Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara
Thursday, April 12
Doors at 8pm; movie starts at 8:30pm
Free

To enjoy Bollywood films, you generally have to submit to their logic. Characters are going to be thin, motivations sketchy. The plots will twist and turn, often unbelievably. They will sing about what just happened, what is going to happen, what they wish would happen. Bollywood films are not, in a word, “realistic.” At least not inasmuch as how we in the West understand reality. This is not necessarily a bad thing. There is of course, first, escapism, which has its uses. But this distance from the real also often places the stories on the level of allegory. Amongst the artifice and the stereotypes there is a reach for the universal.

But every once in a while an Indian film is able to have it both ways, to still delight in the trappings of the form while simultaneously reaching a realistically rendered depth of characterization and, indeed, emotion. Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara, the story of three friends who go on a road trip in Spain as a sort of “bachelor trip” before one of them gets married, is such a film. It is a buddy movie and a romantic comedy and a musical and a crowd-pleaser, but it is also about three men struggling to find their places in the world. It may not all be “realistic,” but it is most certainly feels real.

Devdas
Thursday, August 25
Doors at 8pm; movie starts at 8:30pm
Free

We round out our month of Bollywood Nights with a big one! The story of Devdas has been filmed eight times but the 2002 Shahrukh Khan/Aishwarya Rai version is pretty much universally considered the classic. The most expensive Bollywood film ever made at the time of its release, you can be assured that there will be plenty of lavish sets and elaborate song and dance numbers.

Yet Devdas is not all lightness and joy. Quite the contrary, it is a tale of love gone wrong. When the titular Devdas and his childhood sweetheart Paro miss their opportunity for a life together, she ends up falling into a marriage of convenience and he takes refuge in a brothel and, eventually, finds solace in a bottle. So, yes, it’s a tragedy, but it’s an epic tragedy — big, bright, Bollywood-style!

Gulaal
Thursday, August 18
Doors at 8pm; movie starts at 8:30pm
Free

This week’s film is rather simple: a naive young man goes to law school and falls in with a bad crowd… who turn out to be militant nationalist separatists that want to discard democracy and return power to the royal bloodline. Other than that, this film doesn’t have much. Besides a love triangle. Or two. Maybe more of a love hexagon? And then there is the separatist leader’s brother, who idolizes John Lennon and sings only the truth. And the tabla player, an Ardhanarishvara figure (Google it!) in stark red and blue (or is that red, white, and blue?). Oh, yeah, and the many references to American politics and foreign policy. And the reference to Batman. Or maybe it is not supposed to be a reference to Batman, but it kind of is a reference to Batman anyway. Okay, the movie has a lot going on in it; Bollywood likes to give you your money’s worth. And this screening is free — and we’ll probably have snacks — so you are totally making out like a bandit.

Yaadon Ki Baaraat
Thursday, August 11
Doors at 8pm; movie starts at 8:30pm
Free

It is far too easy to describe a Bollywood film by its stilted acting, its wacko fashions, its baroque plot twists, or its outrageous song and dance numbers. Sure, they pretty much all have all of that (and this film is no exception), but to focus on those things is merely to succumb to a kind of cross-cultural misreading. For the implication is that Bollywood manages to touch us despite those things. But all movies use conventions and clichés to condense a slice of the human experience into a manageably short duration. Life doesn’t have jump cuts nor slow motion explosions nor (iPods notwithstanding) soundtracks, yet we accept all of these devices as part of a “realistic” narrative structure. The story isn’t told despite these conventional shorthands but rather through them. Bollywood is no different. Yet our cultural position in relation to it is different and thus the conventions seem unnatural. This is not to say that Indian films strive for “realism” — that would be ridiculous. But merely to urge that we not confuse the form for the content.

The Bollywood classic Yaadon Ki Baaraat (1973) tells the story of three brothers who are separated after witnessing the murder of their parents at the hands of a local villain. They grow up to be a musician, a thief, and an incorrigible ladies’ man. Yet they are driven by a need to reunite and avenge their parents’ death. It is not about bad wigs, thick glasses, acid trip set design, or the amusingly on-the-nose band name Monto and His Avengers (though, again, it has all of those). Those are merely its techniques for getting at the same thing most Bollywood films explore: the struggle to be a moral being in a world of disinterested misfortune.

Sounds heavy, right? Well, it’s heavy stuff. But thankfully we have all those framing devices to entertain us along the way. And entertain they do.

Love Aaj Kal
Thursday, August 4
Doors at 8pm; movie starts at 8:30pm
Free

By popular demand, Bollywood Night is back — for one month only. Every Thursday in August, Betalevel will be your best source for love triangles, disapproving parents, cruel twists of fate, and elaborate song and dance numbers!

As Bollywood becomes an increasingly mainstream, worldwide commodity, the films it produces have likewise become more worldly, less distinctly Indian. The settings, the costumes, the music, all have gradually shifted to a distinctly (or, all too often, blandly) Western aesthetic. They even have onscreen kisses now. Sometimes.

Love Aaj Kal has it somewhat both ways, however, by telling two parallel stories: one, a modern tale of transcontinental love, from London to Delhi to San Francisco; the other, a more innocent memory of long-distance love from a previous generation. Yet, though the attitudes and the fashions of 2009 and 1965 may be different, love remains basically unchanged.

Also: This movie was co-produced by Khan’s production company, Illuminati Films. There is therefore an 11% chance the whole thing somehow plays a part in the global conspiracy. Further study is required.

With Singing and Drinking and Leprechaun 5: In da Hood
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
8pm
Free

It’s LepFest!!

With Leprechauns and Irish Stuff like singing and drinking and singing while drinking!

Also with an actual Leprechaun Movie!

Tá mé ólta!

Performances!

• Emily Lacy on the general theme of singing and drinking and Leprechauns!
• Colin Dickey with “The Lonesome Ballad of Leprechaun 4: In Space”!
• A sing-along Irish jig version of Ice-T’s orgiginal version of 99 Problems!
• Maybe some dirty limericks!

Leprechaun Cinematic Explosion!

And also in addition to the songs and gold coins and whiskey, we’ll have Leprechaun Cinema !
We’ll be watching LEPRECHAUN: IN THE HOOD in which three young rappers steal Ice-T’s magic flute which he has taken… from the Leprechaun! Set in the citaay of Compton, this 5th installment of the Leprechaun series is really bad!

Olann an cat cluin bainne leis!

All New Backchannel!

To help us with things like watching Leprechaun movies and knowing when to drink, we have all new twitter powered Backchannel! Tag your feelings with #LepFest for immediate live action cybernetic feedback!

All New Backchannel! Featuring drinking games and sing-alongs, and saying stuff about Ice-T and Leprechauns! It’s like grad school, but with better feedback and slightly less drinking!

Come to LepFest to sate your Leprechaun urges!

Leprechaun In the Hood Drinking Game Rules!

Take ONE drink from your booze of choice for each time the following happens:

• Limerick or rhyming couplet
• Death…by Leprechaun!
• Racial Stereotypes
• The Curious Effects of the Magic Flute
• “Hope in the Hood”
• Zombie Fly Girls (take TWO drinks if, in spite of yourself, you are aroused by zombie fly girls)

Drink TWO drinks for each time the following happens:

• References to black entertainers and/or sports figures
• References to civil rights leaders and/or famous quotes associated with the civil rights movement
• Theology disseminated through rap
• Trenchant Criticism of the Hip-Hop Industry

Drink THREE drinks for each time the following happens:

• Reefer Madness!
• Coolio!
• Twist Ending!

Note:

Impromptu rules can be added using our Twitter Backchannel feed, hasthtag: #LEPFEST

Thalla a chluiche le do deideagan!

My Own Private Idaho
Thursday, January 21
Doors at 8pm; movie starts at 8:30pm
Free

They live on the streets, do drugs, and sell themselves to men and women. Mike is quiet, gay, and suffers from narcolepsy. Abandoned as a child, he is obsessed with finding his long-lost mother. Scott is the rebellious son of a high-ranking family, who lives this life mostly to embarrass his father. Mike is in love with Scott, who still maintains he is straight and insists that his wild lifestyle on the streets is only temporary. Together, they embark on a quest to find Mike’s mother, traveling from Portland to Idaho to Italy.

…And, to set the mood for the evening, prior to the feature we’ll show excerpts from an episode of the BBC television program Louis Theroux’s Weird Weekends in which Theroux travels to Idaho and meets right-wing patriots who are preparing for a global catastrophe.

Dawn of the Dead
Thursday, January 14
Doors at 8pm; movie starts at 8:30pm
Free

An unexplained plague has decimated the world’s population and yet the dead aren’t dying. They’ve become zombies, stalking endlessly in a constant quest to feed on the flesh of the few remaining living. Time to go to the mall!

The 2004 Zack Snyder version. With motherfunking Ving Rhames.

Pyaasa
Thursday, January 7
Doors at 8pm; movie starts at 8:30pm
Free

From Bollywood’s golden age and awash in gauzy chiaroscuro, Pyaasa owes more to film noir than Busby Berkeley. It tells the story of Vijay, who is a poet. Which is to say that he is unemployed, broke. He can’t get his poems – laments about the poor, damnations of the rich – published. He is not taken seriously by his family, who want him to find real work. His brother sells his manuscripts as scrap paper. Vijay takes to drink, gets in trouble with the law, ends up in a brothel. There he meets a prostitute who wants to help him get the recognition he deserves.

A Scanner Darkly
Thursday, December 17
Doors at 8pm; movie starts at 8:30pm
Free

Working as an undercover cop in a world where almost everyone is addicted to Substance D — a drug that produces split personalities in its users — Fred Arctor sets up an elaborate sting to nab a notorious drug runner named Bob. Little does Fred know that “Bob” is his alter ego.