Kari's Korner

I Hate Luv Storys

Namaste, my friends!

I Hate Luv Storys revolves around Jay, a jaded director's assistant in the "Bollywood" industry. He doesn't believe in any of the romance that is so prevalent in your typical "Bollywood" movie. Simran believes in love at first sight, true love, and all of trappings of a good romantic love story. Needless to say, this movie is about how these two very different people meet and create their own love story. It stars Imran Khan as Jay and Sonam Kapoor as Simran, both of whom belong to entrenched Indian acting families.

My initial impression of this movie wasn't very positive. I thought it was very hokey, too much like a Hollywood romantic comedy and I didn't particularly like the music. It actually took me two or three attempts to finish watching it the first time. However, I was bored one weekend a few weeks after this initial attempt and put it on and was completely hooked on the story. I'm not really sure what changed - possibly I'd become more obsessed and had become more forgiving in my opinions. I'd also seen both the actors in more serious roles so was able to take them more seriously in I Hate Luv Storys. There is one actress in this movie, Bruna Abdalah, who is just horrible and I cringe nearly every time she's on screen. Luckily, it's not that often. She's still new to the industry, it appears, so hopefully she'll get better with time.

I, now, really like the title song:

 

Kaminey

Ahhh. My absolute favorite movie. Even more of a favorite than Serenity, which if any of you know me, is saying quite a bit. I've probably watched this movie, in its entirety, a good ten or so times and have seen bits and pieces of it more times than I can count.

 

So that's the trailer. The story revolves around twin brothers, Charlie and Guddu, who haven't spoken to each other since the death of their father. Charlie is a small-time gangster with dreams of becoming a bookie. Guddu walks the straight and narrow, working for an AIDS awareness group. Their lives collide when Charlie steals a massive amount of cocaine from a pair of crooked cops and Guddu is mistakenly apprehended by the cops.

I love this movie because it's not your typical "Bollywood" fare. Shahid Kapoor really shows his talent here and does a great job of making you believe that Charlie and Guddu are actually separate people. It's not obvious at all that they are played by the same person - even when physically fighting each other. The love interest for Guddu (Charlie doesn't have one) is played phenomenally by Priyanka Chopra. This was the first movie I saw her in and remains my favorite of her films. Another great performance is by Chandan Roy Sanyal, who plays Charlie's best friend, Mikhail. I'm looking forward to seeing more of him. The remainder of the cast is well played, but there are too many characters to go into them all.

The movie is very gritty and shot very dark - which might be my only complaint. There are parts of the movie where I want to see a character's expressions but can't because the lighting is so dark. In fact, my favorite song in the movie is played at a nightclub but the lighting is so poor that I don't really enjoy watching the video.

So - I hope that if you watch any of the movies that I review, you will watch Kaminey. It's well worth the time!

 

Chance pe Dance

कैसे हो, मेरा दोस्ती!

Well - I do wish that Typepad had a Devanagari script font, but ah well. On to the movie!

Chance pe Dance was the first movie that I wasn't in love with after watching it, yet it remains one of my most repeatedly watched movies and now it is one of my favorites - I always watch it when I'm in a bad mood or depressed because it's just a silly, fluffy, no brainer-type of movie.

The story revolves around Sameer Behl (Shahid Kapoor), a struggling actor from Delhi who moved to Mumbai to break into the "filmy" industry. At the start of the film, we see him going on audition after audition and it isn't until a director (Mohnish Bahl) sees him dancing in a club that he gets his break. But, suddenly, his break evaporates and he's left struggling to survive. He gets a job as a dance instructor at a school. His new girlfriend, Tina (Genelia D'Souza), convinces him to take a part in the Star of India competition - think American Idol but for multi-talented people - as a way to get his big break.

So that's the synopsis. While I do really love this movie, it has two very weak points - the music and the chemistry between Shahid Kapoor and Genelia D'Souza. The music, for the most part is just nothing spectacular. The movie revolves around dancing, mostly, so a lot of the music is dance/club music to give Shahid a chance to show off his skills - and the boy does have skills! It's unfortunate that the chemistry between the two stars doesn't work for me. I like both actors - Genelia was fantastic in Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na (which I'll report on later) and I absolutely love and adore Shahid. But - sometimes the chemistry is just not there. Luckily, while it's a negative for the movie, it's not something that keeps me from watching it over and over and over.

Here is a video of one of the cute songs - not my favorite song, which is "Rishta Hai Mera", but this is my favorite of the musical numbers in the movie.

   

 

Jab We Met

What can I say about this movie? It's definitely up there in my top 10...and probably in the top 5. It's a cute little romantic comedy about a boy who meets a girl on a train.

Aditya (Shahid Kapoor) is a young, troubled industrialist. His father has died and his mother, who fell in love with another man and left him and his father, is vying for the part of their company that belongs to her. Unable to take the arguing of the lawyers anymore, Aditya walks out and gets on a train. This is where he meets Geet (Kareena Kapoor). A bubbly, vivacious and VERY chattery Punjabi girl. After a series of mishaps where Geet keeps missing the train, Aditya is obligated to escort her to her home. During these travels, they fall in love, but, as is common with these romantic movies, they don't realize it until the very end.

I very much adore this movie - it's definitely a feel good film. After watching this one twice, I looked for other Shahid Kapoor films and his talent has born out in almost every one....even the ones that were pretty bad, they weren't bad because of him. He is far and away my favorite Indian actor and I'm looking forward to seeing what his future holds, especially if he keeps making great choices in films.

One thing about this one - you have to overlook the claymation at the beginning. I nearly stopped watching at this point, but I'm very very very glad I didn't and now I view it as just one of the things about the film that I love. It's just very jarring the first time you see it, I think.

 

Wake Up, Sid!

This movie is over-the-top adorable!! Ranbir Kapoor (yes - I stuck with one actor for the first few movies...it's all about familiarity when you're venturing into new, uncharted waters) plays Siddharth (Sid), a recent college student who finds himself forcibly pushed out of his comfortable life and no longer supported by his successful father (Anupam Kher). He meets Aisha, played by Konkona Sen Sharma, at a party and they strike up a friendship that, over the course of movie, blossoms into love.

This is a genre of Hindi films I really love, but only a few of the romantic comedies are really done well and there have been some real stinkers. This is not one of them. It's predictable, but what romantic comedy isn't, really? All of the performances in the movie are fantastic and I only wish they'd done a little bit more with Sid's friends, Laxmi (Shikha Talsania) and Rishi (Namit Das). I was a little put off by Sid's self-centeredness in the first half of the movie, but by the end, I totally loved him, which was the point.

The music in Wake Up, Sid is very well done. The title song is a stand out, but mostly because they made a club mix and a music video which is really fun to watch, but other songs such at Iktara and Kya Karoon? stand out for me and are very enjoyable.