Jodis - some favorites, some made by Rab, and some bromantic ones!

Sorry bloggers, I have been a lazy bum these days, vegging out in front of the TV with a stack of dvds and torturing my friends with RK's "AAH" which is more aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh!!! Anyway I put this off for sooo long that was until today when I watched the most bromantic movie ever: Quarbani and so here are the jodis!
(Please don't mind the screencaps, my comp busted today!)
Jodi of Sweet Pyar: Nargis and Raj
These two are just fantastic, their offscreen pyar made it soo heartfelt and gorgeous when mouthing lovey-dovey dialogues in the barsaat cry movie Barsaat. They could also do screwball comedy very well too, like in Chori Chori, I might even say they were almost as good as Claudette and Clark, because when these Indian versions squabble they do it so cutely! Perhaps their offscreen love was doomed from the beginning as he was married and she had an stage maa, but whenever they came together it was electric and sultry. Even in Aag, Raj's first movie he devotes a huge chunk of the Nimmi saga to her and that scene where he pulls her hair made me wanna close my eyes because it seemed so real and i felt voyeuristic!
Jodi of Young Love: Dimple and Rishi
Though this pair only appeared in Bobby and Saagar, and a few others, I really like this jodi! They to me are the epitome of young love, Rishi and Dimple won my heart in Bobby and sure you could say their relationship in that is purely kiddish and for snogging only, but they were rash and in love. So i definitely overlooked the times they smashed their faces together in tame hugging, they were sooooo earnest and they didn't mind running away from home, and looking cool on Rishi's motorbike! If there is family opposition the "Motorbike of Cool" is to the rescue, I think they must have started the motorbike trend for years to come! In Saagar they were young love with a lot snogging, and my goodness I think they both looked gorgeous in that movie, as their jodi was good in that Goan seaside love story.
Jodi of Great Fun: Shashi & Amitabh
I love this jodi sooo much, they have such chemistry and are perfect foils for eachother, for example in Deewar they both loved their maa, but in the famous "mere paas maa hai" that scene was just electric, they can play off eachother well. Another word made up for these two "Titanic face-off speech" meaning a brilliant speech were they face-off and oppose each other. But they do make nice brothers and a great team when they're in masala films. Like the silly but fun Shaan they did a lot caper-ing in that movie, they had a fun but very misogynist speech comparing Bindiya Goswami and a car, that speech almost infuriated the feminist in me, but i found it funny which is not that great! They were always lost bhais. a very good masala element to make them posterboys in the Masala Pradesh for Most Fun Jodi!

Jodi of Slightly Real Love: Anil & Madhuri
I chose to ignore Madhuri's jodis with Salman(cute) Sanjay Dutt(very spicy) and Aamir(awww) and in the end Anil had the best chemistry and jodi-ism with her. A few of her earlier movies with Anil, like Parinda made me realize why I really love this jodi: she loves him despite him being a gangster/tapori crime lord. And that's what makes it slightly real, because in Tezaab, she loves even when he come back as the baddest tapori crime lord, and she waits for him and dances in the bars to support her sharaabi dad. Sure he tells her "don't love me I'm a bad kid" but Madhuri always has that unwavering love for Anil that always makes him die/give up his crime lord status. And even in Parinda one of my Anil favorites, she sticks around and watches as her pyar becomes a crime lord, and she does now and again remind him that "Crime is bad/I love you too." This constant reminder also makes me wonder if Anil had a bracelet saying "what would Madhuri do"

Jodi of Pure Bromance: Vinod & Feroz
Due to the 'unfortunance' of my computer messing up, I couldn't capture much of the Bromance of this duo. But bloggers, you'll to suffice it with my great descriptions. Qurbani is the bible basically to bromance, and it is one of my favorite movies ever too! Bromance was abound in this movie, for example when Vinod gets beaten against a tree by the villain, there is Feroz to cradle him in his arms and carry him to the hospital. Another simple gesture of bromantic pyar is when Vinod is in the hospital, Feroz shares a cigarrette with him, by plopping in his mouth. A resounding awwwwwwwwwww escaped from my mouth in that moment as well as a huge guffaw from my friends! Another is when they have a fight over Zeenat in a London living room, when all misunderstandings are cleared up they hug each other, this hug is like no other bromantic hug I've seen: Vinod holds Feroz's elbow, Feroz hold Vinod's shoulder, they stare in unintentional bromantic love and then bang their chests together in a hug, Vinod casually strokes/pulls at Feroz cool mane of hair. PHEW!!! Now i recommend you all watch Qurbani. This is longest passage on jodis ever, catch Dayavan to see the Vinod-Feroz Bromance-fest, where they hug and stroke each others backs in a heartfelt attempt of a hug!
Jodi of New Bromance: Saif and Akshay
This jodi is the new age version of bromance, they hug, they lean in together, their hugs personify a kiss they wish could happen, they wield guns, they guffaw together, they almost ignore the girls in the movie, they starred mainly in the 90's together and Tashan, they both speak good Punjabi together(a must for me) they play off eachother very well, and I'm sure veracious can tell you more!

Jodi of Pure Lust: Amitabh & Rekha
I kinda like this jodi, they made a hit pair, and like Raj-Nargis they had an off screen love as well, and whenever I see them in a movie together, their chemistry is soo lustry and sexy. Even in the sombre Alaap whenever they stared at each other they looked lustfully. Their affair lasted for ages, according to the trusty trivia book "Bollywood a comprehensive history by Mihir Bose" they began meeting after the filming of Namak Haraam, then he went out with Jaya, married her in 1975/76, then went back to Rekha, apparently lived with her for a while, and did Silsila, then the jodi broke up! These two have one of the sexier jodis in Bollywood after Rajesh-Sharmila which was pretty spicy.

There are a ton more jodis in Btown, but these are my key favorites, maybe I'll do a part 2 in the future hope you like it!

The Proximity Awards!

Yeh Bolly-bloggers ke dosti!

I found Memsaab's post this morning and found it utterly charming and happy-inducing especially its snowing a bit here in Vancouver. I completely love the idea of these awards, over these past few months since I started this blog, we've all become Bolly-friends! Though eight great blogs were hard to think of, lol I don't wanna offend anyone by leaving them out but we're all good mates now!

“This award is given to a blog that invests and believes in PROXIMITY – nearness in space, time and relationships! These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in prizes or self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers! Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award.”

Memsaab, I adore all the Shammi posts which made me run out of class to go to the video shop which is jsut one street down from my college! And through Memsaab's great reviews, I realized I watch waaaaaaaaaayyy too many movies, especially during the ages of 7-11 up to now! Memsaab's trivia posts always make me do a hmm invisible beard scratching moment, and thanks memsaab for putting up with my inane comments on your blog!

Post Punk Cinema Club, one of the first blogs I happened upon, I love the new Anil-pyar which I obviously had a lot to do with! PPCC's reviews always give me new points that I never think of, in movies like the whole Husband-is-God in RNBJ today. Ppcc has shaped my filmi journalism career now by making me view movies with a critical eye!

Beth, the resident celebrity of the Masala Pradesh, I love the earlier Akshaye-pyar reviews which made me swoon and wonder about his receding hairline and hair-plugs! The lunchtime polls are always such fun, and Beth's adventures with King Khan make me wanna search Vancouver for one myself!

Bollyviewer, one of the funniest blogs around, the screen caps are hilarious and always make me snort aloud with laughter during my journalism classes! Now that I'm 18, I'm sure i can vote in a ton of filmi polls now and we must meet up we're in the same rainy and snowy country!!

Filmi Girl, the best podcaster and Helen-lover around! Her update of filmi news is great and I have to credit you Filmi Girl for introducing me to OP Ralhan and your screencaps are gigantically brilliant!

Ajnabi, I love this blog as ajnabi's reviews have such fun and spunk to them, which makes me laugh aloud and nod along all the time, and a never-ending pyar for Shahid!

Todd at Die,Danger,Die,Die,Kill and Teleport City, the funniest blog which reignited my love for Feroz Khan and Dara Singh, who I had suppressed many memories of watching Dara doing crotch-locks. His various reviews from all over the world made me appreciate the great battles of Dara versus a dinosaur/ape/lizard/frog?!!

Shweta, great insightful reviews that make me laugh and often influence whether I'll trapse many buses to seeing the big movies!

Hope you all like the awards given, anyone not mentioned you may receive a Masala Pradesh badge of "Good Citizen-ness" and although I haven't met all of you, I'm sure due to the great planning of Shweta and Beth we'll all meet at the meetup in NY!

Tumse Achha Kaun Hai - Dostana kisses, Convolusions, and Shammi!

My dreamy loverboy!

I needed to continue the Shammi pyar by reviewing one of my favorite 60's romps which is also adds to the series "Shammi danced into my dil." After reading many of Memsaab's fantastic reviews on Shammi, I went and bought a ton at the video shop! I thought it would be about Shammi and three girls which is common in some of his movies 3 girls, Pran, and Lalita Pawar. But it threw me a complete curveball as it starts off as a love story/romance then it turns into a rape drama then into a "gotta find my sister" tale. But in the end, I love it coz its soo OTT and silly essentially its a Shammi movie with his pouts and wiggles, and some funny innapropriate moments!!
Shammi is Ashok a travelling singer, and 'kalakaar' which he gets shouted at in the middle of the street, he gets picked up by this shouter and taken to Sarojini Devi(Lalita Pawar) house, Shammi and Lalita are a great jodi in their own right, and she looks him over up and down and asks him to reform her three grandkids. The three girls are going off with frivolous men and she wants them to settle down and be all good.
Shammi turns this down and goes home to his blind sister Roopa, who he has a verrrryyyy inapropriate hugging relationship with. Sure you may say there hugging but why does his sister have to pull such orgasmic faces and breath waay too heavily?

AWWW, but just watch the movie and you'll see!
Ahem...!

Getting back Roopa is a devout young girl, while Shammi (I'll just call him that) is a staunch atheist blaming God for them being orphans and just any injustice that has happened to him like Her being blind, him being poor. Boohoo then he turns around and goes to Sarojini for the money and starts spying on the sisters, with the help of his comic sidekick Mahesh (Mehmood).
Mehmood doing the Greenface getup!
Honestly Shammi makes a delightful jodi with Mehmood or Rajendranath in anything, I love this soo far. Mahesh gets his own subplot, he's in love with Sheila(Shubha Khote) who Mehmood is always paired with, he loves her but her dad (Dhumal-again part of the trio) wants a Marathi groom and her mum wants a Sindhi groom. So a nice social comment of getting along is included in their sequence. Some the absolute inanities are Mehmood disguising himself with a blackface getup but actually its more Greenface, of course the trio do their funny shtick and then BOLLYWOOD BROMANCE KISS! LOL after watching the Jagdeep snog in Apna Desh this was a mere peck but still :Dostana kiss has nothing on them!
Shammi acting as a *Swoon-worthy* ghost!

He gets run over by Asha(Babita) the eldest girl who's too tomboyish and afraid of falling in love,Shammi pretends to be dead and Mahesh throws him in the river, so that he looks good as a ghost who will fall for Asha, and reform her.
Shammi's not that heavy!

While romancing Asha, Shammi also reforms the other two girls whose names I forgot, but one of them is going out with the Ranjeet-predecessor Manmohan who takes Unnamed Daughter to the hotel for a dance and guess who turns up Shammi! Yaay, Shammi also sing my favorite song "Kisssss Kisko Pyar Karun" where he's on the telephones saying "Hello my love, my dove, my sweetpea, my pigeon!" Shammi's wiggling and dancing is fab in this song, he does a lot of swishing of his wonderful pouffy hair and a lot of frenetic hand movements. That song also has one of those iconic images like:Bad picture but I tried!
Pray to the Post Box!
Shammi jumps into to save the day as Manmohan is about to loot the Unnamed Daughter, actually wrong wording Shammi doesn't jump in, he hides under the bed and pokes Manmohan with a knife which makes him zing up and down!
Shammi also helps the Unnamed Daughter 2 who runs off with her boyfriend taking her granny's jewels with her. The boyfriend is also about to loot her till Shammi actually does burst in the compartment and they both have a dishoom dishoom while falling out of the train too!
All the girls are reformed and all goody now, and then Shammi realizes he's in love with Asha, after they finish singing the title song, Granny catches them at it and berates Shammi for falling in love on the job. Asha begs him to renounce this but then he remembers his Roopa and runs off!
This is where the tone of the movie changes, Roopa is of course praying at the temple during a storm, and then is helped up by a certain handsome rogue Mr.Pran, who else! Pran is also related to Sarojini's asistant, and Sarojini feels that a Mr.Pran is an excellent groom for Asha! Back to Roopa, she falls and Pran takes her home and obviously he ogles at a wet Roopa and helps her in. Then somehow he enters the house again and rapes her, in one of the most stylized rape scenes, he wrestles with her in the shadows and the ending shot is of her chudiya breaking!

I'm afraid PRAN is pretty FINE here!
The shockingly gorgeous after shot!

Shammi comes home to see the unmade bed, broken chudiya, while Roopa is typically ashamed and tries to drown in the river but is saved by a chivalrous doctor(Rehman) who looks not too old here. She also gets her eyes wondrously fixed and all is good with her till she meets an aunty who looks like Sarojini who takes her to a brothel to again almost raped by Mr.Chicanery himself Madan Puri!
I love this movie, its got Mehmood and Dhumal kissing, Pran looking devilishly fine, two Lalita Pawars and a Madan Puri. Meanwhile across town Shammi tries to find the rapist, he even bumps into Pran a few times but never susses out! Shammi also falls into an accident and is bandaged across the eyes, and turns out at Rehman's hospital with a new nurse who could it be? Roopa!
The tone then shifts too a completely different turn into a "usurping property drama"
Can you spot the evil twin?

This is where it got convoluted, the two grannies switch places and team up with Pran and his uncle to do this, while Mehmood figures it out, but no one else believes him!
What will the brilliant Shammi do? Will there be a dishoom dishoom faceoff?
Grannies become sharaabis too!
Shammi Kapoor is wonderful here, I adore him and wish that somehow men would take his advice and dance and woo so persistently as he does. Sure its not everyone's cup of tea to have a buffoon/cutest guy ever to woo and follow you about, but I'm sure Memsaab and I enjoy a persistent perennial disguiser like Shammi!
Babita is pretty good here, though she suffers from "Over Coloured Eyebrows" syndrome that makes her look like Groucho Marx in some places. Each Babita movie I watch, her voice is sooo OTT orgasmic whenever Shammi whispers or hugs her, perhaps its the deep voice, but I think Karisma adapted that for a while the heavy breathing and Ohhh every time Govinda or Sallu gave her kiss!
Mehmood, Dhumal, and Shubha Khote are a great trio jodi, I love them all together. I think this is one of my favorite jodi groups as well as them in Love In Tokyo- which I must get round to reviewing. Tokyo, Mehmood and Joy Mukherjee YAAAAAAAAAYYYY!
Back to this movie, Pran was devilishly good here and I could almost forgive him for breaking Roopa's nice chudiyaa! The actress who played Roopa was fantastic better than all the women in the movie, despite her inapropriate hugging with her bro Shammi.
Lalita Pawar reprises the same role since Mr & Mrs 55, the old maa or grandma that wants to reform her lovesick kids, but she has great chemistry with Shammi!
Tumse Achha Kaun Hai if I could sum up in three words is:
You said it man!

The Khan Dynasty - the Big 3 and the family of Khan

I watched Dharmatma yesterday, and realized that Feroz Khan captured my heart with rugged masculinity, and his crooked teeth, so I needed to do something about him and so the Khan post has arrived. Like the Bollywhat post on the many Khan's I had to do my own, with the Big 3 and then some of the Khan family.

Shahrukh became SEXY!!!
1. Shahrukh Khan - currently sitting at the top of the industry, and who might be slowly being dethroned by the new guy or that old guy who finally made it big Akshay Kumar. But Shah Rukh has always done it for me because he's just sooo darn romantic and Rahul/Raj-esque in his acting that I can't hate him. This will probably be my downfall in movie journalism is that I just can't find any wrong with Anil and SRK, but its probably coz they can light up a dismal project and they are just such competent actors. SRK was the second "king of my heat" as he is so adorable and he loves his women to ends of the earth and will woo them valiantly like Shammi but with more sappiness and agility. For example his Raj in Darr was soo in love with Juhi that he wrote "Kiran" on his chest and he was willing to fly here and there just to love, perhaps thats a silly example as Raj there was clearly a nutjob. But SRk infused such pain into Raj that I screamed "You go and kill that Sunny Deol, and talk to your dead maa on the phone too!!!" SRK's mannerism of the twitchy eyebrows (he really needs to thread them!) the stutter that could rival our Shashi's, the quivering lips, the always outspread arms for a girl like me to run into. SRK makes it mega-hard not to like him, thats probably why i love him.

Loving the scarves
2. Aamir Khan - now here's a Khan I don't love fanatically and can critisize because I didn't like him at all in the beginning, he was too chirpy and kissed his heroines namely Juhi more, so he was more of a realistic romantic hero that I didn't like when i was 10. But he grew on me in Raja Hindustani and Lagaan and his post millenium movies. But here's a Khan who has outspoken views and a great actor too. I think his choosiness in roles is necessary, because he did do some pretty backwass movies as a young guy like "Zindagi Tere Naam" or "Army" never wear a mush Aamir it doesn't suit you that well. But his Jo Jeeta Sikandar and his fun college films always struuck a chord with me, he was that sensitive nerd that I just wanted to be my squeeze! But his sparse releases always show a nuanced and powerhouse performance from Aamir.

Cuuteee!
3. Salman Khan - A Khan who is very inconsistent in my books, he could act great but then ham in other movies. He is one of the more conventionally good-looking Khan in the Big 3, but I do prefer 90's Salman as he looked cute and he wasn't losing his hair as well, and he loved to show off his chest by ripping his t-shirt off! But post millenium Salman, he started looking old, he obviously had some hair plugs as you can see in the awful Yuvvraaj. My favorite Salman movie must be Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, he was soo spunky and he was really sweet at the end crying on Helen as Ash left him for her hubby, another BARSAAT CRY moment! But Salman is a good actor but his troubled off screen life probably hampered his career a bit such as bashing up Aishwariya Rai, shooting the chinkara, and turning up late for shooting. But I do love a bad boy and Salman fits that deal!


4.Arbaaz Khan - another part of the Khan Dynasty, he's an competent actor and he knows how to pull off an actor face but he's not the best Khan brother. He specialized in playing the bad guy or the tough guy and he was brilliant in Damini with Rishi and Juhi as a psycho. And he was great and sleazy in the recent Fashion. He was also great fun in Pyar Kiya Toh Darna Kya with his bro Salman and Kajol and the original tough guy Dharamendra and his fight scene with Salman was crackling with machismo!
Funny pic from Salaam E Ishq
5. Sohail Khan - the youngest of the Sallu's clan, he is emerging as one of the finest comic guys around, he is also a producer but I think he's a great actor too. He was the saving grace of the backwass "God Tussi Great Ho" and of the dismal "Hello". He seems to have starred in a lot lackluster movies but emerging as the one to watch for. He was really good in the recent Heroes and was much better than the bland Vatsal Seth.
Sexyness and Funkadelic all rolled into this man!
6. Feroz Khan - as I mentioned above, Feroz is the new Rum crush, he is sooooooo HAWT! Sure he's starred in some of the silliest spy and gangster flicks of the 60's and 70's but he looked cool doing it. He's also a funky director, Dharmatma is now up there on my favorite gangster movies of all time, its violent, funkadelic and just plain cool. And Feroz is not a director that hogs the whole screen to himself, if there's a second hero then Feroz devotes enough time to make the second guy have a fully fledged character like Vinod in Qurbani sure he lost the girl but there was enough time spent on the sheer sexyness of him and obviously him and his precocious daughter. Feroz also directed my ANIL in Jaanbaaz one of my favorites coz of my ANil being a sweet tapori type. Feroz also pushed the envelope in his movies, Jaanbaaz is synomous in my head with the OTT sex scene with Anil and Dimple in the hay, and even Dharmatma with Faryal shaking her stuff in a bikini and then dying in a bathtub with not much clothing on.
Bechaara
7. Sanjay Khan - Feroz's younger bhai, I don't know what to think about Sanjay as I hated that he beat up Zeenat Aman in his off-screen life, but then I do feel sorry for the guy as he got his face burnt and never really recovered his face again. But as an actor he always seemed to wooden to me, maybe it was his nasally voice or his flapper hair but he wasn't as charismatic as Feroz.

8. Fardeen Khan - Feroz's kid, I like Fardeen, he's a good actor and he's kinda cute too, though he did start off in a terrible movie directed by Feroz called Prem Aggan, he was really young there and showed some good acting amidst a lot screaming and shouting in that movie. He also is a favorite of the Ram Gopal Varma camp as he was in Jungle and Pyar Tune Kya Kiya with Urmila who made a pretty nice jodi with despite her looking slightly older. He was very good in Dev as a radical Muslim kid, and his scenes with Amitabh were really well done. Apparently he's doing a remake of Qurbani, him playing his dad's role of course but it does make me go hmmm coz I really liked Qurbani as it was fun funky and had Feroz+Vinod!

9. Zayed Khan - Sanjay's kid, he's a pretty good actor he was fairly good in Yuvvraaj as Danny, much better than Salman as he had more of the Tom Cruise role to play in the Rainman remake he was brash rude and horrid which he plays well. My fave Zayed role so far has been him in Main Hoon Naa, he was cute as Lucky and he was a good foil for SRK's straitlaced Ram.

10. Farah Khan - I think she's Zayed's sister? She;s arguably one of my favorite female directors these days, she adds a bit of spoof, and tongue-in cheek humour to all her projects. Main Hoon Na is one of my favorite school movies ever as she makes it with such heart, and its great coz its so fun and self-referential. Om Shanti Om too was fun and her background scores with the old school tunes of RD Burman in the back were such good touches to the movies.
A Hunk of pure Emo!
11. Yusuf Khan/Dilip Kumar - a world class actor that captured my heart with his simple emoness! Dilip Khan sounds kinda good but I guess a Kumar name has a certain pizzazz with it too.My fave Yusuf/Dilip movie is probably Mashaal sure he's around 50 in that movie but as a journalist myself I respect his performance as a guy searching for truth and justice in the slums and influencing my ANIL to become a journo too!
Saif's fondness for sham-relationships!
12. Saif Ali Khan - one of the good comic Khan's, though his earlier performances were a bit rough and my favorite Saif movie must be Yeh Dillagi, he makes a good substitue for William Holden in the Sabrina-remake. Plus he made an excellent bromantic pair with Akshay Kumar, I bought all their movies together and he just infuses such spunk and is a perfect foil to Akshay's tough action man guy! He also had a turbulent off screen life, marrying Amrita Singh an older lady but nevertheless she snagged a hot toyboy for a while till he went off with Roza then to Kareena!

Here's the proper list as I accidently published the post before my computer froze! Too many Khan's some good and some rubbish!

1942 A Love Story - Rum's First Indoctrinated Movie!

The main characters are all in there!

Schools out for winter yaay so i have tons to review!
As ruler of the Masala Pradesh and president of the Anil Kapoor Fanclub I just needed to do a post on my favorite romantic epic of all time and the first Bollywood movie I ever watched 1942! This movie is absolutely essential in the Anil Kapoor Masala state, as its a sweeping illustrious epic, that I continue to love to this day as an 18 year old indoctrinated girl!
I do realize that becoming a movie journalist requires me to watch a movie critically and with an eye for goof-ups and greatness, but I really can't review this movie critically because its in my system. I have grown up with watching this movie every time my parents did the hoover, I know the songs off by heart and more importantly I started my Bolly-watching with my ANIL.

The cutest paperboy hat ever!
Perhaps this is the movie that gave me my bollyhollymusical-itis, because Vidhu Chopra really knows how to make this romantic and tragic at the same time!
The movie starts off with Naren(ANIL!) who is getting ready to be hanged for treason, he says goodbye to his nice sympathetic maa(Sushma Seth) he also bids adieu to his nasty colonial-loving father(Manohar Singh) as he goes up to the noose, he looks down at the crowd screaming Jai Hind below and we are told in flashback what led him to being accused.
I love the scenery in this movie, as they call the town Kasauni but its Nepal and you can tell by the Nepalese guards accent when they talk in Hindi, Lol just a little quibble there! Naren is a bourgeoisie young guy who is good friends with his driver Munna(Raghuvir Yadav) they go to the city square and a riot breaks out and Naren rushes to save a kid who's getting kicked in for holding the Indian flag, he also spots Rajjo(Manisha Koirala)Manisha the damsel!
Its love at first sight for Naren, who goes home and wonders about the girl and he sings my favorite song "Ek Ladki Ko Dekha" as you can see this movie shows how indoctrinated I am to this movie, as my parents used to play that song all the time to keep me quiet or again while doing the hoover. And my first images were probably Anil falling off his bed, swinging with his duvet, dancing with his pillow, and doing a dance with the pillow feather every where! Thats probably when I fell in love, a guy who is soo happy to be in love he jumps on his bed and throws his pillows about is my kinda man! Here's some of my fave pics:Yaay I love pillows!

He loves to dance on his bed AWWW

I love the "in-love" hands!
He's just contentedly in love!

He sees Manisha again at Munna's neighbours house she on a swing, this seems to be a reoccurring element in the movie that Rajjo is always on a swing maybe it says something about how innocent she is or that when she is in love, she goes on the swing instead of jumping on the bed. Or maybe its a massive symbol of young love! There I'm being journalistic about the movie.
Rajjo's father (Anupam Kher) along with his accomplice (Tiku Talsania-in a rare nice guy role) are freedom fighters that want to kill General Douglas (Brian Glover- from Alien! Someone Hollywood-ish here) who obviously symbolizes the oppressiveness of the British.Pran yaaayyy!
General Douglas also is a bad guy coz he killed Rajjo's brother for being a freedom-figher, so they want revenge, another accomplice is the great PRAN, I squealed a massive yaay here because it was Pran looking all grandfatherly and he is Baig-sahib a theater director staging Romeo and Juliet with of course Naren in the lead and some girl called Chandni as Juliet who is the daughter of the bad-ass general Danny Denzongpa. I'm still a bad-ass Officer!
Rajjo and Naren romance secretly, they rehearse lines together and they sing songs in the library and they do a lot hugging and snogging! What I liked here was that there was a simplicity to their love, they are young and in love, they don't care to much about the freedom movement until it catches up with them later. Their romance is epic, because they get torn apart by the movement and Naren valiantly tries to find Rajjo everywhere.
Sorry back to the story Rajjo's dad finds out and is mega-pissed that she would go out with a Westernized man, and in a truly BARSAAT CRY moment Naren shouts this and gawsh I fell in love with Anil all over again!You'll do that all for me Anil?
When her daddy approves there is another scene of her on a swing, when they see eachother they do the "Run of Love" where they run into each others arms and happiness is abound in their world, except that Naren's dad sends the army in to capture her dad! There is a sweet moment when their hands meet and are torn from each other once the cops come. Even in these overblown gestures their love seems so sincere!
Anupam hides in the shed and blows himself up, while Rajjo runs into the mountains to another freedom-fighter Shubhankar (Jackie Shroff-another YAAY). Manisha is great in the hysterical parts where screeches Baba in the mountains, while up there she tries to forget moments of love like these:AWWW
A very Gone With the Wind style snog!
Another epic looking moment

Shubhankar also loves Rajjo but doesn't make it obvious, coz Jackie can just act yearningly and stare at her with those soulful eyes and just capture all that love! Lol Jackie became my sister's fave hero when she watched this for the first time, however she didn't go paagal like me and sit all summer watching Anil's 80's-90's roles!
Meanwhile Naren is looking for his lady, he keeps following Baig every where and asking for her, in another epic mushy scene Baig says she's dead and Naren says he'd go to the ends of hell to find her, awwww. Naren spots Rajjo in the town and in one of the most spectacular and most poignant running scenes ever Naren chases after her, while she runs and looks longingly back at him, I love running after scenes, this one takes the cake coz a chorus of the great song "Kuch Na Kaho" echoes in the background while Naren runs after her. Jackie intercepts him and punches him in the face then runs offBest Running after ever!

The Anilackie jodi doesn't get much screen time, as Jackie gets to beat up everyone when they do come together its crackling chemistry as in one scene Anil goes to grab Jackie who was gonna take his knife out, instead Anil has a gun, the stares they give each other are so powerful.
Another quibble I have was the ending was a bit silly they didn't need to bomb up the building and have tons of shots of stuntmen on fire! But it did give an excuse for Danny and Jackie to kick some ass and live up to their titles as strong n silent type warriors!
The performances were great, of course Anil captured my heart at 2 years and even now at 18. My journalism teachers say find something critical to take about but I can't here because I just whole-heartedly love this movie.
The romance angle was simple subtle and epic not in a Gone With the Wind way, though the scenery and snogging were like that, it was more heatfelt and real than other epics coz they really do love each other but they are just caught up in a time where they are just so polar opposite from eachother.
I loved that Vidhu brought back Pran, he was so cute and crusty and just Pran-ly. Ppcc you do raise a point, as ANil is turning into a Pran-esque character actor which is a good career to emulate.
1942 A Love Story is a good movie, I try not to say that as a Anil fan, but as a journo I would defintitely recommend this movie its epic, mushy, sweet, subtle and just plain great!

Romance at its most epic!

Yuvvraaj- Beautiful yet Backwasss!

This man is better than Dustin Hoffman!
This review is not going to make much cohesive sense, it will be rife with dissapointment and swearing and full of pies and no pics of the actual movie though populated with the Anil-caps!
Venting time: This movie is utter shite, utter rubbish, and utterly beautiful. How can a movie be all these 3 things because Subhash Ghai made it that way, it was rubbish perhaps I should have listened to the PPCC, Filmi-girl, and everyone in the blogger world and not have paid money for this! Alas I'm the kid of our bunch and made a silly decision to buy a DVD of this! I know its terrible to buy it in that way but the cinema that would play it was 2 buses and 1 train ride, I can't risk that!He's my Yuvvraaj
Subhash Ghai was one of my favorite Anil directors when I was 8 and at that time I sat down next door on Rita's couch and watch one after the other of the Anil-Subhash movies and I laughed and whooped coz it was so funny then, but as an 18year old I revisited these movies this summer in London at Rita's and realized Subhash is rubbish.
Subhash Ghai has reoccurring elements in his movies with Anil or in general : A nasty horrible father/stepma/family member, property is usurped from the hero's family, Anil gets a good role which flourishes in, a famous oldie actor does a comeback, Verbal-battle-offs, lame rip-off of Deewar/Mother India/Sholay/Romeo+Juliet and many more, a villain with something funny to distinguish himself as a villian-->spot/white eye/funny wig/a twitch!From my fave movie 1942 A Love Story
Yuvvraaj is a gorgeous movie with great shots of Prague, great shots of Katrina faking the cello, great landscape, capturing the sweetness of my ANIL, but as much as I loved the scenery it was terrible story line. I won't even call them proper names of these brothers like Ram Balram the brothers don't even need names as they are characterized by their actions.
Immature Idiot(Salman Khan) is living in Prague everything seems to be all right with him except that he's kicked out of his house,but he's at some gorgeous school of music and he loves his girlfriend Nice Redeeming Female(Katrina Kaif) who plays the cello brilliantly. But she is a rich girl and her father Annoying Plot Twister Father(Boman Irani) wants Immature to have enough money to support her, Nice Female expresses no concern over money to Immature so why does this even come up!
Lovely song "Tu Meri Dost Hai" it was filmed nicely but then came the idiotic acid trip moment where Immature floats around in the clouds! AHHHHHHH I hate unnecessary animation it was sublime and lovely till that part then i pressed fast-forward after.
A bit sadness happens when Immature Idiot learns that Distant Father(Javed Sheikh) has died and he resolves with Plot Twister Dad to run home and get some paisa. He explains his family strife with Nice Female, and mentions that he hits EXCELLENCE Personified Gyaneshwar(Anil) who's autistic and gifted too, why the absolute hell would he hit in the first place, I felt so angry here honestly!!!!Anil-the Commando
When he's back home he meets his extended family of Westernized family including Bad Uncle with White Eye(Anjan Srivastav) who's a bad guy who wants the property to share among his other evil nephews. We also meet Abusive Idiot(Zayed Khan) who kisses his Western vamp girlfriend a lot in the movie! They all come together to read the will along with Nice Uncle with Ponytail(Mithun Chakravarty), suprise surprise Excellence Personified Gyaneshwar gets all the money. What I liked here was that Ponytail Uncle vowed to ruin all of the family if they corrupted Excellence.This is the same pic I have autographed by Anil
This is where it turned into "Rainman" instead of a horrid Tom Cruise we get Abusive and Immature who team up together to be nice to Excellence Personified Gyaneshwar get the money off the poor innocent guy and split it 50-50 and give Excellence 1% dunno how it works. Immature takes Excellence Personified to Prague where Excellence catches the eye of Nice Female who sees that he's completely gifted in music. This is where I wanted to throw pie, Immature then feels jealous of the clearly talented Excellence Personified who wants to sing in Katrina's play. Nice Female encourages him and his twangy instrument while Immature gives him "Shut up" looks for him to quieten down his geniusness! AHHHHHH sorry, then Abusive tags along to Prague and in a cute scene Excellence is encouraged by Immature to kiss Abusive on the cheek I sighed a big AWWWWWW!
In some idiotic plot devices Abusive and Immature grow to love Excellence Personified and see him for what he's worth, this was completely unsincere I wanted to jump into the movie and give my ANIL a big hug and fend off the horrid brothers. Then the 80's movie convolusions come back so the big extended family of shrews come to Prague to see the show Excellence is going to be in. In a BARSAAT CRY-inducing moment Excellence finds the truth about his idiot brothers, he can't express his feelings into words and all he can do is rage and be silent while throwing things around, and thats is FANTASTIC acting right there!
Performances are rubbish, Salman Khan is edging towards his evergreen stage of his career, I have always liked Salman but accepting a dopey idiot like Deven was a stupid move, he acts as much as he can in a badly written role.
Zayed Khan fares better as he gets more of the Tom Cruise role being horrid and abusive to poor old Anil, his kissing scenes with his vamp were unnecessary but anyway
Now ANIL lives up to his name as Excellence Personified, he gives a much more nuanced and less OTT performance than Dustin Hoffman did in "Rainman" and he adds a childlike spunk to his character, even with the fidgeting of his hands while singing the sublime and haunting "Manmohini Morey" his utter sweetness as a character gave me so many moments to cry about and the sad part when he was collapsing on stage was so sad! Anil should get some sort of award for making the portrayal of autism both sweet and subtle!
Katrina Kaif was really surprisingly good here, she looks beautiful in "Tu Muskura" and she acts really well and seems confident in this movie, I love her line "Tu ek anti-family man ho" thats gotta be the best reason to shout at Salman in this movie ever!
The rest of the cast were terrible and I felt like throwing pie at the bitchy vamp of the family who swapped Anil's inhaler. Even the kid who played Anil's friend Bala was better than they were."The mullet of excellent acting"
Yuvvraaj was one of the most disappointing movies of the whole year, I have never cried so many BARSAAT CRIES in one movie while wanting to throw a pie in the face of every horrid character in the movie! Sorry for the vent but it just sucked!