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My Life in Ruins, starring Nia Vardalos, looked same the perfect choice for an expat movie review: American-Greek classical person takes a job at Athens University, gets downsized, does a stint as a tour guide. Perfect!
Well, not so much. Great idea, good cast which includes Richard Dreyfuss, one of my all-time favorite actors, but not so well executed. The writing is schmaltzy and heavy handed, the plot is predictable, and outside of a few gorgeous shots of Hellenic ruins, the movie pretty such falls flat.
But seeing Vardalos, who is a reasonably good actress, of course got me intellection about My Big Fat Hellenic Wedding, which she wrote and starred in. Originally I hadn’t planned on reviewing it since the admirer is not technically an expat, but seeing My Life in Ruins got me intellection about it in a whole new way.
In My Big Fat Hellenic Wedding, Vardalos plays Toula, the younger daughter of Hellenic immigrants in Chicago. Her parents, the expats, live in their own Hellenic bubble of kinsfolk and culture. They run a restaurant – Greek, of course, called Dancing Zorba’s – and extended kinsfolk is part of their everyday lives in ways that seem quite, well, foreign. As Toula explains:
I’m Greek, right? So, what happens is,.. see, you have two cousins. I have 27 first cousins. Just 27 first cousins alone. And my whole kinsfolk is big and blasting and everybody’s in each other’s lives and business all the time. Like you never meet have a time alone meet to think ’cause we’re always unitedly meet eating, eating, eating. The exclusive other grouping we know are Greeks, drive Greeks marry Greeks to breed more Greeks to be loud, breeding Hellenic eaters. No one in my kinsfolk has ever gone discover with a non-Greek before. No one.
Toula’s father insists:
There’s two kinds of people. Greeks, and everybody else who wish they was Greek.
Toula was brought up inside the Hellenic bubble her parents created. She had tried to break discover of it as a youngster, but dark-haired Toula and her moussaka for meal were unloved and teased by her blond-haired, Wonder-bread sandwich-eating schoolmates.
When we first meet her, Toula tells us:
I wish I had a different life. I wish I was braver or prettier, or meet happy.
But she’s not. Working in the kinsfolk restaurant, rebelling against but unable to pull absent from the Hellenic community, Toula is miserable. She explains:
Nice Hellenic girls are supposed to do threesome things in life. Marry a Hellenic boy, attain Hellenic babies, and feed everyone. Until the day we die.
She wants more discover of life. She convinces her father to let her (at the geezerhood of 30 she needs his permission!) take a machine class at the community college so she crapper meliorate listing curb at Dancing Zorba’s. Her first real foray into US culture happens at the college when she joins a table full of blond-haired, white-bread-sandwich-eating young women in the cafeteria.
Recently, while hosting the screen awards function in Mumbai Shahid Kapur said to Shahrukh Khan that the title of his movie should have been ‘My surname is Khan’ and not ‘My Name Is Khan’ (pun intended). However, this just goes on to show the tremendous hype and expectations from the movie which is scheduled to hit the cinemas worldwide on 12th February 2010. This Bollywood extravaganza directed by Karan Johar witnesses the reuniting of some of the big names like Shahrukh Khan and Kajol after a space of 8 long years. Even Karan Johar is directing a film after Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna which was released way back in 2006. Between this hibernation as a director he went on producing movies, some good and some dubious. So the team has united and their creation will be out on Valentine Week this year.
Karan Johar who is well versed in making love stories (an ardent follower of Yash Chopra) is certainly releasing his film on Valentine week but is also experimenting for the first time with some global and serious issues of terrorism and its aftermath on innocent civilians. To advocate his genuine intentions he has made his favorite actor Shahrukh Khan as his mouthpiece in the name of Rizwan Khan as the protagonist of the movie. Even his selection of a Muslim hero as the central character is a well thought out move as it is the Muslims who have suffered the most since the twin towers collapsed.
The film is a love story at the heart as said by its director with the undercurrent of terrorism and its aftermath, the director and actor were quoted as saying it in the media. The film features Shahrukh as Rizwan who moves to San Francisco with his mother and finds love in Mandira (Kajol). The things change after terror strikes the country and the couple separates. Rizwan thus embarks on a notable journey across the US, inspiring people and initiating a revolution to bring back Mandira. Rizwan also suffers from Asperger syndrome making matters even worse for him. So, people find it quite difficult to understand him.
Bollywood actress and models have gone without clothes for magazines, for a movie scene or just for a lark. Sometimes, the clothes have dropped from their body in a classic case of wardrobe malfunction. For instance, Dimple Kapadia’s towel slipping act in Saagar, was perhaps the beginning of wardrobe malfunction, long before Janet Jackson’s nipple gate happened. So here are some of the controversial and rare instances where Bollywood actresses went nude for the camera:
1. Zeenat Aman was shown topless, draped in a see though flimsy saree which exposed her voluptuous charms in the movie Zeenat Aman. Raj Kapoor, the legendary director who was rumored to have a fetish of big breasts, said, “You will come to watch Zeenat’s tits but will forget about them and remember only the movie by the time you leave the theater” This was way back in the 70s when such kind of exposure was looked upon with shock.
2. Mandakini bared her breasts the 1986 film ‘Ram Teri Ganga Maili’ through a white transparent saree, as she bathed under the water fall. This movie was also a huge hit and people download and watch Mandakini’s legendary waterfall scene that created history.
3. Mamta Kulkarni went topless for Stardust in the 90s and this cover page exposure took on the shape of a big controversy. Negative publicity is always good in media and the magazine sold many copies
4. Kashmira Shah: Kashmira Shah was shown nude from behind,and a part of her breasts were shown on camera, much to her chagrin in the movie Revathi.
5. Madhu Sapre: Madhu Sapre, the model faced a lot of controversy and ire when she posed nude along with her then boyfriend Milind Soman for Tuff Shoes.
Latest Bollywood movie Rock On produced by Farhan Akhtar and Ritesh Sidhwani seems to be a promising movie. Interesting news is that Rock On is the debut film of the actor Farhan Akhtar who used to be seen as a director behind the camera.
Rock on is the story of four friends, initially who had an unsuccessful band. Ten years later four members of the band bump into each other again and set on a journey together.
The casting includes Farhan Akhtar, Nicolette Bird, Purab Kohli, Luke Kenny, Arjun Rampal, Shahana Goswami, Prachi Desai and Koel Purie.
The movie made surprised everyone with its excellent opening at multiplexes all over India. It shows 80%-90% and also in some places cent per cent. This is simply great that this film doesn’t have any superstar or not directed or produced by any big name. All the calculations have been proved wrong as the movie Rock On has been proved as highly acclaimed movie by the audiences.