I was home sick today, and spent the day in bed watching DVDs on my computer. I watched Lagaan - one of my most favorite Bollywood films, mentioned previously here - and several episodes from the first season of Bewitched, and then another Bollywood film, the bizarre comedy-melodrama (yes, you read that right) Ishq.
Ishq, like Lagaan, stars Aamir Khan (left above), which means that when all was said and done I spent about six and a half hours with Aamir Khan today. He's adorable, so I don't really have any complaints - but quite unlike Lagaan, I can't really recommend Ishq for the faint of heart or for those who don't already have a taste for Bollywood and a sense of humor about how bad it can be when it goes wrong. It was an odd, odd film - part slapstick comedy, part socio-political diatribe, part violent melodrama.
The songs were fun, though - bad, but fun. I went back and watched most of them again when I was done with the film. That's the best thing about Bollywood DVDs - they usually have song menus that allow you to skip right to the songs. The people who make these DVDs knows that the songs are the parts most likely to stand up to repeat viewing.
(A still from the best naach-gaana in Lagaan, the brilliant "Radha kaise na jale")