Rajinikanth is My Homeboy

So there's this movie that just came out in India called "Robot", starring a man named Rajnikanth.  Actually, I guess he is more of a god than a man.  Seriously, Krishnan told me that people in southern India worship him.  Like literally.  "Robot" is his first movie in four years, and I read in the paper that for opening night on Oct. 1st, they brought the film-reels into town on a chariot, took them first to a temple, and then brought them to the theater to show the movie.  Seriously.

 

Rajinikanth in "Robot".  Did I mention he is 61 years old?  And not very handsome?

I've been trying to think of a comparable actor in the U.S. to Rajini (yeah, we're so tight I can him Rajini now), but I don't think we have one. Maybe Steven Seagal would come close... but I don't think they're quite on the same level.   Americans are just too cynical and jaded to believe in the power of the "Superstar".   Anyway, I just found this ridiculously great link to an overview of the movie.  It's really long, but here's an excerpt just to give you an idea:

The plot revolves around a scientist Dr. Vasigaran (Rajinikanth) who has toiled for 10 years and finally built an android-humanoid robot called Chitthi (Rajinikanth in a double role). 

The robot is a super-hero with retractable wheels on the soles of his feet.  

Chitti can leap, Chitthi can fight, Chitthi can speak in 30 languages, is a master-chef, a painter, a mine-sweeper, a surgeon delivering babies, a make-up artist, a henna artist and a super-fighting machine who can talk to mosquitoes and take on dengue.   

Do you see how awesome this is?  So anyway, yesterday I decided I had to go watch this movie to see if it lived up to the hype.  Nevermind that it's only in Tamil, Hindi and Telegu (I don't even know what that last one is).  I was told I didn't need to understand it to enjoy it.  So I went to the theater yesterday to buy a ticket... and the guy at the ticket counter laughed at me.  I couldn't exactly understand him, but I think he said something along the lines of "We're all sold out for this movie until the end of time, you stupid American idiot."  I guess I should have known that it would be sold out in the middle of the afternoon on a work day.  How foolish of me.

Because I had trekked my happy ass all the way to the movie theater, I was seeing a movie, dammit.  It didn't matter that none of them were in English.  I ended up seeing "Anjaana Anjaani", which was sort of a love story/comedy/depressing drama/musical.  Being a first-time Bollywood-er, I had a pretty decent experience. Except that A/A is three hours long.  It's about a man and woman who meet on the George Washington bridge when they're both trying to commit suicide.  Then they decide not to, and instead take a road trip to Las Vegas and San Francisco.  Lots of singing and dancing ensue, and then they part ways, only to rejoin on December 31st on the same bridge where they met.  Then they get married.  See how long that took me to describe?  There's no way it should be a three hour movie, and yet it is.  My favorite part was when the boys danced with their pants around their ankles.  Also there are some jokes that would not at all be considered PC in the States, but that is the beauty of developing countries.  They don't have to be PC.