All Sorts of Wonderful: billu

Showing posts with label billu. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Wah!

This one headline deserves its own space~~

Cinema: A barber and his superstar

NOW SHOWINGBILLU (Hindi)Directed PriyadarshanStarring Shah Rukh Khan, Irrfan Khan, Lara Dutta, Priyanka Chopra, Deepika Padukone, Kareena Kapoor, Om Puri, Rajpal Yadav, Asrani

A BARBER has a superstar as a friend. But the superstar does not know that his childhood buddy is in dire straits financially.

.....

The verdict?

There is plenty of humour throughout the movie and a little touch of pathos. But Priyadarshan has definitely made Billu an enjoyable movie. Even after watching Kuselan, Billu is still a joy to catch at the cinema.

See, I told you Datuk Shah Rukh Khan is no. 1 in Malaysia XD

Monday, February 23, 2009

Recuperating updates

You know.. this search for the newest news on SRK while he's under house arrest is turning into a delightful treasure hunt. I'm challenging myself as to what kind of article/interview I can find on him on the net and I'm seeing a pattern here. It seems that every 3 days there'll be something out. His operation was on the 17th Feb article and he did a face-to-face interview on the 20th (the youtube links I pasted in the previous post). Today I managed to find a phone interview done on the 23rd. Anyway, groggy after being pumped with pain killers or not, he can still disperse his megawatt charm throughout the chat. I'm sorry Shah Rukh bhai, I know you're in a lot of pain but your answers nearly toppled me off my chair with laughter XD".

You can read the full article here.

Excerpts:

Sleeping is difficult, so he’s got a special bed for the purpose; the back goes up and down, he’s been sleeping at 90 degrees almost, in a sitting position. Like a hospital bed? “No, it’s a designer bed,” replied SRK showing signs through the pain and grogginess of his ready wit. He’s started physiotherapy. “It’s minimal movement,” he explained, “I wrap up the Bombay Times in my fingers, my hand hanging by my side, it’s like doing a bicep curl.”
He’s been given a three DVD set of the arthoscopy. “It’s taken by a sharp camera, I’m all cut, burned, stitched and nailed, but what you can see looks like a fish in an aquarium eating floating food,” he described. “Some 30 litres of water was pushed through my shoulder... and the entire process is magnified 25 times on camera. It doesn’t look like a surgery... it’s quite an art.”
Yes, his kids Aryan and Suhana have seen the video with him. “They think it’s beautiful, quite intriguing and not scary at all... like dinosaurs in an underwater sequence,” he added. But he’s put the procedure behind him, now comes the recovery, and he’s using the time at home to catch up on work. He’s into discussions with script writers.

...and what's the strategy behind producing a film without him as the main character?

"Now distributors know, whether I’m in it or not, Red Chillies Entertainment makes good films."

See, this guy has everything all planned out :P

Other articles I want to keep here for posterity (somehow this word always reminds me of 'posterior' ^^;) :
SRK on his operation: Sophisticated carpentry
My relationship with Shah Rukh too deep to need formalities: Viveck Vaswani
Fearless King Khan

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Billu clips on youtube

Making of

Video clips of the songs from the movie

....errr, I dunno what the critics expect from this movie

To say that it opened to a poor response, well... my reaction was, isn't that sorta predicted already? The only reason why it's receiving so much hype is becoz it has an extended special appearance by SRK and it's being produced by his company. Otherwise, the synopsis does not sound like a blockbuster formula.. it's been made twice before in tamil and malayalam.. and IMO it's an off-beat film. It's a film about a barber and his family who live in this small village.. and it looks pretty 'quiet' ...except when SRK fills up the screen of course :P

Personally, if I could go.. I would go just for his item numbers and his appearances. Otherwise I'd be munching popcorn, drinking some soft drink and trying to stay awake throughout the whole show when he's not around. I have this one track mind when I watch movies or dramas. I've been rather disillusioned with the whole 'it's an original and fresh approach/story/plotline' promo surrounding them really, so I only want to watch them for the actor(s) I like. I can watch SRK films without subtitles, and at one time I even prefer them without sub coz the small writings at the bottom of the screen distract me from enjoying him. I dun want to miss even 2 seconds of his screen time. I can totally separate the roles from the movies in terms of enjoyment, i.e. the film can suck but I would still be able to say I love watching it coz of his acting in it. Like Chaahat, for example. I simply adore Rup. I understand completely why Reshmaji wants to keep him as pet. I want to too.

But I can see how some people can enjoy the simple, family-friendly film like Billu. And I think everyone is entitled to his/her opinion about the movies he/she enjoys... same goes for music, really. Just coz I love SRK like mad, I dun have to like every bit of the million and one projects he's doing. If I dun like it, I dun like it.. period. My opinion is only that of a fan's and it shouldn't hurt anyone else's sensitive feelings (geh). That said, I want to own the Billu DVD.. just for the item numbers. Infact... specifically? Just for the Ae Aa Oh song (lol). And I just found out that the whole bleeding movie is already on youtube.. whaaaa?? How come Rab Ne is still a well-guarded secret? I want to watch the complete Dance Pe Chance video! Adityaji.. dun be so mean. If you're gonna hog it to yourself, at least release the DVD/CD version quickly so we can buy it T__T

I've looked up news on its collection and here are the headlines:
Billu's fate at the box office
Box Office report: Billu fails to pull crowd
Billu opens to an average collections at box office
Billu - Shaved at the Box Office
Film Billu Average Opening Shahrukh Khan Priyadarshan ...
Billu Box Office Report Collections, billu barber box office ...

...but see, after I knew that Dil Se and Asoka were flops, I no longer respect BO figures in India. I will watch SRK films regardless of how it did/is doing at the BO and I will make up my own mind whether it's a good film or not, according to me. Especially now that he's not doing out-and-out romantic films anymore. It makes his future projects more unpredictable and hence, more exciting. He's right.. if you know already how the film will be accepted when it's released becoz it follows a set formula, it's not really that fun compared to making a different sort of film from what you usually do.. release it.. and then spend the whole weekend biting your nails while monitoring the fluctuating figures XD.