Eating Muffins in an Agitated Manner

Advent Calendar Dec 6. 2021

Posted by Sari

Happy independence day, Finland!

Drink of the day is Amalias svartvinbärslimonad. It is like black currant juice I was given as a kid when I had a flu  except carbonated. The taste is a bit nostalgic but actually very good. Jukka thought It OK, a bit too juice like and he is not a fan of black currants.

Today we are speaking of Bollywood. The most popular movies in India - depending a bit on how you count - in 2016 and 2017 were both Aamir Khan movies, though he did not play lead in either. Instead, they were empowering stories about girls who could. First one, Dangal, is based on a true story and tells of a village man who transferred his dream of winning a medal in wrestling for India to his daughters, both of whom became successful wrestlers. The second is Secret Superstar, a story of a young muslim girl who wants to be a singer. She has a You Tube channel where she sings dressed in niqab, so his abusive father won’t find out what she is doing. Aamir is a composer and producer who discovers her.

Dangal is more of a pure feel-good saga of underdogs overcoming difficulties, but it does stand out as wrestling is something traditionally unfeminine and physical. Secret Superstar has more nuances and its unsung (or actually sung as Insia makes a song about her) hero is Insia’s mother who has the courage finally to stand against an abusive husband and despite being illiterate and without any support network leaves him. Neither of the films have the glitz and glamour of traditional Bollywood productions: Dangal has a number of training montages to songs and the Secret Superstar has basically Insia doing songs with accompanied by her guitar. So no big production numbers. If you want what passes for low key Bollywood, these are both good choices.

Advent Calendar Dec. 12: Happy New Year (2014)

Posted by Sari

If Prem Ratan Dhan Payo was a big Diwali hit of 2015, Happy New Year was that for 2014. It is Farah Kahn film, so it is on the same continium as Main Hoon Na and Om Shanti Om. That is throw everythhing and the kitcheng sink at it. Charlie (Shah Rukh Khan) is planning a daring diamond heist in Dubai in order to frame Grover (Jackie Shroff) for the robbery. Grover had in his turn framed Charlies dad for a diamond robbery way back when. In order to get into the hotel where the diamonds are, Charlie and his gang need to win a dance competition - a sort of dance eurovision - and represent India. They hire Mohini (Deepika Padukone) to teach them how to dance.

So this is like indian Oceans Eleven but more colorful and indian-funny. And with dancing and singing.  That the break-in gang could credibly perform a professional dance number even for pretend is silly, the whole heist is just incredible but the run through is  actually kind of funny.  Shah Rukh's painted on pectoral muscles are getting towards eleven in the Spinal Tap scale and the patriotic glow in the dance competition is... something. But I loved this. Deepika Padukone is great, Shah Rukh is Shah Rukh, and little B has some of his fathers gangly charm as the continuously drunk Nandu. The kung-fu fighting scene (with the the song of course) at a helicopter pad on the roof of a Dubai sky scraper is alone worth the price of the admission. 

 

English Tea Shop Happy Holiday: Green tea with Cinnamon, Pomegranate, Ginger, Cardamon, Cloves, Nutmeg and Pepper. Why do they call these different names? This tastes exactly same as the last one. 

Advent Calendar Dec 11. 2020: Dilwale (2015)

Posted by Sari

Dilwale - also from year 2015 - marked the return of the most famous jodi of them all: Shah Rukh and Kajol. It is a Romeo and Juliet story - twice over. in the past Raj (Shah Rukh) and Meera (Kajol) fall in love but their parents are form rival crime families, and both of them are involved in family business. There are misunderstandings and death and they break tragically up. In present day Raj's younger brother Veer (Varun Dhawan) falls in love with Ishu (Kriti Sanon), who  turns out to be Meera's sister. The romance of the younger siblings is the comedy part of the film, helped by Veer's best buddy Sidhu and Raj and Veer's neighbour Meni (Johnny Lever). Raj and Meera are the drama part with meaningful glances, wind machines and rain. 

It is all very primary coloured, and the hit song Gerua has lots of Suraj Hua Maddham vibes with flowing saris and exotic locations. Film's Goa looks like a cartoon, and Bulgaria like a travel brochure. The plot is repetitive and the funny bits are not that funny. The modern day romance is a bit annoying, mainly because Veer is spoiled brat. But I am and always will be a sucker for Shah Rukh's charisma and so as a good bhai to Veer, an avenging vigilante fighting against drug lords or a sad man who has lost his love, he makes it all good. And Kajol and Shah Rukh always work together. So I am good, even if the film could have been better. 

 

English Tea Shop Spooky Spice: Green tea with Cinnamon, Ginger, Cardamon, Cloves, Nutmeg and Pepper. So basically green christmas tea. Green tea has so delicate flavour that the spices overpower it, especially ginger and cloves.

 

Advent Calendar Dec 9. and 10: PK and Prem Ratan Dhan Payo

Posted by Sari

I forgot yesterday! So here are two movies

PK (2014)

    PK was at the time the highest grossing Indian movie. Somewhat unusually for Bollywood, it is science fiction, comedy, and a quite sharp critique of organised religion. Aamir Khan plays an alien sent to earth to research humans. He lands in Rajasthan and a local man robs him of his remote control which summons his spaceship. Stuck on earth, he tries to learn human ways, and ends up asking help from gods. They, naturally, will not answer. With a help of journalist Anushka Sharma he starts a movement against organised religions, and the way they prey on people’s fears and rob them of their money.
      PK was surprising. I was ready to cringe as Indian comedy is really not my cup of tea, but the jokes were sort of actually funny, and Aamir’s physical comedy worked, as did his Buster Keaton influenced performance in general. There are a lot of close ups of his big eyes and jug ears, and some of the mannerisms are familiar from his other movies, but Aamir has enough of charisma (and pectoral muscles) to pull it all off. Anushka Sharma and Sunjay Dutt are also great in their roles. Songs were not especially memorable but worked well in the context. The way the movie handles religion is quite sharp, and the fact that it got some flak from extremists when it came out is not surprising. I am also sap enough to enjoy the great melodramatic denouement at the end.

Prem Ratan Dhan Payo (2015)
      This 2015 Diwali release is a romantic drama and was second highest grossing Indian movie of its year. Prem (Salman Khan), carefree actor/guru  meets princess Maithili at a refugee camp where she is doing charity work and falls in love. The princess is engaged to crown prince Yuvraj (also Salman Khan) who faces problems with both his fiancé and his half-siblings. His brother tries to assassinate him for the crown, and he is injured badly. In a chance meeting, his majordomo sees Prem and hires him to play Yuvraj while the real Yuvraj recuperates. Misunderstandings, plots, kidnappings, swordfights ensue.
     So I was Monty's Double. Or, nearer to home, Don (both original and remake). But instead of a war or gangster movie, this is a romantic comedy with some action elements. Kings and princes have only money and influence in modern India, not power, but showcasing the aristocracy filmmakers can produce even more extravagant visuals than usually. Also, the ultra conservative prince Yuvraj is shown taking a horse carriage to meet his sisters - though they are supposed to live next to his palace - and listens to music with ear buds on his phone on the way;  a nice contrast. Salman Khan wasn't bad in this, and thought the "family is everything" theme was hammered pretty hard, it was enjoyable fluff.

      English Tea Shop: Winter Warmer: Rooibos, Cocoa, Ginger, Star Anise an Mace. Another infusion with Christmas spices. Unmemorable, and I really can't taste the cocoa. 
      Clipper Licorice and Peppermint: Mint is always a good idea, but peppermint and sickly-sweed licorice really makes this almost undrinkable.

 

Advent Calendar Dec 8. 2020: Singham (2011)

Posted by Sari

Number six on the 2011 box-office list, this is again a hindi remake of a tamili film. Ajay Devgan is a police officer in a village. He is just and everybody loves him. He also looks fine in uniform, especially as he walks in slow-motion towards camera. Kajal Aggrawal is his love interest, a girl from Goa whose family is originally from Ajay’s village. Things get problematic when Ajay crosses paths with a Goan don and a politician who is mixed up in everything from kidnappings to murders. The don arranges Ajay’s transfer to Goa and begins to harass him. As the police and the political system is in the don's pocket, Ajay has an uphill battle to get the don to justice.

And from the western point of view, he fails. He gets the police department on his side just as the don is elected as minister for the local government. As the police has no evidence against him, and naming him minister makes him virtually untouchable, the police solve the problem by blowing his brain out and staging it as suicide. And as the whole police department is in on it, they naturally get away with it.

If the filmis are anything to go by, the government and police are often corrupt in India, and thus this could be seen as an uplifting story of the police realizing being on the take is not the thing, but as a westerner the total lack of faith in the system is jarring. Also, though I have always liked the menacing aura of Ajay Devgan – not to mention his very impressive stache – the slow-motion battles with very unconvincing throwing people about does make the action more silly than exciting, and as most of the film is about action the whole does not impress. I am probably pretty squarely in the minority, however: Singham has at least three sequels/spin-offs.

 

Clipper Snore & Peace: Chamomille with lavender and lemon balm. I don't think chamomille and lavender go together that well. The taste is a bit muddled. 

Advent Calendar Dec 7. 2020: Raabta (2017)

Posted by Sari

So, if we have partition drama here on this advent calendar, we must also have re-incarnation drama. Young, playboyish Shiv/Jilaan (Sushant Singh Rajput) gets a job in Budapest where he meets Saira/Saiba (Kriti Sanon) and feels an instant connection. Saira has strange dreams about drowning,  She also meets Zakar/Qaabir who ends up kidnapping her in a mansion filled with portraits of her. Turns out Shiv and Saira were warriors on the opposite sides of the war eigth hundred years a go ,and married to end the conflict falling in love at the same time. Zabir  killed him and Saira chose to drowned with her husband. Zabir slit his own throat

The modern bits of this romantic drama were actually quite okay, Sushant has buckets of charm, it is nice to see Budapest as Budapest instead of pretending to be Rome, and the romance is sweet but more modern than many. The past part does not work quite as well. It has Ashoka vibes - everybody wears lots of kohl, furs and tattoos - but instead of being strange and foreign, it is a bit silly, especially Sushant's wild man prince just does not quite work. Neither does music which is really forgettable even with Deepika Padukone as an item girl. 

 

English Teashop Chai Charge: Rooibos with christmas spices and garlic. I was really skeptical but this is actually nice. 

Advent Calendar Dec 6. 2020: Raees (2017

Posted by Sari

With age and success, SRK has considerably slowed down making films - it is not unusual for a popular hindi star to make half a dozen films a year. In 2017 Khan had a cameo in Slaman Khan’s Tubelight, made a romantic comedy Jab Harry Met Sejal and this crime drama, which was the years 6^th most popular hindi film worldwide. Raees is the life story of the titular gujarati bootlegger and his rise to local criminal elite. He is hounded by the lonely honest cop (Nawasuddin Siddiqui) who is determined to shut down liquor trade in the dry state.

Raees is interesting - from my western point of view - in many ways. In a way, it is a return to the roots of SRK’s film career. He began by playing very convincing bad guys and psychopaths, and though he also played good guys, it was with Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge that he made his real breakthrough as a romantic lead. Raees is a violent man, and the violence is very front and centre of this movie from the gore-filled fist fight in a Mumbai meat market to a more stylised spree killing during an item number.

It is also interesting, because it is one of the handful of times Shah Rukh plays a muslim as a lead in a film. Despite his prolictivities, Raees is depicted as a practicing Shia muslim who is almost assassinated because he refuses to miss the mourning of Muharram ritual (the attempt – I must tell you - is followed by a Bourne-like chase scene with lots of parkour). At the same time, he dismisses the problems his religion has with his trade by quoting his mother’s adage about business being more important than religion – as long as nobody gets hurt.

But of course, lots of people get hurt and Raees does not really seem to care as long as people he considers his are ok. By the later part of the film he as became a proper crime lord, but with a heart of gold. He tries to help his community – both hindu and muslim - and is appalled when he has been used to smuggle in explosives used in an act of terror.  His nemesis, Majmudar has an opposite trajectory. He is introduced as straight laced cop who has a sense of humour and ends up getting so obsessed with Raees and so disillusioned by the corruption in the police and the political elite, that in the end he disregards the rule of law and just executes the man he has chased for years.

 

Clipper Calmer Chameleon: Camomille, Honeybush and Cinnamon. This is basically camomille tea with something tasting vaguely honey-like. If I had a sore throat this might be good.

Advent Calendar Dec. 5. 2020: Kalank (2019)

Posted by Sari

Abhishek Varman’s Kalank was conceived as luscious big-budget melodrama. Every shot is fantasy-gorgeous, all the costumes are color-coded, and the love stories are sad and big. The genre is historical – this is a partition drama. In 1945, in what is now Pakistan Satya (Sonakhsi Sinha) is dying of cancer. She goes to meet her friend Roop (Alia Bhatt) to persuade her to move in to “comfort” her husband. Roop agrees, if Satya’s husband Dev (Adtitya Roy Kapoor) will marry her. As Dev is in love with Satya this is a marriage in name only. Roop is sad and has nothing to do, so she begins take dancing lessons from Baahar Begum (Madhuri Dixit), and work in her husband’s newspaper. Then he meets his father-in-law’s illegitimate son Zafar (Varun Dhawan) who wants to seduce her to get revenge on his dad. And things do not go well, especially as Baahar Begum and Zafar are muslim, and Dev’s family hindu.

The story is muddled and though the roles would give possibilities to greater probing of the loyalties divided by partition, this has been written as a personal melodrama. Partition is just a backdrop which makes it seem like a lost opportunity. The best thing is to see Madhuri Dixit again, though her role and relationship with Bhatt is basically straight from Devdas. Dhawan spends most of the film without a shirt forging swords and battling CGI bulls, and Bhatt, the investigative reporter, walks around the red-light district without any problems. So it is also a fantasy movie. It could have been much better, but it is pretty enough you can sort of forget it makes very little sense.

 The strangest thing was a beautiful shot of Zafar sitting on the banks of ariver (Ravi?) at the sunset, smoking. And a small text appearing at the right bottom corner saying “smoking kills”.

English Teashop Happy Holiday: Green tea with Cinnamon, Pomegranate, Ginger, Cardamon, Cloves, Nutmeg and Pepper. Lots of Christmassy flavours. Like almost all flavored teas, this smells better than it tastes. Very meh.

Advent Calendar Dec 4.2020: Bodyguard

Posted by Sari

This was the highest grossing Indian film of 2011, and is a remake of director Siddique’s  Malayalam film. Salman Khan plays a superhero-like bodyguard named Lovely Singh, who is hired to protect his benefactor's daughter, Divya (Kareena Kapoor).  Kareena tries to distract officious Salman by phoning him and pretending to be a girl in love with him. Salman does not find out who is calling him, not even when Kareena finds herself really falling in love with Salman. In the seminal scene Salman meets Kareena's best friend on the train station and thinks she is the girl who is in love him. In the last third of the film Salman and Kareena reconnect after years, when the best friend has died of cancer and left Salman a widow.

This seems like a throwback to 90s or early noughts. There is a love triangle and two distinct halves of the story. The humour is so, so broad – the Johnny Lever role played by Rajat Rawail – and the violence is both cartooney and graphic.  Also, Salman Khan dances with his biceps. I am not kidding. The best joke is a T-shirt Rawail is waring which says: “I am in shape. Round is a shape.” This was not really my cup of tea, especially as I have never understood the popularity of Salman Khan, and this is really a vehicle for him. I also miss the pagal Kareeena, Divya is pretty one note. There are at least three of four remakes of the original for the different Indian markets. If this was any better, it would have been interesting to see the different versions.

English Teashop: Super Star Anise Tea. I got bored with Clipper's infusion. This at least has black tea in it, and English Teashop advent calendar  comes in pyramid bags. I quite liked this one, I can taste both black tea and anise, but the anise does not overpower.

 

Advent Calendar Dec 3. 2020: Dhoom 3

Posted by Sari

Dhoom is the second largest franchise in Indian cinema. All films feature Abhishek Bachchan and Uday Chopra as cops investigating complicated thefts, and all of them feature big name antagonists (John Abraham, Hritrik Roshan, Aishwariya Rai Bachchan, Aamir Khan). In this third instalment Aamir Khan has suffered a trauma as a kid - his father committed suicide when a bank foreclosed on his Indian circus in Chicago. As an adult he restarts his father’s circus and takes revenge on the bank by robbing its branches. Abhishek and Uday are called in to investigate.

There is, of course, a twist, but it is predictable as this movie has clearly taken elements from Prestige. Even so, it is an entertaining thriller with lush musical numbers and typically Bollywood unreal slow motion stunts.  The female lead, Katrina Kaif does sexy athleticism well but does not have that much to do, as this is really a cat and mouse game between Abhishek and Aamir.

Dhoom franchise’s most recognisable element is the song Dhoom Machale which in this instalment is a tap-dance, which is performed nicely against the genre as something rather heavy and jarring. It is difficult to believe Aamir is pushing fifty in this one, he can’t beat Hritrik’s dancing in the second instalment, but his intensity works well both in the song and in the whole film.

Clipper Rise & Shine infusion has Yerba Mate, Lemongrass, Lemon Verbena in it, so caffeine and citrus makes it a morning “tea”, not really evening. The citrus elements come through nicely, but not my cup of tea, so to speak.