Jaan-e-Mann
I visited Old Schoolfriend today, and together we watched Jaan-e-Mann starring Salman Khan, Akshay Kumar and Preity Zinta. Surprisinly enough, it was a *really* funny comedy. Indian humour is quite often a bit iffy to my taste, but this time it worked very well :).
The story tells of Suhan who is in the process of getting a divorce from Piya. Her former high school acquaintance, who has carried a torch for her all these years accidentally comes into contact with Suhan who decides to help Agastya win Piya in order to escape his alimony payments. But in the end he realises he is still in love with her and things aren't quite as they seem.
Even though the basic plot sounds extremely cliched, what raised this movie above my and my friend's expectations was the clever use of intertextuality (or should I say 'intervisuality' :)), visual allusions to different movies and Bollywood conventions. There was also quite a lot of parody on Salman's own star status ('I'm a big star, I don't do side roles, only leads.') and his reputation for always ripping off his shirt at some point in every movie he stars in.
Akshay Kumar does comedy incredibly well and his Agastya is adorably dorky and geeky. His laugh reminded me quite a lot of "Beavis and Butthead" :D. His comedic timing is very good and he can do both goofy and hot in the same film. And he looks extremely good in suits :).
Preity was in more of a side role and didn't really have that much to do in this film other than to look pretty and adoring to either of the guys. Anupam Kher's "Uncle" was ok, though I think his comedy act is a bit too broad. Also, it was quite obvious that he was kneeling every time his "dwarf" self was in the picture.
Some of my favourite scenes were the qawwali where the band and the sillily dressed dwarves came out of the closet, Salman's costumes (police, Elvis impersonator, etc. All we needed was an Indian costume to make up a single man's remake of the Village People XD), Salman ripping open his shirt and showing "Piya" written across his chest *LOL*, and the "Singin' in the Rain" parody song with Suhan trying to get a role in Bollywood. As can be seen from the list, quite a lot of my favourite scenes involved nods to other things.
Our Shahrukh dose for the evening, for what Bolly night is perfect without a dose of Shahrukh in it :), consisted of several Dil Se song videos (Chaiyya Chaiyya, Dil Se Re and Satrangi Re). I also tried to convince her of Takki's prettiness by showing a couple of T&T MVs, but she wasn't buying :P. Well, her loss, I say.
Still, I have managed to convert her into a slight Bolly fan, so not all my conversion attempts on her are hopeless :).
Snow White and the Seven Dwarves The extremely cracktastic qawwali where Salman and Anupam's characters try to hypnotize Agatya into romancing Piya. Also, the lyrics of this song crack me up XD.
"Jaane Ke Jaane Na" from Jaan-e-Mann"
"Chaiyya Chaiyya" from Dil Se - one of my favourite Bolly songs ever!
"Satrangi Re" form Dil Se - very beautiful
The story tells of Suhan who is in the process of getting a divorce from Piya. Her former high school acquaintance, who has carried a torch for her all these years accidentally comes into contact with Suhan who decides to help Agastya win Piya in order to escape his alimony payments. But in the end he realises he is still in love with her and things aren't quite as they seem.
Even though the basic plot sounds extremely cliched, what raised this movie above my and my friend's expectations was the clever use of intertextuality (or should I say 'intervisuality' :)), visual allusions to different movies and Bollywood conventions. There was also quite a lot of parody on Salman's own star status ('I'm a big star, I don't do side roles, only leads.') and his reputation for always ripping off his shirt at some point in every movie he stars in.
Akshay Kumar does comedy incredibly well and his Agastya is adorably dorky and geeky. His laugh reminded me quite a lot of "Beavis and Butthead" :D. His comedic timing is very good and he can do both goofy and hot in the same film. And he looks extremely good in suits :).
Preity was in more of a side role and didn't really have that much to do in this film other than to look pretty and adoring to either of the guys. Anupam Kher's "Uncle" was ok, though I think his comedy act is a bit too broad. Also, it was quite obvious that he was kneeling every time his "dwarf" self was in the picture.
Some of my favourite scenes were the qawwali where the band and the sillily dressed dwarves came out of the closet, Salman's costumes (police, Elvis impersonator, etc. All we needed was an Indian costume to make up a single man's remake of the Village People XD), Salman ripping open his shirt and showing "Piya" written across his chest *LOL*, and the "Singin' in the Rain" parody song with Suhan trying to get a role in Bollywood. As can be seen from the list, quite a lot of my favourite scenes involved nods to other things.
Our Shahrukh dose for the evening, for what Bolly night is perfect without a dose of Shahrukh in it :), consisted of several Dil Se song videos (Chaiyya Chaiyya, Dil Se Re and Satrangi Re). I also tried to convince her of Takki's prettiness by showing a couple of T&T MVs, but she wasn't buying :P. Well, her loss, I say.
Still, I have managed to convert her into a slight Bolly fan, so not all my conversion attempts on her are hopeless :).
Snow White and the Seven Dwarves The extremely cracktastic qawwali where Salman and Anupam's characters try to hypnotize Agatya into romancing Piya. Also, the lyrics of this song crack me up XD.
"Jaane Ke Jaane Na" from Jaan-e-Mann"
Click to view"Chaiyya Chaiyya" from Dil Se - one of my favourite Bolly songs ever!
"Satrangi Re" form Dil Se - very beautiful