Leave Bacon Alone!
I know I’m one of those people who go around saying that bacon makes everything taste better – and it’s true! Never does a pig achieve more greatness than as a slice of bacon. It’s possible to dismiss Babe as sentimental hogwash, make faces at crackling, quote scripture and Animal Farm, make digs about cleanliness, and be horrified at its butchery. But no man can scoff at bacon because bacon transcends mere pigginess.
However the time has come to call an end to the madness. It’s one thing to serve bacon in everything from dessert to protein shakes and have Top Chef after Padma Lakshmi go crazy over it, but when it starts to become an essential ingredient of 90% of all pics posted at TiWYF and similar establishments…
The fat lady has sung and she says it’s over. I don’t want it in my cherry pie, dipped in chocolate or candied in maple syrup. Stop.
Human Target: I’m It
Who doesn’t love a hot man fighting for his life? Or, even better, the lives of others? Not me! Hotness, a smidgen of mystery, a hint of romance and a ton of shit blowing up – welcome to Human Target, my new favorite show!
Based on a lesser known DC title of the same name, the “human target” in question is Christopher Chance (Mark Valley: Fringe, Boston Legal). Chance is the kind of guy who’d usually hire out as a mercenary – and enough hints are dropped throughout the four episodes that have aired till date to make you think that this might indeed have been the case. But something went wrong somewhere (a woman was involved, of course) and now he spends his time acting as a human shield for people with extreme problems of the life threatening variety.
How extreme? Well, in four short weeks, he’s been in a bullet train wreck (with Number Six! Why can’t she be a series regular? I want!), narrowly avoided a plane crash by flipping a jetliner upside down, smashed up the Russian embassy, and fought for his life in a cablecar halfway up a mountain. It was all pretty cool.
The person who doesn’t find it all that entertaining is his handler / associate / friend / office manager Winston (the excellent Chi McBride: Pushing Daisies). He’s pretty sure Chance has a death wish and he’s not looking forward to it coming true. And while they’re all teetering on the edge of Chance’s personal abyss, he’d really like it if Chance would stop being creative in his payment area. Sometimes the sight of cold, hard cash is all a man needs to warm himself. Especially when the bills haven’t been paid and the heating might just be turned off.
Lending the guys a hand is unknown quantity, loose cannon and computer whiz Guerrero (Jackie Earle Haley: Watchmen). Think of all the computer nerd putdowns you ever heard, distill them into one person, and imagine them as really scary. That’s Guerrero. I never thought I’d say this in a series starring Chi McBride but it’s a tossup whom I love more.
We don’t know what exactly binds these three guys together but we can be sure that we’ll find out eventually. And really, in the midst of all the other things that are going on, who has the time to sit down and ponder the imponderables?
For example, there are all the women with whom Chance invariably shares a sizzling chemistry that is never acted upon, who always want to know who he is really, and are doomed to never find out (except maybe for that cute FBI agent who he thought was a $40 hooker but ended up kicking his ass). And oh yeah, somebody’s on his tail, somebody who wants him very, very dead.
In the meantime, things keep blowing up. Sometimes with $900 Molotov cocktails. Good times.
False Advertising
I don’t think it counts if you reach your adult height at ten.
Didn’t Complan taste like the hospital? There was something vaguely medicinal about its taste, I think. Well, at least drinking the stuff got them a decent set of abs and boobies.
I'm a Complan Girl. Look at my proof! LOOK AT IT!
Seriously, I don’t think there’s a single pic of this woman on the internet without her fameballs front and center. Nagesh Kukunoor and his widow’s burqa must have been the only time those things got a day off.
I'm a Complan Boy! A few inches short maybe, but I'm a running, dancing machine!
I knew Tamilians loved Ayesha (ahem!) but I didn’t know they were also the only ones to preserve Shahid’s childhood successes!
Site Note: A Change is Gonna Come
Spring cleaning came early this year.
I loved Vigilance when I chose it last year but it was slowly boring me to death with all that white space. Of course, then I realized I was screwed because most of the themes I wanted to replace it with would cut my images and video in half. The images and video I’d deliberately enlarged to fill up the empty space. Grr.
But I like this one.
Let me know if it loads properly, if the links work, etc. Thanks!
Ishqiya: Authenticity Pron
If the law of averages holds true, some day soon Vishal Bhardwaj will either produce, write or direct a film that draws a collective “meh”. Abhishek Chaubey’s directorial debut Ishqiya, co-written (with Sabrina Dhawan and Chaubey) and co-produced by Bhardwaj, however, is not that film.
Ishqiya begins with a couple in the privacy of their bed. She calls him her liege lord, he teases her that he’s got a piece on the side and her time is up; they trade innuendos about sex and betrayal. Desire is laced with an undercurrent of violence; there is something in their chemistry that makes you wonder if they’re carrying on an affair instead of the marriage the dialogue hints at.
Elsewhere, Khalujan (Naseeruddin Shah) and Babban (Arshad Warsi) are two petty thieves on the run, playing an extended game of cat-and-mouse with a former associate/ godfather figure by the name of Mushtaq. Babban, the younger brute, thinks Khalujan ought to finish it for once and for all when they temporarily manage to gain the upper hand. But Khalujan is a thief with a code – he coulda been somebody, he hints – and he isn’t about to widow his sister for a matter of 25 lakhs… even if she’s quite alright with her husband shooting holes in him.
All they need is a place to hide out while Mushtaq cools down and life will be good. Sadly, thanks to their past shenanigans safe houses are rather scarce. Their search eventually leads them to the Nepal border and the home of Khalu’s former cellmate, Vidyadhar Verma. They arrive to find his widow Krishna (Vidya Balan), one half of the couple we met at the beginning of the movie, living in the burned-out remains of their home.
Everybody’s troubles have just begun.
The world of Ishqiya is not one for folks with sensibilities. Its people and the universe they live in is crude, crass, violent, epithet-laden and set to the oddly congruent beats of old Hindi songs (perhaps that’s a matter of soul, given most of these songs were either composed, written or sung by men from this part of the country). Life is cheap in this blip on the highway: children play with guns, a full-blown caste war that nobody outside their district even knows much less cares about is in progress, kidnapping and arms dealing is common business, and all the shiny malls and fancy car dealerships that have sprung up to absorb the ill-gotten money that’s flooding the street corners can’t mask the violence and decay that permeate the very air. Gorakhpur sounds like the kind of place you can’t shake if it’s your hometown, the kind of place no one with options could possibly even want to visit otherwise.
Ishqiya belongs firmly to a genre I like to call authenticity porn – every last detail of hopelessness and vice etched out with loving attention for an audience that is simultaneously fascinated yet repulsed by its very existence. This is the India that makes the India Shining crowd nervous, the representation that seems perilously close to poverty porn, the kind of stuff that gets Arvind Adiga crucified in opinion pieces and got Ram Gopal Verma (v. 1.0) laudatory notices.
Of course, I write this as somebody who quite enjoys it. Woman cannot live by glitzy Bollywood productions alone, after all. This woman can’t, anyway. And Ishqiya is the best kind of authenticity porn: entertaining. It’s funny, profane, witty and razor-sharp in the observations it manages to nonchalantly turn into colloquialisms – “The difference between him and me is that between a Hindu and a Muslim,” Khalujan banters when Krishna remarks that he and Babban (his nephew) don’t seem to have much in common.
Although co-written by Bhardwaj, the modern master of authenticity porn, Ishqiya is distinctly Chaubey’s film. As a director, Bhardwaj’s sense of violence and doom is operatic; to me his movies are always on a subtle march set to the Ride of the Valkyries. Chaubey’s aesthetic, on the other hand, is a lot more Old West.
If Sholay is your classic curry western, Ishqiya has a ton of fun redrawing concept to stretch the genre. The most interesting experiment, the one that brings it all together, is the aptly named Krishna, a master manipulator of men who works towards her own ends. Ever since Parineeta, Vidya Balan’s choice of movies has been so poor in her quest for conventional Bollywood heroine-dom, that movies like Paa seem more like recoveries than growth. In Krishna, there is at last a hint of danger and sex underneath the trademark Scowl Face which she adopted as her “attention! I’m acting now” expression from her second movie on.
Krishna is both Madonna and whore, the girl with the golden voice in front of the household shrine and the woman with a shotgun; she is whoever you need her to be, so long as you’re doing as you’re told. She scares the crap out of Khalu who hasn’t ever kidnapped so much as a cat or a dog, he tells her pathetically; but she also fires his fantasies of a genteel courtship when she leans her head against his chest and giggles like a girl. Naseeruddin Shah is as always the man – Khalu with his bootblack hair, his sepia tinted photographs, his frequently befuddled attempts at crookery, his self-consciously tender dignity and his expressions of gentility is a darling duck.
Meanwhile, Krishna sets off alarm bells in Babban who recognizes in her an animal who might well surpass him in bestiality; yet she is the first woman he ever falls for too. As Babban, Arshad Warsi does nothing to dispel my growing and wholly inappropriate crush on men with facial hair. He switches from the genial idiot persona he has mined so well in past Bollywood productions (the most famous being Circuit of Munnabhai fame, of course) to a kohl-eyed killer in the blink of an eye, and shocks you by flipping all sorts of switches along the way. Although Krishna clearly has a plan for him, you know that it can’t have been all work.
The relationships of Ishqiya violate all the codes of movies like these: the chick makes the rules, the guys both fall for her and neither really steps away for the sake of friendship (or relationship since they’re uncle and nephew), nice guys finish last (sort of), the Lakshman-Sita/ bhabhi-devar paradigm is totally twisted, the V is for Villain guy is actually just a playmate, adultery is passe when husband and wife are plotting each others’ demise, and Khalu reminds Babban that getting involved in a marital spat is a surefire way to get your ass kicked.
Sure, but it also makes for an entertaining movie.
Cloud Over Sundance
Dear Aamir,
I think she’s trying to say she likes your work.
XOXO.
[Click here for Parts 1 & 3 from AnneCam]
Veer: Son of Mard, Conan’s Bro
Salman Khan loves gladiators. He loves their mullets, their bulging muscles, the way they lop off body parts and dress in furs. If Dharmendra hadn’t frightened off the rest of Hindi herodom with his amazing legs in Dharam Veer, he’d probably even love their leather skirts. So when he teamed up with Vijay Galani, producer of his original gladiatorial opus Suryavanshi, and director Anil Sharma (Gadar) to give us Veer… well, hopes ran high. In my bosom if not in anyone else’s. It was going to be epic!
So how did it measure up against its forefathers – cult favorites Mard and Conan the Barbarian? Meh. Not so much.
The Evil Conquerors
Mard: The evil Brits bottle the blood of the vanquished in multicolored glass bottles. They make Dara Singh grind wheat (or was it drill for water? well, they make him turn a giant wheel anyway) for the whole country all by himself!
Conan: They make him turn a wheel by himself in the middle of nowhere too! He has thighs like tree trunks to prove it! And then they make him fight for his life and get him hookers before trying to kill him. Niiiice.
Veer: The evil Brits… make speeches about how they’re about make Indians slaves forever by teaching them English? Then they stand around and get killed? Lame.
Full of win: Mard!
Manhood is a Sacred Thing
Mard: His daddy carves it into his baby chest!
Conan: He learns it drilling in the desert all by himself while being whipped silly!
Veer: His daddy takes him out into the rain.
Full of win: Getting it carved into your baby chest makes for a pretty hardcore Mard!
The Father Son Conflict
Mard: There are misunderstandings! There are betrayals! There is separation! Father and son fight each other in an arena! Dara Singh might have worn a leather skirt. I was so exhausted by then, my poor brain can’t even remember.
Conan: Conan’s daddy done be killed. Aww.
Veer: Dadda (Mithun Chakraborty) likes to make out with Maa in public. Dadda and Veer do the Macarena before he throws Veer into tanks full of water. When Dadda and Veer fight, Veer feels each cut on Dadda’s body twice as much as he does his own. Veer cries.
Full of win: Veer stepped it up with the last minute groaning and the moaning but the sympathy vote goes to Conan.
The MAAAAAAAA!
Mard: Nirupa Roy. That is all.
Conan: Conan’s mommy done be killed. Aww.
Veer: Neena Gupta looks concerned, gives birth, looks concerned, uncomfortably shakes her booty, looks concerned, cries. What? She never loses her eyesight, pours lead in her ears, goes insane, anoints her son for battle or tells him to remember his sanskar? Have these people never met a mother?
Full of win: Haven’t you watched American Idol, Conan? The sympathy card can’t be cashed in all the time, you know. Besides, Nirupa Roy always wins. Because she is The Maa, bitches.
The Man Say What?
Mard: “Mard ko dard nahin hota.” Growf.
Conan: Conan don’t talk. Talking’s for girlie men.
Veer: “Jahan se pakdoonga, wahi se paanch ser ghosht nikaal ke rakhoonga.” Roar!
Full of win: Was Veer a butcher in his last janam? Give it to Mard!
The Girl Says Aieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
Mard: Bow! Bow to the Mard-ess! She has a whip! She likes to tan – on top of pagodas in her swimsuit! She has a convertible and she will run over yo mamma with it! She will turn you into party entertainment! She likes it when you get so kinky with her, baby!
Conan: Some chick with no clothes and terrible taste in men.
Veer: Some chick with too many clothes and terrible taste in men.
Full of win: The Mard-ess! I’d be afraid to give it to someone else!
Fine, Fine, Finery!
Mard: Whatever the Wonder Dog and Bahadur could round up, really.
Conan: Nekkid is a lifestyle choice.
Veer: After careful research, Anna Singh threw out the research.
Full of win: The clothes were by far the best thing about Veer. I think I asked the universe, “WHAT IS SHE WEARING?” at least a dozen times. Someday, Bollywood will stop dressing their cast like this and then I will weep.
The Supporting Cast Gets One Close Up Shot
Mard: Bahadur the faithful steed! Brownie or Moti or Whatsis the Wonder Dog! Loyal commoners who die for the cause!
Conan: Snakes! Big ones, small ones, stiff ones, all sorts! Nekkid women! Humongous men!
Veer: The results of Anil Sharma’s raid of an Ashutosh Gowarikar set.
Full of win: Veer gets it hands down. Sohail Khan made me think twice, but really – gotta hand it to them. Never have so many well known supporting actors gotten so little to do.
The Villain Says Muahahahahaha!
Mard: Prem Naam Hai Mera! Prem Chopra! Muahahahah! Specialities include cross, double cross, cross stitch and double stitch. Fine embroidery optional. (Listen, it’s Mard – let’s not look for sense, mmmkay?)
Conan: James Earl Jones is the voice of DOOOOOOOM! He has snakes. He is a snake! He has virgins who will kill themselves if he asks them to. If you go to his parties, he’ll make you eat Soylent Green soup. He will fucking stare you to death and then cut your motherfucking head off! He has the power!
Veer: Jackie Shroff is the man with the golden arm. Beyonce called and says if you want it, you shoulda put a ring on it. Oh-uh-uh-oh.
Full of win: Veer! Ha. Kidding. Conan, of course!
***
The Final Tally
Not Veer.
My Mother’s Generation is Awesome
Because they will tell it like it is.
Post-screening Sundance Q&As are frequently gushy affairs, sometimes to the point of awkwardness… But last night’s The Killer Inside Me conversation veered off-script in a big way. The first question came from a woman in her 60s, who demanded to know how the film made it into the festival at all. She then proceeded to berate Sundance for the decision, her tirade going on for about 20 glorious seconds, during which it elicited some applause and far more jeers from the crowd. She then stormed out of the Eccles Theater. Director Michael Winterbottom, meanwhile, stood nonplussed at the dais. “Any … other questions?” the moderator asked.
The matter of the movie aside (it’s based on a Jim Thompson novel – I mean Stephen freaking King thinks he was over the top and he is not wrong!), it seems to me that women of my generation are shockingly easy to shut up. How many times have I or women I know chosen to just sit in passive silence, all the while seething on the inside with all these things we’d love to say, just in case verbalizing our true feelings would make us “look bad”.
We don’t want to be that crazy lady who yells at people, we don’t want to sound bitchy, what if someone makes a funny about hormones and periods, what if everybody laughs, it’s not nice to hurt people’s feelings, oh God people are going to judge me, etc.
And then there’s my mom’s generation – less educated, less privileged, less traveled, less almost everything. Except for balls. Piss them off and they will take. you. down. Maybe it comes out of fighting for everything that women like me take for granted coz it got served to me on a platter. If it’s age related, on the other hand, I can only hope it’s contagious.
Meanwhile, I want video of the Winterbottom takedown! Do not fail me, internet!
Apocalypse Now
Arjun Rampal won a National Award. For scowling at Farhan Akhtar and pretending to play the guitar acting.
Apparently Katrina Kaif would like one too. And she’s got the handloom saree to prove it. But what about the frown lines? Dilemma!
DO NOT COPY
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