Posts tagged ‘Around The World’

February 19, 2010

Big.giant.FAIL.

So I haven’t had much time to watch films lately, and when I have tried I have just been frustrated. Arggghhh. It’s hard to be a Hindi film fan. At the risk of sounding bitter and repetitive, let me just say (again) that I *hate* Indian dvd manufacturers.

Example 1: Jaal (1951) starring Dev Anand, Geeta Bali, Purnima, KN Singh. Directed by Guru Dutt. DVD from Nupur.

This may have once been a lovely film, but in the hands of Nupur it has been turned into barely-90-minutes’ worth of random unconnected vignettes. There is nothing coherent left of the story, to the point where it is virtually unwatchable. Scenes and songs end abruptly in the middle and we skip to a completely unrelated scene or song which is also cut short abruptly. Nupur kindly filled in the rest of the dvd space where the movie should have been with ads. At least they didn’t charge us any extra for that (or any less, either).

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October 13, 2009

My favorite 60’s “western” songs

twist_waqt2

Lately I’ve had my iPod repeating a playlist that I put together of songs from 1960s films that are just bubbling over with western charm: guitars, trumpets, double basses, and the odd ukelele or two are used in what still remain quintessentially Hindi film songs. These are songs that have gotten stuck in my head time after time: I quite simply love them! It’s hard to pin down what makes them a collection, but picture doing the twist on a picnic with chums, or curled up with a martini on pleather space-age furniture in Daddy’s mansion. If I had to categorize them, I would probably settle on “Bollywood Lounge” although I’m not sure that quite covers it.

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