I am done watching Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I am not going to add to the countless other reviews out there, but I have to say that this is a classic. The hype made me a little leery about watching it, (Lost in Translation, remember?), but any fears I had were blown away in the first few minutes. For the record, I would like to state that I would have liked it even if it didn’t have Kirsten Dunst in it.
Feb 092005
Boy, what a letdown. Aish, sporting an atrocious outfit and an even atrociouser accent. Croaking out the last word of each sentence with a funny sounding drawl… Indiaaa and Bombayyy. And then, there was this.: At random instants, without perceivable external stimulus , she would start off this routine that consisted of rolling her eyes at Letterman, followed by rolling her eyes at the audience, then capped off with some laughter.
A completely perplexed Letterman did manage to get a couple of questions across. And got a couple of ferocious sounding replies in return. Innocent sounding softballs (“Were you a young girl when you started modeling?”) that got hurled right back at him, with an eye rolling thrown in for good measure. There was a clip from Bride and Prejudice with a wooden Aishwarya in the swimming pool — I heard something about some dude wanting to see India without seeing the Indians, and there was a whole lot of confusion over his nationality … I was too busy wishing for the camera to pan downwards to hear properly. And no, it didn’t.
Manish over at Sepiamutiny seems to think Aish was off color because she took herself too seriously, but methinks she was just being her true self: a bimbo.
Update : This review on Time tells it like it is.
In the lead role, Bollywood goddess Aishwarya Rai is pretty as a picture–a still picture. She appears always to be fluffing her hair for the next fashion shoot. She’s got moves on the dance floor; and in the sumptuous and catchy score by Añu Malik and Craig Pruess, she smartly sells a few numbers that try to update the Austen ethos (“I just wanna man who gives some back/ Who talks to me and not my rack”). What she can’t yet do is suggest a complex spirit behind the lovely façade.
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Jan 282005
A Vairamuthu interview to kick off the day. First the good news. Vairamuthu is not writing for Rajinikanth’s Chandramukhi. But he says, every “micro-second” of his life contains poetry. Like so:
“Princess of Istanbul (!)
Heat up the land with your kisses” (from Mazhai)
He talks warmly about Illayaraja, I think. It is kinda hard to figure out what the man is trying to say. And he also says something about talking to Rahman being a “pleasure.” Says their next project is Godfather starring Al Pacino and Asin.
And Rajinikanth? What can I say? Perhaps just a bad wig day.
Meanwhile, Balu Mahendra agonizes over good directors (read : him) not being treated right by Tamil cinema. Poignant story about him talking about salaries with other directors, and realizing belatedly that they were talking in millions, not thousands. I used to like him a lot, but he seems to be stuck in a rut these days.
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Jan 232005
This can be hard to believe, but you have to trust me (and this source)
Ajith Kumar’s next movie is called God Father to be directed by K.S.Ravikumar. No, don’t start laughing yet. Funny as it may sound, that’s not the joke. Supposedly this movie is based on the real GodFather. And Ajith Kumar is studying Al Pacino’s “body language and mannerism” so that he can act just like him. Bwahahaha.
This’s got to be the funniest thing that happened this week. Remember K. Balachander? The ultimate talent scout who introduced both Kamalhassan and Rajinikanth to tamil cinema. Visu’s sole competitor for the honor of having every movie of his feel like a stage drama. The guy that introduced numerous novel concepts to Tamil cinema … Like using a hand to tear days off a calendar to signify the passage of time. Or using rapid shots of an assortment of news magazines to signify (you got it) the passage of time. Yeah, that guy.
So he watches the latest big blockbuster in Tamil — a sensitive movie called Kadhal that has won rave reviews. Impressed, he praises the director. And then tells the heroine Sandhya, “You are the next Saritha.” Saritha? Ok. Whatever.
Later he talks to the press and deplores the state of Tamil movies today. Says movies are becoming vulgar. And then follows up with the punch line for his joke: “I will make a movie like Maro Charitra to rescue Tamil cinema from the depths to which it has sunk.” I laughed hard, then read the comment again, and laughed hard again. If you dont get the joke, go watch Kalki. Or Duet. Or any of his 90 other movies.
Since then, the movie has been announced
Jan 232005
Ok, a horny dude checks out some Latino websites, and comes across a video of someone bathing. When replaying the video for the 19th time, he realizes with a gasp that the girl in the video bears more than a passing resemblance to Trisha, a popular Tamil actress. So horny dude forwards said video to his equally horny friends. Friends forward some more, and in all the frenzy the Trisha look-alike video gets magically transformed into the Stolen Trisha Bathing video. One of the friends was very kind by nature, and so he posts the video on some website, and soon the video is the most popular Tamil movie of all time, beating Padayappa hands down. Hmm… maybe not, but almost. Wait, please read the whole blog before you go googling for the video.
Now since Trisha doesn’t watch Indian movies, she had no idea all this was happening. Until some loser that does watch Indian movies brings this “Indian” movie to her mom’s attention. Livid mom goes to the media, and over a two-week period, makes a series of statements that provided an immense amount of publicity to the movie in question. And some comic relief to people who wanted a break after repeatedly watching the same two-minute clip. Among other things, she claimed (with a hint of pride) that the girl couldn’t be Trisha, because she was strewing her clothes around in the bathroom I don’t know about you, but that increased my respect for Trisha.
Finally, Trisha threatens to complain to the police, and collections skyrocket some more. In fact, this is the highest grosser of all Trisha movies. As in all of her other movies, Trisha didn’t act in this one either.
Now the newspapers and magazines join (birthday) suit. Almost every newspaper worth its salt carried the story, although the respected ones used small typeface to maintain their reputation. (No, the Hindu is not worth its salt.) Finally, a tech-savvy editor figured out how to make screenshots and published them in his magazine, only to get arrested. One of the “investigative” journals went on to claim that the movie was shot in Hyderabad using a micro-camera and that a member of (who else?) the mafia did it. Wow! Sure, the original horny dude could have been Telugu, but to call him the mafia is a bit of exaggeration I wish I had thought of first. Link here.
Last I heard, the police were using “body-structure experts” to figure out if the girl is indeed Trisha. As a side note, have you ever wondered what the coolest job in the world was?
PS: Someone got a link to the video? You can only gather so much from grainy screenshots.
PPS: No, I don’t have the grainy screenshots anymore.
Jan 232005
This has been a good year for that miniscule segment of men interested in celebrity wardrobe malfunctions.
Kirsten Dunst’s bikini top decides to move away just a little bit when surfing at St. Barts. Again at St. Barts, Anna Kournikova has a brain malfunction, and decides to check out what is inside her, um, clothes. No, no links for you. This is a family-friendly website.
Ok, who wants to pay for Aish to make a trip to St. Barts?
