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Bollywood Xmas Package
Noah got me many wonderful Bollywood-related gifts for xmas. (And all I got him was an Atari Flashback 2 and a package of lead-tainted Baby Lucas lollipops. I swear to god I didn't know). He got me two CDs of music by Asha Bhosle and Lata Mangeshkar. Asha has recorded over 20,000 songs! Isn't that insane? It's the world record and it averages to one a day, every day, for 55 years! Lata, Asha's sister, hasn't recorded as many, but she's another pervasive voice in Bollywood cinema. The CDs will make up the soundtrack of my sandwich-delivering life. When I listen to Hindi songs over and over I memorize the words (or the sounds, to be more accurate) so I can sing along despite the fact that I have no idea what I'm singing. Noah also got me two Amitabh Bachchan movies: Amar, Akbar, Anthony (which is awesome) and Sharaabi (which I haven't seen yet).
The final present came in the mail today. Luckily I was home so I could sign for it. It was addressed to Noah and I saw that it was sent from India. I had a feeling it might be for me so I called him up and he told me I could open it. I was especially intrigued b/c it wasn't hard like a cd or dvd. I tore into it and discovered it was a book by none other than Amitabh Bachchan him-frickin-self. Holy cow! It's called Soul Curry for You and Me. Just the title and the picture on the cover make this book worth the price. Soul curry. I like the kind of curry that you eat so I assume I'll like the curry that's meant to nourish my soul. I'll take a great big steaming plate of soul curry, please! Usually I have curry at an all-you-can-eat Indian buffet and end up eating to the point of discomfort. I hope that doesn't happen with soul curry. The back of the book promises that Amitabh will teach me "how to turn failures into successes, how to have a positive outlook on life, how to increase one's self-confidence," and, my personal favorite, "how to foster oneness with nature." I was going to poke some gentle fun but my first bite of soul curry made me change my mind: "Life is difficult for those who revel in criticism of others... but for those who enjoy the sweet chirping of birds, it is a pleasure trip." I want to take a pleasure trip and enjoy chirpy birds. Help me, Amitabh! Help me release my negativity! Thanks Noah for the greatest xmas present package ever! I'm really sorry about the whole lead-poisoning thing...
2005-12-28 00:15:58 UTC
Mr. India
I was really looking forward to this movie b/c I hadn't seen a Bollywood film about a superhero. Mr. India isn't born a superhero. He is an ordinary Indian who happens to come into the possession of a bracelet that can make him invisible. When he's not invisible, he's Arun (Anil Kapoor), a poor man who takes care of a flock of cute little orphans. Being of superhero caliber, he will of course do anything for these sweet helpless creatures, who all happen to be good breakdancers. The movie came out in 1987 and I guess breakdancing captured the imagination of India. Janet Jackson's "What Have You Done for Me Lately?" also dates the film. It plays in the background at a fancy restaurant where some villains dine. I wonder if high class restaurants really played Janet Jackson songs. Anyway, before Arun discovers the bracelet that will make him Mr. India, he meets a journalist named Seema (Sridevi). She agrees to rent a room in his house before she realizes there are like a dozen children running around and singing all the time. One of the first songs begins when Seema takes the children's football (soccer ball) away from them. The whole song consists of the children pleading with her to give them their football back. Despite her vexation, Seema eventually falls for the herd of orphans. What melts her icy career-girl heart? When Arun's grocer refuses to give him food on credit (due to an alliance with a supervillain named Mogambo), the orphans begin to starve. Seema is unwilling to trade the lives of the orphans for some peace and quiet so she feeds them a ton of junk food and immediately falls in love with them.
I mentioned the villainous Mogambo. He lives in some kind of crazy palace-compound with a bunch of mindless followers who greet each other with cries of, "Hail Mogambo!" Early in the film, Mogambo proves how loyal his followers are by asking three of them to jump into a pool of acid located beneath the floor. Without hesitation, they jump into the acid. Mogambo is always talking about taking over India. He wants to be the king. Mogambo is a very bad man. He's played by Amrish Puri, who also played the heart-eating dude from the culturally-sensitive Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
Speaking of cultural sensitivity, the showstopping musical number in Mr. India features a troupe of backup dancers all dressed in blackface. The scene showcases an excellent high-energy song called "Hawa Hawaii" sung by Seema who is posing as a showgirl for some reason. The plots in most (older) Bollywood films are so convoluted that though one keeps up with all the twists and turns during the film, she (read: me) is hard-pressed to recall them. This is part of their appeal. The sensory overload one experiences is thrilling and leaves one feeling punch-drunk. It also seems to be an effective strategy for diverting the audience away from plot holes. Seema and her dancing boys go through several costume changes throughout the song which contributes to the intoxication. Before donning the aforementioned blackface, the boys are dressed in glam makeup and skintight pantsuits and then in grass skirts and pasty-style nipple paints. Seema is eventually discovered to be an imposter. Arun, in possession of his bracelet, becomes Mr. India and saves her. Lois Lane style, she falls in love with Mr. India and shuns Arun.
I'll briefly mention two more scenes. The first takes place in a gambling hall. For no apparent reason, Seema is dressed as Charlie Chaplin. The scene is filled with slapstick comedy and allows the actress to show off her comedic skills. This is a rarity in Bollywood. There's a lot of comedy in Bollywood, but it's not very often that a woman gets to be funny. Sridevi does an excellent job and has tons of goofy sex appeal. The other scene I want to mention is the love scene. Seema and an invisible Mr. India profess their love for each other in song. You probably have heard that kissing is not allowed in Bollywood films. It seems that if people know one thing about Bollywood, it's that kissing isn't allowed. I'm not sure if that's still true or if it ever was an explicit ban (and I'm pretty sure I've seen at least one onscreen kiss), but Mr. India is no exception to the rule. (Here's a brief article on the subject). Though I'm all for free speech, I must admit that censorship does breed creativity. (Just watch any movie from Iran). In this scene, Seema attempts to relieve her sexual tension by literally rolling around in some hay and seductively chewing on some straw. Really.
I won't give anything else away. It's a big winner: the music is fantastic, the story's insane, and it indulges in the irresistible fantasy that there's a such thing as an "ordinary Indian" and that he could triumph over the rich, powerful, and evil.
2005-12-27 14:24:34 UTC
Allergic to Candy Canes
Noah and I went to a bar last night to spread some xmas cheer. This is how we were dressed. I think people were making fun of us but I couldn't figure out why. Somebody yelled out, "Hey Christmas Girl, think fast!" and threw a beer at my head. I dodged it and refused to let that scrooge get me down! I smiled at him and said sweetly, "Maybe you should switch from those alcoholic spirits to some good old-fashioned christmas spirit!" To emphasize the point, Noah and I burst into a rousing rendition of "Here Comes Santa Claus!" but, much to our surprise, no one joined in. Just when I was starting to feel like maybe it was 
hopeless, someone offered me a drink. I heard him order it. He said, "Fill one of those pint glasses with Rumplemintz." Armed with nascent cynicism, I was suspicious and asked what this "rumplemintz" was. The man, who was laughing for some reason, told me it was real candy cane juice, freshly squeezed in the north pole! I'd never even heard of such a thing. I could feel myself brightening and drank the liquid peppermint sticks. It burned my throat but it really did taste like candy canes! I was ready to attempt another song and it needed to be a jazzy one. This crowd was heading toward a "blue christmas" if we didn't do something and quick. I thought "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" might be risque enough to intrigue the jaded bar patrons and funny enough to raise their beer-dampened spirits. I don't
know what happened, but before we even got to the second verse I started to feel kinda strange. I don't remember much of anything after that. Noah took this picture of me and said that I ran around like a maniac for ten minutes before passing out. Weird, huh? Maybe I'm allergic to candy canes. Wouldn't that be ironic?! Me? The Christmas Elf? Allergic to candy canes? It's a crazy world.
2005-12-24 15:24:55 UTC
It's a He-man Xmas!
Just in case any of you needed to be reminded of what xmas is all about, click here. Since I've been in such a crafty mood lately, I'm envisioning a xmas tree decorated with he-man figure ornaments. My brother and I used to have tons of them. Since my mom didn't allow me to have ken dolls to go with all my barbies (was she trying to make me lesbian?), I used to make my barbies hump he-man, buzz-off, and man-at-arms. They were her muscled midget lovers. They came right up to her crotch. Perfect. We also had Skunk-or. He really smelled like skunk, so I bathed him in baby powder. His new odor made him kinda gay, but barbie was more likely to go for him.
2005-12-22 00:25:56 UTC
Tears of a Kong
Noah and I went to see King Kong tonight. I know that it was three hours long but it didn't feel like it at all. It was frickin' awesome. We got to the theater ten minutes late and still managed to get there in time to see some advertisements. That "Trailer For People Who Love Movies" makes me want to kill. It's torture. If I were being held in a secret prison by the US and they wanted to make me talk, I'd start spilling before they played it even once through. Anyway, we happened to sit near a very special moviegoer who let out a peal of high-pitched girly laughter whenever he got excited. He was really excited. I understood him though b/c I had the temptation to squeal every time something exhilarating was happening. I definitely think there's a little retard in me. If I ever apply for a job working with retarded people, that's what I'll say: "I understand the retard, because I am the retard." Despite the camraderie I felt, we ended up moving b/c it was so distracting. There should be a special section for the specials, like the cry room in a church. And for anybody who emotes inappropriately. We need to train ushers to determine when someone is responding to something inappropriately. I might have been dragged away tonight though. It took every ounce of energy I had to not cry like a baby through the last half hour. I put all my strength into not blubbering, but I couldn't stop the downpour of tears. It was so unfair! Why couldn't they be together? Why did he have to die?! It made me want to climb to the top of the nearest building (a TGIFriday's) and roar and pound my chest like a girl-kong! As I analyzed my intense emotional response to a frickin' computer animated gorilla, I recalled the moment I realized people seemed to care more when animals died than when humans did. I was watching some documentary in a class that showed animals dying in an oil spill. I remembered how the (mostly) girls reacted with a pained "Aww!" (Strange, that's the same sound made when confronted with something too cute for real words). Nobody made that sound or even seemed to care when we saw humans dying (in some other documentary we'd watched). At the time (maybe I was 17), I perceived it as more evidence that people just plain suck and couldn't give a shit about one another. The fact that they responded with cloying horror to a (cute) animal's death just made it even more obvious. But now I think that we react like that, in part, because we define animals as innocent. Kong may have been a fierce killer, but he wasn't evil. He's a frickin' animal and animals can't be evil (except in disney movies). If a human love interest acted the way Kong did, we wouldn't empathize. We can distance ourselves from human death b/c everyone's a sinner; everyone's got a little evil in them. We can feel a kind of pure sorrow for the death of an animal. Perhaps I'm merely justifying my crying frenzy. And maybe the love story was so moving because it too had an innocence about it. Maybe the old Peter Jackson (Dead Alive, Bad Taste, Meet the Feebles) would have added a twisted sexual component to their relationship, but the new Jackson does no such thing. Though perhaps there'll be a weird sex scene in the extended version. That would be really cool. So, in sum, I recommend it. And if your part-retarded and part-depressive like me, bring kleenex so you don't have to mop up your copious tears with a popcorn-buttery napkin.2005-12-21 23:40:56 UTC