How time flies

As I am writing this, I sit in the lobby of my hotel in Chennai, waiting for the transport that will take me to the airport to catch my flight home. It is a bit surreal. Outside there are almost 40 degree Celsius. In the lobby it is freezing cold and they play the Best of Kenny G CD. Just now the song is Winter Wonderland. Oh I love it here.

The trip was busy and stressy and fun. I did not manage to see much apart from the taxi rides and offices and hotelrooms. So my filme experiences mainly consisted of in-flight entertainment. That means I got to see Vel (with Surya and Asin) on the flight to India which I liked. And 4 (!) times parts of Welcome on my domestic flights with Kingfisher. Why of all the films in the world did it have to be Welcome? There is one single good scene in it and that is when Anil Kapoor makes his extortion call to Paresh Rawal who thinks it is a prank call. I love the way Nana Patekar cracks up laughing. Then I watched the Kolkata Knight Riders get destroyed by Mumbai on TV. Oh and I managed to buy the Dusavatharam Soundtrack and the Raijnikanth Biography. Had no chance to listen in on the soundtrack though. My Macbook Air does not have a CD drive..

Now for the really cool part. As of today it is confirmed. I get to come back to India. Very soon. In early July. And then I will stay for at least 3 months. So all you people I was not able to visit this time. I´ll be coming to hound you..

I managed to put some pics up on flickr. They are mainly shot from inside of our car. But in Delhi I even had 3 hours time for some sightseeing. Yay.

2 reasons

I have two reasons for being so quiet here ever since the PEIBBM. One is good, one is even better.
The good one is in fact not my fault. Blame Kaddele, Maria and Ezri. They hooked me on Doctor Who. ´Nuff said. *babyfangirlsqueee*

The better reason is so bilkul first class. I´ll be going to India. Soon. Very soon. I always wanted to. But there never were any concrete plans. And then four weeks ago a chance turned up that was too good to resist and now for starters I´ll be flying to India for 9 days in May and if that trip goes well, I might set up camp in India for a few months from late June. As you might imagine there is some hectic preparation work to be done.

But yes. I still watch movies. Just yesterday we went to the cinema and saw The Dream Team Krazzy4. I liked that it had (a mostly wasted, but I take what I can get) Rajat Kapoor, liked the 4 krazzy guys, Hrithik´s moves, and that so many of my favorite supporting actors made an appearance. But the rest was either a 1:1 copy or ranging from not very good to plainly bad. I don´t think it is a good sign that we thought the post-climax moral-of-story speeches were the funniest part of the movie. And imagine my suprise at hearing my dad´s fave song from the 60ies in Rajesh Roshan´s oh so "genuine" soundtrack. Here (song starts after about 20 sec).

And I watched U Me Aur Hum. And kinda liked it. You know first time director and all. But I liked it.

Two Naa three more things before I have to get back to work. We were written about in Tehelka. And Filmiholic did a terrific interview with Mani Ratnam. Read it. And there are of course tons of pics from the fantastic Bloggersmeeting in Munich on flickr. Here my collection and here the flickr group.

Edit: Oh my. In between all the Doctor Who and India job and WTF Krazzy4 moments. I totally forgot to mention our very clever project that was conceived at the Sunday brunch at Munich´s PEIBBM.







Its group blog listing all cinema screenings of Indian or Indian related film in the German speaking part of Europe. Setting it up, editing and updating would be reason number 3 for my unforgiveable silence here.

PEIBBM Liveblogging

I late, but we´re live.

michael+mike+mirie, maria, beth, kaddele, marco and enia4x a whole lot of others are as well liveblogging.

13:45 kaddele and beth asre singing dhadak and are waiving their wonderfull BaB cutouts..

13:50 I still have to get into the groove. but hell, its been ages since i saw BaB and AB2.0 looks soooo nice :D

13:54 uh-oh Bunty. i know you´re pissed, but you must not talk to your dad like that.. tsktsk

13:56 to 14:04 bleh. blogger.com is acting up. it eats my post. so we missed Babli´s pink room. and Bunty´s first scam.

14:05 I haven´t seen BaB for ages. I didn´t remember how very pink it was..

14:06 *sigh* now they finally met. what a cool pick up line.

14:08 Ohh. I also forgot how very nerve-grating Bablis crying is. Breaks every man :D Note to self: Try on husband..

14:15 I´m lagging behind. But now we have "yeh world" for the 3rd time. Yay!

14:17 weehh. bahut accha. I keep repeating myself. but i forgot how very cool stuff there is in that movie. Like the music during the Q-Q-Qureishi scene.

btw. we here are some of the cutouts















and they will come in very handy soon...

14:26 ok Babli is a bit slow but now we have the titlesong!!!!

14:30 Yey my favorite is the hotel-bying scam during the song. Thats AB2 in AB1 mode from Agnepath, right? And now theres Sholay :D Love it!!!
And the crowd here is singing!

14:35 Mummyyyy!! Oh no she´s crying again.

14:36 Collcetive sigh. The first romatic sparks are flying. Shooo Shweeet..

14:46 Uh_oh blue pleather coming up..

14:48 wow. sycronized clapping in the house.. and quite some amusement over the fugly costumes.

14:56 *sigh* and kiss-kiss sounds from the crowd. all that for a peck on the cheek. i cant wait what will happen in the secound half.

and Papa B draws a huge applause

15:24 INTERVAL over. And we get the first glimpse of the Taj Mahal

and btw. we had to reprimand the "hat-fraction" from Frankfurt/Munich.. they were caught watching SRk stuff on their Laptops during the first half. Tsktsk..

15:26 poor Bunty. What a wasted wedding night..

15:28 war of noses. and cat-calls from the audience..

15:35 oh no. technical problems. but we came prepared. quick change of DVDs. and during the unscheduled break Beth and Kaddele enact what we are missing on screen with the paper cutouts. YAY!!

15:43 and the big Taj Mahal scam is starting. And while we watch it unfolding I need to add two more liveblogs.
willi for umananda
nefret

15:57 oh the Big B is just made for slow motion.

16:01 Ahhh question: Is it possible that the barman at the hotel is the same guy as the receptionist from Jab We Met??

16:02 Oh what a beautiful story. Inspector AB2.0 ka pehla pyaar.

16:07 Yay. Family reunion! Sorry gotta dance pretty soon

16:17 Now that got the crowd rocking. I think I saw even the guys dancing in their seats

16:24 We´re heading fast to the climax. Oh and Amitabh Bachchan runs!!! I love when Amitabh Bachchan runs!!

16:34 And another "Yeh world" and an ultimatium

16:38 Oh noooo. Caught. Oh noooooooo

16:44 I see tears in the crowd. And hear some sniffeling.

16:48 Big Applause. And now for some rapping AB1.0

So we´re off to Maharani Restaurant for an early dinner and then at 20.30 we´ll have the ACEBA presentation and the party afterwards.

Bahut Masti Hai.

Oh btw. I´ve already shot hundreds of pics. I´ll need to sort them still but keep coming back for them. ..

Bollywoodbloggers. The program.

While other people are busy packing. We were/are busy with preparation work.

And so now we can announce the full and (almost) final program of the 2nd Annual Pan-European/International Bollywood Bloggermeeting (Why oh why was I thinking that it was funny/cool to have an as long as possible title for it last year)


Friday March 7th:

During the course of the afternoon we meet at the Bollywood-Flat, Eversbuschstreet in Munich/Allach. To chat and basically simply hang out the Bollywood way

At 7:30 PM Dinner at Restaurant "Bollywood", Donnersbergerstr. 44 (yes. there is an indian Restaurant in Munich with that name)

Saturday March 8th:

10.00 AM - Brunch, Leo's Lounge, Rosenheimer Str. 98, S-Bahn Rosenheimer Platz. Food is 10€, drinks cost extra.

1.00 PM - Liveblogging at SAE Institute Munich Bayerwaldstr. 43, S6 Perlach. This years film will be Bunty Aur Babli

5.30 PM- Dinner at Restaurant Maharani, Rottmannstr. 24

8.00 PM - ACEBA ceremony & Party, Flaschenbar, Schleißheimer Str. 43

Sunday March 9th:

Since OSO will have its theatrical release on March 6th throughout Germany, we are still negotiating a matinee show for Sunday morning. And it looks good that we will have one.

If we dont manage to lock that down the Plan B is to have Brunch again.

SRK. OSO. Berlinale. A State Of Nation Speech.

OSO had its German Premiere at the Berlinale Filmfestival in Berlin last Friday. And the Big Khan was attending in person. Plus he even gave a public lecture at the Berlinale Talent Campus on Sunday.

News like that made the German speaking fan-universe go crazy for the last few weeks. For various reasons.

One. That´s a quite simple one. Om Shanti Om will finally get a theatrical release in Germany. Eros and the big Khan himself promised a release with 50 copies nationwide. (That doesn´t sound much. But it is. Its actually the biggest Indian film release ever in Germany) Unlike us fortunate Austrian and Swiss fans who got OSO in cinemas at the same time as the rest of the world, Germany had to wait.

Two. SRK made his last public appearance in Germany back in 2005 at an ill-fated "fan-dinner" that is only remembered by mass-hysteria, tilting boats, shady organisers and fans loosing money. Since then he´s been pretty much a no-show in our part of the world.

Three. Germany is SRK territory as far as it concerns Bollywood cinema. That´s a plain fact. The so-called Bollywood Boom started in 2004 when K3G played on German TV for the first time. And back then it was SRK who captured the hearts of the viewers. Distributed by Rapid Eye Movies, a small German distributor specializing in Eastern cinema, a hype was born. K3G was followed by KKHH, KHNH and MHN. Ever since then the notion for viewers was (and for the main public it still is): If its there is a Bollywood film - it has Shah Rukh Khan in it. As if nobody else existed in Indian cinema.
Much to the chagrin of more broadminded or lets call them more committed Indian movie fans. That and the fact that the Mumbai film industry killed the German DVD market with the release of crap quality releases of almost all (even the stinkers) SRK movies to make a fast buck. Or even films that only show SRK on the cover. Or monkey business like that. Resulting in a steep drop in DVD sales, poor TV ratings and basically a dwindling interest by and a loss in credibility with the public. But I´m digressing here.]

















©berlinale.de

So SRK came. He saw. And as far as the media coverage and the fan reactions go. He very much conquered. The tickets for the premiere were sold out in 7 (!) minutes. The ones for the lecture only took 15 minutes until the house full signs went up. Even tickets for the additional screenings (the ones without a personal appearance) where gone in under an hour. Blackmarket ticket prices went as high as 390$ for the 11$ premiere tickets (As seen on Ebay!)
On the night of the premiere itself all those waiting were treated to 40 minutes of an autograph signing, handshaking, hug and waves sending incredibly charming Shah Rukh on the red carpet and a good-humored SRK answering even the most rediculous questions with utmost patience and charm after the premiere. The media and fans loved it and him. From Friday night until this morning he was dominating the media coverage of the Berlinale. In the beginning the journalists were more stunned than impressed but during the course of the weekend SRK´s charm got them all. Here´s a link to the Berlinale website with a 30 min video of the (highly intimidating) photo-call and after that the official press conference on Friday. (The Talent Campus Lecture is also rumored to be put online in March)










©berlinale.de

So what do we, as non-desi Bollywood fans in Central Europe, take home from this weekend?
A) It looks like the "Restart" of Bollywood in Germany had a terrific initiation. In March we will see if the Boxoffice will react accordingly.
B) The German fans were right with their SRK infatuation. I have yet to read a feedback post in Marcos forum that has anything negative to say about his public appearances in Berlin. I don´t see any other (Bollywood) star of today pulling that off.
C) As for the really important stuff. He learned the German words: "Ja, Mann" and "wunderbar". He is said to have incredibly soft hands. And he seems to smell so-oho good. Well informed sources believe it to be Azzarro Silver Black *g*

Have Macbook Air. Will Post.

Hi, sorry for the lack of updates. But there has been just too much going on in my private (yes I do have one) and work-related live.

So just a short update to tell you all is well.
We already do have quite an impressive line-up for the Bloggermeeting in Munich. So far we´re running at 35 registrations (mainly from Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Beth is so far again the lone "international" party. And she is having nightmares about being forced to speak German. So. You out there. Show some compassion. Join her.)

Then another important thing. If you´re located in Europe and are able to read German. Go and vote for the 5th Annual Central European Bollywood Awards. Just click here. Results will be announced on March 8th at the PEIBBM in Munich.

Oh and concerning the title of this entry. Its only to make Michael go green with envy ;-)

MiniKhan and I had a blast unpacking it yesterday evening.

Tashan Teaser. Ok. Ek aur chance.

Sanni, high-priestess of the cult of Sakshay, over at ..so they dance! already did a preview. But since the best thing on the Aaja Nachle DVD was the Teaser for Tashan I though that I don´t want to keep from you what might come to a cinema near you in April 2008

There´s this gal..






and that guy..







but the thing that puts my mind into overdrive is the highly explosive combo of this guy..









and that guy..









back together in one movie. Yeehaaaa!
Finally. The reunion I´ve been waiting for soooo long. Please. Please. Please. Please give them 90% of shared screen time. I know the chances are high that YRF blows even a surefire instant classic like that one. But its the debut of Vijay Krishna Acharya (the writer for such elaborate films as Dhoom and D:2) as a director. So there is a ray of hope. Sure, I don´t believe we will be getting anything along the immortal ranks of Keemat..









..but a girl can hope. Hain Naa?
So YRF. Aapke paas ek aur chance hai. Malum hai ki chance kam hai, lekin hai.

And just because they are there and I cant let two nice screenshots like that go to waste, here, two more:

Bollwoodbloggers. Humare paas Logo hai.

And we thought since with this years location we´re entering Paint it Pink´s realm, we better put in a little of that pink..










Khubsoorat, hai naa?

Aacha Nachle. A tall order.

If you love the kind of Hindi movies I do, you can´t help but to developing a sort of system/defence mechanism for the handling of logic-defying storylines, movie goofs and continuity errors. Bollywood bettered itself in that area during the last few years, fortunately, which now makes it is all the more annoying when a big honcho studio like YashRaj falls back onto its evil 90ish ways.









(You have no ideas how much I wanted to love Aaja Nachle. Not that I had too high hopes for it knowing the latest films coming out of YRFChak de excepted). But even despite all odds. Even with all the not so flattering reviews. Even though I still hoped for something. I mean c´mon. Madhuri. And Konkona, Kunal, Ranbir, Vinay, Akshaye and Irrfan.

And then the movie opens with Madhuri doing a really bad Michael-Jackson-meets-Flashdance-meets-MiamiSoundMachine tap-dance/aerobics routine (with tap-dance sounds) wearing sneakers (apart from very unflattering spandex). For heaven´s sake. [self-defense mechanism kicks in] Maybe YR wants us to feel as if Mads was never away and DTPH released only a few months back? [ok. that might work. sort of. pretty far fetched but possible] Next she gets the call that her former Guru is dying and that she should come to India as fast a s possible. And the next time we see her she´s on the plane and she´s done a complete hair-makeover. [wft is that??] "Oh my. Guruji is dying. Lets get a plane ticket and since I´m in such a hurry, why don´t I get a haircut first?" [Bas. Goodwill khatm. And dont´get me started on the whole Ajanta set decoration and background dancer thing]









These days YashRaj don´t make it easy for the Bollywoodfan to love their films. Most of their movies come without a proper story. And what really makes me mad is that for the umpteenth time I get the feeling that they think their audience is too stupid to breathe. [Anyone recall the "magnetic" cola-can in D:2?]

So I did not have high hopes for Aaja Nachle. But that they would piss me of within the first 2 seconds of the film was something even I did not expect. Thankfully it got better once the title track comes on (at about 30min into the film) but by that time I already had stopped watching on the first night. I only gave it another chance the next day because I wanted to see Madhuri dancing.









And then Akshaye saved the day. The little verbal dispute that follows right after Madhuri danced my favorite song of the film, Aaja Nachle, made my little heart go pitter-patter "Who are you?""I´m the bad guy" As sunny wrote over at Marco´s forum: "I´d love to have a Raja like that. Sigh. All those problems I could come up with every day, so he could solve them for me..."

So no, not all is bad in Aaja Nachle. Madhuri looks great [even if her hair-length changes from scene to scene... but lets just take that as a nostalgic flashback to the good ol´90ies] her smile still chases away the rainclouds and she is still my favorite dancer. Plus there are some sweet side-characters. My favorite is the adorable Mr. Chojar played by Vinay Pathak.









But he as well as the rest of the supporting cast was painfully underemployed. Especially the big calibers like Irrfan Khan and Ranvir Shorey. What a waste. Only Konkona had some space to work with. And Kunal Kapoor got away with the most romantic sentence in the movie [Which I wont tell because I can´t tell you all the good parts]

So. The story [Dancer elopes with American photographer only to divorce him soon thereafter. Whole town hates her for that - the eloping. not the divorce. they don´t know that yet - 11 sal ke baat she comes back to safe her hometown´s theater that is to be replaced by a shopping mall by putting up a stage-play with a cast of villagers against the more or less hostile reluctance of same villagers] is lame-ish. The execution sloppy in many parts. But I liked the cast. I liked the songs. I liked Laila-Manju.
If you love Madhuri as I do, you have to watch it. Just be sure to "leave logic behind" and bring an extra big helping of "instant-movie-goofs-forgiveness" and once you´re settled you´ll have yourself a nice timepass and you will finally have Madhuri back.

Bollywoodbloggers. Let´s met again. This time in Munich.

Hah. I´ve just re-read my posts about the 1st PEIBBM last March and it all came back. How super-duper fun it was. Even back then we were talking about a repeat-performance. And that's why today I´m bahut khuchi to announce the 2nd Pan-European/International Bollywood Blogger Meeting.

Get ready to join the fun from March 7th to March 9th 2008 and this time in Munich!

The preliminary rough schedule, conceived by Michael, Kaddele, Beth, Marco, Maini, Maria, me and a whole lot of other helping spirits shows that the program will be pretty similar to last year:

We meet on Friday March 7th, this time already during the afternoon, hang out, blog, chat, do silly stuff, eat, drink. One idea is to catch a Bollywood flick in a Munich cinema (which might be a problem since Munich isn´t as lucky as Vienna and we still have to convince one of the local distributors of playing an Indian film. But no fear, we still have some aces up our kurta sleeves..) in the evening.

The "Big Day" like last year will be Saturday March 8th. Matlab typical Bavarian "Weisswurst" breakfast, the Liveblogging during the afternoon and in the evening we will start with the award ceremony of the 5th Central European Bollywood Awards (voting will start early February) and lead right into an open end paaaaarty.

Sunday will see another joint breakfast and then its already time to leave for home.

We also have a lot (and I mean a whole lot) of surprises in store. So this year is going to be even bigger and better than the last. Just keep watching this space for updates.

We would love to have you all there. And if you make it to Munich we will, like last year, make sure to find you a cheap place to stay. And you will have a filmitastic time! Kasam se!

Happy New Year!

What a night. What a party.














And since MK was feigning a hangover, I parked him in front of the TV to watch the Neujahrskonzert and did the cleanup decontamination restoration all by myself.


















But nonetheless, let me wish all of you a wonderful, happy 2008!

PS: My New Year´s resolution for 2008 is to blog more and especially write more reviews than during the last 6 months. And I´ll see that through. MiniKhan ki kasam.

Happy Holidays

In between our families extensive Christmas celebrations in Salzburg and Switzerland, here´s wishing you all Happy Holidays from MiniKhan, my family and me.



















PS: MK is addicted to Xmas cookies. Say goodbye to his six-pack.

Prapancha Pash - A Throw Of Dice

Lets stick with the not so usual Bollywood fare for one more moment and go back to the very early years of the Indian film history. And by very I mean 1929. Late silent film era early.


















Ever since I saw the trailer of Prapancha Pash - A Throw Of Dice sometime last year on one of my DVDs I was hooked. I like Silent movies and this one is a very important one for Indian cinema history. Directed by Franz Osten, a German director that started to work in India as early 1924.

Osten was working as a head director for Emelka Films in Munich, Germany (which would later become Bavaria Films) when the company was approached by Himansu Rai (who later founded Bombay Talkies Ltd), who was looking for co-operation partners who would invest in Indian films.
The first film that was co-produced was "Prem Sanyas", India´s first international co-production. Four years later Osten once again traveled, along with his crew, to India for "Shiraz" and later that year he started to work on "Prapancha Pash". A monumental film, shot on real locations throughout India, with hundreds of elephants, tigers, horses, real jungle sets and thousands of junior artists.









The story of Prapancha Pash is an adaption of the Mahabharata´s game of dice. Two kings, one good - Sohat, one evil - Ranjit.
The evil one is greedy for Sohat´s kingdom and during a royal tiger hunt Sohat is "accidentally" wounded with a poisoned arrow. Plan saphal? Arre nahin! Luckily the "accident" happens close to beautiful Sunita´s house, the daughter of a healer. So he is nurtured back to health and gets the girl on top. Happies endings? Phir nahin. There is still the greedy Ranjit. And unsurprisingly he also falls for beautiful Sunita and driven by jealousy, greed and some other not so nice traits he tries everything to create a rift between the two young lovers.









His most devious plan is set in motion at the eve of Sohat and Sunita´s wedding. He lures the young king who has a dangerous weakness for gambling into a game of dice where he plays foul and Sohat loses everything. His kingdom, his crown, his freedom. And now being reduced to the status of a slave, he even loses Sunita. How mean! Thank god Sohat´s closest servant has a nosy beta. He finds the loaded dice and now we can head straight to the climax.









Even if with a length of only 72min it is a huge film. The cinematography is great. Osten´s use of real locations creates an authentic even realistic feel. The story is well rounded. It just works. Bas.

Btw. the DVD I got has another interesting feature. The movies score is done by Nitin Sawhney. The BFI (British Filminstitute) restored the filmprints in 2006 and Sawhney got to compose a new score for it, that was recorded by the London Symphony Orchestra. In fact there were a few live performances since 2006 in London (more dates might follow) and now there is a UK DVD and German DVD that also features an interview with Sawhney.









As much as I love Nitin Sawhney, the score is not really a perfect fit for the movie. The power of silent movie scores lies in the parallel storytelling they usually provide. Sawhney claims Ennio Morricone and Bernhard Herrmann (two of the greatest film composers in history) as his musical influences and that is where the problem might be rooted. I feel that his music just accompanies the pictures and that is too little. It did not touch me. Not that the pictures and visual storytelling would not be able to stand on their own. It is just that I would have preferred a little more Max Steiner with his exuberant use of Leitmotif and moodtechnique, Mickeymousing and continuous Underscoring.









But still this is one movie you should not miss. It is a classic. I really do hope that more films of this section of the Indian film heritage will find their way back on the screen.

PS: Satyajit Ray saw Franz Osten as the founder of a Realism School in Indian Film. Osten became a guru to Indian cinema dignitaries like Raj Kapoor, Sasadhar Mukherj or Dilip Kumar until he was incarcerated by the British in 1939 as citizen of an enemy´s country (especially since he had joined the foreign section of the NSDAP in Bombay in 1936) and later was banished from Indian soil.

PPS: Btw. concerning the alleged kissing-on-screen-tabu that should stem from these times. Bakwaas hai. There are two big fat dead-on-the-lips smooches in PP. Hah!
PPPS: Oh, and another thing. Prapancha Pash is perfect for Movie Improv-Karaoke (no distracting dialogues *g*)