Jaan-E-Mann. Quite late. I know.

I´m cleaning up my drafts list once again, and found a post that I started writing over 6 months ago. I guess that everybody has seen J-e-M by now, but if you resisted so far, maybe this piece can convince you to finally give it a chance.

When I was a little kid, my favorite picture books where books of the kind like the "Where´s Waldo?" series. I could sit for hours and look at one page and still find some new details and invent stories about the drawn characters.









Jaan-E-Mann is the grown up, moving pictures version of a "Where´s Waldo" book. The first time I watched the movie was last year´s Diwali and I liked it somehow but could not quite make up my mind about it. I decided to wait for the DVD release and give it another go. And I was right. Jaan-E-Mann is a movie that needs to be watched at least a second time. Every time I watched it since I found some new totally crazy details.









Sirish Kunder doesn´t offer a very new or exciting story. Sirf woh purani kahani about ek ladki aur do ladke. Here boy no.1 is Suuuperstar Salman Khan, the ex-husband of former college beauty Preity Zinta. Since the Suuuperstar thingy does not quite work the way he planned it, he has trouble coming up with the alimony Preity´s lawyer demand.









Luckly former college geek now astronaut Ahkhay Kumar shows up on the search for his college dream girl Preity and Salman and his chachu Anupam Kher come up with the idea of marrying off Akshay to Preity to get rid of the alimony demands. Kahani khatm? Naah, there´s a bit more. Former geek still has a problem with "tha´ ladies" so Suuuperstar and Chachu decide to send Salman along with Geek to New York to play a little "Cyrano" and make sure the fixing up works out. So far - so hilarious and there are, from a totally girly point of view, I have to confess, pretty convincing moves our man Salman comes up with.









The bad thing about Jaan-E-Mann: You clearly see that this is the director´s debut movie. He goes overboard on style-over-substance at times. He doesn´t manage a narration that is fluid throughout the film. After a totally hyper first half, the more conventional narrational path he takes in the second part feels almost a bit slow.









The good thing about Jaan-E-Mann: It´s the directors debut movie. He goes overboard with some of his ideas, visuals and his editing. He actually caters a devil may care attitude about many of his visual ideas, especially in the first half, that one seldom finds with more experienced directors. And that is what I loved about Jaan-E-Mann.

Oh and after watching OSO I can now clearly state that Farah and Sirish are a match made in heaven. May their combined insanity live long and prosper.

Bhool Bhulayiaa. Strangely attracted.

I had a ball watching Chandramukhi a while back. Rajni Superstar rulez. No discussions about that.

Now the Hindi remake will come out on October 12th. With Akshay Kumar in Rajnikanth´s role as the a tiny bit wacko psychiatrist. Directed by Priyadarshan.
Hmm. If you just read those last two sentences, its nothing to get that much excited. Especially if you know that at first AB 1.0 was in talks to play that role.

But.

1) Due to Akshay´s almost monopolistic presence in Hindi films in the Indian cinema history here in Vienna during the last 3 years, I somehow grew rather fond of him. Sharp tongues might say I got brainwashed. But I really do like Akshay in comedies. Such hai.














2) The story has enough potential to make for an delightfully entertaining evening. Pyaar. Suspense. Masti. Probably crazy stunts and SpecialFX. Spicy enough for a well rounded Masala fair.

3) Vidya Balan. Finally in a more traditional get up again. In Jyotika´s role from Chandramukhi. Maybe that will make me forget her Heyy Babyy performance.

4) The soundtrack rocks. Love the title track. And Akshay´s swami get up.

Still there are some risky points.

Amisha Patel. No comment. Shiney Ahuja. He has yet to repeat his great performance from Hazaron Khwaishein Aisi, hai naa? Don´t have much hope for it here too. Bhool Bhulayia is a Priyadarshan comedy. And it has been a while since he delivered too..














So all in all, you can count me in for a first day show. If only for Akshay and Vidya in the climax dance.

Keemat - hehe *giggle*

I´ve been dying to get my hands on this one. I´ve read so much about the 90ies Saif/akshay movies and reading this brilliant post killed me. Thanks to my dear fellow BW fanatic Ruksi I now am the proud owner of Keemat and Mein Khiladi Tu Ananri (which has to wait for some other time to be watched). But now for Keemat.











Not much to say about the story. Two brothers. Smalltime crooks. But good at heart. A terrible accident. A village in need. Some evil guys in fake beards and wigs. And our two crooks pushed into hero mode. Oh and there are some ladies for decoration somewhere too.











But what makes it special is the lead pair. Akshay Kumar and Sail Ali Khan. Sakshay. Now thats a Filmi Jodi. You´ve got to love´em. Even in a frightful terrible song like that:



Apart from Rajesh Roshans very weird concept of "borrowing" songs and other cineatic highlights at about 5:50 min and 6:15 min into this song, Keemat has a Sholay-ish story (very ok for me), Akshay with varying hair-length (funny), Saif with a mullet (me likes), some cool fights (nice),











some instant healing (clichee) and Saif in black leather (yummy).











Conclusion: Its as bad-ish as I hoped and way cooler then I could expect it to be. Dekho naa.

Bhagam Bhag - just what the doctor precribed

What was that?!
Thank god I checked my brain at the entrance (a security measure I took up for watching all Priyadarshan movies nowadays). Priyadarshan and I share a love/hate relation. I love Virasat. What I thought of Kyon Ki you can read here. And I can, lets say, tolerate Hulchul and Garam Masala.
Last sunday marked the end of my waaaaay to long filmi dry spell. Yes. I know. Sorry. I wrote that I already would be back by last week. But that was before three of my staff opted out of the remodeling of our Film/Animation/Webdesign Student Lab and so I spent the last of my holiday vacation weeks removing drywall, building workstations and rewiring our network. And had another reason to fall flat on my bed each night without watching any movies. Not one film between Dec.18th and Jan.7th!

So by Sunday I was willing to take any chance to get back to meri nice shiny filmi ke duniya. And if it meant watching Bahgam Bhag. Good thing I did. What didn´t we laugh.

Indian theatre company led by Paresh Rawal gets an engagement in London.













Choti problem hai. The testosterone overdosed heroes (Akshay "I´m in dire need of a shave" Kumar and Govinda) of said company scared away the heroine. Not a big problem it seems though. London, as we all know, hosts a fairly big desi community and somewhere there eki nai khoobsurat ladki should easily be found. You´d think.













First obstacle. The heroes, who of course fight each other for everything from girls to roles, get in each others way constantly. Second, the word heroine resembles the word heroin. Enter Sharat Saxena and Manoj Joshi. And London Policewala Jackie "Woohoo" Shroff.













Third, in their pursuit of their still nonexistent heroine they find the wrath of Shakti Kapoor and Razzak Khan and their very strange gang of thugs. One positive aspect though, while angering these guys Akshay also encounters a very beautiful, if fairly suicidal, Lara Dutta.













Who of course is A) perfect heroine material and B) not who she pretends to be. Btw. somewhere on the line we also have Arbaaz Khan coming in as the husband of Lara and then we can finally start with the story. And our guys can start to bhag.
The storyline starting with the intermission actually could work as a nice episode of "Murder, She Wrote". Only a slightly bit more chaotic. And hysterical. And loud. And ultra. And weird. And so very much away from a realistic story. Whatever.













Everybody and their grandmother turned up in this film. Whenever you thought, ok, now we have 3 storylines and 7 main characters another one (of either) turned up. Bahut masti.
My biggest regret is that Govinda had so little to do. And dance. I hope he´ll get more significant screentime in Salaam-E-Ishq. Bhagam Bhag is clearly an Akshay Kumar solo vehicle.













Which in itself is not a very bad thing, especially since he´s good here. But as one can see in the absolutely hilarious climax there are so many deserving characters and storylines in this film, there just was no prominent screentime left for anybody else but him.

So you´re looking for a well thought out and stringent executed storyline? Don´t. Watch. However if you you´re game for a totally crazy comedy with over-the-top overacting and stupid jokes, check your brain at the entrance and enjoy the ride.
Even lame jokes work if they come in rapid fire succession. Especially if they are shouted at you by a hysterical Akshay Kumar. Kasam se.













PS: See, that movie has so many people in it I forgot one I really liked. Rajpal Yadav. Very cool taxiwala. Whose life would be so much easier if he was a few inches taller.













PPS: All pictures courtesy of the films official website.