'YAMLA PAGLA DEEWANA' & 'KOFFEE WITH KARAN'

Well, it certainly has been a while!!

It's been over 6 months since my last post... certainly not by design though - my laptop gave up the ghost shortly after my last post, and I've only just been able to acquire a new one. I have kept up with all the developments in Bollyblogland, though - from Khanna-o-Rama to Sridevipalooza (and lots more besides). As usual, there's been lots and lots of fun stuff going on.

I remember when 'Apne' was about to come out in 2007 - I was super-excited at the prospect of seeing Dharmendra onscreen with his sons... when the movie eventually came out, I naturally traipsed off to the cinema to see it - and I really enjoyed it. Not because it's a great movie (it's certainly not), but because it was OTT, and fun, and emotional, and very silly in parts, and just total paisa vasool for me at that point in time. I haven't bothered to see it again since that day, and I don't think it would stand up to a second viewing, but I really enjoyed it at the time. In my post on the movie, I remarked that I would love to see Dharam, Bobby and Sunny do another movie... but I didn't think it was likely.

I was obviously totally wrong! Here's the trailer for 'Yamla Pagla Deewana', scheduled to debut in 2011:



Now I don't understand about 90% of what was said in that trailer (ze subtitles, zey are my friends!!), and it looks like the film will probably have a lot of cultural references that I won't really 'get', but it does look like a lot of fun - colourful, entertaining and just fun. The trailer is actually generating some nice positive buzz for the movie. Can't wait till it comes out... hope it makes it to one of my local cinemas, and I hope it's received well.

Another fun recent development, of course, has been the return, after a loooonnng hiatus, of 'Koffee with Karan', Karan Johar's irreverent and quite frankly, nosey, chat show. It's already stirred up the pot quite nicely with Deepika Padukone allegedly making bitchy comments about Ranbir Kapoor and Katrina Kaif, and Ranbir himself pretty much 'fessing up to the world that he's a little bit of a player - an adorable one to be sure, but a 'playa-playa' nonetheless. I love how Karan Johar is not afraid to go after the salacious details on this show, and how he manages to get the celebs to say stuff they probably would not say on a 'regular' day. It's also great that he manages to get just about everyone who's anyone in Bollywood to do the show.

I really enjoyed the first 2 seasons of KWK - in fact, I raved about it on this blog early in 2007, and it made it to my list of favourite Bollywood-related things of 2007, although for me the formula got a bit stale and irritating by the latter part of the second season. The show started to lose its freshness and became a bit of a vanity thing, especially for people with new movies coming out. I was quite glad when Karan called it quits, really.

But I guess a good long break was just what the show needed to give it back its 'kick', and I think one can safely predict that the third season will give us quite a few memorable moments. Just some of the people I'd personally love to see on KWK this season: newlyweds Konkona Sen Sharma and Ranvir Shorey, Vivek Oberoi (not with his wife, though - maybe with Sushmita Sen or Ajay Devgn), Amrita Rao, Shahana Goswami, Sridevi, Akki & Dimple, Emraan Hashmi, Vidya Balan... and of course K-Jo's 'usual suspects' - like SRK, Kajol, Bebo.... The ultimate coup for Karan, of course, would be to get the 3 Khans - Aamir, Shah Rukh and Salman in the studio on the same day and for the same show... but I think we all know that's not going to happen. It's fun to imagine though - things would probably get pretty heated!

Anyway, just wanted to check in... will be back soon with some Dharam-centric posts and maybe some other non-Dharam-related observations... one thing's for sure, it definitely won't be another 6 months before my next post!