My Big Fat Indian Drama Overdose

Try to imagine 'Bollywood' in one picture. What do you see? Is it, by any chance, a massive, colorful jumble of different spices and beautiful people you think must be too white to be Indian, embroidered with glistening pearls and golden sequins? If so, you are not wrong- but you're not exactly right either. 'Bollywood' is often used to describe a certain kind of film. Genre is the wrong word, but something among the lines of how indies or arthouse represent a certain kind of film. 'Bollywood' reflects a certain trend that has been predominating a big chunk of the Indian and Hindi language film industry, always. But something I like to point out whenever someone asks, and whenever someone doesn't, is that 'Bollywood' is not equal to Indian cinema and that yes,
 - there are good Indian dramas
 - there are good Indian dramas that feature song-and-dance and most importantly,
 - there are good Indian dramas that don't feature song-and-dance.

Song-and-dance in this context also represents any other trademark most people associate with Indian films (or Bollywood), like over-acting, strange side plots, strange side characters, extravagance and a long runtime. This month, I have seen a comparatively big amount of Indian drama of different quality, style and purpose- films that had been hovering on my DVD shelf for too long. My big fat apologies to the cool friend who borrowed me these and a few other films last summer, it has taken me far too long to watch them. All of these films had caught my interest either recently or a very long time ago and are on the 1001 Indian films you have to see before you die list that I've been secretly putting together for about two years. No, it's not done yet. Each of the films proved to be worth the watch, some more than others, but most of all it has been delightful to delve back into the rich and different world of Indian cinema for so long at a time. Here's what I take away from this adventure in a serious land.

Benvenuti to Cannes 2014 | 8½

Yesterday was the first day of Cannes and it was the first time I saw a film with the intriguing title of 8½.

I'm not talking about that blending mode or the amount of films Fellini had made up until 1963 - or am I? 8½ premiered at the Cannes Film Festival that year and it became an instant success. 41 years after its release, it was honored by being selected for the official poster of the festival and it became one of the two films I decided to watch in order to forget I wasn't attending the festival. 8½ is a strange film that plays with your perception of reality and the world of dreams and also is fully aware of its sexiness as a black-and-white Italian film. Never again have the screens of our cinemas experienced such stylishness and they perhaps never will. Marcello Mastroianni strolls the hotel hallways, Dolce Vita beaches and film sets in a film set like a God who just so happens to pay us peasants a visit while also maintaining an oddly fragile flavor in his character. Obviously (question mark?) he represents director Fellini himself, who - according to film bibles - directed himself out of an existential crisis with this film. Fellini blends the oddity and dreaminess of La Strada with the hedonism from La Dolce Vita into some of the most delicious, intriguing cinematic mush I have tasted yet. (Or did I just say that because those are the Fellini films I have seen?). Beside the clever script, abstract imagery and intellectually stimulating dialogue, it's also, surprisingly, the sound that makes 8½ stand out in cinematic history. Whether it's the buzz from the door, the clicking of polished heels on marble or that all-Italian beach swoosh, the sound of this film sweeps you away and draws you in at the same time. 

I think I know what the title stands for now: the 8½th heaven.

8½

1963 • Italy • Italian/ English/ French/ German

director Frederico Fellini

authors Frederico Fellini, Ennio Flaiano, Tullio Pinelli, Brunello Rondi

★ Marcello Mastroianni, Claudia Cardinale, Anouk Aimee

FINAL FRAME

„What is this flash of joy that's giving me new life?“

Spread the Word | Happy Mother's Day!

www.fuckyesjennifermorrison.tumblr.com

NEAT BLOG POSTS
Alex seems to have seen a lot of Tim Burton films - and as always, put them into a cool list.
Nik and Stevee celebrated Mean Girls Day without mentioning Lars von Trier.
Gaja Gamini reviewed Hasee Toh Phasee and I still don't know what to expect.
Jaina continues to wow me with her photographies for Project 365.
Veracious looks back at her Filmi year of 2013. She also invents the fitting phrase of "Saif Ali Khan -ing one's career".

 + NEW BLOGS!
  Chronicles in Frame is an exciting pop culture blog with a lot of movie content.
  Jdbrecords seems to write about almost everything - that's how I discovered these great poems by Chocolate Waters.

INTERESTING VIDEOS
What other way to celebrate mother's day than with a dose of Lonely Island's Motherlover?
I skipped ESC this year and good thing because no, I'm not a fan of this song.
People who use the site player may have noticed that Jimmy Franco by LOLAWOLF has been hovering there for a while now - one of the best videos of the year so far.

GROOVY PODCASTS
Reel Insight (a podcast I highly recommend) looks back at 2009's box-office bonanza Avatar and Oscar winner The Hurt Locker.
FTS did a similar episode to our last one with REDUX: Movies We Love That Others Hate & Vice Versa. Such fun!

WHAT I'VE BEEN DOING ELSEWHERE
I spent one day writing about J.K. Rowling's Works and How They're Connected so you'd better read it. Right now.

Spread the word!

Words Have Been Flowing Out For 1 Year!!

The following post was reblogged from acrosstheuniversepodcast.wordpress.com - thank you for 12 great months, Nik and Sofia.  It's been a great adventure so far and I will never get tired of explaining people what a podcast is or that you are not people I met through online dating (who ever thinks of this stuff?). I hope we will have the possibility to meet some time although it probably won't be in the next year. Here's to another 12 months of discussing Mads Mikkelsen (how to pronounce his name, I mean)!

Welcome to the Across the Universe Podcast blog! 

Exactly one year ago today, we Chicks with Accents published our very first podcast episode. Celebrating this milestone, we redesigned the podcast's image and came up with new ways to spread our work and improve it, in order to serve you better. So here are some of the news:

• First and foremost, you can now stay tuned with everything Across the Universe related through our Wordpress Blog. 
• From now on, all our episodes will be available for you to listen online or download, completely free.
• New episodes will be structurally optimised, along with a few more surprises...!
• The podcast now has a Youtube channel, where episode trailers will be uploaded.
• We've made a new podcast trailer:

As always we encourage your feedback, so leave us a comment below or get in touch through our facebook page. Contact us via email: acrosstheuniversepodcast [@gmail.com]

The Chicks: Mette M. Kowalski -- Blog | Facebook | Twitter -- Germany
Nikhat Zahra -- Blog | Facebook | Twitter -- India
Sofia da Costa -- Blog | Facebook | Twitter -- Portugal

On our next episode we'll discuss Monster Movies! Join the conversation on Friday, the 16th.

The Ten: Most Iconic Movie Characters

What would this website be without the glorious help from other bloggers out there who spend more time producing content than thinking about producing content. One of those angels is Nostra from My Filmviews who puts the best blogathons, memes and similar gifts out there now and then. This time, it's another relay race...

A list of 10 iconic movie characters has been made. That list will be assigned to another blogger who can then change it by removing one character (describing why they think it should not be on the list) and replace it with another one (also with motivation) and hand over the baton to another blogger. Once assigned, that blogger will have to put his/her post up within a week. If this is not the case the blogger who assigned it has to reassign it to another blogger. After you have posted your update leave the link in the comments here and I will make sure it gets added to the overview post.

Another angel is my desi girl Nik from Being Norma Jeane who was kind enough to tag me for this blogathon. I wasn't sure whether I'd dare to participate but okay then, let's get it on with.