{"id":6060,"date":"2009-12-28T12:32:35","date_gmt":"2009-12-28T17:32:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com?p=6060"},"modified":"2009-12-28T12:48:07","modified_gmt":"2009-12-28T17:48:07","slug":"bollywood_break","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/2009\/12\/28\/bollywood_break\/","title":{"rendered":"Bollywood Breakdown"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Merry Christmas readers! Err sorry, Ennis. Happy Holidays lovely readers! I hope you were able to enjoy this break with friends and family. As for myself, I&#8217;m still not done making lists. No, not Christmas presents. That headache is over and I have the paper cuts to prove it.  I&#8217;m referring to the lists I made this past semester &#8211; lists of books, movies, and TV shows I intended to catch up on during December\/January.  One of those is a list of Bollywood movies I&#8217;ve been hoping to watch in the next few weeks. (See <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sepiamutiny.com\/sepia\/archives\/005966.html\">Boston mutineers<\/a>, I promised you a Bollywood post. Here it is.) I came up with a rough compilation of movies I hope to see these next few weeks and I&#8217;m selfishly hoping you can help me hone it. Because if you&#8217;re going to spend three hours watching a movie, it had better be worth it!<\/p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>\n<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=xvszmNXdM4w\">3 Idiots<\/a><\/strong> was released Christmas Day, and from what I can tell via reactions on Twitter, it&#8217;s already got fans. Based on the novel <em>Five Point Someone<\/em> by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sepiamutiny.com\/sepia\/archives\/005111.html\">Chetan Bhagat<\/a> and directed by Raju Hiran, the movie stars Aamir Khan, R. Madhavan and Sharman Joshi as three engineering students at one of Indian&#8217;s top colleges. Plot-wise, there are the usual college-boy hijinks and romances. (By the way, the film will be available <a href=\"http:\/\/dearcinema.com\/news\/3-idiots-release-youtube-3-months\">three months from now on YouTube<\/a>, ostensibly to discourage piracy.) There&#8217;s no particular reason I want to watch this film. I&#8217;m not a huge <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/chetan_Bhagat\">Bhagat<\/a> fan, but I figure I can&#8217;t go wrong with any movie Aamir Khan chooses to act in&#8230;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n<p><!--more-->\n &#8211; \nI first read about Rocket Singh: Salesmen of the Year when it was reviewed in <em>The<\/em> <em>New York Times<\/em>.  The film, which is directed by Shimit Amin, stars Ranbir Kapoor (swoons) as computer salesman Harpreet Singh and was released December 11. In Rocket Singh, our hero faces down a villainous boss and emerges (we hope) triumphant with his integrity intact. Personally, I have no problem with filmie songs, but I know some of you moan and groan every time one of those comes on. If so, this movie is for you. (Confession, I&#8217;ve been rooting for Kapoor since <em>Saawariya<\/em>.)<\/p>\n\n<blockquote>\n  <p>Mr. Amin, who directed the delightful &#8220;Chak De! India,&#8221; about a girls&#8217; field hockey team, dispenses with Bollywood&#8217;s normal tangle of subplots and mashup of genres. There&#8217;s music, but no big production numbers. Even romance is back-burnered. Instead, Mr. Amin sticks to the story at hand.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p>[<a href=\"http:\/\/movies.nytimes.com\/2009\/12\/15\/movies\/15rocket.html?em\">Link<\/a>.]<\/p>\n\n<p><object width=\"560\" height=\"340\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/MHsLll6XYBs&#038;hl=en_US&#038;fs=1&#038;\"><\/param><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\"><\/param><param name=\"allowscriptaccess\" value=\"always\"><\/param><embed src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/MHsLll6XYBs&#038;hl=en_US&#038;fs=1&#038;\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" allowscriptaccess=\"always\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" width=\"560\" height=\"340\"><\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=CXAoWw5eClQ\"><strong>Paa<\/strong><\/a> came out December 4 and stars Amitabh Bachchan as Auro, a 12-year old boy living with a rare genetic defect that causes him to age prematurely. (Think Robin Williams in <em>Jack<\/em>, I suppose.) Directed by, R. Balakrishnan. Paa also includes the younger Bachchan, Abhishek, as Auro&#8217;s father. Hmm, so the actors, who in real life are father-son reverse their roles for the film? I know what you&#8217;re thinking, &#8220;Why, PG? Why? Spare yourself the melodrama.&#8221; I suppose it&#8217;s the rubberneck appeal that comes with watching Abhishek haul Amitabh around the place that compels me to rent this movie. I&#8217;m curious to see whether or not their acting chops can weather this hokey shtick. Dishoom.<\/p>\n\n<p>I was hoping to also watch some Bollywood films that are more ABD-focused, but besides <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=_uNDm6YfN2k\">My Name is Khan<\/a><\/strong>, starring Shahrukh Khan and Kajol, which will be released February 10, 2010, I couldn&#8217;t find anything recent. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sepiamutiny.com\/sepia\/archives\/005891.html\">As you&#8217;ll recall<\/a>, the movie centers around Khan, who plays an American Muslim with autism whose life is thrown into turmoil after 9\/11. (On a side note, if anyone knows when <a href=\"http:\/\/citypaper.net\/blogs\/criticalmass\/2009\/10\/08\/bollywood-film-shoot-hits-fishtown\/\"><strong>Right Hand Man<\/strong><\/a>, starring Shahid Kapoor as an Indian man who becomes disillusioned by the American dream and which was filmed in Philadelphia, is released, do tell!)<\/p>\n\n<p>So mutineers, have you seen any of these? Hated them? Loved them? Anything else you suggest I watch?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Merry Christmas readers! Err sorry, Ennis. Happy Holidays lovely readers! I hope you were able to enjoy this break with friends and family. As for myself, I&#8217;m still not done making lists. No, not Christmas presents. That headache is over &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/2009\/12\/28\/bollywood_break\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5,12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6060"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6060"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6060\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}