Masala Pradesh's vision of a Heroine!

Gorgeous Sadhana!
I have put off this post since forever, as I've screencapping soo many movies in advance to review when I have time. As ruler of the Masala Pradesh, it is essential for me to explain the masalaness of a heroine, heroines roles have changed from each era, from strong feminist roles of the 50's, to funkadelic women of the 60's, to set decorations in the Amitabh 70's, to arty strong roles in the 80's, and then back to the traditional avatar in the 90's!

• A heroine must be able to pull off a coif, a beehive, or some funky hair, she must start a fashion craze for hair in any era. Sadhana started the fringe in the 60's, Asha did the massive beehives, and Neetu started the loonnng sweeping hair.
• A heroine should be able to screech NAHHIIIII in a brilliant and evocative fashion, one of my favorite screechers is Rekha who always made it sound nice, another great screecher is Asha who added her hands to her face and made the Nahiii the loudest and the most overthetop
• Mumtaz-the Marilyn like sex symbol
  
• A heroine usually is raped or attempted to in many 60-70's movies, they must look very frightened or very relieved when some vigilante like Amitabh or a nice guy like Rajesh comes to rescue them.
• 90's heroines must at least at one time in their career play a Nanda type role where they are selfish brats who are completely aloof when a boy shows that they love her.
  Karisma did a great job in Raja Hindustani as a Nandaesque character who keeps shouting at Aamir about his status against hers
• Jaya, my favorite arty yet commercial actress
  
• A heroine must embody all of the genres of a heroine : a damsel, a mysterious lady(Sadhana was great in these roles) a spunky girl, a tomboy, a funkadelic kitten, a bad Westernized girl(Saira excelled in these types of roles) a traditional village belle,
  
• A heroine must love her man unconditionally and even file for a divorce(Aap Ki Kasam, pie inducing movie) or be a Sita like character for her hero, even if her over-love makes you wanna shout and shake the hero, its just proving some good acting!
• Zeenat-the polarizing opposite to the traditional heroine
  
• A heroine must at some point show some skin whether it was explicit like Zeenat in SSS, artistically shown with Rekha in Utsav, or boundary breaking with Dimple in a bikini in Bobby, or even a slinky shoulder like Nutan in some movie with Dev Anand I watched as a kid.
• A heroine must star in at least one matriarchal movie where she's the very put upon woman who likely loses her husband and mopes or a victim of a horrible boyfriend that dumps her with a kid, Meena Kumari was the evergreen put-upon woman especially in Ek Hi Raasta where she loses Sunil Dutt, has a brattish son/daughter, has a baby that nearly gets killed by her son. Mala Sinha also in the 50's played a few put-upon women like Sanjog a 70's film she loses her Amitabh, she makes friends with Aruna, finds out Aruna's hubby is her lifelong love Amit
• Hottest kiss ever in Bollywood!!!
  
• 90's heroine must have starred in at least one role where they play an abroad NRI brat, who comes back to India to fall in love with traditional Indian guys like Salman, Shah Rukh, Aamir, and even Anil, I think Karisma and Pooja Bhatt played a few good roles as these
• And as Prezident of the Anil Kapoor Fanclub, a heroine must have extremely or supremely or good chemistry with the ANIL, a heroine that has achieved this is Madhuri Dixit who made her and Anil seem like such a genuine yet sexy couple as she was always devotional like ahemmm someone here, or she always saw the good in his tapori-bad-kid-wrong-side-of the -tracks guy and always stuck by him. Manisha Koirala (where are you! you were my fave when i was 3) had such heart-breakingly real chemistry with ANil in 1942:A Love Story. Sridevi was also a great gal for ANil as they made such a 1950's screwball comedy duo in anything together such nice banter!
• Saira-my style icon for quite a while
  
• A heroine of the 1980's must explode onto the screen showcasing some great thespian ability, or gorgeous looks, in your face sexuality, and star with the aging superstars to get ahead in the days, these heroines must then fade off in to the sunset as their career dwindles down, but then they come back but on TV which is good enough ala Padmini Kohlapure-my absolute fave 80's girl, Rati Agnitori-still around playing mum, Poonam Dhillon-Punjabi grown girl, I liked her, but where is she? Kimi Katekar-sexbomb then, Salma Agha-the terrible yet lovely voiced actress of Nikaah! WHERE ARE THEY?
• Where are they? Or where is Poonam?
  
• If its a mutistarrer or a triangle movie a heroine usually chooses the first love, or the second one if the 2nd is her hubby ala Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, or she'll get stalked by her first love ala silly Sakshay movie Aarzoo
• Shashi has to learn to love the scarred heroine in SSS
  
• A heroine is never tooo old to be a romantic lead, though Madhuri pushed that way in the late 90's, or a heroine is never too young to romance an aging superstar Amrita-Amitabh could be the most creepy yet very sexy jodi, or the eeeekkkk Amrita-Dharam in some Punjabi movie & some other movies.
• Lastly if there are 2 heroines in a movie fighting eventually over a man make them have a great cat-fight, or face-off, or as i say "SCReech-Off"= where 2 shrilly women have a fight over a man, while their voices raises into cacophony of loud voices, a great screech off is the Aaina one where Amrita husky voice grows into a growl and Juhi's pleasant squeaky voice turns hoarse and shrill as well. One of my faves is the face-off between Jaya and Rekha in Silsila, it was soooooooo true I'm sure Jaya really wanted to say that, take that you hussy Rekha(though I do love Rekha in the movie too)
• Madhuri-the strong and traditional heroine
  
• A heroine should make a nice duo with a moustache man like Anil,Jackie,and ohh those are the only continuous muccha men that i like!
• A heroine should try out an art movie that would expand her thespianness and bag her some National awards and Filmfares, Rekha who did Kalyug, Umrao Jaan, Utsav all in the 80's which gives her a very Shashi-like career of the 80's where she did better roles back then.
• The best couple ever!
  
• A heroine should have a spicy and trivia filled offscreen life that sells a million Filmindia or Stardust mags for gossip-loving people like me,(Ohh dear I wanna be a movie journalist yet I like the scandalous trivia!!) Rekha and Amitabh were the biggest story then, the Karisma and Abhishek breakup, the Madhubala-Dilip breakup, the whole Crazy Kishore act, the love onset of Nargis-Sunil, the Nargis-Raj love story, the sweet Neetu-Rishi love, the Jackie-Manisha linkups, the Aamir and Juhi possible love story maybe you could clarify Bollywood Fan
• Vamps count as heroines too, though I think they deserve to be 2nd heroine or best friend of the heroine who stays in the movie throughout and is not killed or disappears or criticized for Westernization.
  

Hope you liked the pamphlet of my Pradesh's vision and maybe I'll do a Masala Pradesh Vision on Comedy Sidekicks or Villains!

Slumdog Millionaire - When Anil and Danny Boyle made the BEST movie of the year!

Ohhh Anil and Dev, you're great!
Bloggers I had been waiting to see this movie since the announcement in April '08, and as a dedicated and over the top lover of my ANIL I had to see this movie. And I rushed out of my economics class when the bell rang and fled to the bus, and saw it a few hours ago, all I can say now is WOOWW!
Sorry, I'll try and sound like the journalist I want to be and say that it was stirring, moving, and tense. I was overjoyed when the movie won the Audience or Top Prize at the Toronto Film Festival!
Back to the movie, it starts off with Jamal(Dev Patel) who recounts his experience on the gameshow "Who Wants To Be a Millionaire" the movie goes back and forth between the show and Jamal's experiences in life, and at the police station where they have arrested for supposedly cheating. He sits down with the Inspector(Irfan Khan) and Srinavas(Saurabh Shukla) and answers why he knows all the answers. The movie starts with the first question "Who was the
Such a sweet romance

hero of the 1973 hit Zanjeer?" Jamal remembers when Amitabh came to his slum, his brother Salim locks him in the toilet and what made me laugh a bit too loud was when Jamal jumped in the poo and ran to Amitabh and got his autograph! Jamal is then taken to an orphanage where he escapes from the dreadful (Ankur Vikal) who deforms the kids by gauging their eyes out! They lose Latika one time, Jamal loves her and rescues her a few times in the movie, another great scene is when the Bollywood element comes in again when an older Jamal sees Latika at the train station, its such a sweet moment and then it changes!

I liked that Danny Boyle didn't sugarcoat the sadness and brutality of the slum life, he adds his own gritty storytelling to the movie even if it is set in India, he makes it gritty brutal yet fairytale like as well which is soo great. And thankfully Boyle doesn't go the whole orientalism route that Merchant-Ivory went where India is simply the most diverse and colourful place and the cinematography has to capture the Indian-ness for the Western viewers, it feels intimate and not soo showy. The camera teqniques are so great and stylish and show the rapidity that Jamal's life takes on.
The only gripe I have about the movie is the M.I.A tracks in the soundtrack, unfortunately when Paper Planes came on I rolled my eyes to the back of my head, it has been played to death, but I guess the whole Hustler chorus line was meant for the growing up scenes.
Dev Patel as Jamal was excellent, with a raise of his thick eyebrows or a quiver of his lips, he just makes his acting so intimate and universal, I didn't even care that his accent wasn't as Indian as tryed and sounded a lot like my Birmingham cousins, he was just great and captured the whole lovelorn and lovesick feeling throughout the movie.
The kids Ayush Khedekar and Azharuddin Ismail who play the young versions of Jamal and Salim are such powerful actors, honestly those kids have dethroned Mayur or Rattan Kumar any day. The middle actors who played Salim and Javed were good too, making a better impression on me as street-wise urchins.
The young actresses who play Latika are gorgeous lovely actors, Freida Pinto as the older Latika was great in her first role and she is a great dancer in the very filmi number at the end.
Now to my ANIL, he was amazing nawww he was good in his supporting role, the scene where he stood out was when he had an angry freakout, shouting "Its my Fucking Show! My show!!!!" awww Anil you sound gorge when you swear! He didn't add any of the SRK or Big B to his role as his host, he wasn't a nice Regis, or a snipey Chris Tarrant from the English version, he was more calculating and nasty as the host. YAAAAY aNIL!
Irfan Khan, Saurabh Shukla, and Mahesh Manjrekar all turn in great roles! Damn why can't saying but great!!!
Lol I loved the way the subtitles were placed along the shots, making it almost like a comic, Shemaroo should try that!
Slumdog Millionaire is one of my favorite movies this year, its very Oliver Twist-esque and it should definitely be sent in for the Oscars!

Kal Aaj aur Kal- Randhir does it family style

Randhir personifies the Young 'uns!
(Sorry for the lack of screen-caps as I was sold a crappy copy, that wouldn't let me capture the funkyness of the movie)

In the Kapoor Khandaan list, I said Randhir Kapoor was cute, energetic, and a bit like Shammi in his energy, I stand by that claim to date. I first saw Randhir in Jawani Diwani with Jaya Bhaduri he was fantatically dressed and charmed the pants off me!
Kal Aaj aur Kal is one of the great movies that talked about the new generation and old and how they deal with eachother that too in the 70's when the counterculture was at its top. Counterculture or rebellious movies of the 70's started with Dev Anand's crazy hippie "Hare Rama Hare Krishna" and then this movie directed by Randhir himself talking about how the new generation is so different from the old and how the current generation must balance the two. I think its very intelligent to have each Kapoor generation personify the old, middle, and young, I gleefully think to myself what a metaphysical movie! And it fits into the genuine and funkadelic Masala Pradesh states as its thoroughly enjoyable and completely funkadelic!
So we have millionaire Raj(Raj Kapoor) who is very lonely and throws parties for no reason to console his loneliness and his good friend and "I'm in any film ever made" Iftikar tells him to invite his son Rajesh(Randhir Kapoor) and his father Thakur(Prithviraj Kapoor) to come live with him for a while. Rajesh comes first and meets Meena(Babita) a gorgeous funky girl on the plane to India, what I liked here was Randhir portrayed the fast-living and quick young generation with such youthful exuberance, maybe coz he was around 21 and this was his first movie? Rajesh and Raj meet again, and have a ton of fun reconnecting, then they trick the grandad into staying mentioning in a telegram that Raj is deathly ill. All is well when they are reunited so far till Randhir and Babita have a fun house party where they encourage Raj to loosen up and have a jig, it was hilarious when he introduced Raj to his smoking and drinking friends and Raj was like "Hi, piyo bete" "Smoke karo bete" gosh if every 70's kid's dad was like that then India in the 70's would be one big party! In one of the famous scenes where Raj does a dance at the party, and Prithvi gets mega-angry at the noise, it was soo well done the loudness of the music which I think were the Troggs when it came "More/More" you could see Prithvi doing his usual angry-pink face flaring up. Hey Man where's the music?
And when Prithvi witnesses Raj doing some very cute blobby and dad-like dancing, he immediately switches the light on and turns the music off which is the old not able to comprehend the party lifestyle of the new! Sorry if i add a lot of meaning to the movie, Randhir has great images that make you go "Hmmm....what point is he trying to make?"
A few great clashes of young vs new is when Rajesh lets his two friends that aren't married live in his house, Rajesh shouts "Dammit its the 70's man" and Prithvi shouts "2 people allowed procreate in the same household without marraige" the actual silly subtitle said in Caps Lock! But the humungo arguement made here is Prithvi saying "Your marrying this great sitar playing girl" and Rajesh says "Naahii I wanna marry this funky kitten:"

I have those sunglasses too!
Prithvi says"No way kid, I decide who you marry I'm the eldest!" and then he remembers Meena as a girl calling out to him as the gardener, honestly how does he not look like a mali with a watering can and towel on his head! Duuuhh grandad! In all this fighting Raj can't take it anymore and runs off to the hill station house of Iftikar with trusty friend David to help out. Both Son and Grandad earnestly try and look for him, Rajesh has another tiff with Grandad and says I want my share of the money to get my daddy back, while Meena's mum nastily says "Ohh look what your modernism has produced"
Son and Grandad find dad who pretends to be a drunkard and debaucher, in one shocking scene back then Rajesh walks into a room where a white woman has a quite see through bra, and then in my last screencap Raj is surrounded by a bunch of girls drinking and enjoying!

I'm only joking Son!
After both men see dad like this, they make a compromise to bring dad home by pretending to like eachother. Another funny scene is when they do their prayers Rajesh and Thakur clash on the cymbals but wink at eachother while Raj closed eyes and oblivious!
The truth unravels when they throw a party and after the nice song "Tick Tick" Thakur announces Rajesh's engagement to a girl of his choice, making Rajesh screech NAHHIIIII I love Babita! Then it comes out to Raj that they were lying, Thakur tries to justify himself and in a spectacular scene of Prithviraj going into his "I will puff up till I'm pink to look angry, and then wiggle my fingers to face while my mouth is very ugly drooling from the hamming in very Silent movie type acting" Wheww!

EWWW but great acting!
Thakur screeches and gags over on the floor when people stare at him with contempt for forcing this marriage on Rajesh. Everybody is remorseful and sad, Son and Dad make more compromises to appease the old generation. In a filmi sacrificial scene Rajesh says "I'll marry that puritan girl and forsake my funky sweetheart for you Granadad", I hated how Grandad was such a horrible guy to guilt-trip his son and grandson to appease his old ways! Rajesh rushes over to say the bad news to Meena, who had the best subtitle ever when explaining that she agreed that Rajesh should appease his grandad " Maybe this is the acid test for our funky, pissed off generation" I was like "You are soo deep Meena" it even made up for the fact that they were forced into agreeing with the old generation!AWWW, isn't he just mustachioed and cute!
With a nice happy ending, and a blurb of a few years later with the famous dialogue "Aaj me dada bangaya, aur kal tu bhi banega" (Today I'm a grandad and tomorrow you'll be one too!" and the other great line to sum up the moving of generations "Kal me tumhe kahonge ke tum purana ho gaye" (Tomorrow I will say that you've become old too)
First things first, this is a great movie, I won't do my usual rating of any Kapoor movie "this was the greatest movie ever made" I'm 18 now and in journo school and I want to be a movie reviewer so this movie was really good!! LOL I need some better describing words! I love this movie coz its soooooo funky Babita must have a brilliant stylist the greatest sunglasses ever since Yaadon Ki Baraat.
All three Kapoors were good, for a first shot of acting and directing Randhir does a superb job of keeping someone like me entertained whether it be the sheer cuteness and energy he has or the gorgeous cinematography which added to the points and issues he was trying to make. Randhir was good director even in the silly Henna or Dharam Karam, his movies are soo technically great using fast motion shots, funky music also many of them rock'n roll like the Beatles and early version of "Baby she's got it" and "I'm your venus"
Raj Kapoor was stupendously blobby-sweetness here, he wasn't a balloon here but a rather stocky blobby and cute guy, the way he did his embarrassing jig to the Trogg's song was sooo heart-warmingly cute! I think every dad that let loose must dance like Raj does!
Kal Aaj aur Kal is a wonderfully cute and issue-raising movie, that has funky sunglasses, lots of guilt-trips, lots of big houses, and lots of funk!

The Kapoor Family - Moustache Men of my Dil!

I am going to be 18 on Wednesday, so I thought I might as well do a post on my favorite family of Bollywood and the family with the most letter R's in there too! I am an absolute RK lover, I could be talking about Raj,Randhir,Ranbir, Rishi, Shashi(Balbir Raj) or any of them, they all have a unique quality about them which makes me love them all and they all have a dysfunctional relationship with each other, as I've read from Shobhaa De and my aunts who work at the gossip mags in Mumbai! I have many times tried to explain the family tree to my silly sister who always forget shortly after!
Prithvi hates people staring at him!

1. Prithviraj Kapoor: No R name here, he acted in the first Indian film Talkie "Alam Ara" he wasn't the main star as the cute Master Vithal was. I particularly liked Prithviraj because he was soo theatrical and had the greatest booming and towering voice ever. His theatrical and silent era movie faces will always stick in my head, the constant hands to the face, the wiggly fingers, the unfortunance (another sign of my 17-year oldself as I make up words) of his pink face going red in his freak-out or angry scenes. His angry scenes consist of flaring up till scarlet colour but not actually doing a freak out! He was my favorite as the nasty dad roles in Aawara, Jaanwar, and his really nasty but good dad in Mughal-E-Azam where he sucked in his anger and looked like a sparrow with an enormous chest of air! I adored him in Kal Aaj aur Kal where he was the old age personified while battling Randhir as brash young modernism personified!

The mac daddy! I had to add this leery picture of him!
2. Raj Kapoor = R for Rabir Raj, a question in the "If:The book of life" asked if you could sit and talk with one person around, well immediately I'd talk to Raj Kapoor or Buddha maybe, but Raj is such a fascinating guy both on and off screen! He had a long affair with Nargis while married, he had a messed up relationship with his father, he lost his two younger brothers when he was around 7, had a humungo dysfunctional realtionship with Shammi and Shashi, had a dirty old man penchant in his movies post-Nargis, his kids seem slightly messed up with daddy issues after, he pushed the erotic envelope in his latter movies. But gosh darnit he was a bloooody amazing director, when I thought about making movies for a living (last year lol) he was my immediate influence, but then journalism was always on the backburner of my head, coz I can ask questions! But his movies were inspiring, gorgeous, and universal, he juxtaposed the comedic with the sadness, but always his movie had a message no matter how subtle or OTT the message was. Like BR Chopra he wanted to push the envelope, and he wanted to start a dialogue with his fans. His "Raju the Tramp" were imititations of Charlie's tramp, but he had distinctly Raj traits the syrupy and sweet smile, the innocent eyes, the outgrown clothes, a tramp that deflects all the badness! Sorry for the ramble I just love Raj, one of these days readers I'll write an essay on Raj and bore you to tears!

My and Memsaab's lover boy!
3. Shammi Kapoor = R word is for Shamsher Raj, after Memsaab's many reviews of him I became entranced by this guy who jumped and bopped about into every heroine's reluctant heart! He jumped and skipped right into my "How shammi danced into my dil" series which is gonna grow as I bought a ton of his stuff this weekend! Shammi was the answer to the counter culture of India, he was loud proud brash and didn't care that he cavorted about like a loony, which made him I think embody the rebellion during the 60's. Some random trivia I found from his autobiography is that he had heated argument with Raj in the 50's, they didn't speak until several years later, he was a notorious womanizer and alcoholic during his lull in his career, he said his favorite heroine was Asha Parekh who could handle his boisterousness and makes me wonder "Did they ever go out?"

My Shashi in a mush!
4. Shashi Kapoor = R letter Balbir Raj, the absolutely gorgeous Mr. World type gorgeousness is what the Shashi Pradesh slogan should be or if I make a new state called the "Shashilicious Masala State" I love Shashi with all my dil, because he's such a fantastic actor who did some of his best work with Merchant Ivory movies, especially "The Householder" which I must review one of these days, and "Shakespeare Wallah" he was/is a world class actor that varied his roles all through his career from Serious Merchant Ivory, to masala greatness with the Shashitabh jodi which I vote as my fave, to the art house cinema of the 80's. My mum could be the biggest Shashi fangirl out of all of us as got a gift of the axe fan from him, met him several times next door at my neighbour Rita's house, let me and my sister sit on him as kids, and control her squealing fangirl inside when she met him for the first time. Shashi was always the bourgoisie or fancy guys or the slightly fancy country bumpkin to me in the movies, he never quite pulled off the "angry gorgeous man" roles, but who cares he tried valiantly and looked HAWT doing it!

Awww Randhir the 70's rebel of modernism
5. Randhir Kapoor = R letter for the confusing Randhir Ranbir, Raj's eldest kid. I love Randhir because like Shammi he's spunky and fun, in no way of comparison is he greater than Shammi but he's as a fun and jumpy as Shammi. Randhir is still dedicated to running his father's museum and looking after the RK banner and theatre. When he introduced himself by acting and directing in the great and funkadelic "Kal Aaj aur Kal" he jumped on the screen as a new rebel of the 70's. The movie examined the meeting of the old and the modern ie him and his grandad Prithviraj while Raj(the now) has to balance/choose out of the two. Has revealed in some gossip rags about him and his dad not getting along too well, he's talked about his separation from Babita, and seems at ease with talking about his troubled family strife. His directing style was subtle-ish, and his movies were always technically brilliant, and my favorite thing about Randhir is that he dresses soooo stylishly with his funky printed shirts, his lovely Rajesque mush, his skinny jeans that he could pull off, his abroad slight twang, and generally he's the type of high school or college guy I kinda like!

Vaah Vaah Vaah!
7. Rishi Kapoor = R for Rishi Raj, that almost sounds like a puppy name, he's the cute and upbeat brother here, Raj's second son. I love Rishi, because he jumped away from his father's massive shadow of blobbyness, and is more reserved when talking about his dad. Which didn't help when Subhash Ghai used the manager character in Karz to be a sort of symbol of his dad Raj, who possibly threw him into an industry or who was very distant from his kids outside of work, I felt that use was not very nice of Subhash, that's why Karz has always been a "bAHH hUMbug" for me! Back to Rishi, he's really cute and he plumped up a bit after Bobby, which gave him the "Double Chin of Sensitivity" as I'll call it as Rishi does play lover boys and sidekicks, and funky rockstars all with a brooding sensitive emo side to them. He married Neetu in 1978 or something, made her stay at home for a while, before she came back to Bollywood.
Unfortunately the only pic I could find. He is really cute before though?!
8. Rajeev Kapoor = R for Rajiv Raj, he is the least filmi son of Raj, he debuted into the big league for a few years in "Ram Teri Ganga Maili" one of the most porny and horny films Raj made to sign off his career with. Rajeev was the awkward Kapoor brother, he could act but was either too plump or too tall for me, and he didn't sport a mush very well like his bhais could. But i think he was one son that probably didn't wanna be in movies as much as his dad pushed him into as he did mostly assistant directing, directing, and editing, he's one of the creative and awkwardly cute guys.

9. Kunal Kapoor = Not the HAWT one from Rang De Basanti, my mum met him when he came over with Shashi to Rita's house, and she said he was gorgeous! I don't know about that, but Karan Kapoor the other Shashi son is waaaay cuter.
HAAAAWWWWTTT=17year old
Sinewy and Sweet=18year old!
10. Ranbir Kapoor = R for Ranbir Raj, Rishi's kid and one of the cutest new actors ever. He is the really suave and cool Kapoor, he was magical in Saawariya definitely capturing the dreamy nature of Dostoevsky's character in "White Nights" and in Bachna Ae Haseeno, he was the ladykiller who goes back for some filmi redemption. I'm really looking forward to what his career will turn out like, and if he'll leave Deepika to marry his favorite 18-year old on Wednesday someday soon?
Awww Karisma in the good 'ol days!
11. Karisma Kapoor = No R here, but Karisma was one of my favorite 90's actresses after Pooja Bhatt, Raveena Tandon, and Urmila. But she started off pretty fugly with those bushy eyebrows and even the unibrow for a while eeekkkkk!!! She had the gorgeous green eyes, and she proved that the lady Kapoors can act as well. She has that terrifically throaty whiny voice that grates sometimes, but I can forgive her coz she's stunning and carries the Kapoor gene of greeny-blue eyes. Her serious roles were great Fiza, Zubeidaa, and more I wish she'd come back soon!
In the rubbish/slightly good Tashan
12. Kareena Kapoor- No R here either, but initially when I saw Kareena's first movies I hated her, she was so overdoing the "I'm an NRI Indian and all NRI's talk like Clueless" act, I hated her soooo much in K3G, her conduct in the media of being a brash rude little brat and starting a verbal war with other stars made me dislike her even more, and I disliked her even more when she brought the pushy stage-maa Babita along with her everywhere to start a media fight. But over time she has grown on me, taking the unconventional roles like Chameli, Dev, and Omakara, and doing the rubbish but cultly brilliant Tashan.

There we have most of the Kapoor clan, I neglected to mention the wives like Neetu or Babita, they are both great actresses but naah! Hope u like my immense history of my love for the Kapoor Khandaan!

BR Chopra: One of the best directors in Bollywood

BR Chopra on the right

I was really saddened yesterday when I learned BR Chopra passed away, he was a revolutionary director who founded his own production company BR Films, he also entered a partnership with his brother Yash Chopra, producing his earlier movies such as Aadmi aur Insaan, Dharmputra, Waqt and many more. I'll list some of my favorites of his movies that I've watched

1. Afsana: A great entertainer with Ashok Kumar playing twins the good and evil one,
   this was BR's first big budget movie, and he had to do a lot of persuading for Ashok to do the role. He infused some gray shades to the bad twin as he feels remorse for hurting his good brother and repents after. A conscientious movie with some masala entertainment
2. Gumrah: A great and sensual movie about adultey, the very backwass Bewafaa with Kareena Kapoor was a remake of this, it was crap but Gumrah was great. The Chopra's are skilled and innovative in talking about taboos, this was one of the major movies talking about adultery, with Sunil Dutt playing the affair guy, and Mala Sinha as the conflicted wife married to an older man.
   
3. Hamraaz: A brilliant noir thriller with BR's fsvorite stars Sunil Dutt and Raaj Kumar, pitted against each other as romantic rivals involved in a murder mystery, also starring the very bland Vimmi, BR did like to welcome newcomers in his movies, and Vimmi was one starlet that he introduced. He has the penchant for style and this was a stylish 60's movie, with funky houses and gorgeous location and fashion.
4. Naya Daur: One of the greatest movies ever, capturing the rustic and the urban as they collide in this social film with Vjayantimala and Dilip Kumar, this movie was recently coloured and it made it a little over the top like the new Mughal-E-Azam, nevertheless it enhanced its appeal to newer viewers when it was re-released. BR always must of have had great persuasive skills, as Dilip thought he was to different to play a rustic villager character in the movie, but the rest is history as he agreed!
5. Nikaah: Another movie where BR introduced a terrible heroine is when he intro'd Salma Agha who reportedly got the role after her distant "uncle" Raj Kapoor persuaded BR to take her on. My mum likened her to a "dead fish" not the greatest insult, but she lacked charisma and had a very expressionless face. But BR did something innovative by tackling the Muslim social movie, and he talks about sex and divorce in this movie in a open and frank way, which got the ire of the Muslim community. It was a well made film, nuanced with BR traits --> the massive house, the realistic presentation of love, and the taboo breaking theme.
   
6. Insaaf Ka Tarazu: This was a huuuge movie for breaking taboo, it talked about rape and sex. Zeenat Aman was the murderess and its a great movie for breaking out the issues that concerned women, and though I look it now as a bit OTT, it does raise an issue, and I think that is what BR wanted in any of his movies, to spark some sort of dialogue and debate.
7. Ek Hi Raasta: Another feminine movie, where Ashok marries the weeping widow Meena Kumari to stop the gossips and nasty neighbours trying to kick her out. This was another issue raising movie, about widow remarriage and more importantly about how kids deal with step-father and family, Daisy Irani was a brattish child in this movie, and she featured as a kid in many BR movies. This was also the movie that catapulted Sunil Dutt into the big league of Bollywood with a sensitive and sweet performance as Meena's first hubby!
   

BR Chopra movies make up most of my DVD collection, he is a director that connected with the people, he was innovative and barrier and taboo-breaking in his long career. He got his brother Yash started in the industry by producing his movies, he focused many of his movies on women's issues, and dammit he was soo revolutionary in his movies, at least i think so! He will sorely missed by the industry and his fans. RIP