Desi Galaxy

Last night I saw Mr. India once again. I have seen this movie many times before. I loved it when I was a child and I love it now as a grown up person.

What is so special about this movie? I guess its the formula, no not the formula to become invisible but the formula to mix the Western Super Hero Movies formula into Hindi Masala while preserving all the fun with extra spices and hotness. So many other people in Bollywood tried their hands on the recipe but it never worked out like it did in Shekhar Kapur’s Mr. India.

Mr. India’s character is a typical Western average-guy-turned-into-super-hero character. What Shekhar did brilliantly is that he replaces Western with “Aam Hindustani” he used the phrase repeatedly so that the audience can make a connection with the character of Mr. India.

During the entire movie Anil Kapoor wore the same coat, hat and shoes. He looks very ordinary, innocent and nice. Western superheroes such as Superman, Spiderman look the same (when they are not in costumes).

Mr. India has a gadget. he doesn’t change costumes like superman or spiderman, neither he takes off his clothes to become invisible (as it happens in some western movies like memories of an invisible man). Shekhar knew that costume or heavy emphasizes on super heroism would make Indian audience uncomfortable. So Mr. India remains the same with or without gadget.

Arun Verma lives in a big but ordinary, ancient and not so well kept house. The orphan children in his house are dressed just like they should be, wearing ordinary clothes.

Choreography was one of the strongest aspect of the movie. The song, ‘Kaate nahi Kat tay‘ is one of the most amazingly well choregraphed songs in the history of Indian cinema, but other songs specially Kartay hain hum Pyar Mr. India say and the Medley where children ask Seema to return their football are great. The children perform not like a dancing troup but just like children. Sri Devi makes it all more fun with her facial expressions.

Mogambo the villain in the movie, has a very typical role but unlike western villains who want to take over the world Mogambo just wants to take over the India and make Indian people his personal slaves. Remember the movie was made in 1987 at that time India was not into the whole globalization thing and people of India specially the vast rural population was unaware of global issues. So Shehkar did the right thing to make Mogambo a little less ambitious. Amrish Puri has made Mogambo immortal and the most loved filmi Villian.

Dhoom 2’s director Sanjay Gadhvi says that Dhoom 2 is like Amar Akbar Anthony. He is brave enough to say:

it’s a potboiler. It’s a complete masala film. It has what Manmohan Desai used to call ‘an item’ — not to be confused with an item number!

He coined the term ‘item,’ and said one item, or highlight, had to appear every nine minutes — because a single reel of film lasts about nine minutes. When you lean back and watch the film, an item makes you sit up and take notice. So a drunk Amitabh Bachchan in front of the mirror putting band aid is an item, Amitabh and Vinod Khanna having a fight is an item, My name is Anthony Gonsalves is an item, Anhonee ko honee karde is an item, etc.

In an era when all directors want to earn them self some reputation by making remakes in a hollywoodish tone, thank God that we have some one to promise us the typical bollywood entertainment. With the huge budget, mega stars and an elite banner are all the more reasons to believe that this would be one hell of a movie. Reading Sanjay’s interview on Rediff, I could easily connect the dots and see what he will be offering us in the movie. His movie will be based on items connecting one scene to another under a smart storyline, thrilling plot and dancy item numbers.

One such item is the rumor that Aishwarya would be appearing wearing a bikni in this movie. My site’s stats and several search analytics tool reveal that since this rumor spread there is termendous increase in the volume of queries from people looking for pictures and images of Aishwarya Rai in Bikni. To spice up the sexyness you would be seeing Bipasha Basu on the beach and Rimi Sen aswell.

Other masala news is that Hrithik looks a lot more muscular in Dhoom 2 than in Krrish. The guy is so handsome and Godlike I can’t even imagine improvment in an already so hot figure.

I am not very excited about seeing any change in Abhishek’s performance in this movie neither I am hoping any improvement in Uday Chopra’s acting skills.

UPDATE: There is another Masala Item Dhoom2, it is a kissing scene between Hrithik and Aishwarya Rai. It is said that the Bachchan family is quite upset at this scene showing their soon to be daughter in law kissing on the screen. I bet it would be just no tongue sucking and eating eachother kind of kissing, it would be just a little friendly smooch. But the celever producers are making it a news so that they could create more buzz around the movie.

Read More:

Moview Preview - Dhoom 2

I can now tell you that there is not a single film maker in India capable of making an Urdu Film. Seriously, it is such a shame to watch Dutta’s Umrao Jaan when you have seen the Muzaffar Ali’s Umraoo Jaan. Even though Dutta’s Umrao Jaan had a lavish budget, Aishwarya Rai and Abhishek Bachchan but he surely does not have the capability to make a Poetic Urdu movie.

The most disgusting aspect of the movie was poetry and the Urdu accent of Aishwarya Rai and Abhishek Bachchan. It was artificial and through out the movie not a single character was able to deliver the language, culture and emotions correctly. The overacting of Aishwarya Rai made me cry at her foolish attempts to appear legendary. She is good looking there is no doubt about it but she was totally misfit in the role. I can not believe that a professional film maker would hire Annu Malik to create music for such a movie. I was surprised that JP Dutta didn’t hire any consultants to understand the literary background of the movie. I think he should have hired some writers with background in Urdu screenplay for the movie. Javed Akhter failed miserably too.

Yash Chopra made the similar mistake with Veer Zaara, totally forgetting that Urdu has a different sub culture. If you are going to make some parts of the movie representing Muslim Urdu speaking culture then you must realize that it is not even slightly similar to India’s current Muslim culture. Urdu’s poetic powers demand well balanced screenplay with just the right poetry and dialogs. You don’t need lavish sets and expansive costumes to create the environment. Just look at Muzaffar’s Umraoo Jaan, Her gharara’s had only Gota Kinari on borders while Aishwarya is wearing overly embodied outfits.

The only thing good in the movie was Shabana Azmi who did justice with her role as Khanum.

I would say that if you haven’t seen the original Umrao Jaan, then go ahead watch JP Dutta’s version. But if you have seen the original one then you are definitely going to curse JP Dutta for this humorous attempt to disgrace a classic.

Read Also:

Aishwarya Rai in and as Umrao Jaan

Review Umrao Jaan on Desicritics

There are rumors about the tension between Rani Mukherjee and Manish Malhotra. Media got the wind of it when they found that instead of Manish, Sabyasachi Mukherjee will be designing her clothes for the upcoming movie Baabul. Sabyasachi also worked with Rani in Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s critically acclaimed movie ‘Black’. So it is not the first time Rani’s not working with Manish. Media is pretty good at making stories out of nothing. This story is a classic example of creating a clickable or readable news story.

For example they totally ignore the fact that Baabul is not the first movie where Rani is not wearing costumes designed by Manish. They also totally ignore the reality that Rani Mukherjee and Manish Malhotra are both professionals, they need creative freedom to present their work. I think such loyalties are good in a way that these combinations create a genre of their own. Just look at the movies where Rani and Manish worked together and Rani looked beautiful, fresh and stylish wearing all those nice costumes. Bounding in loyalties would affect the audience mostly as they wont be seeing other combinations and other styles. Stylizing characters in movies is totally different from what we see in fashion shows. The characters in movies are going to act freely, and in Indian movies they often get over excited and emotional on little things. Actors are not models you can dress them but it would work magic only if it works out well with rest of the ingredients.

Lets see how Sabyasachi presents Rani in Baabul, what I have gathered from the web it seems that he is quite good at Birdal Saarees. So may be they have some heavily embroided Wedding costumes for Rani in Baabul. Now the question that comes to my mind is that wether Sabyasachi Mukherjee would be able to deliver something as stunning as Kajol’s bridal lehnga in Kuch Kuch Hota Hai?

Links:
Sabyasachi’s work in Lakme India Fashion Week 2004

Continuing from previous post, I would like to present you Irfan Pathan and Suresh Raina. I am not suggesting that these two great Indian Cricketers are gay. I am just surprised to find out how close these two men are and how bold they are to express their loving bond infront of camera. They have said in many interviews that they are close friends. Although hugging, touching, swimming and dancing between two male friends is not considered gayish in Indian Culture. But we never saw such affectionate display of these relationships. Considering the Indian society a rumor like this may even result into an end to their careers. May be its just me and most probably there is nothing fishy going on in the Cricket dressing rooms, but still I think that these pictures are worth sharing. Please let me know what you think.

Caribbean Adventure

Suresh Raina and Irfan Pathan had some great time swimming together in the caribbean during India’s tour of West Indies. Apparently, there were no other team members around.

Hugging and Having good time:

Hugging each other in an awkward way. Either they are too happy to notice anything or they have gone completely mad.

Personally I find this picture quite hot, where Suresh is sitting on Irfan’s knees helping him with the training session.

There is a must read article in the Sunday Express, ‘Meet the Bhaisexuals‘. Few days ago I was watching television, there was some filmi program running and we talked about just how over emotional Hindi films become. Sometimes it just becomes unbearable and people like me wants to burst into a laughter. I mean it is ok if our hero is sad and angry when his mom suddenly reveals that she is not her mother and that she picked him up from trash. But during such intense moments his mind comes out of the shock so quickly and it quickly starts compiling those great dialogues that our emotionally crippled hero would deliver with tears. Not only his mind but his body and the ability to deliver dialogues in easy Hindi both start working immidiately. They are the super beings you know.
Talking about bhaisexuals, quite many indian movies has scenes that reveal brotherly love between hero and his friends in such a way that it makes the girl blush. like two shirtless guys hugging each other or swimming in the same pole while throwing spalashes of water on each other. Or not to mention the hugging and promising to make their friendship unbreakable. I find such scenes quite hot, these gay romance like scenes turn me on like no other thing. Scenes like our innocent shy indian heroine entering the shower while hero is standing in shower wearing a knee length boxers and trying to hide his chest by wraping his arms around him. If the urban trend is going to direct how our filmi heroes maintain their relationships then I would really like to see Akshay Kumar kissing Safe Ali Khan, lips locked and in a warm waterbed.