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Rani Mukerji Films Ranked

October 6, 2013 — 1 Comment

So tell me, is this impressive for a couple of months watching Indian films or what? I must admit, though, that I’m still not familiar enough with Hindi or any other dialect spoken in films. My level of understanding goes from having a ladki or ladka giving their dil tere liye. And I’m not even sure that’s Hindi or Urdu.

Also, though most of the films I’ve come across are subtitled, some weren’t properly sync to their video sources. I think that happened to me with Ghulam, Nayak, Yuva, Chalte Chalte and maybe Hum Tum. I can’t even remember any longer. After this, I realized I really really REALLY love Rani Mukerji on screen… say it with her voice “she’s so cute.” And her eyes are so expressive with such on screen charisma. Her dancing doesn’t seem to be at the level of ease as… let’s say- Madhuri Dixit, but she compensate with the acting.

Though her performance on Hey Ram is barely 10% of the film, I do think it deserves its spot on the Top5 Top6 of her films and everyone should watch it. It’s an amazing movie.

Fan for life!

Continue Reading…

In Celebrity, DVD/BR, English, Films, Fun, Misc., Music, Sharing, Torrents & Digital Streams , , , , , , , , , , ,
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Oh, Rani. You Got Some Funny Faces Too~

I have a weakness for funny faces [1][2][3].

rani-mukerji-nayak-real-hero-2001-001 rani-mukerji-nayak-real-hero-2001-002 rani-mukerji-nayak-real-hero-2001-003 rani-mukerji-nayak-real-hero-2001-004 rani-mukerji-nayak-real-hero-2001-005 rani-mukerji-nayak-real-hero-2001-006

Posted on September 22, 2013 In Celebrity, English, Films, Graphics, Misc., Screencaps , , , , , , ,
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The Madhuri Dixit Journey

I think this is how it’s going to go~

madhuri-dixit-filmography-watchlist

… after I’m done with Rani, of course. xD

There are A LOT of Indian movies, and each star has A LOT of films in their filmographies. This time around, I’ve taken the “most voted” films in IMDb alongside the “best rated” and added a star with personal recommendations I’ve been given to create this list. I don’t even know if I will find all these with subtitles. If I managed to watch 15 or 20 of these, I might even have a Madhuri Dixit Films Ranked list [1][2] XD

Posted on September 21, 2013 In Celebrity, English, Films, Misc., Music, Sharing , , , , , , , , , ,
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Sridevi’s Comeback at the IIFA 2013

After watching Fanaa a few weeks ago, I thought I might continue the Indian adventure with Tabu. Then, I watched Devdas — still unimpressed with Aishwarya Rai’s acting prowess and totally committed to watching Indian films because I can write hers and Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s names without googling now HUZZAH! — and was struck by Madhuri Dixit (no googling!) and her amazing “hooker with a heart of gold.” In fact, my favorite scene in Devdas is probably her dance duo with Aishwarya. And Bhansali’s films are still such a beauty to see. Sighs.

Then, when I thought I might head the Madhuri Dixit road, I watch English Vinglish and get struck by Sridevi (no google!). My first shock, of course, was realizing that I had knocked off ten years of her age right off the bat. Then while reading her wiki page (this is why it’s important to have a good Wiki page, fans), it hit me like a bucket full of cold water~

Sridevi was a successful child star, a sex symbol… and is possibly positioning herself as a MILF — my own observation here. Apparently English Vinglish was quite a hit, marking her comeback after 15 years off the screen.

I don’t think there’s ANYONE in the world of movies (or entertainment) that has been able to achieved this. I can’t think of a single actress (or maybe actor) who started out as a child, grew to be the actress made of dreams, moved on to becoming a sensible adult, apparently a great mother, and make a comeback to take all that’s “cinematically” hers.

The performance is okay (by Kpop standards, anyway), but Sridevi is totally charming in this show for the International Indian Film Academy (IIFA). I think the IIFA cameras shoot a quick reaction from Madhuri during the number, just as they showed Sridevi on Madhuri’s own performance (which rocked my socks) [1]. I could do with less Deepika reaction shots, though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqo6UtqWjqY

So… I am at a conundrum. Who should I go for first? Sridevi or Madhuri? And since both have sooooo many films, where do I start?

Posted on September 15, 2013 In Celebrity, Clips, English, Films, Fun, Misc., Sharing , , , , , , , , , , ,
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Ayumi Ito for Shanghai Love Fragrance

I remember the first time I got to watch Swallowtail Butterfly and found it interesting that Ayumi Ito spoke a couple of lines in Mandarin. Later I was surprised she was in the cast of The Go Master; it just seemed like Ayumi Ito had maybe some interest in working outside Japan. Interestingly, she’s also the one Japanese actress working in Kpop music videos [1], and I know for certain she speaks pretty good English.

Then again, Japan doesn’t seem to like its actresses trying to work in other markets [eg. Rinko Kikuchi, Koyuki xD]. I wonder if she hasn’t considered working in the US or Europe, or maybe they don’t consider her Japanese enough or hot enough. After all, US and European casting seems to be so random at times.

Anyway, while googling a photo of Ito for the previous post, I ended up running into this short film she did back in 2005 directed by someone called Nomura Yasuo (野村泰夫) titled Shanghai Lian Xiang (上海恋香) or translated to Shanghai Love Fragrance… or possibly referring to the smell of incense. The short that lasts 50ish minutes sees a Japanese young woman (I don’t think they mention her name) that arrives to Shanghai to deliver her grandmother’s ashes to the bay because she had spent the 1930s in the Japanese concession of the city. In there she met a young Chinese man and fell in love… and it’s all melancholy and sadness due to the events of the time.

[iframe height=380 width=580 src=”https://player.youku.com/embed/XNzkyMjg4NTY=” ]

There’s no much info except for this page.

Ito plays both characters of the woman and the young version of her grandmother, with dialog in different levels of Mandarin and Japanese. It gets a little confusing when you have to read Japanese for big chunks of Mandarin, and Chinese characters for most chunks of Japanese dialog xD But I think you get the point across.

You gotta get your Ayumi Ito fix any way you can.

There’s also a song that plays throughout~

春天来了树发芽
冬天来了飘雪花
你等的人等来了吗
我还在等我还在等
我还在等他
千山越过到你家
万水越过到我的家
你找的人找到了吗
我在寻找我在寻找
我在寻找他
夏天来了花儿美
秋天到了云追月
你等的人等来了吗
我还在等我还在等
我还在等他

Posted on September 4, 2013 In Celebrity, Chinese, English, Films, Japanese, Sharing, Short Films , , , , , , ,
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Let the Drum Beat Roll – Dholi Taro Dhol Baaje

This is my first (proper) Aishwarya Rai movie, and though I wasn’t blown away or bothered by her acting (maybe yet); Sanjay Leela Bhansali more than over-compensates for his direction. While watching Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, I just kept thinking “this has got to be the most artistic movie to ever have a fart joke in.” It’s a pretty gorgeous movie to watch.

While watching the performance for Dholi Taro Dhol Baaje [lyrics + translation], my brain just went “OMG, this is a beautiful sequence.” Then again, so was my reaction while watching Black. And so it was with Khamoshi: The Musical. Can you tell I’ve been taken by his directing?

And the music in this was awesome. Is it really true that they spent two years working on it? Coz with IMDb, you never really know these things for sure.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VBAGMkTjTs

Think this already deserves an India tag.

I just checked Amazon (and other online sources), and there doesn’t seem to be HD releases of his movies, though. It pains me so much.

Posted on August 28, 2013 In Clips, DVD/BR, English, Films, Fun, Jobs, Misc., Music, Sharing , , , , , , , ,
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There, There, Rena Nounen

*pats, pats*

there-there-rena-nounen

I really need to make time to watch Rena Nounen and have a clear opinion on her, instead of clouding it with Ama-chan.

Posted on August 25, 2013 In Celebrity, English, Fun, Japanese, Screencaps, Sharing, Television , , , , , , , ,
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Top Flicks About Chicks

August 18, 2013 — Leave a comment

I really can’t remember exactly when I started out the Top Flicks About Chicks list on MUBI, but it must have been around the same time I wrote how Chick Flicks was a doomed genre in regards of critics. So it might be almost 4 years… and I’ve finally reached 300 titles in the list!!!

A Chick Flick should center on little girls, girls, young women and women… as students, as neighbors, as friends, as daughters, as granddaughters, as sisters, as mothers, as lovers. They are simply women. With that alone, we can tell all sort of other stories that have little to do with romantic comedies.

The purpose of the list, of course, was to encompass an array of female character — not only in the binary sense, since the list also includes men/boys who identify as women/girls… and viceversa — of various cultural, ethnic, social backgrounds. Not favoring one genre over the other, not valuing dramas over comedies… just simple stories about different women.

Though I’m sure the list could be longer, that’s 300 feature length films out of the 2896 (counting shorts) currently rated on the site- that’s roughly 10% so I suppose the list could expand to up to 500 or maybe 1000 once I reach 5000 or 10000 rated films on the site.

top-flicks-about-chicks

1. Treeless Mountain 2. Welcome to the Dollhouse 3. Juliana 4. Labyrinth 5. Fuckin’ Amal 6. Mirrormask 7. Gun Hill Road 8. Pariah 9. Bend it like Beckham 10. Swing Girls 11. The Land of the Deaf 12. Sunny 13. Whip It 14. Stoker 15. Maria Full of Grace 16. Breaking the Waves 17. My Marlon and Brando 18. 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days 19. Dil Bole Hadippa! 20. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo 21. Kotoko 22. Violeta Went to Heaven 23. Skin 24. Raise the Red Lantern 25. Incendies

I picked 25 of the 300 films to illustrate some of the variety (I hope it’s AS varied as I intend the list to be), though I ran out of picks and couldn’t include any of the ‘older’ female characters. If I could pick 5 more, they’d be: Lemon Tree, Frozen River, Late Bloomers, Mother, For 80 Days.

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Bhangra Bistar – Dil Bole Hadippa

When women play tomboy girls or girls who have to pretend to be boys on screen is hardly believable, mainly because mainstream actresses are normally TOO pretty and productions wouldn’t bump the masculinity to make them look less like girls — at least that USED to happen in a film like Queen Christina (and Morocco, though I don’t think Marlene Dietrich intends to play tomboy as much as play Dietrich on that) [1].

Actresses like Bynes in She’s the Man [1] didn’t exactly hit the mark, though it could come close to Ella Chen’s level in Hana Kimi [1]. However, the other adaptations of the same manga series- the Japanese version of Hana Kimi with Horikita Maki [1] or the most recent Korean version To the Beautiful You with f(x)’s Sulli [1] suffer from similar problems. Same could be said for Zhao Wei- maybe I could overlook her role in Red Cliff [1][2], but I definitely CAN’T overlook her prettyfied self in Mulan [1].

In general, though, Taiwan and China leave me very surprised with the gender-bending… intended or unintended. It’s countless the times that I’ve asked myself whether I was seeing or listening to a boy or a girl. It doesn’t help that most names (without characters) look very gender-neutral.

ANYWAY, I’ve gone way off topic here. The main thing in this post is supposed to be Rani Mukerji, whom I saw for the very first time in Dil Bole Hadippa. Though it’s a pretty decent film, I’ve come to appreciate it more now for Rani- especially for her mannerisms in the Bhangra Bistar number. Though the number is before she gets to pretend to be a guy, her character works as a performer at a moving acting troop, with the lack of a leading man… she’s made to play the part.

And she does it perfectly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzYq_m8iG9k

I usually very hard to please on these issues, but Mukerji sells me the role of ‘the dude’ in this one. She pulls it off better than Ella or Bynes, though all of them get to be funny while doing so.

You can even see a bit of the shooting of this part of the film [1].

There’s also an official upload, but quality is not as good and they only include the musical numbers without context.

Posted on August 13, 2013 In Celebrity, Clips, English, Films, Misc., Music, Sharing , , , , , , , , , ,
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The Event, Sobytie

This is one of the last movies I saw with Chulpan Khamatova in — titled The Event or Sobytie (Событие), it’s supposed to be a stage play or something by Vladmir Nabokov, but somehow it’s dramatically shot by Andrey Eshpay, who has directed Khamatova in Deti Arbata (Дети Арбата, aka. Children of the Arbat… or The Children of Arbat Street) as well as Mnogotochie (Многоточие, Ellipsis).

I haven’t been able to watch all of Deti Arbata because it’s got no subtitles AT ALL, but the first episode seemed kinda good. Mnogotochie is supposed to be good, but it’s also sans-subtitles and I fell asleep. Also, Khamatova doesn’t play such a big role in that film, so maybe my bias made it possible for me to sit through Sobytie and enjoy it A LOT with or without subtitles.

It’s a really quite gorgeous piece of cinematic theatricality.

On the split YouTube uploads, it’s not as evident… but you could try to see for yourself. It’s dramatic as Russian theater can only seem to be, and Khamatova sports some very drastic style that actually… suits her really great!

I have a thing for Khamatova’s hair style changes for roles. It’s crazy, she’s nuts. I’ve never seen anyone sport the hair she’s sport in the history of the worldwide arts EVER. She really REALLY must love her characters. xD

If any Russian-knowing kind person stumbles upon this post, would anyone care to help me work out subtitles for it? You guys, where do you hang out for subtitles? So many films left without subtitles!

Posted on August 9, 2013 In Celebrity, Clips, English, Films, Russian, Sharing, Torrents & Digital Streams , , , , , ,
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