Thursday, April 29, 2010
Check Out My Website!
I have created it from scratch, and it's still under construction, but I'm proud of it.
You Gotta Love Shahrukh
Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi. Because of this movie, I have decided that no-one makes a moviestar like Shahrukh Khan.
Hrithik Roshan, Shahid Kapoor, Aamir Khan ... well, they're good. They're really good. But I forgot until this week how much fun it is to watch a Shahrukh film.
The summaries I've seen of RNBDJ are all pretty inaccurate, so I will give one here.
Surinder Sahni is a plain, unassuming working man who is not exactly young anymore. What's more, he's very shy and awkward--but he knows, and everyone who knows him knows, that he has a great heart. When Suri goes to visit one of his old professors, it just happens to be the day of the professor's daughter's wedding. Bang! He meets Taani and instantly falls in love, in spite of the fact that Taani is spoilt, hyperactive, and very much in love with her husband-to-be. You can always tell this girl right off, because she's wearing a yellow sari.
What next? Tragedy, of course. The groom and his entire family are killed in a bus accident on the way to the wedding, and Taani's father has a heart attack from the stress of having to tell her. On his deathbed, he begs Suri to marry his beloved daughter, so that he can rest easy knowing she will be well cared for. Suri and Taani reluctantly agree and are married immediately after the funeral.
The first thing Suri does after taking Taani home is vacate his bedroom for her, opting to sleep in the attic. He goes to work, where rumors of his marriage abound (drat those nosy neighbors spying on the beautiful girl who came back to Amritsar on the train with Suri). All of Suri's co-workers invite themselves over for a party to celebrate his marriage and meet his wife, but Taani is shut up in the bedroom and will neither speak nor come out. Towards the end of the party, Taani finally appears, with a shaky but hospitable smile. When all the guests are gone, Taani apologizes to Suri, telling him that she will try to be a good wife and bury her old self completely, but that she will never love anyone again.
Suri, ever generous, tells Taani the truest form of love he has ever received was her keeping his dignity in front of his friends, and that he would never expect more. But this is an outright LIE!!!! Well, he doesn't mean to lie, it's just that he realizes then that he does want her to love him. So ...
He enlists the help of his weird best friend, Bobby, who is a hairdresser, and gets a complete makeover--a disguise to try out while he goes and spies on Taani at her dance class. Suri and Bobby figure it's an act of God that Taani and Raj (Suri's alter-ego) get drawn as partners. Raj, unlike Suri, is a playful, effusive clown who has neither glasses nor mustache, and dresses like a metro stud.
Why would Suri do this? Because he wants to know if Taani would be happy if she got away from the one person who represents the tragedy of her former life. So who will Taani choose: plain, boring, everyday Surinder; or macho man Raj? To find out, watch Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi, available anywhere Bollywood movies are sold (and also on Netflix Instantview. Yay Netflix!)
It's probably true when people say that Shahrukh does nothing more in this movie than replay his old 1990s roles. Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, Kal Ho Naa Ho, Dilwaale Dulhania Le Jayenge. I say bring it on, Shahrukh! No-one else fails so loveably to look and act hot and macho. And he sure can dance. There's a reason this dude is in everything, and it only has a little to do with looks.
American movies and American actors can take their big budgets and sparkly special effects somewhere else. I have an appointment with Chak De India!
The summaries I've seen of RNBDJ are all pretty inaccurate, so I will give one here.
Surinder Sahni is a plain, unassuming working man who is not exactly young anymore. What's more, he's very shy and awkward--but he knows, and everyone who knows him knows, that he has a great heart. When Suri goes to visit one of his old professors, it just happens to be the day of the professor's daughter's wedding. Bang! He meets Taani and instantly falls in love, in spite of the fact that Taani is spoilt, hyperactive, and very much in love with her husband-to-be. You can always tell this girl right off, because she's wearing a yellow sari.
What next? Tragedy, of course. The groom and his entire family are killed in a bus accident on the way to the wedding, and Taani's father has a heart attack from the stress of having to tell her. On his deathbed, he begs Suri to marry his beloved daughter, so that he can rest easy knowing she will be well cared for. Suri and Taani reluctantly agree and are married immediately after the funeral.
The first thing Suri does after taking Taani home is vacate his bedroom for her, opting to sleep in the attic. He goes to work, where rumors of his marriage abound (drat those nosy neighbors spying on the beautiful girl who came back to Amritsar on the train with Suri). All of Suri's co-workers invite themselves over for a party to celebrate his marriage and meet his wife, but Taani is shut up in the bedroom and will neither speak nor come out. Towards the end of the party, Taani finally appears, with a shaky but hospitable smile. When all the guests are gone, Taani apologizes to Suri, telling him that she will try to be a good wife and bury her old self completely, but that she will never love anyone again.
Suri, ever generous, tells Taani the truest form of love he has ever received was her keeping his dignity in front of his friends, and that he would never expect more. But this is an outright LIE!!!! Well, he doesn't mean to lie, it's just that he realizes then that he does want her to love him. So ...
He enlists the help of his weird best friend, Bobby, who is a hairdresser, and gets a complete makeover--a disguise to try out while he goes and spies on Taani at her dance class. Suri and Bobby figure it's an act of God that Taani and Raj (Suri's alter-ego) get drawn as partners. Raj, unlike Suri, is a playful, effusive clown who has neither glasses nor mustache, and dresses like a metro stud.
Why would Suri do this? Because he wants to know if Taani would be happy if she got away from the one person who represents the tragedy of her former life. So who will Taani choose: plain, boring, everyday Surinder; or macho man Raj? To find out, watch Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi, available anywhere Bollywood movies are sold (and also on Netflix Instantview. Yay Netflix!)
It's probably true when people say that Shahrukh does nothing more in this movie than replay his old 1990s roles. Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, Kal Ho Naa Ho, Dilwaale Dulhania Le Jayenge. I say bring it on, Shahrukh! No-one else fails so loveably to look and act hot and macho. And he sure can dance. There's a reason this dude is in everything, and it only has a little to do with looks.
American movies and American actors can take their big budgets and sparkly special effects somewhere else. I have an appointment with Chak De India!
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
The One-Eyed Cat
My cat is fourteen years old, making him in his mid-seventies in cat years, and he has always been vicious, loud, obnoxious, and anti-social. Until recently, that is. Over the past year he has decided that his favorite place to hang out is in somebody's lap.
I recognize as I write this that there are a lot of cat haters out there. While I might not understand how anyone could hate such interesting creatures, everyone is entitled to his or her preferences; I myself am not very fond of dogs, so there you have it.
I have liked my cat all along, in spite of his nastiness. It was kind of upsetting when I found out about a week ago that he had a tumor in his head and would have to have it removed ... along with his right eye. But that was nothing to how I felt when I saw him after his surgery. It seemed to me as if the vet performed one of those shady, unsanitary, patched-up, back alley operations from the condition he was in, with blood all over his little face and crooked stitches made from something that looks like fishing line, helter-skelter across his eyelid.
One of my students said we should just put him down. Someone else asked why go to all that trouble to save the life of an obnoxious cat who's old anyway? Particularly one that has a history of biting children. Well, that's a hard question. Rather like asking my neighbor why he didn't get rid of his nasty pit bull that kept jumping the fence and attacking people--it was so dangerous it caused my sister, the toughest of the tough, to actually scream while she was booking it back into the house after trying to be a good neighbor by peaceably mowing her own back yard.
Oh, well. The cat is fine, and cuddlier than ever.
I recognize as I write this that there are a lot of cat haters out there. While I might not understand how anyone could hate such interesting creatures, everyone is entitled to his or her preferences; I myself am not very fond of dogs, so there you have it.
I have liked my cat all along, in spite of his nastiness. It was kind of upsetting when I found out about a week ago that he had a tumor in his head and would have to have it removed ... along with his right eye. But that was nothing to how I felt when I saw him after his surgery. It seemed to me as if the vet performed one of those shady, unsanitary, patched-up, back alley operations from the condition he was in, with blood all over his little face and crooked stitches made from something that looks like fishing line, helter-skelter across his eyelid.
One of my students said we should just put him down. Someone else asked why go to all that trouble to save the life of an obnoxious cat who's old anyway? Particularly one that has a history of biting children. Well, that's a hard question. Rather like asking my neighbor why he didn't get rid of his nasty pit bull that kept jumping the fence and attacking people--it was so dangerous it caused my sister, the toughest of the tough, to actually scream while she was booking it back into the house after trying to be a good neighbor by peaceably mowing her own back yard.
Oh, well. The cat is fine, and cuddlier than ever.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
It's time to re-create the blog ...
I deleted my last blog for a lot of reasons, but I think it's time to go for it again. Yeah, I know everyone is inspired to blog from watching Julie and Julia, and I am, too. I don't really want anyone else to read it; I just want to practice writing with an audience in mind, for the most part.
This blog will not focus on cooking (although I did buy a cookbook recently called Indian Curry, and I've asked for Mastering the Art of French Cooking for my birthday). I think common topics will probably include foreign films (specifically Bollywood films), movie scores, school and library issues, updates on my attempts to be a runner, and books books books.
Yay, me! Welcome back to blogging.
This blog will not focus on cooking (although I did buy a cookbook recently called Indian Curry, and I've asked for Mastering the Art of French Cooking for my birthday). I think common topics will probably include foreign films (specifically Bollywood films), movie scores, school and library issues, updates on my attempts to be a runner, and books books books.
Yay, me! Welcome back to blogging.
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