Archives For fandom

I’m really really sad that the synopsis for Har Dil Jo Pyaar Karega sounds boring, and it’s got two girls vying over Salman’s affection, because you got the cutest smiles in early 2000s Bollywood and they didn’t make a girly friendship movie.

I NEED girly friendship movies that aren’t necessarily about boys, and Japan is disappointing me lately. I admit it, though, the video for Piya Piya O Piya is pretty cringe-worthy for the first three minutes of the clip, but if you make it, you’ll find the dorkiest and cutest Rani and Preity having silly pajama parties.

Last time I had this much girly fun was with Sunny [1], and that was nearly 3 years ago!

Ok, I admit I’ve been getting a bit crazed over Madhuri and Juhi over the past couple of days, and I was reading a double interview they both did for the promotion of Gulaab Gang, with the whole talk on female-centric films et all. I just thought: Joan Crawford.

We need a Joan Crawford revival, yo!

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Since Madhuri wouldn’t mind doing a musical, I propose a re-imagining of Torch Song for her. Coz, duh! Just switch the Broadway musical star to Bollywood, and you got yourself a Madhuri vehicle right there. You only need to avoid the blackface scene (lol!), develop better the relationship with Michael Wilding’s character, and add a demanding choreography a la boastful excess Bollywood style. I’ll need to re-watch it to figure out the whats and hows.

How about Autumn Leaves and Queen Bee as alternative?

Or a re-imagining of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? with Juhi as Baby Jane! LOL! I LOVE IT! Now that I’ve seen her doing the evil smirk politician, I wanna see her in a Bette Davis grotesque role. That’ll really stretch her acting. I dunno how the rat scene will fly in India, though.

On March 20th, 2004, I watched Good Bye, Lenin! Though my rekindling didn’t happen until last year, I feel it’s somewhat an important day. Plus, I had my Vancouver ticket, so why not? I didn’t prepare anything special, though I was thinking of re-watching the movie. Turns out I’m kinda movie-busy until the end of the month, so I doubt I can re-watch anything.

But I went image web-hunting :)

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I was wondering about my rather quick faded interest in Min Hyorin, and just found out she just signed a new contract with JYP [1]. I hope that doesn’t mean less interest in movies and more focus in music, because- Buah~ wasted potential there, because look:

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New movie alert with Kenichi Matsuyama and Etsushi Toyokawa. Sakura Ando also supposedly appears in the film.

This is what ‘being obsessed’ with someone for a few years means, right? Noticing and nitpicking the little details normal people don’t pick up. I’m always eager to hear of new Yu Aoi movies and projects, even if I’m not as enthusiastic as before. I do get a kick whenever I see her act and she does her best smile making my day.

During my second watch, eager to watch that smile again, I noticed something…
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So I did it~

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I did my fictional dream cast for my remake of Mildred Pierce set in contemporary India. Right now, just after re-watching Mildred Pierce, I feel it’s perfect. I love it.
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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.

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Click on the image for the large version.

This has just showed up online. A super squishable Chulpan Khamatova, plus two other pictures from her childhood that were all feature on a short interview (I’m not sure what it is), which you can view on Lenta.ru — There’s an alternative Vimeo link, but it’s taken from the source.

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Gulaab Gang is set to open next week (and I’m jealous of you), so they’re heavy on their online promotion. I don’t know how heavy the promotion in India (posters, billboards, tv ads, etc) actually is, but I supposed the production is hoping for a decent opening overseas in the limited regions (I suppose).

Besides the Koffee with Karan epi [1] — from which I ended up reading a bit more on Juhi — Madhuri Dixit has turned up in this YouTuber’s channel- known as Superwoman — in an episode titled What Bollywood Has Taught Me. It’s funny business if you know all the references, of course.

They’ve also been posting Behind the Scenes clips [1], as well as the mandatory Jukebox [1]. And of course, I just spoiled myself with the Juhi clip. It’s sorta been my way of watching Indian films, just go blind and be surprised. That’s one of the reasons I didn’t like Mr. India because I was all spoiled with the best bits featuring Sridevi.

Anyway, the clip made me wonder about the perception of anti-heroes and ‘bad guys’ on India films, and how that may have affected Juhi’s decision to play a negative role. I’ve also watched Kareena Kapoor’s Heroine which made me shrug at how sucky it is to be a heroine (anywhere in the world). In terms of acting, it feels like the filmmakers had a bit more confidence in Juhi’s abilities and charisma to play a bad guy. In the end, she seemed to have had fun.

I hope the film is good business.

Normally… normally I wouldn’t turn down the opportunity to watch Vidya Balan and Tabu (together!) on a film, which is the case with Urumi (English complete title~ Urumi: The Warriors Who Wanted to Kill Vasco da Gama), but I just can’t shake the feeling that it’s gonna be more than two hours of cringe-worthy cartoon ‘demon-white’ colonialist with random musical numbers. I could maybe take it for two hours sans musical numbers and loads of pumping action fight sequences.

You can try it out even without subs.

Plus, it’s a Malayaman film, so I bet they’ve got their voices dubbed. As an alternative, I found their item songs. Though I’m unsure if Vidya has a more extensive role in the film, Tabu’s credit on IMDb lists it as a special appearance.

The original track song is called Aaranne Aaranne [clip], but the Telugu dub upload is much better for obvious quality reasons.

Vidya’s number after the break~

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