Lal Bahadur.  Source: Peeplilivethefilm.com

This is not intended to be a review.
*spoiler alert* Some points give away the story line of the movie.
Peepli Live is a slap fest. It’s a slap across the face, for today’s politicians, the government, it’s babus, their yojanas, and above all, the MEDIA and us, it’s viewers.
Live television has long crossed the boundaries of absurdity. An year ago, the CM of Andhra Pradesh (YS Rajashekar Reddy) passed away in a chopper crash, and the media created a mass hysteria among people …

The video, the latest in a series of funny promos by The Guild, features Codex played by Felicia Day and Zaboo by Sandeep Parikh, in lead roles. As the video plays out, Zaboo convinces Codex, Bollywood ishtyle, to join him in playing the game. [via Om]

Manoj Kumar with his patriotic movies, forever changed the face of Bollywood, while keeping his own face covered.

SPOLIER ALERT: This review contains spoilers for “Raavan”. In case you plan to see it, don’t read it. I am going to do you a huge favor and tell you : Don’t see it !

I am and have been a die hard Mani Ratnam fan. From the day I saw “Mouna Raagam”, through “Agni Natchathiram”, ” Bombay” ,”Roja”,”Naayagan”, Iruvar” , “Guru”. I loved the recurring elements : the feisty heroines, naughty grandmas, the mature understanding of the man – woman relationship in all its forms, gorgeous vistas in the …

Hello! My name is Joel Swine and I write for Schtime magazine in Switzerland. Recently I traveled back home and I experienced some reverse culture shock – the takeover of the Swiss Alps by star struck Bollywood tourists.

Bollywood to make Hitler movie. No, Asrani won’t play Hitler.

How can Bollywood be good for your kundi?

When I got this in my inbox (thanks, Karthik), I thought it was an early April Fool’s Day joke. Sadly it was not be. It appears this trailer has been out for more than a month now and unless this was all to lead up to a massive prank, it appears to be real.
The clip below is an animated version of the SRK melodramatic cheesefest from the 90s that either captivated or scarred for life, an entire generation of Bollywood fans. Count me in the latter group, I still feel …

This post is a kind of 3 in one : a review of a book, a movie and random musings from me.
I just finished reading Orhan Pahmuk’s “The Museum of Innocence”.Pahmuk, the 2006 Nobel Prize winner has written a magnificent, wordy, illuminating and infuriating novel. The  book tells the tale of Kemal a rich young businessman from Istanbul and of his obsessive and destructive love for the beautiful (but poor and hence off-limits)  young Fusun. His obsession leads him to a passionate affair with her while he is still engaged …

I watched “My name is Khan” last night. Without spoilers, here are my impressions.
This is a Karan Johar movie and yet it seems to be Karan Johar all grown up. No group dances, Manish Malhotra costumes and very little glamor. I’ll say this : though the movie is too long, it still manages to be watchable and interesting through out. The movie’s protagonist is superbly played by Sharukh Khan . He plays a man with an autistic  disorder, on a mission to convince the President of USA that his name …

And are you a celebrity? Or for that matter even an average person somewhat considerate of unwarranted exposure of your body.
Conspiracy theorist – Alex Jones on his website prisonplanet.com has this to say:
Claims on behalf of authorities that naked body scanner images are immediately destroyed after passengers pass through new x-ray backscatter devices have been proven fraudulent after it was revealed that naked images of Indian film star Shahrukh Khan were printed out and circulated by airport staff at Heathrow in London.
The report is related to a yahoo news article …

Raj Kumar Hirani is the bearer of a lost art, the art of story telling. The problem is sometimes, he overlaps his piece of art with another of his own, that is still fresh in your memory.
And I’ll try to keep the review clean of any spoilers.
3 idiots is a movie ‘loosely’ based on one of India’s ‘best-selling’ novels, “Five point Someone, what not to do at IIT“, by Chetan Bhagat. A book, that critics love to hate and take a jab at it’s ‘popularity’, while a particular section of …

You probably noticed it, I certainly did, so did the Huffington Post – over the past decade there has been a significant rise in the number of foreign artistes in Indian movies – Bollywood or not. [HuffPo]
While most foreign-born artistes, ranging from countries in Latin America to the United States to Russia and even closer to home like Sri Lanka, are largely restricted to bit roles of back-up dancers and extras, breakthrough stories of such foreign born are becoming more common place.
The most popular among them, is half Brit-half desi, …

Another Bollywood version of Michael Jackson’s Thriller, this time courtesy the Ramsay brothers.
This one is so bad, it’s not half as funny as the Chiranjeevi version of Thriller.

Not unlike Hollywood of today, Jews were quite prominent in Bollywood in the early 20th century. [TabletMag]
The TableMag, a Jewish magazine, has an interesting take on actors of Jewish origin in Bollywood movies, in the early half of the 20th century, particularly two leading ladies, Ruby Myers (Sulochana) and Farhat Ezekiel (Nadira).
Of course, we all know that Raja Harishchandra by Dadasaheb Phalke, was the first Indian movie. A side story to this movie is the fact that the movie had an all male cast, even the female characters were …

*ing Neil Nitin Mukesh, Irrfan Khan, Katrina Kaif and John Abraham

New York is a good watch! Especially since it’s not a typical Hindi film that we are so used to. And as any other movie, there are certain aspects of it that I liked, and certain that I didn’t. I was VERY surprised to see the Rediff rating for that movie, and I can’t understand why in the world someone would trash the movie and its actors that bad, especially since the acting was reasonably good.
**spoilers ahead**
What I liked –
All …

He Man comes to the rescue of a damsel in distress – Bollywood ishtyle. Bollywood created a musical rendition of the cheesy cartoon show complete with junior artistes in florescent skeleton clothes and a Skeletor idol with flashing eyes. He Man is played by a random white dude, yelling “He Man, He Man, I’m He Man”.
The movie is a generic 80s action movie. In case you were wondering, the music is by, who else, Bappi Lahiri. Which brings us to the next important question: what would a Yash Raj-Karan Johar …

Contestant on the Taiwanese (best guess from the comments section) version of American Idol sings a Bollywood song complete with a getup that oddly looks like a bearskin lungi. The contestant went all out with dance movements thrown in. On Indian Idol, he would be criticized for issues with pitch and tune and such. But as a cross cultural effort, comes off as a reasonably good effort. The song is “Tujh mein rab dikhta hai”.

I’m not much into writing tributes for dead Bollywood personalities but this maker of über stylish movies way ahead of their time in terms of trends, certainly deserves a mention. With stylishly made potboilers like Dharmatma, Qurbani and Jaanbaaz, often imitated never duplicated comes to mind. FK was famous for his guy movies – stylish, fast paced, foot tapping music, phoren locales, dazzling music videos, stunning women and packed with action. The best part? He was unapologetic about any of it. His movie making style would spawn hundreds of copycats …

Yup – we sold out. After years of sneering at the Peoples,OK Magazines and TMZs of the world – we decided that if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.
So : Here’s to our latest desi Brangelina – call ‘em Fridev,Patinto whatever. In fact , send us your best suggestions and we will use the moniker that we like the best and give you credit.
Freida Pinto and Dev Patel are a confirmed item.
Patel’s mother Anita has confirmed to a British newspaper that the pair are very much a couple.
“First it was …