Blog Posts by Suma Nagaraj

  • Oscars 2012: Girl, Humiliated

    By Suma Nagaraj | Popcorn – Mon 27 Feb, 2012 4:27 PM IST

    Do-no-wrong fashion maven, champion of the misplaced, spokesperson for education reform and informed political commentator Angelina Jolie seemed to be out of her element (or way too in it, as some put it) with her mistaking the Oscars stage for a photo-op for invisible lingerie today.

    Not a hair was out of place, the famous pillow lips were painted a Satan concubine red and the limber, zero-percent-body-fat body was encased in an asymmetric velvety black number that had a slit so high on the right that it went all the way up to Calgary mountains in Canada. To give the devil its due, the black gown did give off a somewhat quasi well-developed derriere vibe, but mother-of-6 Angelina Jolie seemed to want to show the versatility of the slit so bad, she almost ended up flashing the divine doodah that has, among other things, birthed three messiahs for the betterment of this world in the last 5 years.

    In doing so, Angelina Jolie seemed to have thrown off the cloak of every good thing she's

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  • In Defense of DK Bose

    By Suma Nagaraj | Popcorn – Fri 24 Jun, 2011 1:01 PM IST

    I confess - I enjoy singing the DK Bose refrain. Alas, the prudish world out there is causing me much heartache with the crooner's conundrum I'm currently facing. I cannot sing the Bhaag Bhaag DK Bose line without attracting disbelief and mental judgements of uncouthness by people around me.  But why is there such a hue and cry about clever placement of lyrics into what is a tongue-in-cheek reference to how much we, as a culture, love our cuss words?

    We all know that colourful language, when used at the right time and in the right instance, can have the desired effect that polite Ps and Qs usually don't. And when the said colourful language is Indian, all the more reason to celebrate its colourfulness, considering we're all about varied ethnicities, languages, preferences and religious leanings. Osho Rajneesh has ably demonstrated the insta-appeal and the sheer versatility of the 'F' word in everyday conversation, so why are we getting our inner garments all twisted over a song that

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  • What is ‘wholesome’ about Dabangg?

    By Suma Nagaraj | Popcorn – Fri 20 May, 2011 4:59 PM IST

    In the name of God. What have we done?

    The one film that redefined crass commercialism and toilet humour at its worst (I cringe at that 'chhed' line every time someone says it and giggles) has been named the year's 'wholesome entertainer'. By the National Film Awards committee, no less.

    The National Film Awards are announced for the singular purpose of plugging in the holes (pardon) left behind by popular film award ceremonies that are rigged, bought or are blatant showcases of favouritism in the industry. Or so I thought. Well, looks like we might need another body to take care of that, because this year's awards smack of giving in to popular demand rather than reward genuine achievement in the field of cinema.

    Dabangg, last year's answer to the void that was left behind by the underwear/drawstring/mattress/pillow innuendo-laden era of David Dhawan, Govinda and Karisma Kapoor, is a lot of things - entertaining, yes. Hilarious, in parts. Paisa vasool, to the bottom galleries. But

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  • When One Genre Isn’t Enough

    By Suma Nagaraj | Popcorn – Tue 10 May, 2011 6:32 PM IST

    Hollywood, when not churning out its staple romance, usually sticks to the tried and tested ribald comedy (aimed at mostly men who refuse to grow up), mindless action flick (ditto), tearjerker drama/chick flicks (women - of all kinds) or animated adventures for the ageless. But the nineties brought with it a wave of starlets from TV who were looking for their big break on celluloid and what followed was a genre that brought in women in droves and with them, their hapless dates, who in order to keep the "romance" alive in the relationship, tagged along meekly to see mild to offensive comedy swathed in huge layers of feel-good romance and tied up with a big pink bow of a happy ending - leading to the birth of the first mixed genre, the romcom, in contemporary Hollywood.

    Hollywood then started experimenting with mixing certain genres to appeal to a larger demographic, or a mix of two or more. Some stars became synonymous with the mixed genres, some genres defined the career graph of

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  • Great Expectations

    By Suma Nagaraj | Popcorn – Thu 28 Apr, 2011 1:16 PM IST

    Living in the shadows of India's one and only superstar and a respected actress who in her heydays was the epitome of grace onscreen and, dare I say it, the world's most recognised beautiful face, ex beauty queen turned somewhat of a crossover phenomenon in films who commands a princely sum for the smallest endorsement, must be a huge burden for someone who's time and again faced criticism for his bad run at the box office.

    Now add to it that the former two are his parents and the latter is his wife who enjoys global recognition like no other Bollywood star has or probably ever will. Even Atlas would have shrugged.

    If anyone deserves a break from the constant comparisons, expectations and enormous pressure of being a star son and star husband, it's Abhishek Bachchan.

    I remember being a staunch Aamir Khan loyalist when I first set eyes on Abhishek. I was whizzing past Mumbai's High Court after a lovely dinner at a colleague's house, and we stopped when we saw Abhishek along with his

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Pagination

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