welcome to camp telophase

My mission to inflict Aabra Ka Daabra on as many people as possible continues apace!

Read It and Weep is a podcast I listen to, wherein the hosts and their guests read, watch, or listen to a book, movie, or TV show and then proceed to talk about how awful it is. If you sling a bit of money their way, you can sponsor a podcast and pick something to inflict upon them.

You can guess what I've done. :D Anyway, Alex Falcone, the host, just emailed me and said they'd finished recording the episode last night and he thinks its a good one. I'll let you know when it's released -- the next ep up is part 2 of Wizard's First Rule, and I think it may be the next one after that.

And in a few months, perhaps I'll inflict Death Trance upon them. Who knows?!

Someone over on fandom_lounge asked about favorite non-American films, and I was stirred to remember mine, which I ahdn't thought about in a while. I think there's been an influx of newcomers since I last mentioned it here, so I'm reposting my reply so you can all be traumatized enlightened:

My favorite non-American film is not good. In fact, if it were good, its awesomeness would be incredibly diminished. It's a Bollywood film named Aabra Ka Daabra, and it manages to be a ripoff of both Harry Potter AND Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, with, naturally, singing and dancing thrown in.

In 3D. Yes, in 3D.

I paid $5.99 for the DVD and I have reaped hundreds of dollars' worth of entertainment out of it, as I force it on my friends every chance I get, and so far none of them have turned on me for it. :D

My first impressions here, and my screencapped recaps are here: Part 1, Part 2.

The subtitles on Aabra Ka Daabra (check my previous two posts) are fairly Engrish-y, but I didn't bother to keep track of it, beyond noting that the subtitlers couldn't tell Pinky and Dinky apart, people's names kept changing spelling, and the potion of (life? health? immortality? vitality?) was translated as 'aphrodisiac'.

I did record one line, though. It was either Uncle Dilbagh or the faculty dork who uttered the immortal:

"I vow on the cooked tensile that I'll break the lantern of this bad woman!"

And then there was the menu. The flying ghost Casper Tu Tu featured on it, blowing sparks from his wand, and ... ( I don't think they *intended* this... )


I used VirtualDub Mod to grab the "Om Shiv Om" dance number. It starts with the Cool Guy [TM] appearing and giving his sermon about love and God and giving the proper thanks to God and praising Shanu for being the awesomest kid evar, and then goes into the song and dance. No subtitles for the talk, because I have no idea how to capture them. It's also 73 MB for 6 minutes of video, which is ridonkulous, but I haven't worked out how to get it smaller yet. I'll re-upload if I get it smaller. DivX codec. The sound is also off by a wee bit so they look like bad lip-synchers.

There's a copy on magatsu.net here, but you may not be able to reach it: Dreamhost is having server problems tonight. I'm uploading another copy to my other webspace and will edit when that's up. ETA: Another copy of the 74-ish MB version is here on my other website. I'm attempting to make a smaller copy - we'll see what happens with that.

(This is part 1 - there would be way too many screenshots otherwise.)

What I am reviewing for you today is a movie that I ran across online about a year and a half or so ago, from a review that I can't find but will link if I do here (thanks to thomasyan), that was pimped as Bollywood's take on Harry Potter. I purchased it from nehaflix.com, for the grand price of six dollars, and it's been well worth that in sheer WTFery alone. (my first impressions, the first time I watched it, here.)

Not only does it rip off Harry Potter, but Charlie and the Chocolate Factory as well, and it's also in 3-D. Yeah. 3-D. This will make the third time I've seen this all the way trhough, and let me tell you I'm not going to watch it again without some serious booze in me and a lot of other poeple watching and heckling. Six dollars' worth of entertainment can really only go so far.

This masterpiece is called...

( Aabra Ka Daabra; The School of Magic )

And I shall continue this in another journal entry.