om shanti om.

1. I feel bad. First I complain about the fact I can't see this movie to everybody and their mother (sorry, mothers!). Then I reach the limit of my impatience and download a pirate version of it. And I watch it. And I don't love it.

So I about my business, read a review or two, skim people's spoilerous posts, and the more praise I read for this movie, the more I come across words like "genius", "masterpiece", "brilliant", the more my discomfort about my own opinions grows. I liked it -- just not as much as just about everybody else.

I can see why 'everybody' loved it, too, I really can. But most of the things that made their hearts jump with joy, just didn't work for me. I feel like a real odd one out.

2. Before I talk about OSO, I feel like I should talk about Main Hoon Na. Farah Khan's debut film was fun, it was funny, it was cool. I didn't love it. But I definitely enjoyed watching it, and it gave me a ton of laughs. I liked Shahrukh in it, but not enough to rewatch, buy on DVD, even listen to the songs a ton.

I didn't connect to the characters in MHN, did not feel much for them. It wasn't really a huge problem but just one of those things that make me refuse to move MHN to the favourites column for me. It's not one of those films for me. Christ, it's not even a huge favourite in terms of Shahrukh.

So why did I expect so much from OSO? I don't know. I loved the soundtrack and had faith in the whole enormously referential, poking-fun-at-self, Bollywoodian Bollywood plot. I love that stuff. You put any Hindi film parody into another Hindi film, I'll enjoy it. You poke fun at any Bollywood star, I'll laugh. You make your film say "I'm a film! Look at how filmi I am!", and I'll laugh and smile and love the self-awareness of that film.

But in OSO, I discovered there's maybe such a thing as 'too much of a good thing'.

3. So as Baradwaj Rangan and Meredith on BollyWHAT? previously mentioned in their reviews, the characters weren't really characters close to my heart. I guess I tried, gave it my best, but they never grew close, never grew fond and just remained really distant for me.

I guess one of the issues of a cinema-embracing film is that I feel like I'm trying to watch a film, but instead am watching all the films. One of the things that struck me the wrong way from early on was the scene with Om and his mother, their first scene together, and the ridiculous filminess of the dialogues. Yes, I was also amused but it made me feel like somebody would soon yell "Cut!" and people would walk out of and into the frame, and somebody would adjust the lighting and the director would yell, "Okay, let's do that again everybody!". You know? The film was so aware of itself that I too became aware of it.

Om isn't Om. Om is Shahrukh Khan, and that's Deepika Padukone and that's Arjun Rampal.. These sort of thoughts made sure I wasn't fully engaged to the first half, and then when the story wants to go all serious on me during the second half, it completely loses me. The only thing that sort of keeps me hanging on is Shahrukh - he's quite silly as Om 2.0 but he's the only person who can pull it off. "Oh, fish!"

4. So I guess my main issue could be phrased like this: it gets tiring to tell the screen, "Oh, I see what you did there!"

I disagree with the notion this is an original genre. It's not an original thing. Bollywood's been doing self-referential parody for ages. The only thing that's new is the dosage; the sheer amount of these sort of scenes and references and whatnots is really overwhelming in OSO.

For some people, it seems to really have worked. For me, I don't know. I think I need a story to tie in all those references. A story to sink that stuff in so that it pops up and sticks out and I can be surprised, "Hahaha, I see what you did there!"

5. Unpopular opinion time: I don't like Farah Khan's picturizations. Save Gori Gori, I couldn't re-watch any of the MHN ones, and with this one, I think I only really enjoyed the first one.

I couldn't tell you why, though. Maybe it's got something to do with their visuality. It never surprises me or pleases me. I can't quite figure it out.

Because of this, seeing the soundtrack was quite the disappointment. Deewangi will stay in history but at some point it simply stopped being fun and I wanted to tell everybody in it to just stop shaking already.

6. I feel like a huge buzzkill now. I did like it. Just ..nowhere near as much as a lot of others.

Filmfare Awards was without a doubt the best part of the movie. From Karan's lame pun to Akshay's "Polizei" shirt, massive love. Massive, massive love.

Also really loved the blind-deaf-mute movie scene. Now that's a film I want to see.

7. Oh, Shahrukh. I give you a lot of fish but the facts remain; you can entertain me. (His Om Kapoor is sort of like my dad acting 'young' - I laugh but at the same time think "Okay now, stop embarrassing yourself!")

Deepika was fine. I didn't really feel one way or the other about her. If she can become a star, I'll be happy - there doesn't seem to be any space for Bollywood actresses to become as big as the men right now, though. This is rather sad.

8. I may be the only with this view, but was not head over heels with the Tamil parody. It didn't feel like a loving parody which is what I think film parodies should be. To be all, "Haha, it's stupid, we love it!" is a positive vibe, but to mock and not love is a negative vibe for me and feels mean-spirited.

I did laugh at first but the scene just went on and on. Regardless of whether that was a part of the joke, it just made me grow uncomfortable to the whole thing. I wanted to tell Shahrukh to "Go! Go!" in Tamil himself.

(Also, not that logic matters in this film, but I think that type of action starrers became a standard fare in Southern industries during the 1980's, not in the 1970's..)

9. Despite the fact it makes me laugh and the fact I do frankly find it quite gross (I can't quite associate Shahrukh with 'sexy'), I have to give Shahrukh major props for working himself into such a condition.

10. Maybe my views will change with a rewatch. I'm watching this again with a friend next Monday - will see then, I s'pose.