Mixing and remixing

Before I left Beantown for the warmer climes of the Pacific Northwest, a friend convinced me to eat at the worst restaurant in the world. I used to like the place, when I was in my early 20s and accustomed to dining hall food and ramen. Against my better judgment, I actually ate there again last week, and honestly am still really pissed that let myself be talked into eating crappy, bland, overpriced food.

So while packing (and because watching the Oscars reminded me that I still had the DVD), I watched Ratatouille, the animated film about a rat in Paris who has an uncanny sense of flavor. He becomes the chef version of Cyrano de Bergerac for his clumsy but loveable human friend, who has no cooking abilities whatsoever.

It was really cute. And made me really hungry for good food...

Speaking of hungry...

The Scot hosted another Bollywood night, this time screening Om Shanti Om, a film starring Shah Rukh Khan's abs, I mean, Shah Rukh Khan...

He plays an actor in the 1970s trying to make it big, pining after a gorgeous movie star. He's brutally murdered and is reincarnated to become a huge film hero 30 years later, and then reconciles and avenges his past life. It alternated from cheeseball comedy to parody to drama to scary thriller scenes. And there was, of course, the usual tradition-wins-out undertone ("Who believes in reincarnation these days anyway?") as well as the destiny-is-inevitable, spiritual shout-out ("The universe makes it happen.") In the end, though SRK tries to determine his own fate, he doesn't.

SRK is his usual adorably bubbly self. The film also pokes fun at the movie industry and the superstars in it. It also had cameos from a ton of Indian stars; though I didn't recognize most of them, it was still fairly obvious that they were all big cheeses in real life. Also, a few of the early scenes indicated that SRK's character was Forrest Gump-like in the sense that he was made responsible for some famous movie lines, actors' names, and plots; again, though I couldn't get all the inside jokes, it was fairly obvious that most of them were significant pop cultural references.

The most relevant scene in the film, however, was a dance sequence to a catchy tune called "Pain of Disco" (now on my Dance Partay and Gym Inspiration playlists).

Hot. Effing. Damn.

Suffice it to say that SRK was very buff, perfectly dressed for the occasion, and sizzled on the dance floor...