Monika’s Pensieve

Haven’t done any short, random sort of posts for ages, should get back to that :]
Anyway, Bollywood is still changing very dynamically. The borders of what is accepted in terms of violence, sex and language are constantly being pushed and there’s more experimentation with genres that have been absent in Bollywood before now. One of [...]

{FILM DIARY}
Saathiya (2002, India)
Seen: Tuesday, 5th January 2010 (DVD)
Runtime: 138′
Director: Shaad Ali
Cast: Vivek Oberoi, Rani Mukherjee, Shahrukh Khan, Tabu
Production House: Kaleidoscope Entertainment Pvt. Ltd.
Plot: (from imdb)
The tale of a young couple in love who elope and marry, but soon find that that marriage is not the bed of roses it is made out to be.
Trailer

Impressions [...]

{FILM DIARY}
Billu (2009, India)
Seen: Thursday, 31st December 2009
Runtime: 137′
Director: Priyadarshan
Cast: Irrfan Khan, Shahrukh Khan, Lara Dutta, Om Puri, Kareena Kapoor (cameo), Deepika Padukone (cameo), Priyanka Chopra (cameo)
Production House: Eros Entertainment, Red Chillies Entertainment
Plot: Billu is a barber living below the poverty line. When a film crew comes to shoot in his village, gossip starts that [...]

{FILM SPOTTING}
The Accidental Husband (UK/USA, 2008)
Release Date (Poland): 2nd October 2009 (Kino Świat)
Release Date (worldwide): 13th February 2008
Runtime: 90′
Director: Griffin Dunne
Cast: Uma Thurman, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Colin Firth, Isabella Rossellini
Production House: Blumhouse Productions, Team Todd, Yari Film Group (YFG)
Plot: (from imdb)
When talk radio host Emma Lloyd advises one of her listeners to break up with [...]

{FILM DIARY}
Duplicate (India, 1998)
Seen: Saturday, 12th September 2009 (DVD, repeat viewing)
Runtime: 158′
Director: Mahesh Bhatt
Cast: Shahrukh Khan, Juhi Chawla, Sonali Bendre, Farida Jalal, Kajol (cameo)
Production House: Dharma Productions
Plot: Bablu is a very sweet guy who works as a cook and Manu is an evil and perverted gangster. The problem is that they both look the same…
Trailer

Impressions [...]

I found it hilarious how tendentious the report is (but hey, Indian media just is like that, I’ve sort of gotten used to it now). SRK was really trying to play it down, while they were trying to get maximum scandal out of it. It was kind of funny ;) Still, the main facts seem [...]

This sort of thing has happened before (SRK has spoken about being frisked and checked at US airports before), but unless the Indian media is misrepresenting what happened, it’s just been taken to new levels…
Apparently, Shahrukh Khan was detained for 2h at Newark airport yesterday. He was only released after the Indian embassy interfered. The [...]

{FILM DIARY}
Brick Lane (UK/India, 2007)
Seen: Friday, 10th July 2009 (cinema, Lato Filmów festival)
Runtime: 102′
Director: Sarah Gavron
Cast: Tannishtha Chatterjee, Satish Kaushik, Christopher Simpson
Production House: Film4, Ingenious Film Partners, Ruby Films, Seven Seas Productions, UK Film Council
Plot: The story of a Bangladeshi woman, married to a Bangladeshi man in London and how she gradually starts taking control [...]

The strike I’ve been following has finally come to an end - it lasted two months. More details on the settlement can be found here.
Consequently, release dates for the coming major Bollywood releases have finally been announced :)

This is a case I’ve been following for a while and it just gets weirder and weirder.
Akshay Kumar, who is one of Bollywood’s biggest stars at the Indian box office, was invited to walk the catwalk during the Lakhme India Fashion Week. While on the catwalk he approached his wife, Twinkle Khanna (another Bollywood actress [...]