01.11 bolly

being in mumbai - aka bollywood, home of the world's biggest film industry, i just had hit the cinemas satisfy my flick-fix. here's what i found...

get off the kabul express...
ok. how can any self respecting director, producer, actor, actress, hell - set designer, makeup artist, key grip, gaffer, extra - put their name to this and let this dribble make it out the editing studio, out here into the real world?? john abraham, i was expecting more from you! to think this film made it to the festival circuit. there must have been a shortfall of made-for-the-foreign-market desi flix last year. basically three journalists travel to the afghanistan border and find what they are looking for: a taliban. they realise he's a human being - how poignant. but the movie is so predictable and the acting is so brutally bad that i can't say it's worth it. not even a good ole dance sequence to mix it up.
my rating: skip it


om for omkara
another retake of shakespeare's othello but omkara is a dark jewel. gorgeous sets. good music. well conceived characters. of course excellent plot (thanks william!), on-point acting. ajay, vivek, salif, kareena and the gorgeous bipasha - each one of the actors give it - and that makes this film what it is. a masterpiece and true to shakespeare's vision. inherent caste divisions are a perfect replacement for omkara's "moorishness", because he's mixed, which makes him "different". a totally engaging tragedy.
my rating: do it

gandhism in lage raho munna bhai
and on the lighter side.... the second comedy about munna the thug. gandhi is the coolest dude in the film. it won awards for promoting gandhism and still stays true to bolly convention: boy chases girl, boy gets girl, singing and dancing scenes ensue, when along comes big fat problem, boy loses girl, gandhism takes root, a showdown goesdown, boy gets girl back. no... gandhi is not gettin with any women in the film, in case that's what you thought...
my rating: do it

still gotta catch canadian director deepa mehta's water. it's been shortlisted for the academy awards. i'm not surprised, since the other two in her trilogy, earth and fire are solid.

all in all my film foray was pretty satisfying. i haven't seen anything up to par with lagaan, but i'd put omkara and munna bhai up there with monsoon wedding and taal...