Podcast!

It's here! "The Voltron of Bollywood podcasts," featuring Filmi Girl, Totally Filmi, Upodcast co-host Asim Burney, and me discussing 2010 so far, is now available. It's long, it's a little bit unorganized - you know how passionate conversations go - and two of us have hardly seen any of the films released this year. Still.

(And yes, I hate hearing my voice in recordings. I sound 14.)

Comments

Danielle B. said…
Hello!

Wow, I heard all of your introductions, and you all sound so great!

Beth, I LOVE that you "discovered" Bollywood via Bride and Prejudice, because that's what happened to me too! I bet Jane Austen never thought that she would facilitate culture-transfer like this when she wrote Pride and Prejudice!

My family had seen Bend it Like Beckham, and then, because we'd liked it so much, and because I'm a Jane Austen fiend, we got Bride and Prejudice, and while cheesy in parts...basically my Mom and I loved it. Mr. Kholi still has us in stitches when we see it today.

Then, I was in our library randomly in front of the foreign films, and I picked up a DVD that had Aishwarya Rai on it (most beautiful woman in the world, etc., we're fans!) and...guess what? It was *another* Austen adaptation! I'd picked up "Kandukondain Kandukondain" at "random" and the sheer force of destiny made me check it out.

By the time Ajith Kumar was singing to Tabu in the fantasy pyramid song, I was completely entranced. The words were so poetic, the music hypnotic and goregous, the emotions so real...(even if the plot wasn't)

After the extras on B&P, I was worried that Bollywood films wouldn't make any sense, or be obscure and inaccessible (like some foreign films I've seen.) But "Kandukondain Kandukondain" porved me wrong (though I knew it wasn't a "true" Bollywood, since it was Tamil)

Later, my Mom randomly brought home Devdas...and that sealed the deal. Ash' intro song "Silsila Ya Chaahat Ka" (I think?) won me over. Bollywood had a new fan.

Ahem, sorry to go on about myself! I wan to hear the rest of the podcast and your thoughts on Raavan (we were going to see that on my birthday, but the theater changed it without notice, and so we saw I Hate Luv Storys instead...which everyone *did* like anyway. Guilty pleasure. :-)

I didn't have time to finish it at the moment, but I love hearing passionate coversations, and I hope you had a great time recording it!

(Someone suggested, on another blog, that you all should schedule a "Skpe-chat-while-watching-movie" session, if it works out. That sounded like an inordinate amount of fun.)
Aylmer said…
Totally unrelated, straight up NAME DROPPING but I'm buddies with Preity Zinta hehe. She's a really nice gal and just as beautiful in the flesh. REALLY DIG YOUR BLOG!
Banno said…
Hey Beth, listened to half the podcast. Then got caught up with something else. A lot of fun. Loved hearing your voice.
Anonymous said…
Who new Bride and Prejudice was so influential? As a huge supporter of Liverpool I read all the British papers available in FL. I read an interview with Gurinder Chadha talking about BAP and working with Aishwarya. Curious I went on Netflix, searched Aish's movies and on a whim added Devdas, Taal and Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam. A week later HDDCS came in the mail and 3 hours later I was hooked.

Really liked the Podcast and your voice sounds fine. I really liked Rann, not a big RGV fan but really liked Ritesh(the most under appreciated actor around) and Sudeep who I don't ever remember seeing before but was amazing. Can't wait for an end of the year review.
Danielle - It's always fun hearing other people's "how I got into Bollywood" stories. I've heard several people mention B&P. You will be amused to know that I once got a tweet from whoever tweets as Mr. Darcy asking me how someone from America wound up being so interested in far Bombay :)

Kandoukondain is one of my favorite films - it is so gorgeous and the music is wonderful and the new setting of that story works perfectly.

Chat-watchalongs are great fun - I do them regularly. I always wonder if Skype would just pick up all the noise of everyone's individual DVDs playing and just be so busy with sound that you couldn't really hear each other very well? I've never tried.

Aylmer - Thanks! We miss her in the movies big time!

Banno - Thank you - hope you survived the total bonkers-ness of it all.

lvrplfc4l - I can easily see Aishwarya films hooking someone! I'm a bit of an Aishwarya apologist and generally like her performances very much, though I certainly haven't seen all her films. Glad you enjoyed the podcast, and thank you for the kind words :)

(Side note: I always try to figure out what your user name means and I am never successful :) )
Anonymous said…
Beth there is a hint for my user name in my comment above, huge Liverpool supporter, it breaks down to Liverpool FC for life, lvrplfc4l.

Simple, You'll never walk alone!

Well Aishwarya lead me to Salman, SRK, Anil, and so many more. It's funny most of my family and friend don't get my love for Bollywood but the couple of friends I have converted started with B&P as well.
I think because it's mostly in English it is accessible and not frighteningly subtitled; I'm always amazed that people will not watch any film that's subtitled! I went to see The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo at are local art-house theatre and people were pissed it was subtitled not dubbed. Someone actually yelled out, "If I wanted to read it I would have read the F*&*ing book."

I really enjoy your writing style and your reviews.

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