Considering the amount of non-filmi background, it’s rare to run into much material surrounding Nimrat Kaur, who was so fantastic in The Lunchbox. This is a photoshoot by Bikramjit Bose for MW Magazine during the release of the movie.
I hope she gets to do more films, at least one a year, because with that weird Bollywood casting directors, you never know. uh huh~
Let’s give a warm welcome to child actress Hamada Kokone (濱田ここね, with English transliteration of her name “Cocone”) — I wonder if I can call her Coco-chan xD~ ANYWAY, debuting in film Oshin, she just rode the film like a pro.
According to her profile, Coco likes sea grapes (haha, with Latin name “Coccoloba uvifera,” get it?), plums, dried herring roe, Chicken nanban and Thai food. She also likes 2NE1, Lady Gaga, Cyndi Lauper, Carly Rae Jepsen and Big Bang. Like a boss~
She can also pull at your heart strings and make you cry when she’s trying to make it through her character’s life.
The mindmeister movie journey has sprung several arms and legs, probably a few dozen fangs and a few couple of eyes. Since the beginning of the year [1], I’ve watched some 56 Indian films.
New additions? Farah Khan has her own hub, and Mira Nair has shown up there, as did M.F. Husain. Lootera sprung Ranveer Singh and Sonakshi Sinha, and Ranveer sprung Anushka Sharma and Parineeti Chopra. Luck by Chance sprung Farhan Akhtar and Madhur Bhandarkar finally got his hub. Major new film additions to Kamal Hassan, Sridevi (GOSH, Sadma/Moondram Pirai), and Shabana Azmi.
Click on the image for the large version.
I also made a [nomination] list of all my favorite foreign things of the last decade. If I had included all movies, general suspects would have applied (eg. Children of Men, Dancer in the Dark), but still remains a very ME list. I hope you like the selection, and don’t hesitate in suggesting films to watch.
Two weeks before the end of the year, I was already done watching all the Rani Mukerji movies I could get my hands on [1], and by Christmas I had already devoured about ten movies with Tabu [1], casting her in my Joan Crawford Indian re-adaptations. So I’m pretty much done watching Tabu’s main basic filmography. I might have two or three more that I want to watch (Prem, Border and Khudam Kasam) that I’ve been able to locate with subtitles, while Kala Pani I haven’t been able to find in a subbed version.
Her alongside Rani and Vidya Balan are my current top contemporary Indian actresses. I wish the first two were as eager to get lead vehicles (nowadays) instead of supporting… like Tabu in the last decade! Be it a lead or supporting role, though, Tabu remains interesting and slightly girl-empowering.Ghaath and Hu Tu Tu (and to a degree: Aamdani Atthani Kharcha Rupaiyaa) had Tabu in a tux or sporting a short hair with a tomboy-ish attitude, urging people to be revolutionaries (or terrorists, depending on your POV), and doing all those sneaky subtly sex scenes in things like Maqbool (to a degree -though not hidden- in The Namesake), Ghaath, and definitely Astitva.
I was amazed at how consistently good she was even in poor vehicles like Hawa or Silsiilay. She’s also a straight-forward no bullshit kind of person. Even if you give her the best role to fit her schedule, if she doesn’t like you, she won’t work with you. That means she’ll probably never agree for a Lars Von Trier movie, and that Ang Lee is the best.
Also, there are two new Tabu movies coming up~ Jai Ho with Salman seems like it can be crap because Stalin (the Telugu movie it’s a remake of) was so, and I’m completely unable to stand Salman Khan except for Maine Pyar Kiya. Then there’s Haider by Vishal Bhardwaj, so that’s -at least- some kind of relief. That has got to be somewhat interesting, even if it turns out not superb.
*Updated Apr’16*
For the past week or so, I got into my Tabu movie journey and while watching Hawa, there was a particular shot that just struck me like a lightning bolt (pun!) and reminded me of Joan Crawford.
It’s a strong eyebrow thing (I have going on). Plus, Tabu’s got a nose with character (and the character to back it up). With her acting chops, she could totally pull off- let’s just skip The Women, coz I can’t picture a catty Indian version of that and just go straight into Crawford’s 40s- A Woman’s Face (or its En Kvinnas Ansikte version), Mildred Pierce (of course, I would love that), Humoresque, Possessed (1947), Daisy Kenyon, Flamingo Road, and The Damned Don’t Cry. Tabu is also at the perfect age.
The only thing about her that’s off is that… she doesn’t have the hunger for fame and power that I sense from Crawford.
Possessed and Mildred Pierce in contemporary Indian are topping my list.
I haven’t worked with mind maps since my school days were over. I remember I used to work with FreeMind, but it’s been so long since then that I wondered whether there were any good web-based mind-mapping applications around today. I found two slightly different ones that I tested working on a mind map of my Indian Movie-watching Journey [1].
First, there was MindMeister, which worked the most similar to FreeMind. The free version seems to be bare, it doesn’t allow you to save styles (for formatting) or setup your share options — smart~ — it just goes from ‘private’ to ‘public’ … or you have to invite people, which should work for most. But it works and it lets you save your work, export in different sizes and formats, so it’s all good.
Ever since I saw Madhuri Dixit on Devdas, I was fascinated with her eyebrows because… well, BECAUSE!
Can you do that? HAVE YOU TRIED TO PULL THAT OFF? That’s a talent right there. And it seems to be her thing. I mean, I can move my eyebrows alright- one up and up the other goes, but it looks more like a look of mad confusion than the actual ease with which she uses.
Here~
You know how everyone EVERYONE likes to point out Aishwarya Rai was Miss World and ALWAYS point out she was at one point the most beautiful in the world. It irks me, because you get to see Devdas and see the most stunning amazingness.
And she’s overlooked by us (non-indian audience).
I mean, it does help that she’s gorgeously dressed and accessorized. And Madhuri Dixit has such charisma while talking or performing — not her dance numbers on film — but live or pre-recorded presentations. I haven’t gotten around to watching HER starring filmography just yet, but I literally spent a couple of hours browsing through her videos on YouTube.
I loved her throwing in some Michael Jackson movements, and she gave me some Flashdance vibe at some point, but she does have such ease to entertain and enjoy herself on stage. It makes the experience of watching her such a pleasure. I really can’t wait to get to her filmography.
Any day now.
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!
