"The two things that matter the most to me: emotional resonance and rocket launchers. Party of Five, a brilliant show, and often made me cry uncontrollably, suffered ultimately from a lack of rocket launchers."I love that quote (although in my case I would say it would be emotional resonance and kung fu fights), but until last month I had never actually seen a single episode of Party of Five. I watched season one on DVD. A good show, if often painful to watch (poor Charlie; it sucks to be him).
I only saw two movies in English. The first was the latest from the Coen Brothers, No Country for Old Men. I liked the level of detail they bring to every aspect of the set, to every nuance of character. It's a very well-made film. Still, in the end I didn't like it very much. There were a lot of nice moments (Tommy Lee Jones describing his dream of his father in the last scene is a particular favorite), but I guess it was just too relentlessly hopeless. I don't mind violence in films, but violence in an atmosphere of complete despair really is too much for me. So: nicely made but I won't be watching it again. If the Coens follow their usual pattern their next venture will be a comedy. (I also watched The Hudsucker Proxy for the nth time, but this time with my boys so they can understand where the phrase "You know, for kids" comes from. I'm not saying they here that a lot around here or anything...)
I also watched I am Legend. Cool premise, and again a wonderfully shot film. But. The DVD comes with two endings and I didn't like either of them. Given a choice I thought the alternate ending was the better of the two, but still. I have this problem a lot with speculative films (more so than books even when the films in question are based on books - I shall have to meditate on the caue of that) - a story that is written to pose a question always crumbles for me in the end because the ending will try to answer the original question, which is better left unanswered, as no answer can satisfy without making the question seem much more black and white than it was when it was posed. Perhaps that's why I don't have this trouble with books - filmmakers shy away from open endings, but books have no problem ending on an ambiguous note. I don't know, I'll have to think on that more.
The last four were Bollywood, and three were quite good. Heyy Babyy (and as I keep telling Quin, that spelling isn't a Hindi convention, it's a nod to hip-hop) is something I've had the soundtrack to since it came out in theaters in India, so I already knew I liked the music. But it's meant to be a remake of Three Men and a Baby, and I wasn't wildly thrilled to see it. Still, I figured at least the music bits would be worthwhile, so I picked it up with low expectations. Well, the film takes care of the bits it wanted from Three Men and a Baby in the first 40 minutes, then spends the next 2+ hours telling another, more interesting story. I was very pleasantly surprised.
On a linguistically frustrating note, I mentioned I've had this music forever, and I had printed out the lyrics in Hindi. I do this with most of these films, but I never really know what the songs are about until I see the movie and the English subtitles. My favorite song from this film is called "Mast Kalander". Now "mast" I knew already; it comes up in many songs and means a sort of intoxicating, passionate joy. "Kalander" I didn't have a clue on. So when I finally watched the film I eagerly awaited this translation.
Apparently "mast kalander" means "mast kalander". This translation was later confirmed by Quin's coworker from Delhi. It just means, well, mast kalander. I suppose it's a bit like trying to translate something like "Dance this Mess Around"; you can't do it without breaking it.
(I generally watch these movies on Wednesday nights when the boys are out at the community center, and when they come home Aidan always wants to watch the musical numbers. "Mast Kalander" has a cameo from Shah Rukh Khan, and Quin was absolutely mortified at how both of the boys perked up when he appeared. Apparently we're all getting too into these things, so he says. Then I played the title song, and when Malaika Arora Khan came on screen he shut right up. Malaika is the one who did the dance on top of the train in Dil Se. He always shuts up when she's on screen).
I also picked up Shah Rukh Khan's first film appearance: Deewana. I don't think this one really stands the test of time except for those like me who like to study actors and how they change over time. Khan as a very distinctive style, and apparently he had it in full force right from the get-go. But he's not even in the first half of the movie. I would say this is for SRK completists only.
1942: A Love Story I had gotten from one of the Post-It note recommendations. How geeked was I to see that Sanjay Leela Bhansali cowrote it and directed the musical numbers (with Farah Khan as choreographer, natch). This one is well worth seeing, a good story with some excellent songs. I wonder if Bhansali picked the music as well as directed the musical parts; it has his style of not going for pop songs, and also has a song about the sound of the rain that reminds me of other scatting, playing with sounds songs like "Dhole Baje" and "Chalak Chalak". Also, his last movie Saawariya contained images from all of his previous films; I can now account for the umbrella the main character carries; it comes from 1942: A Love Story.
Another thing from 1942: A Love Story popped up in the last movie I watched in March, a movie that immediately jumped into my top five favorites: Main Hoon Na. I've praised Farah Khan's choreography, how she works with large groups so well and finds ways for the dance to reveal nuances of the characters, so that the musical numbers are an inherent part of the story and not just some strange aside as they are in so many of these films (especially when they are all filmed in the Alps for no clear reason, as if the characters hie off to Europe to sing at each other than get right back to their hometowns to carry on with things.) So it probably shouldn't come as a surpise that the first movie she directed would have awesome dance numbers. But the rest of the movie, which she wrote and directed, is all good. I got the same feeling I had the first time I watched Jaan-e-Mann, that someone went inside my skull and took all my favorite things and whipped them together into a movie just for me. How else to explain a movie that is equal parts Dirty Dancing, Grease, Clueless, 21 Jump Street, The Matrix, and anything from John Woo, and it takes all those parts to tell a story about Indian-Pakistan relations and about family (and of course is also a love story or two)? How many of us can there be who dig on all those things? (Here's another layer: the editor of this film was a certain Shirish Kunder, who later went on to direct Jaan-e-Mann. So my feeling of similarity between the two was perhaps not so coincidental).
Plot in a nutshell: SRK plays a soldier who works under his father as security for a general who is in the process of releasing a number of Pakistani prisoners who have been in prison for decades - farmers who wandered over the border in search of water and the like. Raghavan is a terrorist who opposes any gestures towards Pakistan and his attempt to assasinate the general lead to the death of SRK's father. The general fears the terrorist will target his daughter next, the daughter who has stopped speaking to him and refuses to leave college to go into protection. So SRK is sent to college undercover as a really old student so he can protect her from the terrorist, and while he is there he can attempt to find the half-brother whom he's never met, who is also a student. College in Hindi films is a lot like high school here; they have proms and Valentine's Day dances and having a 40-year-old guy in class is regarded as odd (certainly not my college experience; older students were few but not exactly rare).
The general's daughter is best friends with SRK's brother, only because he doesn't really notice her as a girl. She was an only child, and her current hatred of her father stems from never being the son he wanted. Her attempts to be more boyish for his sake are not serving her well. And I really felt her pain when she finds she only appeals to uber-geeks and older men (of course SRK isn't following her around because he's into her, but she doesn't know that). Yes, she eventually gets a make-over, but 1) SRK gets one first (although his sweater vest and button-down shirts made him such an adorable nerd) and 2) she decides that the total girl look is way too much work and if that's what it takes to keep her guy, she'd rather be with the uber-geek.
Farah Khan rocks.
(And the 1942 connection? Well, SRK crushes hard on his chemistry teacher to the point where the man who only knows army songs at the beginning of the movie finds that every time he tries to speak to her the words become lyrics, then the men with guitars and violins hop up behind him and he's singing "Ek Ladki Ko Dekkha" from 1942, to his great embarrassment, and he can't stop).
Yeah, I loved this movie.
But to pick just one musical number to share? How about the first song, shot as one long take with scores of dancers (or more correctly faked to look like one long take with computer editing, but still impressive). How abou the closing number, which serves as the credits? What other film lets you see not just the actors with their names, but the art crew, the sound guys, the hair stylist?
No, it's got to be "Tumese Milke Dilka Jo Haal", just after the general's daughter gets her make-over, and the violins now play for SRK's brother (and you get a little peak at the first of many appearances of John Woo's birds):
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