Bollywood and Beyond - Stuttgart Last Day

I´m back home, save and sound. And I already terribly miss all the fantastic people I met and hung out with since Wednesday.

Here now the last bunch of pics. Day 5. I´l do the write-up tomorrow. It´s just too hot (37 C/98 F) today and I´m too lazy and tired. I hope everybody got home well. (Edit: Surya did. Just got his mail)












Thank y´all so much for an unforgetable time.

Bollywood and Beyond - Stuttgart day 3+4

So. Here before I rush out for the award ceremony and the closing film.

Day 3 and Day 4. As mentioned in my prvious post, foto descriptions and my write up will follow from tomorrow when I´m back in Vienna.

Bollywood and Beyond - Stuttgart Day 1+2

Way to tired to post. But here for starters some pics. Day 1 (opening night) Day 2 (interviews and all kinds of other fun)

So and since there is a free Jonny Walker bar for the film-related guests and the festival team (to neither group I actually belonged, but that is another story) and it´s 1:30 am and I´ll have to get up at 8 tomorrow, you´ll have to make up your own stories for the time being.

I love it here!

Holidays - sort of..

Tomorrow morning I´ll be heading to Stuttgart (that would be in Germany) for five days of Bollywood & Beyond i.e. the biggest Indian film festival in Germany. Its my first time there, I hope to meet tons of great people, indulge in heavy partying and overdose on Indian cinema in all its aspects.
Btw. I´ll take my Macbook and camera with me and try to update from there.

See ya´ll later.

King of Bollywood - the interview

Thanx to Filmiholic I was part of a very exciting virtual online email interview event today. Anupama Chopra was so nice as to answer all our (read: Filmiholic, Michael, Beth, Maja, Darshana, Jo and myself) questions about her new book "King of Bollywood - Shah Rukh Khan and the Seductive World of Indian Cinema" during a day long Email conversation.

Filmholic will put the results of those 36 43 Emails into readable posts on her blog during the next few days. You might to want to head over to have a look then.
Edit 07/10/07: It is online, fun and long..

As for the book which will come out Aug. 2nd in the USA, Aug. 9th in India and Sept. 6th in the UK. I´ve read it and liked it, very much in fact. It is not your average SRK fan book. It is more like a chronicle of Hindi cinema of the 90ies and its industry until today through the life and films of King Khan.

And Anupama, after her books on Sholay and DDLJ, again gave me a highly entertaining book. Interesting background on the industry, the change that it went through during the 90ies and of course a whole lot on the Baadshah himself spiced with fantastic anecdotes like the one about SRK´s phonecall after he got arrested due to... no, you´ve got to read that for yourself.

The regular reader of this blog probably knows that I am not a die-hard SRK fan. What might be new for all is that he was in fact my first Bollywood love. But you know how shilly-shally girls are. Nice Rahul didn´t stand a chance when Sagar/Munna walked in. And since cranky Dev did nothing to get me back, imagine my surprise when after reading Anupama´s book, he fought himself back into the ring. That´s the King Khan for you.
Not sure though if Anupama is to blame or my fickleness ...

Backlog. Eklavya and Guru

In the draft section of my blogger admin site, there are a few unfinished posts that deal with a number of films I watched during the last weeks but that never came out of the draft stage. Since I don´t feel like finishing them and still I want you to know, here a short résumé.

Eklavya. This one pains me a lot. I really really really was looking forward to seeing it. I mean take in the cast. AB 1.0, Saif and his mom, Jimmy Shergill, Jackie Shroff, Vidya Balan, Raima Sen and mera pyaara Sanjay. It is the first direction of V.V. Chopra after Mission Kashmir. The promos hinted at a "Gone with the wind" like outset.
And then V.V. blows it. My Eklavya draft was subtitled: "It might have been grand" and that precisely how I feel about it. The setting is grand, the acting too, even the basic story. Then why, oh why did he have to cut it down to 107min? It is an epic saga, it demands an epic length. So instead we are left with hints at some backstories and we almost don´t learn anything about what drives the characters. And that assembles to a lackluster feeble movie. There is potential, and you get a glimpse of it in various scenes, like at the the climax. But. But it feels like an abstract of a Shakespearean drama for a 3rd grade english class homework.
Two presumptions:
One: In addition to the mutilated story, the very last, bahut kharab scene hints at some "higher power" that forced Chopra to a) give it a masala standard fare ending and b) to edit the length to some "western cinema" timeframe. Big mistake.
And two: It is still rather difficult to get the official DVD. None of the leading online stores have it yet. The only place I found it is amazon.co.uk . I so hope that this hints to a directors cut version in the hopefully not to far future.
So if you can get your hands on a copy. Go and watch it. If only for the acting and treat it like a preview of what might come one day.

Film two is Guru.
I love Mani Ratnam. He is my favorite director. Bas.
But, and here comes another but, Guru is his weakest film so far. I just can´t empathise with the characters here. And that is such a pity. I feel it is the death of any movie if you just don´t care what happens. And that is exactly the problem I have with Guru. Unreflected greed as main statement just does nothing for me. Corruption is good as long as I can turn it into wealth? Journalism should use all means to get the story across even if you have to stage the stories? Don´t get me wrong, but where´s the message? And I don´t mean a profound life altering message. Anything would do, leave it open or tell me you don´t have a message for all I care, but give me something.
So is it a bad film? No. It is still a Mani Ratnam movie. It´s a AB 2.0 one-man show. I love the songs. And technically (in any way) its a great film. I just don´t care about it.

Dil To Pagal Hai. I had nothing better to do

Just like any healthy human I sometimes get cravings for various stuff. Sprüngli Truffes for example. Or Sushi. Or sitting beside the ocean watching the sunset. Yesterday after again stumbling over the Aaja Nachle stills on the Yash Raj site my life would have ended on the spot if I had to live one more moment without watching a Madhuri Dixit film.

Thankfully I have some of them at home. And since this pic of SRK of last week made me loose my cool too, I thought why not combine the two. And to make it three I decided to give one DVD a try that has been lying unwanted and unwatched around for at least two years. Dil to Pagal Hai.

Why didn´t I watch it before? Well, I´m not too fond of Karisma Kapoor. And the only time I tried DTPH before was short after I watched Raja Hindustani where I really hated her (sorry Alan).

And that´s when the DVD went to the bottom of the "to be watched" stack and lingered there until yesterday. So for all those who haven´t seen it either:
Rahul (SRK - who else) is a singer/director who has a dancecompany that does fairly successful naachgaana shows. His female star dancer is Nisha, who in addition to being his best friend also happens to be madly (and of course secretly) in love with Rahul. Who in spite of producing one tearjerking love story show after the other is completely alien to the concept of love. So far so nothing-new.









Now Nisha has a small accident while rehearsing for the show that is in production and leaves the play without a female star. Enter Pooja (Madhuri) an orphan who grew up with her aunty, uncle and cousin Ajay (Akshay Kumar). Guess what, his best friend love turned into the real thing a while ago (quel surprise!). Oh and did I tell you that Pooja is convinced that for every human there is a perfect match made in heaven. (And Ajay is not it)









Oh and of course she dances like a godess.

The rest is as sweet and harmless to watch as it is predictable. Pooja fills in for Nisha. Ajay asks Pooja to marry him. Pooja despite not loving him and thus betraying her believes says yes. Nisha gets drunk and confesses her love to Rahul. Rahul falls in love with Pooja. Pooja falls in love with Rahul. They both sacrifice their love on the altar of obligations/friendship/inanity. And all live un-happily ever after? Oh, c´mon its a Yash Chopra movie. No points for guessing.

There are a lot of songs in DTPH and a lot of late 1990ies gym-clothes. And the steroptypical Rahul, a pleasantly nice Karisma, way to little of Akshay Kumar and my fix of Madhuri.
Dancing, smiling and being the devine loveable Madhuri I so missed. There is way better fare out there but for a hot summer afternoon this was one perfect, harmless timepass.

For Your Consideration

Some of you might have noticed that in the link section on the right hand side of my blog a few weeks ago a new link showed up in the "sites with babasko input" section.
Sometime ago Ramesh from AOL India contacted me and offered me to write in a team with two more fun and great people, Biju and Aditja, to write for AOL India´s brand spanking new Bollywoodblog. Not that I have been as hard-working as those two guys yet (I promise to improve). But its been a fun ride so far. You should listen in to our weekly conference call..

So without much further ado. If you have the time pay us a visit. And no fear I´m vow to increase the post frequency here (and there) considerably now that my sisters wedding is over and I have the time to actually watch movies again.

main bhi Tagged hoon

t-hype thought she could lure me back into blogging by imposing the following tag on me. *sigh* in the light of #4 of the rules. I thought I give it a try. And apologize in advance to the 8 poor souls that I will have to tag in return.

The rules are as follows:
1. Each player starts with 8 random facts/habits about themselves.
2. People who are tagged, write a blog post about their own 8 random things, and post these rules.
3. At the end of your post you need to tag 8 people and include their names. Don’t forget to leave them a comment and tell them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.
4. If you fail to do this within eight hours, you will not reach Third Series or attain your most precious goals for at least two more lifetimes.

ek- one of my most favorite family stories: my grandmothers brother disappeared in Russia in WW2 the same minute his son was born thousands of miles away in Austria (there´s proof, the birth certificate and the telegram that came 3 days after my great-grand uncle was decleared MIA)

do- my nickname babasko often confuses people (waves at surya) I´m sorry it wasn´t conceived to mislead people about my gender. Its only a mingled version of my first and family name that first was used when there was not enough space for writing "Barbara Skoda" on my personal drawer at work about 10 years ago.

tin- I´m addicted to Wasabi Coated Green Peas. Love it that you never know if you´ll get a loaded or mild one.

char- I never knew Vienna had such fantastic sunsets until we moved into our current flat that is on the 8th floor. John Ford movies have nothing on us.

paanch- driving. I love driving. Best all alone and fast as in 160-180km/h or through mud and sand with hubby offroad.

chah- the older I get the more I miss my granddad who died when I was just 7 years old. We had the most fantastic conversations during long walks in the woods and I often wonder what we would talk about now if he was still here.

saat- I´m a super fast shopper if I´m in the right mood. I got my dress for my sisters wedding, and at least two other festive occations plus the appropriate accessories in 15 minutes. The salesclerk in the boutique did not know what hit her. And I probably won´t when I get the creditcard bill...

aath- The thing I miss most about home when I´m not there is the tap water. Vienna has fantastic mountain-spring quality tap water. Anybody seen the movie "Water" from 1985 with Michael Caine? (btw one of the funniest films in history). That is what comes out of the tap here - non gazeuse of course.

And now comes the hardest part of the assignment because most of you have already been tagged: Let´s see, I tag Birgit, Kaddele, Velu, Mariakäfer, Sheetal and since its late and I´m tired I risk the wrath of the tag and leave it at only 5 new victims.

You´ve got to see this

This is what happens if you let loose our very own Babsy Artner at the IIFA´s
Its a teaser to her next project, a documentary. Have fun!!


Edit: in case as it doesn´t did not show up here (as it seems to sometimes) for the last two days here´s the link to the film on myvideo.de. Watch it!

Feedback required. This is your chance to convince me ..

I love sales at nehaflix and indiaweekly. They give me the opportunity to try out movies, I´d never buy otherwise. And sometimes I actually pick a jewel like "Let´s talk" for example. Sometimes I get stuff that are not. For the last weeks I suffered through some DVD´s that just did not grab me enough to sit through them. And for two of them I´ve got some questions about for you.

Ek Din 24 Ghante. Why did I buy it? Nandita Das, Rahul Bose. ´Nuff said. Why did I start to fast foreward? Because it is such a boring version of Lola Runs. And the sound engineering made me crazy. Should I go back an sit it out?

Mujhe Meri Biwi Se Bachaao. Why did I get it? Naseeruddin Shah, Rehka, Arshad Warsi. And it´s supposed to be a remake of Ruthless People. What a combination. Rekha with a fake fat booty. I really suffered through the first half. Naseer gives a lecture in overacting. And the rest is almost bearable. And the the DVD broke down. Not one player in the house (And there are plenty) is able to play beyond chapter 14. That would be the moment, when Naseer realizes that his wife has been kidnapped and is celebrating. Arghhh. Thank you Eros. What I want to know now, is MMBSB worth the trouble of sending it back and demanding another, working DVD. Or can I forget about it?

Time for a book.

One thing I had time and a place for was reading. And one book I´ve been looking forward to for a long time, finally released yesterday.





















Faszination Bollywood - Zahlen, Fakten und Hintergründe zum "Trend" im deutschsprachigen Raum which means nothing more then Fascination Bollywood - Numbers, Facts and Background about the "Trend" in the German -speaking part of Europe.

So if your´re interested in the fact behind the circulation of Bollywood Films and its by-products in one of Europes biggest cinema markets, then brush up your German and get Birgit Pestal´ s book. If you missed your German lessons in school and happen to be located in India. Contact her. She´s on vacation, roaming India for at least the next few months.

Huge Backlog - Sigh.

Ok, I won´t bore you with what has been happening here the last weeks. Let´s just say it´s been mostly work and only veeery little play. But still the DVD´s kept mounting. D:2, Salaam-E-Ishq, Eklavya, Nishabd, Namaste London, Honeymoon Travels Pvt. Ldt. and a huge stack of older stuff from Sharmelee to Kauff to Sarfarosh and more. And then the sentencing on the TADA trial began and every morning now I just have to scan the web for any news on Sanjay. For those who don´t follow it. Wether Sanjay goes to jail for a minimum of 2 3/4 years or gets bail should be decided in the next two weeks.
Last Friday I was heading to Germany on a weekend-long markting meeting, not with out hope of having the chance to get some time to squeeze some Bollywood in between, which of course turned to dust..
But now I´m back. And since hubby is visiting his family in Switzerland, I´ve got the house and more important the remote control all for myself. So yay, I´m back