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Post by MrB on Jun 25, 2014 16:13:41 GMT
Bangalore Days. I was all set to see Holiday, but then decided I've had enough of beat'em up blockbusters until Kick comes along, so tried this instead. It's a Malayalam film about three cousins who move from Kerala to Bangalore, and their lives and loves while there. It's low-key, but lovely performances all round and highly recommended. Even though it's nearly three hours long, time never drags, and I didn't want it to end, except to find out whether love would finally prevail. It seems to have English subtitles everywhere, so do go and see it if it's showing near you.
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Post by MrB on May 20, 2014 12:44:45 GMT
Sonam kept smiling, hoping no-one would notice that she had put her head on backwards that morning.
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Post by MrB on May 13, 2014 12:11:59 GMT
It's only tangentially related to language, but I found this article in The Hindu on the dying art of Urdu calligraphy in Delhi interesting and poignant. The last of Delhi's calligraphy brigade?
With calligraphic writing now computerised, the katibs of Old Delhi’s Urdu Bazaar, once a vibrant community, have shrunk to a mere three. When 62-year-old Mohammad Yakub, a katib or traditional calligrapher in Old Delhi’s Urdu Bazaar, breaks into a near monologue on a hot May day after some prodding, the fear of losing a job that he knows best — that too at an age when he “just can’t think of doing anything else” — is pretty blatant. “I have been without work for the last two days. Who knows, you might bring me good luck,” he says with a half-smile. Two teacups with the hot brew arrive from a nearby teashop, indication enough that he is in a mood to talk now. ... Yakub can do calligraphy in Urdu, Arabic and Persian. “But what I usually end up doing now is to write in Urdu the names of various offices and departments required to make stamps since Urdu is also an official language of the Delhi Government,” states Yakub. Out of the Rs.100 that he gets per stamp, Rs. 40 goes to the shop owner. “Most times, it doesn’t pay for my day’s trip from home and back,” he points out before startling you by suddenly breaking into a Mughal-e-Azam song. Even as you recover from the shock, he asks you, “Do you think I can end up as a singer at this age?” In his ensuing laughter, the fear of the foreseeable doesn’t quite get lost. No wonder his daughter, a trained calligrapher, is joining as a teacher in a school. Taking leave of Yakub, you walk along the Bazaar. A few shops away from him sits Mohammad Ghalib, one of the last of the brigade. In his early 50s, Ghalib seems the only one among the three to be getting regular work. “I can’t say that what I am earning is sufficient but I have been able to run my kitchen with it so far. I think it is God’s grace,” he says raising his head from writing a graduation ceremony poster in Urdu for a madrasa in the Okhla area. The colourful poster will thereafter go for printing a dozen copies of it. “Look at these fonts, the unevenness of them, the colour play I do here. No computer can do this because everything in it is of certain size and shape. You can’t play with those fonts, like you can do with a handwritten calligraphic work,” he stops his work to explain the finer point to you. ... You enquire about the third katib of Urdu Bazar. Ghalib says he sits just opposite the road. “He has not been coming to work for some days now. He is unwell. Also, there is a wedding in the family,” he says. What Ghalib doesn’t say is said by a bookseller who gives the katib space to operate from, “He doesn’t get much work anyway.” Riding on a rickshaw to the Chawri Bazasr Metro Station to return home, you only hope that you have turned lucky for Yakub. Because he just can’t sing!
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Post by MrB on May 7, 2014 7:33:20 GMT
MrsB and I went to Madhya Pradesh a couple of years ago, and it's every bit as beautiful as the ad would have you believe. It doesn't have the brazen attractions of better known states like Rajasthan, but it's rural, and green and lovely to drive through. (Well - lovely to be driven through; driving yourself would not be a holiday on Indian roads.) It also has my favourite ever hotel in Ahilya Fort, which is an old fort, perched on top of a cliff, above a temple, looking South over the Narmada river so that you get spectacular sunrises and sunsets. Highly recommended.
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Post by MrB on Apr 22, 2014 19:54:39 GMT
Bollywhatters in London may be interested in the Reel India short course on Understanding Indian Cinema on 1-2 May. From the course description: This unique short course has been designed to introduce audiences to the vast cinematic heritage of India, from historic roots to unprecedented growth. It will convey how Indian Cinema is unique within world cinema and, as it passes its landmark 100-year anniversary, deserving of far more global recognition. Sessions will be led by Lalit Mohan Joshi alongside Kusum Pant Joshi and Raza Ali Abidi.There are sessions on: The First Steps: The Silent Era to the Talkies Boom and Bust: The Rise and Fall of the Studios The Classic Touch: Post-independence and the Golden Age Let’s Get Real: India’s New Wave Cinema Going Big: The Era of Romance, Action and Superstardom Into the Future: The Beginning of Independent Cinema And the cost is £15 per day.
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Post by MrB on Apr 22, 2014 11:05:50 GMT
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Post by MrB on Apr 14, 2014 12:25:43 GMT
I just saw this with a fellow Bollywhater tonight. Is anyone discussing this film? I have a question about the ending but don't want to spoil it for anyone if it's still traveling to their city. Here are the screening dates in a variety of American cities. It's making a tour of art houses instead of the typical South Asian venues. sonyclassics.com/thelunchbox/dates/{Spoiler: details about the end} {Spoiler}Did we see Ila put her jewels on her nightstand when her voiceover said she sold them? The few things I read say the ending is open, but I see a probable very specific ending that isn't so happy. {Spoiler} She did put her jewels on the nightstand shortly before the voiceover said she sold them. Presumably it was a deliberate reminder of the earlier scene with the woman jumping off the roof. But then we hear her voice reading the letter to Saajan saying they will leave for Nepal when her daughter returns from school. So I assume she is not going to do anything drastic, though whether he arrives in time is left open.
I didn't much like the unresolved ending - it felt like a cop-out to me.
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Post by MrB on Apr 10, 2014 11:29:23 GMT
"Did I turn the gas off when I left home? Oh I'm sure it will be fine."
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Post by MrB on Apr 5, 2014 18:50:04 GMT
This was much better than I expected. It looked like yet another star kid movie, pushed forward by a doting industry dad to bore us all with weak material, bad acting, and a well-known name or two taking the money and phoning in performances. But in fact it was David Dhawan in fine form, with his repertory company as crazy as ever, a promising actor in Varun Dhawan, Ileana D'Cruz doing her best with the role, and even Nargis Fakhri well cast.
The set-up is typical Dhawan: cocky but likeable hero with fists of steel, heroine(s) who are beautiful but with not a lot to do, scary potential father-in-law, comic gangsters, lots of wordplay and filmi references, Rajpal Yadav, Shakti Kapoor, mistaken identities, and ever-increasing levels of farce. If you know David Dhawan films, you'll know whether you will like this when I say it is a good recent effort: the material is as good as Partner or Mujhse Shaadi Karoge, but the leads don't have the comic skills of those films.
This was my first sight of Varun Dhawan, and he made a good job of the lead, being believably cocky but with enough charm to see him through, and he handled the usual broad Dhawan comedy well. Ileana D'Cruz is better than her part requires, but she plays it well, looks stunning, and the fans of her hips on this forum will have nothing to complain about. Nargis Fakhri is rubbish, of course, but that actually fits the role quite well, and her atrocious accent and clumsy acting are not the annoyance they might otherwise be. The usual Dhawan comedy suspects are all present and putting in performances that are hilarious if you like that sort of thing (which I do): Anupam Kher is the gangster father-in-law, whose last word of every sentence echoes because he comes from Manali; Shakti Kapoor is a treacherous gang member who speaks entirely in film titles; and Rajpal Yadav is the comedy sidekick of the villain who keeps getting shot. Arunoday Singh is also good: looking very like Aftab Shivdasani but six times the size, in the second half he is far more than just a thuggish rival to be outwitted by Varun.
I hesitate to recommend this film to everyone. If you like old-fashioned masala comedy, and David Dhawan in particular, then this is definitely worth a watch. If you yawn your way through that stuff, then this is probably not for you. but you'll be missing a really fun couple of hours out.
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Post by MrB on Apr 4, 2014 7:35:17 GMT
For UK Bollywhatters, it's releasing over here on 11 April. I haven't found a list of cinemas, but there are posters for it on the London underground, so it is probably also on the art house circuit rather than the usual Bollywood cinemas.
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Post by MrB on Apr 2, 2014 7:14:34 GMT
This is nicely done, and the costume changes are a good touch.
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Post by MrB on Apr 2, 2014 6:58:09 GMT
Is that the showbiz career trajectory? Films to reality shows to politics? Perhaps each requires successively greater levels of acting ability.
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Post by MrB on Mar 28, 2014 8:25:18 GMT
I had the same initial take as Xas on Much Ado About Nothing. We are big Castle fans in the B household, so watched it to see how Nathan Fillion would handle a different role. It took me a while to get over my Shakespeare preconceptions, and to get used to the collection of very similar stereotypically Hollywood types playing the key roles, but then it became very enjoyable. I second Xas' recommendation (especially if you like Castle).
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Post by MrB on Mar 27, 2014 12:56:25 GMT
They say that people get the government they deserve. From ApunKaChoice: OMG! Rakhi Sawant enters politics, to fight LS polls from MumbaiYes, you read that right. The very outspoken and intrepid Rakhi Sawant has taken a plunge into politics. The Lok Sabha election in Mumbai North-West constituency will get a dose of glamour with the entry of Bollywood item girl Rakhi Sawant as an Independent candidate. "I have been virtually mobbed by people demanding that I should fight the election, so here I am," Sawant told media persons here Wednesday. She will lock horns with Congress's former union minister and party general secretary Gurudas Kamat and Shiv Sena's Gajanan Kirtikar. Others in the fray are Bollywood actor-director Mahesh Manjrekar of the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, producer-actor Kamaal R. Khan of the Samajwadi Party and Mayank Gandhi of the Aam Aadmi Party. Rakhi Sawant had recently called on the Bharatiya Janata Party's top leadership in New Delhi and expressed her admiration for its prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi. "I was offered a BJP ticket from Srirampur in West Bengal. But I am from Mumbai and known Hindi and Marathi. I don't know the local language of West Bengal, so why should I stand from there?" she said. "Please give me one chance and see what I can do," the actress urged. Sawant said she was leaving the film industry for the cause of the people and would take up cudgels for women for dignity and respect in society. Sawant was attired in a green outfit and covered her head with a scarf as she posed for media persons.
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Queen
Mar 25, 2014 12:43:01 GMT
Post by MrB on Mar 25, 2014 12:43:01 GMT
I think he's naive in seeing the "touristic approach" as predominantly a phenomenon of Indians and Indian films-certainly, you could make most of those comments about Americans or Brits aboard, ditto films about them. Basically, these are escapist films for a broad audience, and they're unlikely to "engage with" other cultures in any deep way. I completely agree and, after all, the film isn't about Paris and Amsterdam - it's about Rani and her internal journey - so there's no real reason to engage with those cultures in great depth. She's transformed by contact with foreign people and places, and the tourist sites are no less foreign for being well-known. And the local Indian characters arguably make her transformation more believable, as they provide a bridge across what would otherwise be an implausible chasm for a shy middle class Indian girl.
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