What about hotels in Victoria?

When it comes to finding a hotel, your first thought will probably be the Fairmont Empress. It's a beautiful hotel, and you should spend some time there. I always recommend the afternoon tea and drinks (if not the Indian buffet) in the Bengal Lounge. (We had martinis there the other night. They were delicious, but $12? Ouch!) I've never stayed there, but I am told the rooms are nothing special, so you might be better off just playing tourist.
If I were visiting, I would be more inclined to stay in one of the newer hotels right on the water: maybe the Inn at Laurel Point, the Coast, the Victoria Regent or the Delta. Even the Days Inn by the Inner Harbour is in a nice location. If you're really on a budget, you might try one of the many Travellers Inns, but stick to one on Douglas Street.
I would avoid any of the hotels on Gorge Road ... even the name brands like the Ramada. They are pretty far off the beaten path, and some of the motels there attract transients. There are good things about the Gorge, but I don't think the hotels are among them.

Take a walk in Victoria

My favourite walk in Victoria is the Westsong Walkway, a gorgeous walk along the water from downtown Victoria to the West Bay Marina in Esquimalt (pictured). It's about three kilometers (two miles) one way. For a little something different, take a harbour ferry to the marina, then walk back to downtown. At the halfway point, stop in for a pint at Spinnakers Brewpub. Try for a spot on their elevated patio for a great water view.

Montreal comes to Victoria

In our neighbourhood of Esquimalt is a small restaurant that's a little slice of Montreal. It's called La Belle Patate, and if you don't order anything else there, you at least have to try the poutine. That's a Montreal specialty consisting of french fries, covered with brown gravy and topped with melted cheese curds. Yeah, it's a gut bomb, and you don't want to eat it every day. But, what the heck, you're on vacation. Unless you're really hungry, one order ought to feed at least two people. Steer clear of the spruce beer, another alleged Montreal fave. It smells like Pine-Sol and tastes like it too.

Fish and chips in Victoria

The guidebooks will tell you to go to Barb's at Fisherman's Wharf for fish and chips, and I wouldn't discourage you. It's right by the houseboats with a nice view of the water, and seals to feed to boot. We go there quite often.
The locals have other favourite restaurants for fish and chips, however. Right in the heart of the tourist district is Red Fish Blue Fish, which many locals swear by. A little farther afield is Haultain Fish and Chips, which often wins best-of awards. And if you get as far as Oak Bay, check out Willows Galley at 2559 Estevan. It's tiny walkup place, but if it's nice out, sit outside and enjoy.

A nice spot by the water

You don't have to go far from the heart of the Inner Harbour tourist complex to find cool places to eat. One I would recommend is the Glo Europub, a fairly nice walk from downtown. I would suggest walking across the Johnson Street Bridge (the blue bridge) on the Galloping Goose Trail. You can get a waterside table and see a part of Victoria (the Gorge Waterway) that many tourists miss. We go there a lot for Sunday brunch. Great menu, and it's rarely crowded at that time of day.

There's Just Something About This Movie...Yeh Vaada Raha (1982)

After having a lovely filmi conversation with Anarchivist (and a few cocktails), I decided it was time to step into the Glorious Kingdom of Rishi Sweaters...

I get the feeling that Yeh Vaada Raha, the 1982 Ramesh Behl film starring Rishi Kapoor, Poonam Dillon, and Tina Munim, was an awesome place to start (despite the fact that my subtitles were pretty sparse and all in CAPS--frustrating). Also, there's a lot of screencaps here, but its just that kind of film!

It's love at first sight for Vikram (Rishi Kapoor), who meets Sunita (Poonam Dillon) in a temple and is instantly besotted.



And who wouldn't be? Sunita is gorgeous!



She rejects him, though, despite his efforts. Left with nothing but a cold shoulder, Vikram turns to his friend, Gogi (Rakesh Bedi), a painter, and sings a colorful song describing her beauty.



And--!Voila!...Before Vikram knows it, Gogi has composed a blind portrait of Sunita based on the words of the song (Which, sadly for me, were not translated)!



Sunita turns out to be a singer. She continues to reject Vikram until one night when she is mocked onstage (ironically, due to Vikram's actions--he has Gogi's paintings on Sunita hung all over town in an effort to locate the poor girl).



Vikram comes to the rescue by singing the song for her (and again, it wasn't translated so I don't know what he said, but it worked because Sunita falls for him after this).



Their romance blooms in no time at all, and is filled with lots of lovey-dovey, sunshiny things. Vikram, thankfully, doesn't stop treating Sunita like a queen just because he's won her over. To the contrary, he's quite the teddy bear boyfriend, sending a marching band over to sing to her on her birthday and gifting her with a promise ring. The two discuss marriage.



Of course, its not so easy. While Sunita appears to live modestly as a lounge singer, Vikram comes from a rich family. When Maa comes to town (Played by a witchy Rakhee), trouble begins to brew.



Maa despises Sunita from the start, and after meeting her, leaves in such a huff that she doesn't notice her saree is hanging out of the car door:



Meddling Maa digs up some damaging information about Sunita in an effort to discourage her son from dating her, but Vikram will have no part of it. He doesn't care about Sunita's past--He loves her and vows to marry her. I really appreciated the fact that Vikram didn't give this a second thought; He didn't even bring it up to Sunita. He gathers his beloved and his pal Gogi and the two race off to the temple to elope.

However, tragedy strikes and the three are in a horrible car accident. Though Vikram's badly injured enough to be confined to a hospital bed, its Sunita who suffered most from the collision. Her face is badly disfigured, and her doctor gives this information to none other than Vikram's mother, of course (Why???!!).



Of course, Maa uses this to her advantage and tells Vikram Sunita is dead.



Crushed, Vikram retreats into a mourning period of doing little but talking to Sunita's painting:



Meanwhile, Sunita is shipped off to a plastic surgeon specialist, a kindly doctor played by...What?! Shammi Kapoor!!I had no idea that was him until just now when I looked it up to write this paragraph. I knew he looked familiar--now I like the Good Doc even more!



Sunita undergoes multiple plastic surgeries, "8-10", according to her doctor. It must have been pretty bad--just check out the looks on the doctor and nurses' faces:




Not the most tactful medical staff, are they?

Meanwhile, Vikram continues to grieve for Sunita...




Anyways, after some time, Sunita's face is repaired. However, the doctor never knew what she looked like prior to the accident, so he had to use his imagination and give her a whole new face (Where's Gogi the Painter when you need him?)



Lovely as it is, its not Sunita's original face, and here's where Tina Munim steps in. Sunita freaks out, understandably, but eventually is calmed by the Good Doctor and starts imagining her new face and new life with Vikram, to the tune of the very catchy title song:



When Sunita goes to tell Vikram she's all better, she's hit with a crushing bomb--Vikram is engaged to somebody else. Unbeknownst to Sunita, all of this was arranged by Vikram's mother, and agreed to by Vikram only because he thought Sunita was dead.




Of course, Sunita leaves without revealing her identity, and Vikram continues to believe she is dead. She assumes a new name, Kusum, and vows to forget her past. Its not until one day Vikram hears her singing that he recognizes her voice as Sunita's.



I'll leave you here, because there's still the chunk of plot left to unravel, and if I go any further I'll start sobbing like I did while watching the rest of this heartbreaking-yet-lovely tearjerker. Will Sunita reveal her true identity to Vikram? Will Vikram accept Sunita's new face? Will Maa's deception be revealed?

As you can see from my screencap enthusiasm, I really enjoyed this film. It was just so touching and sweet, and I found that I warmed easily to sweater-clad Rishi. The songs were catchy and hummable, and I'll probably bounce over to Itunes to download them after posting this.

While both Sunitas were good, I found that Tina Munim brought more life and vitality to the role. I'd love to see more of her!



That's not to take too much away from Poonam Dhillon, the first Sunita. She was delicately beautiful, reminding me physically of a cross between Bhagyashree and Rekha. But, though I enjoyed her, I found her Sunita to be a little less thrilling than Tina's.

On a final note, I thought it was very considerate of the filmmaker to use the same voice to dub both actresses playing Sunita (since plastic surgery on the face wouldn't change one's voice). And, as I discovered while looking up the year of this film, that voice belonged to none other than Jaya Bachchan!!

Though not very realistic otherwise, this film was so touching that its a new favorite. I'd recommend it wholeheartedly, but warn to keep a box of tissues on hand--I was crying like a baby!

Bitten By...The Masala Bug??...Amar Akbar Anthony

First of all, let me apologize for abandoning the blog once again...life has been crazy hectic, but rest assured, I've been spending the time accomplishing things that are relevant to Bollyblogging, such as: 1) I attended the 2009 Boston Bollyblitz Meetup and 2) completed all of my classes in the most stressful semester I have ever experienced (so that I can get a good job to support my Bollywood DVD shopping sprees).

But make no mistake--I've still been managing to squeeze in some good ol' movie watching through it all...How else could I make it through the day to day grind without a good dose of this:



Amar Akbar Anthony marks one of my very first attempts to tread the waters of classical masala. And after my personal lackluster reactions to Deewar and Suhaag (Beloved films by many that I promise to retry before my upcoming reviews), I was beginning to think that perhaps, sadly, classical Hindi masala madness just wasn't for me...

But then I popped in Amar Akbar Anthony and--something clicked. I found AAA to be such a wondrous experience--On the one hand, it was so utterly ridiculous that I was laughing out loud. But on the other, it was so gosh darn enjoyable that I lapped it up like sugar in a bowl. And then it hit me--that's the whole point of classical masala, isn't it?

The gorgeous Neetu Singh

Similar to the other masala films I've seen, AAA begins with a poor family. Nirupa Roy plays maa, as she does so well. Pran pays the father, Kishanlal, who, upon his release from prison, comes home to find his wife ill with TB. He goes to visit his rich "friend" Robert for help, but is ridiculed and mocked instead.



A confrontation between Robert and Kishanlal ensues, resulting in Kishanlal's separation with his wife and three sons. I won't go too much into detail here, as this is the brief summary of events, but rest assured most of this is explained much as it needs to be in the film.



The three sons are then separated from each other, and found by three different outside characters. Amar is adopted by a Hindu police officer, Akbar is taken in by a Muslim tailor, and Anthony is raised by a Catholic priest(Can you guess which one will grow up to be Amitabh Bachchan?).

Of course, its Anthony (which I only happened to know from the parody segment in Gol Maal-and the readers who were kind enough to explain it to me!). This was the first (and granted, I haven't seen many) "older" Amitabh film that I really, really liked him in. He was great in Deewar, true, but had sort of an icy and conceited quality that was perhaps necessary in order to portray Vijay. Here, Anthony was funloving, goofy, and even a bit awkward(he loses two fights!). If you've ever heard the "Easter egg song" mentioned, here's the movie it came from (I've included the youtube video below). Quirky and lovable, Amitabh and Parveen make one of the cheesiest songs I've ever seen an instant favorite. Despite all of this, Big B was still smooth enough to make this one of his iconic roles (there's a great mirror scene following the egg song). Clad in an array of assorted colored pleathers and bell bottoms that looked supersoft to the touch, Anthony showed me a glimpse of what made Amitabh Bachchan so special to his fans--After all, who else could pull off all that chest hair? :P



Rishi Kapoor plays Akbar, a.k.a. King of Qawwali, and lives up to his nickname in not one, not two, but three songs(ok, only two of them are really qawwalis, but Rishi gets the most songs in the entire film mostly to himself and I'm definitely not complaining). Quite the cutie pie, Rishi lights up the screen (literally) in every song picturization he has. I've included my favorite one below, in which he romances none other than real life wife Neetu Singh (though I'm not certain on whether or not they were yet together when this film was made).



The whole thing mesmerizes me, from the song itself to Rishi's colorful attitude (and outfit), and Neetu's striking beauty alongside that red rose and black veil...

Amar is played by Vinod Khanna, and what a hottie he turned out to be! Though there were times I swore he was wearing blush...



As a police officer, Vinod has one of the more serious roles in the film, but ironically enough, during the title song he's given the most comical disguise of the three brothers.

While its obvious from the beginning that Akbar's girlfriend will be played by Neetu Singh, the other two women were welcome surprises (since I'd purposely read very little about this film before viewing it).

Anthony ends up falling for a Christian girl named Jenny, played by the lovely Parveen Babi...

Dizzy with images of Parveen Babi! A nice place for anyone to be.

Parveen's such a beauty to begin with, but she brought the same golden-hearted cheer to her role that Anthony did to his, making them a funloving addition to the already likable Neetu and Rishi coupling. And while Jenny seems rather softspoken and meek in the beginning, we get to see she's got much more of a backbone in later scenes. And, as in Deewar, poor Parveen always seems to get attacked in her own home. But look at the way she books it in a pair of high heels!



And, also, where can I find a hat like this? I used to have one similar, but can't seem to find it!



Amar's romance begins on the wrong foot with a seemingly fiesty yet misunderstood young woman named Laxmi played by none other than Shabana Azmi!



One of the only disheartening things I found in this film was the under-use of Amar and Laxmi. Much of the romantic screentime in the film was granted to Parveen and Amitabh, and while Neetu and Rishi still had their songs, Vinod and Shabana were left with little to do. After the two warm up to one another in their first segment, we see only a glimpse of their life together as Laxmi hangs Vinod's clothes to dry while he rests in a hammock.

I wanted more of these two!

Another disappointment I had with the film once again involves Amar. In the end, when the three brothers are reunited (and you know they will be, so I'm not going to post a spoiler alert), we miss out on Amar and Anthony's reunion. This would have been neat to see, especially after their fight in Anthonyville, yet its skimmed over with nary a dialouge.

Still, Amar Akbar Anthony is more than just the delightful tale of three long lost brothers. One of the best jodis in the entire film was the hilarious long term rivalry between Robert (played by Jeevan) and Kishenlal (played by Pran).



These two enemies were pure masala entertainment in each and every scene they shared, equipped with stolen boxes of gold, bullet proof vests, and midnight kidnappings!



And it wasn't just the songs in AAA that were brilliant (and they all were--my favorites were "Parda Hai Parda" and the title song); the background music was just as memorable and fun. When Anthony and Amar fight, we're treated to a flamingo-eqse tune to keep the mood upbeat. When Anthony first spots Jenny in the church, he chases her to a catchy tune that echoes the Western image of their characters.

I feel like this is one film I could sit down and watch again and again--and notice something different every time. While laugh-out-loud ridiculous at times, it was such a delight from start to finish that I'm left feeling like I need to see more of classical masala. Needless to say, this film was perfect for a group watchalong at our Boston Bollyblitz Meetup. Our playful banter made for a hilarious rewatching experience, and I think I'll always remember our comments every time I watch this. What a great film to toast new friendships!

Before "Chaiya Chaiya" there was Neetu and Rishi!

Here are some burning questions we came up with (all in jest, of course):

*What ever happened to Maa's TB? Was it magically cured or swapped for blindness?

*Did somebody actually misspell Anthony's sign and was too lazy to make a new one or was this just another glimpse of Manmohan Desai's brilliant humor?

*Did Maa actually think delivering flowers to Akbar would be a legitimate reason to stop a surgical procedure?

*How could Robert and Zebesko think that by listening to Jenny's pulse, Dr. Salma could tell she was pregnant?

*In the beginning, when little Amar buries a pistol in the dirt (to "hide it from Anthony", no less), his father seems more concerned with why he is doing so instead of why he had the gun in the first place!!

There are many, many more--and, of course, these unanswered gems are part of what make this film so great. Can you come up with any? :)

COUPLE SET!

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