Sridevi’s lovely crowd-pleasing English Vinglish is going to Japan [Trailer, if you don’t believe me], and for a moment there I thought they might actually super-dub it [1] but no~ Japan is getting it subbed after 3 Idiots got a nod for Best Foreign Film in the last edition of the Japanese Academy Awards. For promotions of the film, they want to use this image of her 1993 film Roop Ki Rani Choron Ka Raja:
OH~ GODDDDDDDD
And it’s serious too- like, they totally mean to promote EV with Sridevi in yellow-face without a hint of irony. I wonder what Japanese people would think other than “oh, these silly foreigners,” I don’t know who the audience for the film is in Japan, somehow I don’t picture Japanese housewives going to watch a non-Japanese non-Hollywood (ft. Depp or DiCaprio or Pitt or Cruise) flick with subtitles, but maybe I’m underestimating them.
For casual watchers of “this is Chinese/Japanese/Korean” arguments online or real life, Sridevi’s attire though wanting to be Japanese is obviously more Chinese-inspired, like Disney’s Mulan’s match-making attire wanting to be Chinese but obviously Japanese-inspired.
I’ve been binging on Madhuri Dixit clips once again because it’s her birthday! I’ve been watching her clips from Devdas multiple times just tonight- I think this is the first time I decided to search for the clips in the best resolution possible. This is the first time I catch the EROSNOW 1080 clips, so I just noticed how cleaned up the image is- like, this is the first time I’m seeing the Devdas print without the orange tint. LOL
So… if EROS has the cleaned up print in high resolution~~~ why the heck aren’t they’re releasing it on Bluray already? I’ve only seen the film once, but it looks odd without the weird coloring… like they cleaned it up and color corrected it wrong. xD Anyway, I’ve settled for a lot of Hindi DVDs already — the YRF DVDs are particularly decent — but I won’t settle for less from Sanjay Leela Bhansali. Being able to just stream the movie is not enough either!
Because look at her! She owns it, and you sorta wish SRK wasn’t overacting so much in it because he’s ruining my mood in here. And I’ve learned to love SRK, but come on!
So… I thought I was wrong [1], but now I’m not so sure.
One of my pet-peeves with Indian cinema (and Chinese… and Russian) is when some sort of dubbing is involved. The Russians, of course, are the worst offenders of that when they just slap some Russian over-dubbed without even caring if it’s a man talking over a female character. It’s not even like it’s properly dubbed, it’s just lazily slapped onto the original track without even lowering the audio.
Then the Chinese mess around with you because you got Hong Kong actors that don’t necessarily speak proper Mandarin working with Mainland actors who wouldn’t necessarily speak proper Cantonese (or at all). The result? You don’t exactly know which one is the original audio track. The way I go about it is to choose always Cantonese when film is set in Hong Kong, and go for Mandarin in most epics. Anything historical epic HK production pre-97 also gets the Cantonese favoritism. xD
India has suchhhhhh an array of languages that I’m not entirely familiar with that it would mean little to choose one language over the other, unless you’re bothered with lips syncing. Though Hindi now sounds familiar, I must admit. What bothers me is that I get accustomed to people’s voices. It seems people in India find certain voices more appealing than others, and could -in a whim- dubbed you over. One of the reasons I can’t stand Ghulam is because it bothers me that Rani’s dubbed voice doesn’t match my idea of Rani.
Tabu has done a bit of non-Hindi films, and though her acting can be epic- Telugu dubbing, man. I know and I like Tabu’s voice, and it freaks me out a little how different the dubbing voice can be. As a general dubbing rule, companies tend to go for voices that are similar to the original audio… or they go for someone with a similar flare. Not generally in Indian cinema.
All this talk is because I found a clip of Vidya Balan from Urumi, for which I complained that they probably dubbed their voices. However, in the clip, it sounds… almost like Vidya. For a very long moment I thought it was her, until I read the comments… now, I’m not sure. LOL
If it’s dubbed, it’s the best dubbed I’ve seen. It’s a Japanese super-dub!
If it’s Vidya’s voice, she apparently speaks perfect Malayalam for the movie.
You know how we love to put stars on pedestals? Often reserved and measured in interviews — except for the fact that Ang Lee told her she laughs like a school girl [1] — it was totally worth the buy of the Meenaxi DVD for the Making Of. Now we have these~
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.
Interesting interview that I think I had read back when Jai Ho premiered, but now that I’m more knowledgeable makes much more sense and it’s much more interesting.
Since you’ve played such diverse and memorable roles I’m curious to know if you could invite any five characters to dinner, who would you choose?
Nimmi (Maqbool), Mumtaz (Chandni Bar), Aditi (Astitva), Panna (Hu Tu Tu), and Veeran (Maachis).
From left to right .– Veeran, Panna, Aditi, Mumtaz, Nimmi.
I would surely agree that those are her best characters, but I’m not sure I would like to sit in a room with Nimmi, Panna or Veeran (unless that’s pre-Maachis events). I would certainly feel uneasy with Nimmi. LOL And Nimmi would definitely not get along with Panna, so the whole dinner party would end up being blown up to pieces ;P that is if Nimmi doesn’t get someone to get her first~ ha!
With my current watches, I would keep Aditi and Mumtaz, and add~~~ Sowmya (Kandukondain, Kandukondain), Kavita (Ghaath) and- I can’t pick between Ashima (The Namesake), Nina (Cheeni Kum) or Meenaxi. xD Or maybe I’ll go thematic and pick Dr. Malini (Fanaa) or Neetu (Khuda Kasam), with whom we will talk about laws, the justice and defense system.
Aditi and Mumtaz will probably enjoy the company of Ashima, Meena (Aamdani Atthanni Kharcha Rupaiya) and… Janki (Chachi 420) or Gehna (Virasat).
Also, I went on a binge Amazon purchase and got myself a bunch of Tabu movies (and other movies) as the good fan that I am with my fandoms.
I broke MindMeister a while back. Around early March actually, so I went back to FreeMind. It doesn’t look as slick, and you gotta install it… but the interface works in the most straightforward of ways. And their PNG export works really good.
Since March, there’s been a bunch of changes in the list, Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra got his own hub after a watch of Delhi 6 — which is the change that broke MindMeister. Mani Ratman also got his own hub, and a watch of Fire sprung a Deepa Meetha hub.
I’ve watched a bunch of Sridevi movies, but not a big fan of the movies themselves except for Sadma / Moondram Pirai. Also added random single titles, catching up with films as varied as Udaan (which sprung a Vikramaditya Motwane hub), Stalin, Highway, and Student of the Year (Alia Bhatt is YUCK in there), and single film additions for Aamir Khan, Shahrukh, Juhi, Madhuri, Rekha, Shabana Azmi, Seema Biswas and Tabu.
According to IMDb, it’s nearly 200 movies already.
I also bought a bunch of Indian movies. The first batch arrived yesterday with Rani Mukherji (2 titles), Vidya Balan (1), Tabu (2), Mani Ratman (1) and Sanjay Leela Bhansali (1) titles. I still wish and hope for SLB Bluray releases for everything pres-Saawariya.
Lajja has got to have to longest and best emotionally-biting monologue in pseudo parallel-would-be-commercial film in the history of Indian cinema. Pseudo parallel because subtlety isn’t exactly the film’s strongest point; it’s got some over the top drama, comedic moments, big stars, musical numbers [1], chopping of the limbs, and a super evil baddie that gets a la chancla [1] payback. Plus, a big BIG social message.
Are you kidding me? I love it. This is my second time watching, and I moaned, denounced, clapped, sang, shouted at the screen, called people names, and cheered.
I was so into Manisha Koirala’s ‘shame on you‘ monologue, I tried to make an image sequence of it. It’s impossible. It’s so long, but here’s part of it. Considering, the not so recent events in Delhi and Mumbai, Lajja is more relevant now than ever. It freaking needs a re-release, and more freaking women need to get off their bums and watch it.
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!
A lot of people don’t seem to like Abhishek Bachchan. I don’t particularly find him attractive, but I do think he can act a lot more easily, than- let’s say Hrithik Roshan, who -I think- is SUPER hot. But maybe my opinion on the both of them is biased considering the first Abhishek film I saw was Yuva, and Hrithik got stuck with K3G. Also, I haven’t seen that many Hrithik movies, but at least he was good in Guuzarish.
Obviously, I have more fun with a Shahrukh Khan/Rani pairing, but if I didn’t have to count Bunty Aur Babli (Ok, and maybe KANK), I’d put the Abhishek/Rani pairing ahead of Aamir/Rani. Rani has loads of chemistry with Shahrukh and Abhishek… especially in Yuva. They’re loving each other one moment, and exploding into serious argument the next. And the resolution to their conflict is pure serious drama, I love it.
The track Kabhi Neem Neem is pure A.R Rahman crack. According to the online dictionary, ‘neem‘ refers to a tree whose bitter bark is used as tonic.
