Good boy bad boy.

Other bloggers have been blogging about good guys versus bad guys and most of seem to be in favor of the good one. I don’t mind the good ones but when it comes to movies the bad guys just seem more interesting, they are sort of more complete in their range of emotions. You know that whole “even if I am bad I’m nice to the ones I love” where as the good guy he’s just sort of dull….

The good guy characters I really don’t like are Anil in Beta, Nana Patekar in Yugpurush and big B in Sooryavansham. The bad guys I like are Sallu in wanted and John Abraham in Karam.
There are of course bad guys I don’t like as well. Amrish Puri is a great actor and he is a great villain but you can’t really find any positive sides to him, he is just good at being evil in nearly all of his movies.
What bugs me about the oh so good guys is that the women they act against are so very motherly in their love towards them and that kind of creeps me out.

In Beta Anil plays a “man” who is absolutely blind when it comes to his stepmother and his wife has to work against maa behind his back-to weak! In Yugpurush Nana has just been released after 25 years in a mental asylum but he still has fits of insanity but in spite of that the two main actresses both fall for his nauseating kind hart. When it comes to Amit in sooryavansham there are some redeeming qualities, after his marriage the whole “love of a good woman” thing makes him grow up and become a man. But there is a scene in that movie where he, a 55 year- old man (he plays younger), are being fed by his mother and it isn’t one of those bless you pooja kinds of feedings, it’s a whole meal- because mummy loves her big boy!!

The instant I think bad guy and Bwood I think of srk in Don. But I don’t think you can use him as an example of a bad guy, because he is SRK the definition of HOT.



Even when he’s totally insane (Darr) or evil (Don) he is just quality bedroom fantasy fabulous ...

In wanted Sallu is on a mission to kill bad guys and save the damsel in distress. And his “I’m gonna kill everyone in spite of the law” attitude is kind of attractive-and I don’t even like Sallu! Gotta admit I found the movie more of a comedy than an action drama mainly due to the toothpaste romance and the burning the shirt of his body scenes.
In Karam John plays a hit man who suddenly develops a conscience being all improved because of his pregnant wife. The appeal is obvious… right?

So good versus bad – When it comes to movies I go for the bad guy but not too bad, just bad enough to be interesting:)

Vacation

Happy Happy me.
I have just bought a plane ticket to Mumbai and are planing to bum around the south for 6 weeks. I love my long vacations.

Standing on a box

In Hyde park there is a corner reserved for people who wants to speak. They stand on a soapbox and share whatever they are passionate about and I guess B-Town has adopted that idea (or maybe it's vice versa-don't know who came first).

I have never really noticed it before but the shorter of the females in Bollywood has a tendency to stand on a box when they are passionate about something - usually a guy!

I first really noticed this in AAja Nachle because the "ups and downs" of Konkona are so obvious.

Can't dance on a box

But you can be passionate

I must have seen it before because there has been a lot written about how Rani and Abhi is not a good on screen couple due to height difference. I think I need to watch Bunty aur Babli, yuva and Laga chuneri mein daag again. Now that's an awesome excuse to re-watch favorites - as if I needed one!

My name is Khan

Being a teacher is hard work but it also have some perks. Every now and then the kids get vacations and even though teachers are suppose to work preparing lessons, the flexible schedule means we can work extra hard before and after and such allow ourselves a vacation as well.
Shukran Allah for that because this winter it allowed me to go to NY.
I'm in the red money wise thanks to that trip, NY is so cheap compared to DK. But it was worth it. I got to see MNIK on the big screen - happy happy me!

I read blogpeople's reviews of the movie and they are surprisingly negative. Or maybe not surprisingly, it's just that I don't think I watch movies in the same way as many other people do.
Movies are for entertainment purpose only and even the crappiest of movies are entertaining (not that MNIK is a crappy movie). Instead of being ticked off at the ignorant portrayal of USA I found it hilarious to watch KJ version of an African American community in the south. The flood had me rolling on the floor laughing, the entertainment value of those scenes scored a 12 on my tickle bone list!
I'm sure it wasn't KJ's intention to be funny but I can watch a movie anyway I want, regardless of the directors agenda and if I want thought provoking facts I read news papers.
I do not take movies seriously. And hence there are no bad movies in my book!!!

Of course I'm not so foolish as to think that movies can't affect peoples views on things but I hope/believe I'm educated enough to know the difference between fact and fiction and always when in doubt DO RESEARCH! If only everyone was like me (irony, sarcasm and satire does not translate well in writing).
Should ignorant/uneducated people be banned from watching movies? is it to dangerous? will they take anything literally? Now there is a whole new blog topic to explore!

Not really relevant to MNIK:
When in NY I met a guy who had heard that DK was the happiest country in the world. I have heard that before and I have read the research behind the statement and according to that happy in general means healthy, wealthy and educated. The research fail to mention that DK is on the bad end of the list when it comes to suicide. So what is happy? and a worldwide search involving 80,000 people is that enough to measure happiness?

I liked the NY-waley very much because instead of just taking the statement for a fact he was interested in the whys and I like people who ask questions instead of expressing absolutes (this sentence work in danish not sure if it works in English).

Veracious (sotheydance.blogspot.com)

"It's always weird to learn through movies. Not in the sense that you think whatever a movie portrays is reality, but to be inspired to find out what actually happened and what the movie did differently, or what circumstances made the movie as it is"

She has written an entry, that made me think, it is not what we know that is important, it is the awareness of what we don't know that is important.

or as Richard Cecil puts it "The first step towards knowledge is to know that we are ignorant".

Wow that was a long one I need a nap now, still suffering from jet-lag.

six degrees of separation.

In Parineeta Vidya puts a gold chain around Saif's neck and boom they are married, in Mujhse dosti karoge Hritik drops sindoor on Rani and dhoom like music starts and in Hadh kar di aapne Govinda starts a fire walks around it with Rani and oops they are married.

And since it is so easy to get married in the eyes of Bhagvan how do they cope with all these marriages in real life? Bollywood must be the the most polygamist "sect" in the world:)
It gave me the idea of making a giant "six degrees of separation" map kindly inspired by The L word. But I also realized that I'm to busy/lazy to do so - No blog homework for me thank you!

India (in theory-bjp: damn the orange extremists of that group) welcomes all religions there is law making concerning each faith. The one particular law I'm thinking about is the one that allowed Dharmendra and Hema to get married.
D was/is a Hindu and a married one at that, he fell in love with Hema, wanted to get a divorce and marry her but his wife wouldn't divorce him. His solution was to become a Muslim and marry Hema anyway because according to Indian law Hindus can have one wife but Muslims can have four. Interesting concept na?

But how do they deal with on screen marriages? don't they care about the easiness with witch they can get married, are they secularised in their thinking or do they say a couple of sorry mantras and hence annul the marriages?

I have no solution, I'm just thinking out loud!

after thinking!

I have been doing a lot of thinking!
It started out as thinking about the paradox of the mangal sutra and the sindoor and it ended up revolving around homework.
Being a teacher I have a lot of homework and I really don't need any more.
And while thinking this blog entered the dreaded box of homework in my head. I blog because I want to rant about whatever is in my head not because I want to add to my already busy life, by doing research, finding screen caps and movie clips. I am to busy/lazy to do such things.
Therefore this blog is about what is already tumbling about in my brain. Keeping up with the Jones' in blogland is not for me!

Induna

Thank you very much you stupid computer I just spend 100$ on DVD's.
This blogging seems to be way more expensive than I expected. People everywhere is ranting about some movie you just have to see and at the same time they are telling you where to get it. That sucks I have no money but still I couldn't stay away from Induna.com and now 14 Hindi movies are coming my way.
At least it will be proper DVD's and not some dubious DVD bought on the street in India, just to find out that the subtitles are half of what they should be and that they are 2minutes behind the movie.
But still, it is nice to buy a DVD for less than 1$ and hope, pray and look forward to seeing it in the cold winter months when back from vacationing. Man Do I look forward to spending another garam garam summer in India.
Speaking of summer holiday- Where should I go this time? Duh India of course but where?

Hindi movies in my house

After procrastinating doing nothing but surfing around staring at other peoples blogs, I have found out that I'm not as well versed in Bollywood movies as I would like to. There is a very sad explanation for this; Nothing but the very latest is available in this Hindi backwards country of mine. I have to drive far and long to even find a shop (thank you my Paki grocer friend) that has any movies and I haven't really found any recomendations for good oldies or niche productions to buy online,.
So my collection may be big in numbers but not very versatile it consist more or less of anything made in the past five years with headline names.
Many thanks to the Bolly-Tolly-Sandal-Kollywood fans that blog, now I know where to go, to get info and where to buy.