160-180km/h or through mud and sand with hubby offroad.

chah- the older I get the more I miss my granddad who died when I was just 7 years old. We had the most fantastic conversations during long walks in the woods and I often wonder what we would talk about now if he was still here.

saat- I´m a super fast shopper if I´m in the right mood. I got my dress for my sisters wedding, and at least two other festive occations plus the appropriate accessories in 15 minutes. The salesclerk in the boutique did not know what hit her. And I probably won´t when I get the creditcard bill...

aath- The thing I miss most about home when I´m not there is the tap water. Vienna has fantastic mountain-spring quality tap water. Anybody seen the movie "Water" from 1985 with Michael Caine? (btw one of the funniest films in history). That is what comes out of the tap here - non gazeuse of course.

And now comes the hardest part of the assignment because most of you have already been tagged: Let´s see, I tag Birgit, Kaddele, Velu, Mariakäfer, Sheetal and since its late and I´m tired I risk the wrath of the tag and leave it at only 5 new victims.

You´ve got to see this

2007-06-24T15:42:00.001+02:00

This is what happens if you let loose our very own Babsy Artner at the IIFA´s
Its a teaser to her next project, a documentary. Have fun!!

Edit: ~~in case~~ as it ~~doesn´t~~ did not show up here ~~(as it seems to sometimes)~~ for the last two days here´s the link to the film on myvideo.de. Watch it!

Feedback required. This is your chance to convince me ..

2007-06-05T22:17:00.000+02:00

I love sales at nehaflix and indiaweekly. They give me the opportunity to try out movies, I´d never buy otherwise. And sometimes I actually pick a jewel like "Let´s talk" for example. Sometimes I get stuff that are not. For the last weeks I suffered through some DVD´s that just did not grab me enough to sit through them. And for two of them I´ve got some questions about for you.

Ek Din 24 Ghante. Why did I buy it? Nandita Das, Rahul Bose. ´Nuff said. Why did I start to fast foreward? Because it is such a boring version of Lola Runs. And the sound engineering made me crazy. Should I go back an sit it out?

Mujhe Meri Biwi Se Bachaao. Why did I get it? Naseeruddin Shah, Rehka, Arshad Warsi. And it´s supposed to be a remake of Ruthless People. What a combination. Rekha with a fake fat booty. I really suffered through the first half. Naseer gives a lecture in overacting. And the rest is almost bearable. And the the DVD broke down. Not one player in the house (And there are plenty) is able to play beyond chapter 14. That would be the moment, when Naseer realizes that his wife has been kidnapped and is celebrating. Arghhh. Thank you Eros. What I want to know now, is MMBSB worth the trouble of sending it back and demanding another, working DVD. Or can I forget about it?

Time for a book.

2007-06-05T20:44:00.000+02:00

One thing I had time and a place for was reading. And one book I´ve been looking forward to for a long time, finally released yesterday.

Faszination Bollywood - Zahlen, Fakten und Hintergründe zum "Trend" im deutschsprachigen Raum which means nothing more then Fascination Bollywood - Numbers, Facts and Background about the "Trend" in the German -speaking part of Europe.

So if your´re interested in the fact behind the circulation of Bollywood Films and its by-products in one of Europes biggest cinema markets, then brush up your German and get Birgit Pestal´ s book. If you missed your German lessons in school and happen to be located in India. Contact her. She´s on vacation, roaming India for at least the next few months.

Huge Backlog - Sigh.

2007-06-05T20:30:00.000+02:00

Ok, I won´t bore you with what has been happening here the last weeks. Let´s just say it´s been mostly work and only veeery little play. But still the DVD´s kept mounting. D:2, Salaam-E-Ishq, Eklavya, Nishabd, Namaste London, Honeymoon Travels Pvt. Ldt. and a huge stack of older stuff from Sharmelee to Kauff to Sarfarosh and more. And then the sentencing on the TADA trial began and every morning now I just have to scan the web for any news on Sanjay. For those who don´t follow it. Wether Sanjay goes to jail for a minimum of 2 3/4 years or gets bail should be decided in the next two weeks.
Last Friday I was heading to Germany on a weekend-long markting meeting, not with out hope of having the chance to get some time to squeeze some Bollywood in between, which of course turned to dust..
But now I´m back. And since hubby is visiting his family in Switzerland, I´ve got the house and more important the remote control all for myself. So yay, I´m back

King Of Bollywood

2007-05-15T14:18:00.000+02:00

Yay. Reading. Double yay for reading books on Bollywood.

Today I my dear friend the postman dropped King of Bollywood Shah Rukh Khan and the Seductive World of Indian Cinema by Anupama Chopra in my mailbox.

Thanks to wonderful blogger friend Filmiholic yours truly is included in a special project Filmiholic will unveil soon concerning the release of the book by film journalist and author of cool books about Sholay or DDLJ.

The book can be pre-ordered at amazon (yes, the german amazon too) and will release in August 2007

Stay tuned.

Be afraid, be very afraid..

2007-05-05T19:31:00.000+02:00

I have no idea why, but only a few movies releasing this year make me curious like this one and be scared of it at the same time.

"Apne" And here´s the teaser

Dharmendra, Sunny and Bobby. In one film. Together. About boxing.

Business is busy :-(

2007-05-03T17:19:00.000+02:00

Due to our school´s commitment at the AES (Audio Engineering Society) convention that starts on Saturday here in Vienna and me being in charge of our presentation at the exhibition and our company´s big honchos visiting, which will result in dinner meetings and heavy partying every night, I don´t think will be able to spend much time online until next Tuesday. Let alone have time to watch any movies.
Wish me luck :D Phir Milenge.

Kartoos - a question that might never be answered.

2007-04-27T16:57:00.000+02:00

What do this:

and that:

have in common?

You´d think nothing? Ghalat. They´re both "inspired" Mahesh Bhatt while working on Kartoos.
In Kartoos he takes the story and a whole lot of almost 1:1 copied scenes of La Femme Nikita with changed genders (here we have a guy being saved from the gallows only to be turned into a government hired assassin) and the first assignment, the "test" in the restaurant, starts with the piano scene from Big. Scary.

Why do I expose myself to it then? C´mon that´s so obvious. Sanjay. He´s wet and without shirt almost half of the film. My hair fetish gets well fed.

And then I really was curious about the Luc Besson angle, who is one of my favorite filmmakers. Verdict? Well, lets just say that at least Mahesh Bhatt doesn´t have the Sanjay Gupta-colored filter-obsession. And he bollyfies and morally sanctions the special forces and their ACP Suryavanshi´s (Jackie Shroff) ways to work outside the law and use Sanjay as hitman.
Bhatt also keeps pretty close to the emotional side of the story. The dilemma Sanjay has to face when he, after meeting and falling in love with sweet innocent Mini (Manisha Koirala),

stops to functioning according to ACP Jackie´s plan make for some pretty cool scenes.

And still. How do you come up with the idea of putting the piano scene in?

We might never know.

this is excactly why my teachers always told me to think before talking...

2007-04-23T22:28:00.000+02:00

As I might have told you or not, I´m in more or less constant contact with mera accha dost Birgit who is roaming India at the moment. One morning (my time) came a rather hectic phonecall from Goa that went something like that:

"Hi, you won´t believe where I´m at"
"Don´t speak in riddles. Bolo na!"
"I stumbled upon a Bollywood filmshoot"
"No way"
"Way"
"Where, what, who?"
"They are shooting a song sequence. It´s for a movie called Shaadi Ke After Effects with two actors called Arbaaz Khan and Mallaika Arora. Do we know them?"
"YES! We do. They are Salman´s brother and sister-in-law. How cool. You might know him from Hulchul and her as the item girl with SRK in Kaal"
and here is where the "think before you talk" part comes in
"Say hi to Arbaaz from me and tell him I really liked him in Hulchul"
"Haha. You want me to do that? Ok, I will tell him. Oh, they´re starting to shoot again. Got to go. Bye"

Oh. Wait! Rukh chao! Ahem. Immediate reassuring conversation with myself: "She´ll never do that. She´s not the kind of person to do that"

Do din ke baad. Skype. Birgit.
"I did it"
"You did what?"
"Told Arbaaz. He was flattered. Check your email."

And that is how I got my first autograph of a real Bollywood Star.

FilmASIA - Part two. Umesh Maddanahalli.

2007-04-16T19:45:00.000+02:00

Where were we? Ah yes.

...One more point on the program before the break and the last movie. A stage interview with Umesh Maddanahalli. Kannada actor, sculptor and visual artist. And a great guy.

Interlude. I did not have my notebook and pen with me to scribble down notes. And since I was able to talk with Umesh some more during the further course of the evening I might mix up some answers. So all I´m able to tell you is vaguely what I remember.

During the interview (with questions prepared by BW friends Boomer, Eduardo and yours truly) Umesh spoke about the diffences between the Hindi and Kannada (or in fact all south-indian) cinema. The casting process. Typecasting. Movie scripts. And the target audience for the Kannada cinema.

What Umesh said (who btw. lives in Graz at the moment) is that Kannada cinema is a typical south indian cinema if you take for example the way it projects cultural peculiarities.
With a wide range of topics and, this is a point we further explored later that evening, a cinema that is directed at the local audience. In Umesh´s opinion the vast part of NRI´s is a Hindi speaking audience. There is not much of a Kannada speaking audience outside of Karnataka, so its cinema naturally aims at the local audience only.

One difference to the Hindi cinema would maybe be the way the modern Hindi cinema mixes customs of various culture groups like Punjabi, Gujarati, Marathi, vagairah, vagairah and thus creates new more unified habbits and cultural customs, whereas the Southindian cinema still sticks very much to local customs. And thus maybe seems more traditional to us.
As to the casting process, there are screentests and castings like in any other film industry. Even if Umseh himself was "discovered" at a parking lot while waiting for a friend.
The movie script issue depends on the filmmaker and the film. There are the ones that shoot with a full, ready, bound script just as there are changes that get made on the set or other productions that work without a written script or storyboard.

There was not much time for the interview due to the delay caused by Don problems (see previous post) so Umesh had not too much time to further his toughts but after a few shots for the paparazzis (read: me and a professional photographer) who took some pics of the celebs (read: Babsy, Dorothea, Umesh and Oliver the organizer)

we invited Umesh to come along for a drink and spent the next 4 hours talking films. We actually had planned to watch the late show with Kal Ho Na Ho but Ezri, Ulli and I skipped that in favour of chatting on about our favorite subject with Umesh (Though choice, duh!) So we raided the local Kebab stand and moved on to a fantastic place the "Parkhaus" a pavillion in the middle of a park where we sat outside until 2 am. And quoted LRM and got more stories out of Umesh.

Perfect day. Great people.

PS: Umesh, if you read this. Yell at me if I got anything wrong. I shall yell at you in return if you don´t get in contact the next time you´re in Vienna. :-D

FilmASIA - Tere Ishq Mere Pyaar

2007-04-16T17:45:00.000+02:00

We had a blast on Saturday driving to Graz for the Bollywood Special at the FilmASIA Film Festival in Graz, Austria.
Two Cars. ~~Six~~ Seven Girls. A Hostel with bunk beds. Fantastic weather. Three BW Films. Babsy´s Film Premiere. Party.
That was the plan.
Arriving with a half hour delay *winks at Babsy* we got into our first film when the credits where already rolling. Three of us went to LRM (me of course being one of them), the rest chose Don (the new one). The Don screening had some technical problems so the three of us slipped into the cinema after LRM to get the last 30 minutes of Don too (and resisted the urge to burst in and shout: " That´s not Vijay, thats Don! He killed Vijay!") after that we had a 2 minutes cigarette and loo break and went on with Kabul Express ( I was extremely curious how that one would look on the big screen - fantastic!)
Then we fast approached our highlight of the day. The "special event" part. First a short reading from the book "Spiegelbilder" by Dorothea Nürnberg, a fiction novel with 3 stories that interweave different life stories with Bollywood film plots. And then after a short interview with maker and heroine -

the World Premiere of Tere Ishq Mere Pyaar.

Our very own Babsy Artner, professional actress and Bollywood fan, came up with the idea of shooting her own small Bollywood film late last year . If you´re aquainted with Babsy you know that she is very dedicated. Once she has a plan, she follows through with it. So without any budget armed only with her ideas and the help of friends and some film professionals (kamera, makeup) she wrote, directed, edited and of course acted in her 12 minutes short. And finished all in less then 2 months time.

TIMP is the very bollywood-ish story of Aish. Aish is in love. With ~~Hiro~~ Hero, a friend of her rather strict brother. One day at a party it gets very obvious that ~~Hiro~~ Hero and Aish have something serious going on...evidence? A song-sequence of Aish dancing and ~~Hiro~~ Hero running.

Uh-oh. Back from the dreamworld at the party, the looks the love-birds send each other are way too obvious. Bhai bahut naraz hoon and drags Aish rather unfriendly from the room. Poor ladki. No other option then to break away from her brother´s grip and run to the park-like garden of the NRI´s mansion and cry her eyes out. But wait. Not all is lost. Look who´s running too. In her direction even. ~~Hiro~~ Hero. Leaving all family-bonds and demands behind. The lovers unite. Happy End.

Oh, I had a blast watching it. Yes sure, it is no high gloss production. But then Babsy is a professional actress and neither a director nor has she ever before edited a movie. So no technical marking allowed from my side. What counts is that it is filled to the brink with all those BW clichés we so love. Babsy is endearing. And beautiful. The story is short. The song is long. The emotions run high. There was a lot of hollering and applause in the end (far not all from our side), and I really hope you all get a chance to see the first all Austrian Bollywood production one day too. Verdict: Shabash beti, shabash.

A great premiere demands a great premiere party. But before that there was one more point on the program....

Stay tuned.

Socha Na Tha - much ado about nothing

2007-04-16T16:07:00.000+02:00

See, that is what happens if you don´t listen to your parents. Viren (Abhay Deol) loves Karen. Viren´s family wants him to marry Aditi (Ayesha Takia). Viren and Aditi decide that he will reject her at the viewing because of Karen. Aditi is totally cool with it.

And then everything goes downhill from there. The rejection causes the families to fight with each other. Viren messes up his relationship with Karen. AND since he and Aditi accidently meet again and again...

Kuch feelings start to mess with Virens heart. And now it really gets complicated.

The problem sounds familiar? Well here again we have a guy who is too scared of his dad to tell him clear out what he wants. In addition to actually not knowing what he want himself until its too late.

Socha Na Tha was Abhay´s debut movie and after seeing it and Ahista Ahista it is now clear as the ocean at the Goa beaches Birgit chanced upon a Hindi filmsong shoot today that he is definitely THE current generation Deol. Can´t wait to see him in Honeymoon Travels Pvt.Ltd.

As for Socha Na Tha. The story is a bit wooden, as is especially the second half of the film, but Abhay and Ayesha Takia are cute and if you care to a film character making a mess of his life and watch a nice timepass movie, go and give it a chance.

*Spoiler* I really really liked Viren´s part in the dialog between him and his father outside their homes gates. I never got myself into such a mess, but I can very much relate to the "Main Thaka Hoon" sentence.

Most Useless Piece Of News. Ever.

2007-04-11T15:29:00.000+02:00

It´s too good to let pass. Read this.

http://in.rediff.com/movies/2007/apr/11home.htm

And now that I wasted perfectly valueable minutes of your life - Isn´t it great that in this context even staring at a blank wall for hours seems to be the epidome of information-gathering?

Happy Easter. Family affairs are calling.

2007-04-06T17:05:00.000+02:00

I´ll be gone for the next 3 days to visit my family in Salzburg. For the first time since I can remember we will spend Easter not at my grandma´s house in Carinthia but in at my parents in Salzburg. Hmm. Whatever.

So no updates over the weekend here. I hope some more will have viewed Bommarillu when I return, so I can start discussing it more openly without spoilering too much - read the comments in the review post if you have either seen it or don´t care about spoilers.

Bommarillu - Same old. Thank god.

2007-04-05T16:15:00.000+02:00

Is it good if one gets exactly what one expects, bad or is it slightly disappointing? Can I love a movie that doesn´t do anything new - without feeling guilty?

What´s even more - a film that uses the very same formula that has been done before successfully. With only slight variations? Does my loving it wreck havoc to my "street-cred"?

But then. Who cares? *Sigh*

The director took all the incrediences and pieces that made the last two Siddarth movies so cute, and mixed them up. But only a slight bit. We wouldn´t want to risk too much. Hain naa?

So everything we need is here.
Schnuffel* in Pink.
Schnuffel wet.

Schnuffel fooling around.
Even a double Schnuffel.

The thing with Bommarillu is that it really is very close to NVNV and Chandrudu. Not too much storywise, especially if you ignore the fact that there is the obvious "boy looks for girl to marry that he truly loves and somebody is not too happy with it" main storyline. But from the feel and some other factors. One being a very familiar Siddu-film cast. Prakash Raj as dad for example, or Suneel, this time as servant. Nice songs that are pretty similar to NVNV (No dancing cows though).
The main thing that changed is a new even sweeter heroine - Risky move, but worth it. Genelia is perfect.

This time Siddu has a problem that at the first look seems pretty petty. His dad is too nice and careing. Spoilt brat, one is tempted to think. But as Freedy Mercury already said "Too much love can kill you" or in the case of Siddu suffocate you. So to escape Super-Dad he builds up an image of the good obedient son at home and tries to live the life he always wanted outside. Not really the perfect solution but it works. At least until Daddy decides it is time for chota Siddu to get married.
Full stop. No way that can happen. We need a love marriage here. And there even would be the perfect candidate.

But being engaged to one girl and loving another one can only lead to trouble. And a lot of songs and nice shots of Frankfurt/Main and ~~the Tyrol~~ Salzkammergut/Salzburg county/Upper Austria/Styria aka the place close to where I grew up.

Two more points. Loved this (especially in regard to this topic) and two: Siddhu´s friend´s t-shirt. what were they thinking?

*Schnuffel. If you still don´t know what that means. Go here. Beth researched it for all non-native German speakers.

We´re making News ;-)

2007-04-04T15:14:00.000+02:00

Mehru Jaffer, a columnist for Hard News in India, wrote an article about the IBBM and the ACEBA ceremony last month.

http://www.hardnewsmedia.com/portal/2007/04/884

Hah! We´re news-worthy.

Bommarillu - Teaser.

2007-04-03T13:29:00.000+02:00

Today at the un-godly hour of 7 am my new best friend from the austrian postal services rang and brought a small package that contained my long awaited Bomarillu DVD. Since he woke me up and my workday starts as late as 10 am, I had to watch it already. And had a relapse to my NVNV state of mind. A proper review will have to wait until tomorrow night as I won´t be home until late today. But in the meantime, just that much: Loved it. And while you´re waiting, some eyecandy.

FYI: Since there were some discussions going on, the iDream DVD from KAD has engl. Subtitles.

construction work being done

2007-04-03T00:38:00.000+02:00

I´m trying out something here. So for the next few hours the layout might get a bit messed up. don´t worry if I ruin everything, I´ll ask for help in our creative media department tomorrow morning

Do Raaste - beware of the greedy bahu

2007-04-02T20:13:00.000+02:00

Ever get the feeling you should jump into the screen and yell at a character? Watch Do Raaste. There´re plenty of opportunities.

Meet the Gupta family. Dad died years ago, so the eldest son takes care of his stepmother, stepsister, two stepbrothers, his wife and kids.

Bahut pyaar hai. Aur bahut kam bhi. Since the elder of the stepbrothers studies abroad and that´s expensive. Lekin koi problem nahin hai. Mortage the house and wait until he comes home with a good job in store. Film khatm? Not by far.
Prem Chopra is not returning empty handed. There is this girl (Bindu) that also studied in the West. And there is her mom. And her useful advice. Like "you have to show them who´s the boss" and "seperate yourself from your in-law´s. that way you wont have any trouble" Thank you very much mom. Thank you for helping ruin the life of every member of this so far big, loving happy family.
The new bahu manages to insult everybody in the family. And poison her husbands mind. So everything falls apart.

Really. It get veeeery ugly. And as it is with too good people, they are helpless in the face of evil. Not even the sweet romance between the younger stepbrother (Rajesh Khanna) and the bura bahu´s sweet sister (Mumtaaz) can bloom the way it´s supposed to. And that´s a pity as we have some nice chemistry going on there.

So everything gets from bad to worse. And whenever you think "well, now Prem Chopra should see the light" bura bahu is there to spread more malice. Bleh.

At least the music is nice and we have Rajesh Khanna with and without facial hair. And some very chic late 60ies attire.

PS: Beware of the Baba Traders DVD if possible. It´s irritatingly blurry.

Still don´t have enough of us?

2007-03-31T13:06:00.001+02:00

Anybody in the vicinity of Graz, Styria on April 14th will be able to meet us - bole to main, michael aur woh acchi Vienna larkiya - at the FilmASIA festival. Apart from (re-)watching movies like LRM, Kabul Express or KHNH (you can find what else is being screened in their BW special here) Babsy´s Bollywood short film "Tere Ishq, Mere Pyaar" will also be premiered there. So again we´re planning on having a jolly good time.

PS: Yesterday the shipping confirmation for Bommarillu finally came. Expect a very girly Schnuffelpost next week.

Sillunu Oru Kaadhal - while my heart gently weeps

2007-03-24T23:17:00.000+01:00

Birgit has left me. This morning she boarded the plane that will take her to Goa, the starting point for her 6 months long India visit. Only yesterday we had a fantastic funny evening with two more superwow women, Sophia and Aradhana, coming up with the craziest ideas but today I´m just sad.

So it is quite clear that I needed a movie for the heart. And none of the 2006 Hindi releases I watched, made my heart ache the way Surya did in Sillunu Oru Kaadhal. I´m a sucker for getting sucker-punched from a movie. It´s an addiction, and as addictions go you need more, you grow resistant. So it has been a while that I felt that.

Six years ago Kundhari (Jyothika) agreed to an arranged marriage in spite of her girly dreams of a love match. And, as it can be seen in the really fun shaadi song, the groom isn´t to keen about the whole thing as well.

But now, six years later, we meet a very happy family. Gowtham (Surya) works as head mechanic for Suzuki in Mumbai. Kundhari has a great job too, there is a sweet, sassy daugther. And lots of love.

Then one day the big shocker. Gowtham is away on a business trip and while looking thru his stuff on the search for a biology project for her daughter (I always said those things were no good) Kundhari stumbles over an old diary of his. And has to find out that Gowtham has a past. In college he, being the local rowdie, fell in love with the daughter (Bhoomika) of an MP. And after a rocky start love became the real thing and plans of elopement were layouted.

Kundhari is devastated and takes a bold decision....

Oh what didn´t I cry. Though I´m not even sure why. It is not a great-great film. The story only works in parts. But still.

Bits of trivia:

Sillunu Oru Kaadhal was Jyothika and Surya´s last film together before they got married. It flopped.

The great "New York Nagaram" song is sung by A.R.Rahman himself and in the video Luzerne, Switzerland pretends to be NYC (And I´m actually thankful for it as I´m a very much ootyfied by the NYC overdose the Hindi filmmakers exposed myself to in the last year)

The comments on Maria´s review of "Boys" turned into a discussion between Michael, her and others about the hotness factor of certain Southindian actors. Sorry, but I still say Suriya wins hands down. With or without beard. Evidence? There you go: 1 2 3 4 5. ´Nuff said.

PS: 24/03/07 Short update. Birgit just mailed. Sab teek hai. Goa bilkul accha hai.

Jung. Strictly for a pagali like me.

2007-03-20T20:51:00.000+01:00

Inspector Veer (Jackie Shroff), pride of the police force, has a real crappy week. Not only does he have issues

with his collegue Khan´s work philosophy ("lets clear the streets by shooting any criminal you can get a hold of. Preferably when they´re already in custody") No, destiny really has it bad for him when his seven year old son is diagnosed with leukemia. A bone-marrow transplant would help, but you guessed right, the little sunshine has to have a rare bloodtype too. And all the ~~beautiful~~ pathetic flashback songs with a happy-pappy family don´t help.

Looking for a donor still brings up only one name. Balli. A mean stone cold 14 time killer, caught by Veer some 4 years ago.

Who obviously has no intention to act as donor. Not even when Veer beats the bejesus out of him. Also the teary pledge of the sons mom doesn´t soften his cold heart (in a very yummi body I might add) until she slips the crucial info in her speech that the donation would happen outside jail in way lower security hosptial.

Guess what. Balli suddenly discovers the humanitarian within him - and of course takes the chance to bhag. Before donating. He has better things to do. Visiting his girl. Doing a little dance. Settle some open scores with a local dishonest don. The usual.

All the while being chased by not only the desperate Veer, who has to catch him alive. But also by Khan, who wants to get him too, dead, if possible.

On the plus side of Jung:

Sanjay. Sanjay in chains. Sanjay in cool gangsta mode. Shilpas attitude in her interrogation. Jackie, at least in parts. Raveenas clothes, mostly.

On the minus side: Minimum 4 songs that just don´t fit. Plus a real bad item number. Sanjay without his real voice. Balli doing the stupid face/off hand thingy all the time. And the general inconsistency due to two different directors.
Thanks to Diwali I now know that Jung ran into serious trouble during its production. Sanjay Guptas differences with the producer ended in his name being pulled off the credits and Sanjay refusing to dub for it. And it shows.
So you´re not a Sanjay pagali like me? Go and find something else to do with you time. Like watching KANK 3 times in a row.

Cleaning up. Fanaa and Baabul

2007-03-19T00:05:00.000+01:00

Finally recovered from last weekends Bollywoodblogger meeting, a week of teaching and clearing up boring office stuff that got delayed during the preparations for the meeting. I was so out of my filmi loop that I could not decide what to watch. Until I decided to finally get two movies of last year out of the way that so far did not hold much appeal to me. Fanaa and Baabul.

To make it short. Fanaa was way better then I expected. Which was veeeeery little. Baabul did nothing for me, but I was not hoping for much and I have to confess I at least got manipulated into one single tiny tear at the end.

Still there are some comments that I gathered watching them that I want to share.

I started with Fanaa. So I will here too.

- Went into the movie with the plan to count Aamir´s scarfs. And might have messed up. Does anybody have the final numbers? I made out seven different ones:

- Kajol is beautiful to watch. So much that my real-life significant other halted on his way from the musicroom to the fridge for a "Wow, who is that? Oh, that´s Kajol? She´s very cute"
- Aamir should not do rain-songs. At least not without an umbrella. Or if he has to get his hair wet, don´t make him look straight at the camera. Just don´t.
- The supporting cast names are great and mostly wasted... especially the ATF people Tabu and Saxena.
- Fanaa is one of the very few movies where the bad guy uses a Mac. But then Rehan is a sneaky chameleonish terrorwala, hai naa?
- The heating bills of Colonel-Uncle must have been huge if you count in all the windows and doors poor Kajol had to close to keep Aamir out.

Resume: Liked the first half as nice nothing new old-fashioned pyaar ki kahani. Could tolerate the second half in parts. Let´s just say its not as sloppy as the usual terrorist fare like Dus or the likes. Hate the screenwriting in parts of the second half. It´s as "lame-screenwriting-twists-if-you-wrote-yourself-into-an-deadend for dummies" -like as KANK was.

Baabul:

"Yeh shaadi nahin ho sakta" Yesss! Long time, no ~~see~~ hear! You great Über-cliché sentence! And then two minutes later we have Om Puri almost repeating the same words. Loved it. Wrecked the dramatic mood, lekin main kya karu. Great lines need to be welcomed with a loud "Wah!" I´m just glad I didn´t watch Baabul in a cinema. The drowned in tears rest of the audience would have killed me.

- Can we please finally cast Rani again in a movie where she does not have to weep constantly? Please?

- And refrain from putting Salman in pin-stripe suits and ties?

Resume: The first half with Salman is too long and still did not manage to give me any reason why Rani should be as much in love with Salman as she claimed to be in the second half. Same goes for her accepting John that fast. Again another movie where a character portrayed by Rani is not able to get any sympathy from me. Lets see how she will do in Tara Rum Pum Pum. From the trailer it has the potential for making the same mistake.

Bollywoodbloggers. The 4th ACEBAs.

2007-03-12T11:31:00.000+01:00

The voting for the 4th Annual Central European Bollywood Awards closed last wednesday and since I forced (nicely) Marco into having the results ready by the time the Blogger Meeting would take place, we were able to present the results in a fun impromptu awards ceremony during the evening event of the PEIBBM.

I prepared a Keynote presentation, ordered Birgit and Beth to screenshot their way through some of the winner movies, made a panicking Marco prepare a introductory speech *hehe*, put on my Sari and then we were ready to rumble. But not before more little thing.

Setting up the presenation got me the results early and knowing that they would not please the majority of the people attending, Birgit had the brilliant idea to bring handpainted "Wah!! and "Boo!!" signs. Lovingly made by Maria, Beth, Kaddele and Michael on friday, they came in quite handy.

But see for yourself. Here are the results as voted by the german speaking Bollywood fanbase. Which obviously is very SRKish or as we started to call it "Khanian". But maybe if the german distributors and TV stations would start sceening more non-SRK movies the fanbase will widen. And we won´t have Karan Johar winning Best Director for KANK. Bleh.

Mehru Jaffer, an indian journalist, who attended the ceremony asked me if we are planning to repeat the real-life ceremony and had plans to give away the awards physicly in the future. Well, even if it was a lot of work preparing and organizing the event, I think the crew with Marco, Markus, Birgit, Beth and Michael did great work. And the attending Blogwriters and -readers were getting along so well and we all had a ball. So, yeah, why not?

PS: and here´s the flickr set of my pics from the ACEBAs. All Pics taken from everybody can be found in this blogger group.

Bollywoodbloggers. Next Stop. Evening Fun.

2007-03-10T17:42:00.000+01:00

So, we´re off. Unfortunately the restaurant we´re going to has no web-access, so the next update will come sometime during the night. :D

UPDATE 03/12/2007: I´m in the process of sorting and uploading tons of pictures. And apart from doing as little as possible at my "real" job today, I´ll try to post some afterthoughts on the weekend and of course my take on the evening event...

in the meantime here a pic of most of the superwow people that attended.

here a link to pics my bestest husband took during the evening. link. and here the link to all the pics we took from friday to sunday. link.

Bollywoodbloggers: Main Hoon Naa. Liveblogging

2007-03-10T14:17:00.000+01:00

Everybody is set up with their own or borrowed laptops. Well fed from the walk to the Naschmarkt and ready for action.

14:18 And we´re rolling.

And there we have Naseeruddin. "Are you in charge here? - Yes. - Not anymore."
Oh and I genuinely dislike the TV show host.

14:22 I so had a crush on Kabir Bedi when he played Sandokan in the 70ies (?).

14:24 Yesss. Finally someone shot the annoying TV show host. The Blogger crowd is cheering.

14:26 "General, nobody is going to help you now."

Ghalad. Raghvan. Ghalad. SRK hai naa...

14:27 Damn you, Raghavan. Damn you!!

14:29 Oh I love how the crowd reacts.

14:34 Oh pulleeeaaase. Khirron. It was a mistake. How is the boy to blame. Oh get over it !!!!!

14:40 SONG!! I luurve the continous shot.

Hectic blogging everywhere. And tons of comments. Cheers for every actor.

14:57 Childhood trauma: "Please refrain from hanging out with us. You´re not cool enough."

How rude!

15:06 Isn´t it a shame how slow the computer equipment in this college is?

15:09 Ram to the rescue. The crowd goes wild.

15:10 Main Hoon Na. Finally. Sigh. Cheer.

I´m starting to lag behind. It´s so much fun to read the other blogs and watch the film and sing and whistle.

But there is no dancing yet. At least it seems that at 5 people are able to whistle the Main Hoon Naa chorus.

15:22 Sush is about to show up.. The crowd "uuuuhhhhhs. aaahhhs" and there are "Sing Ram Sing" chants.

15:27 The crowd goes wild at the bullet-time spitting scene.

15:28 I love how the Gabbar Singh poster is mirrored in the cars window... Great job Farah!
Those bicycle-rikshas are pretty fast. Hain Naa?

15:33 Well, bad luck Raghavan. "General Bakshi sent his "bloody best"!

15:38 And there we have it. The waterfall scene. No collective sigh? Is the male audience dead? tsts

15:44 INTERVAL

How superwow. Koi, our professor in residence, brought his violin and played "Main Hoon Na" during Interval. Wah! Wah! Sunniye!!

16:10 And we´re back in College. Pyaar hota hai.

Btw. Michael has sound and video bytes. Birgit too. Live from Vienna.

16:13 Lucky is such a jerk.

16:15 Tumse Milke. Gotcha Lucky! Hah. Marco sings. Ulli bhi. Me too :-D

16:27 Poor, poor, sweet, heartbroken, fatherless Lucky. "Do you care, do you love me, do you hate me? Anything. Anything." Damn I´m out of tissues.

16:30 Can you imagine anything more gross then being wooed by Prof. Rasai? Even if it´s just on the phone?

16:39 Aren´t our boys cute in their black suits, getting ready for ~~sports day~~ prom night?

16:45 Ahhh, the laser pointer thingy bandhuk. Nice, Ram can be pretty cold.
"Sorry about the Sari Ma´am"!

16:50 Wohooo. "Happy teacher´s day"

16:52 Uuh-oh. I see drama coming. And tears. Curse you Raghavan.

17:01 Uuh-oh. Again. Somethings off. No kids in the school yard..

17:02 "Project Milap is finished, General Saab" I knew it! I mean I of course really already knew it, but you know I knew it even when I didn´t know it.

17:08 That little white lock of Raghvan is making me crazy. Good crazy. Pity that he such a despiseable looser.

17:11 Ok, something that always bothered me. Is Khan such a bad shot or why else the first shot in the arm?

17:14 "You are a very bad man"! Oh Boman *shakes head in sorrow"

17:16 What kind of bad-ass terrorist is Raghavan? Can´t even look the traitor in the eye while shooting Khan. Wimp.

17:18 "Paanch minutes, Ram" hehe. Climax time.

17:22 Typical bad boy mistake. Don´t talk. Shoot. Bah.

"Damn it, turn around" Three, two, one. Bhoooom. Huge cheers in the room.

"Just shut up and pull me up. Ahhhhhhuuuuhhhhaaaaahuuuu.Woooohooooooo. Aur phir. Wooohhhoooooooo.

AND NOW:

The bestest end-credits ever.

That was just too much fun. I´m voting for doing it all over again next week :D

PS: and here´s the flickr set of my pics from the Live Blogging. All Pics taken from everybody can be found in this blogger group.

Bollywoodbloggers. Updates.

2007-03-10T11:29:00.001+01:00

I´m more busy then I thought I would be :D

So for the latest Updates go to Michaels Blog. I´ll see you all in in the afternoon.

Liveblogs: apart from Michael: Maini. Beth. Kaddele. Birgit. Maria

PS: and here´s the flickr set of my pics from the Open House in the morning. All Pics taken from everybody can be found in this blogger group.

Bollywoodbloggers. Evidence.

2007-03-09T15:09:00.000+01:00

Michael started a flickr group for all the pics we will take during the meeting. Chal dekho na. And btw. we already started as you can see :D

http://www.flickr.com/groups/bollywoodblogger/pool/

Bollywoodbloggers. Ready. Set. Go.

2007-03-05T13:56:00.000+01:00

Location. Check.
Movie. Check.
Program. Check.
Logo. Check.

Lets roll.

I can´t believe it. A week from now it will all be a pleasant memory. Come saturday, March 10th the Bollywoodblogger Meeting will rock the city.

Here is the final program with all the important infos (here the program in german):

Thanks to Judith and Birgit for the great help and the awesome logo and layout.

So, if you happen to be in Vienna next saturday, be sure to drop in. You just don´t want to miss this.

P.S. Birgit entrusted her Carom board in my care. (She´ll be going to India for 6 months end of march) We´ll set it up at the meeting. And I hereby challenge all of you.

UPDATE 3/9/2007: And they started to arrive... Beth is here since Monday and Michael, Kaddele and Maria just touched down..

Khosla Ka Ghosla! - don´t mess with the Khoslas

2007-02-20T17:27:00.000+01:00

What happens when your average middleclass Delhi family gets cheated out of their lifes savings and with it the plot of land they planned to build the house they always wished for?

They fight back. Not without initial difficulties though. Son Cherry (Parvin Dabas) has designs to move to the USA for a job in software engineering and has his mind anywhere but with his family´s problems. Older brother Bunty (Ranir Shorey) is a hot-head and and his ideas lead to more trouble then help. And dad (Anupam Kher) after getting no help from neither the police nor any other institution, resigns. It´s only after Cherry meets Asif Iqbal a former "business" partner of the evil K. Khurana (Boman Irani) that they start to develop the will and a plan to cheat the land right back from the mafiose constractor.

Enlisting the assistance of Cheetus girlfriend Meghna (Tara Sharma) and the theatre company she works for, they set up a charade that would do proud to the Bluffmaster.

2006 brought out some wonderful small movies off the beaten Blockbuster track. Dor, Pyaar Ke Side Effects, Ahista Ahista, Kabul Express. And Khosla Ka Gholsa is another example that a simple well rounded story, endearing characters and great actors do make an entertaining loveable movie. Especially if you have a caliber like Boman Irani playing the bad guy with a panache you love to hate.

Bollywoodbloggers. I´ve got good news and bad news.

2007-02-20T16:35:00.000+01:00

For all those who felt a disturbance in the force on monday (15:00 GMT+1) -- that was me. Sorry. Isn´t it cool how when you get real angry all those curse words in any language you´ve ever learned come back?

So now let me give you the bad news. Bloody iDream moved the release date of the Bommarillo DVD from Feb 28th to March 7th and I am pretty sure that even with UPS it won´t reach Vienna in time. So we need a new movie to watch. Suggestions?

I know we will find a movie that we all will be happy with. So the bad news is not that bad. And the good news is really really good:

We will unveil the results of Marcos 4th ACEBA at a small and for sure funny awards ceremony during the evening event on the 10th. So anybody joining us will be able to get the result first. The rest of the world will have to wait until the 11th. No worries. There shall be pictures.

4th Annual Central European Bollywood Awards

2007-02-18T20:29:00.000+01:00

Yay, it´s award season.

Marco the Swiss Bollywood guruji of the german-speaking BW-community has just opened the polls for the 4th annual central european bollywood awards. So if you´re located in Central Europe and can read German you´re eligible to participate.

Just go there. Register. And vote!

All you other wonderful people. Sorry. But you still can get to the nomination list here. And if you like, give a prediction here.

PS: Nana Patekar is nominated for Taxi 9211 in the best lead actor category. Shabash Marco, shabash.

Jamai Raja - how to not waste your time

2007-02-18T14:41:00.000+01:00

Prospective mothers-in-law be warned. "Whenever mothers-in-law turn extremely cruel, then sons-in-law like...

...me will take birth". (I´m not being pathetic here, that is the movie´s actual last sentence)

Very pigheaded and greedy woman (Hema Malini) with 2 spineless sons and one khoobsurat daughter picked the wrong girls family to be mean at. Girls brother (Anil Kapoor) met the daughter (Madhuri Dixit) before and the had already fallen in love,

and now decides to marry her and teach mommy dearest some of her own medicine. Mom khuch nahin hai. And spends her further existence to fight the guy. Clash of will ensues. No mean means are left out on both sides.

Warfare gets difficult for guy since his wife is plain stupid and tends to stick by mom. But the truth prevails. And as announced by guy, all kids leave mean mom. Still not seeing the light we finally get the long overdue divine intervention and a totally over the top, completely inapplicable climax fight to make mom get a grip on the true values in life at last. Film khatm.

Kya bakvas hai!

Bollywoodbloggers. Now we´re getting somewhere.

2007-02-11T18:06:00.000+01:00

Don´t think that only because the last update concerning the First Pan-European/International Bollywoodbloggers Meeting in Vienna is from a week ago, there was no planning work going on behind the scenes.

So here is the first draft of the schedule for Saturday March 10th 2007.

First rule of the 1st PEIBBM. It´s all about having fun. So timetables are approximate values only!

Since some of you will arrive in Vienna on Saturday morning I will have an open house with lots of coffee for those poor red-eye-flight gals like Maini and whoever wants to join. Around noon the idea is to grab some lunch and since it´s so nice there we´ll head to the Naschmarkt.

At 14.00 we´ll get into serious business and meet to watch Bommarillo. The place we´ll be doing that has WLAN so expect some heavy live-blogging.

Next point on the agenda is 18.00 where we´ll meet (at an until now undisclosed) Indian restaurant and at 20.00 we´ll have some cool stuff coming up (again undisclosed as of now *wavesatmarco*)

So hang in there. It is only a few days until I will be able to come up with more details.

PS: Participants get in shape. There might be press coverage too....

Update 02/12/2007: Oh I almost forgot. I even went so far as to fill my spare iPod (yes I have more then one) with a background score for the 10th. If you have any suggestions on songs that I missed out, fire away. Here is what´s on the playlist so far.

Kabul Express - Stockholm Syndrome

2007-02-11T16:11:00.000+01:00

I´ve been waiting for a long time to get my hands on this one. An off-mainstream movie about the post 9/11 Afganistan, shot entirely in Afganistan coming out of the Yash Raj camp. Sounds like a challenge.

One cameraman/journalist Indian TV team (Arshad and John) heads to Afghanistan in November 2001 to get a story on the situation there with the goal of interviewing at least one member of the overthrown and now hunted Taliban.

And get stuck in a roadmovie-like adventure when they, along with their Afghani driver Khyber (Hanif Hum Ghum) and a female American photojournalist (Linda Arsenio), are kidnapped by a Pakistani Taliban (Salman Shahid) who wants to escape home to Pakistan. In the course of 48 hours we accompany this very diverse group as they drive through the rough battered countryside and encounter various obstacles on their way to the Pakistan border, from shrewd donkeys to lynch mobs, from Army roadblocks to dangerous Mujahideen tribes. And due to varying opinions on Cricket and war originators life inside the "Kabul Express" is as well not short of critical situations.

It´s a Yash Raj film, produced by Aditya Chopra. So don´t expect a grim doku-drama. It is more shallow-ish. But hell, sirf movie hai, documentary bhi nahin. I like the route they took. Our five characters in the movie form for a short while their own small microcosmos which only grazes the outside world.

Deep political or sociological problems are sidelined. Quotes like "America wants to suck out our oil and pump in Coke and Papsi" are a bit to tabloid. And it might be that we´re all so used to and fed up with the ongoings there, that only few of the beautiful shot pictures make an impact.
So even if I´m not 100% sure as to what Kabir Khan wanted to transport in Kabul Express, for me it served a purpose. I liked it, I had a very good time watching it and I´m now going to read up on Afghan history and politics. And that´s not too bad an outcome, hai naa?

Ad Stockholm syndrome. My favorite character was indeed the Taliban. How can you not like a battle weary character with a soft spot for Hindi film songs who says stuff like "Madhuri Dixit do, Kashmir lo" (Give us Madhuri and take Kashmir).

Dor

2007-02-06T23:25:00.000+01:00

Let´s do this the other way round this time and start with my conclusion:
I love Dor. Bas. Go and watch it. It will make you laugh, smile, feel good, feel sad, feel angry, fall in love with its some of its characters, hate others genuinly. Oh, I love Dor. Bas.

Finally a movie about women. Average, no better make that - real, young women. Modern but still living in sync with their traditions and strong enough to challenge them if the need arises.

Like a lot of young men in India, the husbands of Meera (Ayesha Takia) the young wife of a destitute rajput family and Zeenat (Gul Panag) a newly wed muslim woman from Himachal Pradesh leave India to work in Saudi Arabia for some months.

Both couples are young, very much in love and genuinly likeable. About 6 months after their departure a tragedy strikes. Shekar, the rajastani husband, is killed by Aamir, Zenaat´s husband. Supposedly in an accident but since there are no witnesses Amir is sentenced to death. Back in India both families are devastated. Meera living in a very traditional Rajastani society has to bear the terrible faith of being a widow there. Sentenced to a life of grief and now treated like an worthless prisoner. In Himachal Pradesh Aamir´s shocked family learns that there is only one option left to save him. According to Saudi law Aamir´s life will be spared if the victims widow signs a mercy petition stating that she has forgiven him. And Zenaat being a very strong-willed woman is taking that chance and leaves her home in search for Meera.

She travels to Rajastan and finds unexpected help Behroopiya (Shreyas Talpade), an endearing wannabe Actor and parttime conartist who decides to help her locating the family. But finding the widow and convincing her to sign are two very different pair of shoes.

What should be a dark and emotional draining story is in fact a statement for dignity, friendship and courage laced with wonderful scenes that are full of life and hope. The Kajra Re sequence in the dunes made me fall in love with this song all over again. The disarming, funny entrance scene of Shreyas Talpade made me giggle.

Apart from the wonderful story that is based on the Malayalam movie Perumazhakkalam, the acting trio of Ayesha Takia, Gul Panag and Shreyas Talpade created the magic of Dor for me. And the cinematography. And the music. And the scenery. Nagesh Kukunoor managed to make a movie that is an arthouse movie with a mainstream feel. Or a mainstream movie with an arthouse feel. Take your pick.

Its been a long time that a movie sucked in me from the get-go like Dor did. So let me repeat my statement from the beginning of this post. I love Dor. Bas. Watch it.

And now for something completely different - I´ve been tagged

2007-02-05T19:58:00.000+01:00

Up to now I´ve been lucky. No tagging for me yet. And still it had to happen one day. Filmiholic wants me to tell Five Secrets you, my lovely readers, don´t know about me yet. Let´s see.

1. I got married in Las Vegas at the little Chapel of the Flowers in 2000. Thats the same place Dennis Rodman and Carmen Elektra tied the knot. Well MY marriage still works.

2. I´ve been paying my Gym membership for the last 4 years without ever going ONCE. I really should cancel it. But then again. I might go again. One day. Or not.

3. I´m a huge Rick Springfield fan. So huge that we scheduled all of our USA vacations so far around his concert dates. He´s soooo sexy and nice. Sigh.

4. I´ve been a candidate at the austrian version of KBC - Who wants to be a millionaire. But I didn´t make it into the hot seat. I lost out by ONE bloody hundredth of a second. Grrr. But then our host here is only a former skiing champ. How uncool.

5. I have huge feet for a woman. Euro size 42/ USA size 11. You want to see my usual happy-go-lucky self turn into a world-hating mean Mrs. Hyde in the shortest possible time? Drag me into a shoestore. Sirf 5 minutes aur meri mood bahut kharab hai. Why does the shoemaking industry believe that woman with my size only want shoes fit for ladies age 75 and up. I want Pradas and Manolo Blahniks. Bleh.

So, that was that. The real saucy secrets still hidden and some of your curiosity satisfied. Now who am I going to tag. How about Aparna, Maja, Sanni and by calling Kaddele and Maria move this tag to the germanspeaking Bloggosphere.