Rajneeti at Sapna Cinema, East of Kailash, Delhi

The first bollywood movie I watched in India was Love Aajkal, and it was also at Sapna Cinema. Sapna Cinema, according to my roommate Richa is where all the autowalla pervs go, who start screaming sex sex sex randomly and get very horny when there are guy-girl scenes, regardless of the degree of intimacy actually shown (anticipation of sexual content is all that is needed to set them off).

I watched it with Aradhna, sans subtitles, but with helpful translations from her from time to time, as well as a post-mortem on the rickshaw to GK1 M block after, where she made the connections with the Mahabharata and we recalled the linkages with The Godfather.

So anyway, the most important revelation of this movie (to me of course) is that I find Nana Patekar SO CUTE!!!! Like Crushable cute. Just because intelligence (even if manipulating, and conniving, and morally dubious and shady) with suaveness and calm calculating-ness is attractive. Naseerudin Shah had only a token bit part at the start, but still, his attractiveness has been known to me for some time. Anyway, so at the part when he and that Bharati woman start making out at the start, Sapna-walla-pervs at the back started screaming away already.

Katrina Kaif was so bad, I don't know why the Indian audience bother to indulge her and say "considering it is KK, it's really not bad." She was positively SMILING when she was supposed to be crying, and her eyes were REALLY REALLY weird in the scene when she went to confront Ranbir Kapoor's character Sameer when she finds out that he has somehow managed to marry her off to Prithvi. Weakness in plot there too : they didn't make it sufficiently like DEAD END for KK's character, put more obstacles, get her father to slap her around a bit, force her into that political marriage.... right now it just seems, in Aradhna's words, like she just gave up too easily and doesn't convince.

ALSO, the way KK goes "kyon?!" Also the same scene where she barges into the office to confront Sameer on marrying her off to Prithvi -- she says it with an aspirated K like K-lots of air coming through-YON?! KYON KYON? She does this twice, but the more memorable one is the one in this same scene... where she is trying to act angry and upset. SIGH. KK. But what to do?

The boards of KK were also so tall... if they can digitally edit people to become taller why not to become shorter? They were towering over the banks of Varanasi, and looked very unstable. She was also extremely stiff (I was told this is to emulate Sonia Gandhi's stiffness...) but KK's stiffness is a class all of her own. Hur hur.

Enough bashing. On to positive things. Ranbir Kapoor. Ok lah upon reflection the acting is not SO bad, just not soooo impressive. But good enough, held up well. Arjun Rampal's scene where he fucks that girl who wants a party ticket also set the Sapna-walla-pervs off on a screaming spree, but that was a pretty good scene I thought.

Cinematography at the scene where their father is in the hospital and the policeman comes to slap Ranbir Kapoor, so hard till he falls down. As he falls down the camera angle jumps up, we have a bird's eye view but the camera spins, giving the same kind of perspectival shock I guess when somebody slaps you so hard your ears start ringing as you collapse to the floor. I really, liked that effect. Good going, cinematographer guy, editor guy, and all the anonymous heroes of everyday movies. ha ha.

Sarah the gori girl looked a bit like a white version of Nafisa Ali, but that could just be me. She sounded a bit weird when she was going on her speech about how Sameer had become "conniving", but otherwise quite likeable.

However, how come so many people get pregnant in the movie? Okay random.

Ajay Devgn, I don't have much to say. Good only, big beefy bulk. Aur kaun tha??

OH yes, plot-wise... intense, fun, enjoyable, mazaa aya, loaded references... but after a point in time people kept dying (and each death is like a critical turn to the plot) to the point I found it quite amusing (plot kept turning and turning in this quasi-predictable fashion - deaths came unpredicatable but the plot plodded on predictably) I guess it's like De Dana Dan after a point people kept entering the fray it's like wtf hahaha how blasphemous this must be to some

but overall... ENJOYED!!!! Now can't wait for I Hate Luv Stories!!!

So cute. too cute.

Too cute!!! :D