Babli at the bat: Dil Bole Hadippa
That unstoppable, beautiful happiness! Raniiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!My favorite Bollywood lady is predictably cute and appealing in bumpkin-Babli mode - that is, a spirited small-town young woman with big dreams and sheer and/or pink outfits, not as complexly written but still thoroughly enjoyable and root-for-able. As Veera, Rani shines as only Rani seems to do - squeaky, sometimes bratty, fully

Yalgaar
Yalgaar is not so much bad as it is lacking in any enticements - unless you like early Sanjay Dutt, and I know some people d0, especially shirtless and/or bemulleted. I was bored and unmoved. It drags. There's too much time spent on uninteresting things.And sometimes they just drag on and on for no apparent reason. Feroz must be talking about some other film here - any "twists" Yalgaar may claim

Kurbaan
Without being spoilery, here are the good things I can say about Kurbaan.The acting ranges solid to quite strong, with Om Puri and Kiroh Kher perhaps tailing the pack only because their characters are so extreme and tempt the actors into scenery-nibbling. Even the American extras and bit players are pretty good, relatively. I was especially impressed by Vivek Oberoi.Some of the characters are

the first in an occasional series: knitting in Bollywood
There are several Bollywood-loving knitting bloggers out there - Deewaani for Bollywood, Totally Filmi, who publishes Bollywood-inspired patterns, Antarra, who has posted a few times on the most important and memorable theme of knitwear in Hindi cinema, the sweaters of Rishi Kapoor. There's even a Bollywood group on Ravelry, the knitting social networking (knitworking?) site. I generally find my

Reshma aur Shera
The opening frames of Reshma aur Shera, a tragic story of family honor and vengeance set in rural Rajasthan, made me think I was in for depressing slog through the trials and tribulations of The Indian Woman, deified in theory but treated like dirt in practice. As the film begins, a voice (I think director/producer/star Sunil Dutt) extols women as the keepers and transmitters of the Indian virtue